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| 14 | * A very minor age-difference with Koruri from ''Manga/SevenSeeds''. She's one of the shorter characters, [[UsefulNotes/{{Pettanko}} without much development]] and her curly hair makes her seem even more youthful. She is 17 years old but looks about 13 years old. The other teams are surprised to learn that she's the same age as the other members of her team, especially her boyfriend, who is a year younger than she. |
| 15 | * ''Manga/The100GirlfriendsWhoReallyReallyReallyReallyReallyLoveYou'': |
| 16 | ** Kusuri is 18 years old, but due to a failed immortality drug she took, she looks like a young child unless she takes an antidote. |
| 17 | ** Chapter 74 introduces Kusuri's parents, who took the same drug. Her mother is 55, while her father's age is unmentioned, but both resemble 8-year-olds. Chapter 75 introduces her 89-year-old grandmother Yaku, who took an enhanced version of the drug and thus permanently looks like a child. |
| 18 | ** Suu is a first year in high school, but she looks young enough that she’s able to participate in a competition for youngsters. |
| 19 | * The title character of ''Manga/{{Acony}}'' has the body of a 12- or 13-year-old girl but claims to be 23. Her high school aged neighbor laughs at this, saying that if she's going to lie she should go all out and say she's ReallySevenHundredYearsOld, but it's true; she was involved in a [[spoiler:superhero origin-esque botched scientific experiment]] that slowed her aging to a crawl. She'll look 23 by the time she's 80, but she'll die around then because her lifespan is still that of a normal human. |
| 20 | * ''Manga/{{Akira}}'': Kyoko, Takashi and Masaru were often mistaken for children; even a police officer does this when he saw Takashi. However, the trio is actually in their late 30s, with Kyoko being oldest in her early 40s like The Colonel. This is due in part of taking medicine to keep their powers in check. |
| 21 | * ''Manga/AngelicLayer'''s Misaki Suzuhara is of ''1st-year middle school'' age. Yet she gets mistaken for much younger, at one point ''elementary 3rd year'', much to her shock. |
| 22 | * In Inoue Kazurou's (of ''Manga/MidoriDays'' and ''Manga/AiKora'' fame) short story ''Aoi Destruction'', the titular father of the main character is 38 years old, yet looks like a little girl. His late wife, in contrast, was apparently quite masculine in appearance. [[PaedoHunt The problem with that should be obvious.]] |
| 23 | * In ''Manga/ArataTheLegend'', Princess Kikuri looks surprisingly youthful for a 60+-year-old woman. Justified, as her powers suppress the form of her true age. |
| 24 | * ''Manga/{{ARIA}}'': |
| 25 | ** Alicia is 19 years old and pretty much looks that way, which doesn't quite match her supposed long experience as an undine. She lives on Mars though, where the years last almost twice as long as Earth's. Do the math. |
| 26 | ** President Aