Funny Anime Running Through Meadows Gif

"Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph."

Two lovers run toward each other in slow motion across a meadow filled with flowers and butterflies, arms spread, totally suffused in the joy of their reunion, and occasionally spinning around like a roundabout, as Tchaikovsky's Love Theme from the Overture to Romeo and Juliet or Pachelbel's Canon in D (or some other piece deemed romantic) plays on the soundtrack.

This trope hasn't yet passed into Dead Horse Trope territory (creators can still play it straight to great effect), but even those who love it usually can't resist poking a little fun at how corny it is. Sometimes subverted by interrupting one of the lovers in mid-stride (fell, distracted by bees, picked off by sniper fire), making one lover violently allergic to all the pretty flowers, having the lover run right past his beloved because he wants whatever is behind her, etc. There are other variants that only one of them is running or that they continue running together hand in hand and skipping cheerfully on the meadow.

Can be part of Falling-in-Love Montage.

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Examples:

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    Anime and Manga

• Played straight at the end of .hack//SIGN during the ending credits. Not in a meadow, though. Also, the two parties involved are both girls, and one of them is in a wheelchair.
• Ifurita and Makoto at the end of El-Hazard: The Magnificent World.
• Kurau and Christmas interact lovingly in a sunny meadow during the opening credits of Kurau Phantom Memory, wearing summer dresses—which doesn't appear anywhere in the series itself.
• Spoofed in Fullmetal Alchemist in "The Flame Alchemist, the Bachelor Lieutenant and the Mystery of Warehouse Thirteen", where Havoc tries to imagine Major Armstrong's sister, and gets an Imagine Spot of Armstrong in a wig and dress doing a Meadow Run. It turns out that she's actually really hot. She turns him down though.
• Played straight with Misa Hayase and Hikaru Ichijo in the episode of Super Dimension Fortress Macross where Earth is glassed. For some reason they forgot to color it.
• Tadao Nagahama LOVES this trope. After his Robot Romance Trilogy actually did show romantic premises with Voltes V and Daimos, the ending credits depicts the Reunion Runs accompanied by Award Bait Songs (The Gou brothers to their father Dr. Kentaro Gou, Kazuya with Erika.)
• Soul Eater:
  • Parodied, although they aren't in a meadow. After a "break up," Soul and Black Star run at each other in slow motion calling each others' names with Love Bubbles in the background.
  • Parodied in the final chapter of the manga. Maka and her father are shown running towards each other, only for Maka to run past him and into Marie's arms.
• Renton and Eureka did this in episode 47 of Eureka Seven when they reunite with each other.
• In Dragon Ball, a girl named Suno offers Goku shelter and hospitality in her snowy village, and seems to get a crush on him. Goku decides to liberate her village from the Red Ribbon Army members inhabiting Muscle Tower. When he comes back, the two start running towards each other... only for Goku to run past her to reach some food.
• An early filler episode of Dragon Ball Z has villains Vegeta and Nappa land on an alien planet. On a whim they decide to act heroically, killing the tyrannical ruler, and reuniting two lovers. The final scene has the lovers doing a Meadow Run towards each other... then Vegeta blows up the planet.
• Toriko has the female Battlewolf and her child start running towards each other... Only for Bui to fire a laser through the mother's body.
• A variant (pictured above) in Billy Bat, with the lovers running to each other from across a train station.
• In episode 3 of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Sho has an Imagine Spot of himself and Asuka running towards each other.
• Berserk chapter 355: As Casca has finally been cured of her mental state and is given the chance to reunite with Guts for the first time in three years (even more years for the long-time reader). Casca goes out to meet Guts in the Elf Forest and happy memories flooding come flooding back as she runs excitedly towards him. Then because Miura loves crushing fans's hearts, all the bad memories come back to Casca when she sees Guts causing her to scream.
• Spoofed in Episode 157 of Case Closed; Tagaki assumes that Sato is running up to him for a loving embrace, but then the latter grabs the former's collar and demands to know where the nearest restroom is.
• A subverted Beach Run happens in My Hero Academia after All Might's fight against All for One and Midoriya manages to rescue Bakugo by risking his and his classmates' lives. The screen sparkles up as Midoriya and All Might run to each other across a beach...and then All Might punches Midoriya for being so reckless.
• Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA: When the Miyuverse Shirou Emiya shows up, Illya mistakes him for her brother, the Shirou Emiya from her own universe. They start to run towards each other, only for him to run past her and embrace Miyu, his actual sister.
• Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?:
  • In a Beach Episode OVA, Bell and Ais run toward each other, but since Ais is under the influence of mushrooms, she runs past him to hug and hit on Welf. Bell, not knowing she is under the influence, bursts into tears.
  • Arrow of the Orion: When Artemis appears, Hestia happily greets her old friend and they run towards each other, only for Artemis to run past her and hug Bell instead.

    Asian Animation

• Happy Heroes: Parodied in Season 5 episode 33, where a robot man and woman run towards each other on a beach, clearly intending to hug each other, only to be interrupted when a giant statue of one of the Supermen appears and blocks their way.
• The Lamput episode "Boss's Mom" has a scene in the laboratory where the Boss and his mother happily run towards each other to share a hug. The scene cuts to a flashback of a baby Boss and his younger mother approaching each other in the same way, but in a field of flowers.
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Spoofed in Happy, Happy, Bang! Bang! episode 27, where cousins Wolffy and Darker are in a flower field and are so happy to see each other that they run towards each other as those in a Meadow Run would, complete with sparkles and bubbles, before conversing normally as if nothing just happened.

    Comic Strips

• Parodied in Big Nate, where Nate ran until he got close enough to see that the seeming Love Interest was an old hag. Fortunately, it was All Just a Dream (within a dream).

    Films — Animated

• Spoofed in Shrek 2, as the meadow run soon turns into Shrek and Fiona running arm-in-arm from an angry mob.
• Spoofed in Madagascar as well, where in the middle of Alex and Marty's run, it turns out that Alex is actually pissed off, with it quickly turning into Alex chasing Marty around.
• Spoofed again in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, when Scrat "reunites" with his acorn after running away from Scratte, and the acorn falls down a hill in slow motion towards Scrat who also runs in slow motion.
• Played for Laughs but still sincerely in Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. While reuniting after being forced into separate classes, George and Harold have an Imagine Spot where they run to each other through a meadow... even though they're actually dashing towards each other for a hug in the school bathroom. It's a funny moment, but it's still sweet, since it's clear that the short while they were apart really does feel like an eternity to George and Harold.
• Played for Drama in Frozen (2013). In the midst of an ice field rather than a meadow, Kristoff and Anna try to run towards each other, as Anna had been afflicted by a frozen heart and an act of true love would thaw it. But shortly before they meet in the middle, Anna sees Hans about to kill her sister Elsa, and dashes off to the side to take the hit for her, just as the frozen heart takes its toll and transforms her into an ice statue.

    Films — Live-Action

• Spoofed in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, when Kumar engages in a Meadow Run with an anthropomorphized bag of marijuana. And then the bag o' weed and Kumar get married. And fuck.
• Played straight in the movie The Sidehackers (as seen on Mystery Science Theater 3000), set to the film's love theme, "Nothing Lasts Forever" ("Only love/Pads the film").
• Appears during a montage of romantic-film-tropes in The Muppet Movie, along with rowing-a-boat and meeting-on-a-foggy-noir-street-corner-in-the-40's. Piggy & Kermit meadow run at each other - but when they meet in the middle, Piggy keeps going and Kermit ends up running backwards.
• Used in The Pirate Movie when Mabel first sees Frederic on the beach. Somehow they end up riding horses on the beach moments later.
• The trope comes from one of the film versions of Wuthering Heights with use of Say My Name. "Catherine!" "Heathcliff!" "CATHERINE!" "HEATHCLIFF!" (This particuler scene was spoofed many times.)
• Appears in Gone with the Wind when Ashley returns to Tara after the war. We see him and Mellie run towards another in separate shots.
• Spoofed in Wagons East!, in which the heroes are facing death and each imagines his or her loved one in a brief vignette. The last hero is a redneck farmer whose vignette has him performing a Meadow Run with a sheep.
• Rama and Sita in Sita Sings The Blues after Rama and the monkey army rescue her. He promptly drops her saying he's redeemed the shame upon his name by rescuing her, but since she lived in (actually just outside) the house of another man (the King of Lanka who kidnapped her, but mostly left her alone), people will believe she must have slept with the King and is no longer "pure" — even if she did not.
• Happens four times in Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, each time managing to be more heartwarming than the last, mostly because it's kids reuniting with their long-lost pets (or said pets reuniting with each other after one was presumed dead) instead of lovers.
• Appears in New Moon when Aro is seeing Alice's version of the future to prove that Bella will eventually become a vampire. They sparkle as they frolic.
• Tony and Maria toward the end of West Side Story (1961). Only, instead of a meadow, it's an outside basketball court. And Tony gets shot, where he ends up Dead in Her Arms Tonight.
• A non-romantic version in The Color Purple: Celie runs towards her sister Nettie through a meadow after not seeing her for decades.
• Played straight in the 1971 film Friends (1971) to the tune of Elton John.
• In Bridget Jones' Diary II, Bridget and Mark run towards each other and then together at the beginning when Bridge assures herself she has found her happily-ever-after. It's her Imagine Spot.
• After Parris gets his friend Drake to have a critical psychological breakthrough in Kings Row, the film ends with Parris going home, and running towards his new girlfriend Elise across an open meadow.
• A variant in City Girl, in which Lem and Kate arrive at the front gate of Lem's wheat farm after the trip from Chicago. After they hop over the gate, Kate goes dashing through the meadow of wheat, with Lem following after. A couple of times they embrace, only for Kate to go dashing ahead again. The shot of Lem and Kate running through the wheat as the camera tracks them is the most famous in the movie.
• The Star Wars sequel trilogy:
  • In The Force Awakens, much of the Ho Yay between Finn and Poe Dameron comes from a scene in which they are surprised to see one another still alive, across a wide landing area, and proceed to run toward each other in a manner evoking this trope.
  • In The Last Jedi, Finn and Rey get one after Rey uses the Force to lift a bunch of boulders, freeing Finn and the rest of the Resistance from the cave they were trapped in.
• A Guy Named Joe: How Dorinda and Ted come together at the end, after she gets back from bombing the Japanese ammo dump, having narrowly escaped with her life.
• To All the Boys I've Loved Before: At the beginning, Lara Jean fantasizes about a romantic meetup with Josh in a field of green grain. They are dressed in historical clothes and slowly walk towards each other to have a forbidden kiss. In the end, she and Peter kiss on the green lacrosse field at school.
• Emma.: After they get engaged, Mr Martin waits for Harriet in the park at Hartfield. Harriet runs to him happily, he smiles a sweet smile and they share a gentle kiss. Then they hold hands and run together in the green grass. Set to a romantic song. Only slow-mo is missing.
• A platonic version occurs at the end of Wonder Woman 84 with Maxwell Lord and his son on the White House lawn, after Maxwell's Heel Realisation.

    Live-Action TV

• A rather one-sided Meadow Run (taking place in an office, but still using the slow-mo and romantic music) occurred at the end of a 3rd Rock from the Sun episode in which Dick was really happy to see Mary return after she had been gone for a week.
• Spoofed in the British TV series Ballykissangel where a man and a woman run towards each other across a grassy meadow. When they meet the woman suddenly punches the man in the face.

• In Bunk'd, Emma and Lou parody this in the beginning of "Griff Is in the House!".
• A beautiful, bromantic Meadow Run happens during Season 1 of Chuck, in "Chuck Versus the Sandworm" between the titular geek and his BFF Morgan.

• Doctor Who:
  • Twisted in "The Stolen Earth" when the Doctor and Rose run towards each other, meeting for the first time since "Doomsday"... only for a single Dalek to appear in the scene and shoot the Doctor. And if that wasn't enough, this leads to a pretty damn big cliffhanger as the Doctor begins to regenerate...
  • Subverted at the end of "The Girl Who Waited": Old!Amy attempts one towards the Doctor (who is in the TARDIS), only for him to slam the doors shut and lock them (as Old!Amy cannot exist inside the TARDIS at the same time as normal Amy). Then he lets Rory choose which one he wants.
• Engine Sentai Go-onger spoofed this in one episode when the two female Rangers, Yellow and Silver, do this. Since they were just meeting up to start stage one of their plan to save Yellow's mecha, there was No Hugging, No Kissing, but this didn't stop the blatant imagery from making certain fans Squee regardless.
• Done in The Goodies between Bill Oddie and his new gal. Then done in the same meadow between Graeme Garden and...his computer. He also tries to push it on a swing, which...doesn't work so well.
  • In another episode, Graham does this with a distraught Tim, only to get shoved aside into some dustbins.
• On the final episode of series 19 of Have I Got News for You, after given his Odd One Out group, Paul Merton begins to ponder the answer. Suddenly, the camera fade-cuts to some footage of Paul and fellow captain, Ian Hislop, skipping through a field in slow motion to sappy soft music for several seconds. Camera cuts back to Paul, who's got a day dreamy expression on his face. He then shakes his head and apologizing, saying he was "miles away". The footage popped up again in the later seasons when Joan Collins hosted in a Dynasty spoof, but aside from that, there was no explanation for it. According to Paul of the Very Best of HIGNFY DVD commentary, he tried for eight years to get that gag onto the show and was rejected two times by two different producers, the third try helped and the gag was put in.
• How I Met Your Mother: Barney Stinson makes a reference to this trope in an episode, when talking about Robin.

  Barney: I don't love her, okay, I just... miss her when she's not around, I think about her all the time and I imagine us one day running towards each other in slow motion and I'm wearing a brown suede vest.

• Spoofed and lampshaded in Kamen Rider Double: In one episode, Shotaro ends up chasing another man along a beach, complete with the slow-mo and the romantic music. As it's happening, Shotaro thinks to himself how strange it must look to someone who doesn't know the context.
• In Korean drama Lie To Me, this is done fairly subtly, with Ah Jung waiting at her home, and suddenly running outside, and Ki Jun running from the aeroport. Justified, as one character has been living in a fairly rural area.

• Not Necessarily the News liked to subvert this, with narration like "They were young, they were in love, they needed glasses", at which point the couple missed each other and kept running.
• Conversational Troping in the Only Fools and Horses episode "Watching the Girls Go By".

  Del: You see, Rodders, I used to have this vision of love. I used to imagine that me and my sweetheart were running in slow motion through a field of buttercups. (Rodney rolls his eyes) We're both, y'know, we're both like that, dressed in white, and, like, I'd done a bit of weight. And suddenly, there in the background, I can here Semprini's Orchestra playing the theme tune from Doctor Zhivago. (he starts to hum the theme, then stops as Albert leaves) Where's he going?
  Rodney: He's probably gone to be sick.

• The Partridge Family: Reuben and his new girlfriend Cathleen Darcy try this three times during their Falling-in-Love Montage in "They Shoot Managers, Don't They?" The first time Reuben trips and falls, the second time they run past each other, and the third time they finally succeed in running into each other's arms.
• Parodied in the SCTV episode "Bouncin' Back to You" when Lola Heatherton and Guy Caballero reflect on a relationship they once had. They run through the meadow, or in Guy's case, wheel through the meadow (he sits in a wheelchair, but for respect rather than being handicapped).
• Happens rather bizarrely in the tokusatsu Space Sheriff Sharivan, with the run being done by the hero and Jesus.
• Spoofed in an episode of The Suite Life on Deck. After sneaking out on a date after curfew, Cody and Bailey run towards each other in slow motion on the sky deck... and accidentally bump into each other the second they make contact.

  Bailey: This doesn't happen in movies.
  Cody: Could you check you pocket for my front tooth?

• Happened in The War at Home between Larry and Kenny after their fathers apologized to each other.

    Music/Music Videos

• Spoofed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in a short film meant to accompany the Wedding Album. They dash toward one another on the beach, but then run right past each other and fall over.

    Theatre

• Used and subverted in West Side Story: Maria and Tony run to each other across the harsh "meadow" of the lonely basketball court before Chino shoots him.

    Video Games

• Lucas and Hinawa doing this (sort of, because Hinawa is walking away)]] is the entirety of Chapter 6 of Mother 3. Sad version of the trope.
• In one of the later missions of Brütal Legend, Eddie Riggs imagines sharing a Meadow Run with Ophelia, complete with druid-slaying.
• Live A Live has two Dream Sequences where Pogo strolls through a endless flower field towards Bel.
• A micro game in WarioWare Gold has you help a young man and woman reunite with each other as they run across a meadow. If you screw up, they'll trip and fall.

    Web Original

• Spoofed in the Doctor Who fan film "I'm a Time Lord, Get Me Out Of Here!"
• At the very end of A Very Potter Musical, Quirrel and Voldemort start to do this, first running towards each other, and then turning around to join back-to-back (it makes sense if you've seen it).
• In a Yogscast Minecraft Series special, during Granny_Bacon's funeral, Simon Lane reminisces his time with her, which consists entirely of him and her colliding into each other in a field of wheat and having, presumably, dirty sex.
• Parodied in the animated version of Welcome to the Convenience Store. L (the singer from Infinite) is locked in the store and desperate for the bathroom (there isn't one in the store itself). When he sees Eun Ah, the store clerk, return he imagines himself running towards and then dancing with a roll of toilet paper. Unfortunately Eun Ah gets distracted and he's left in there.
• In a certain YouTube Poop video, the one from the "Eternal Eclipse Of The Heart" music video is parodied.
• Left POOR Dead: During Reginald and Tippy's reunion

    Western Animation

• Spoofed in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, where lovers Eris and Hoss Delgado run towards each other in a meadow. Hoss is also in a monster truck.
• In the Phineas and Ferb episode "It's About Time!", Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Perry The Platypus spoof this, somehow managing to still turn it into Foe Romance Subtext. They run toward each other on the beach... and Perry kicks Doofenshmirtz in the face.
• Parodied in Tiny Toon Adventures when Buster reunites with his lost dinosaur, and again when Babs and Montana fall in love at the hands of Concord substituting for Cupid.
• In the KaBlam! episode, "Won't Stick to Most Dental Work" had a scene where Henry and June were happy to see eachother again after Henry quit, and they ran through a meadow with romantic music playing as they ran up to one another and hugged.
• Spoofed in an episode of The Simpsons telling the story of Paul Bunyan. The giant Paul and his normal sized love interest see each other at a distance and run towards each other, but when the love interest realises his true size she turns and starts to run away from him instead.
• Parodied in the Beetlejuice series when Lydia and the newly humanoid tree Spooky run to each other.
• Played for Laughs in the "Hearts and Hooves Day" episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, where Big Macintosh and Cheerilee run toward each other near the episode's end, after being separated by the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Thing is, they were under the influence of a love potion (which the CMC themselves had given) and the separation was necessary for it to be broken. Edges into Mundane Made Awesome as the fllies desperately try to keep them apart.
• Spoofed in the Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness episode "The Way of the Prawn", when Tigress has an Imagine Spot about her and Yijiro the samurai prawn running towards each other in a meadow. Then they both draw katanas and it turns out they're completely surrounded by enemies and are running towards them, because Tigress's idea of romance is being a Battle Couple.
• In the Rugrats episode "Chuckie Loses His Glasses", when Tommy finds a blind Chuckie, the two run toward each other. Unfortunately, due to both of them being unable to see (Tommy's reason being he was wearing Chuckie's glasses to find him), they passed each other and crashed into lawn chairs.
• In a wedding-themed special of The Smurfs, Smurfette has a series of Imagine Spots with the male Smurfs. In her fantasy of Greedy Smurf, they do the meadow run — only for him to run right past her to the overflowing buffet table.

  Smurfette: At last! At last!
  Greedy Smurf: At last! At last! Lunch!

• Kaeloo: The show actually managed to subvert the trope in Episode 111 by using the Bait-and-Switch trope. Kaeloo and Mr. Cat are on the beach when they turn their heads in the opposite direction and the viewers assume that they are looking at each other. They are both separately shown running with outstretched arms, leading the viewers to believe that they are running towards each other... and then the camera pans out to reveal that they're both running in the same direction, towards the bathroom.
• Parodied in the Ready Jet Go! episode "The Tide is High". When Sunspot encounters his crab friend again, he runs towards him in slow motion, complete with dramatic music. However, the crab just stays where it is and then goes in a different direction.
• Marsupulami episode "Prime Mates Forever". The final shot of the episode has Marsu's pal Maurice and his new girlfriend both Maurice and a female look-a-like come towards each other in slow-motion by a river to embrace each other with love at first sight.

    Real Life

• The Church of Scientology had a field dug up and planted with flowers for Tom Cruise and new wife Nicole Kidman to romp in.
• Isaac Asimov was once invited to an apparently-tedious US/Soviet diplomatic event, without his wife. When it was done, they were to meet outside the venue. Seeing each other at a distance, they simultaneously ran at each other in a Meadow Run. It was, Asimov later found out, caught on film by a Soviet cameraman, and was shown often on Russian TV for a while.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MeadowRun

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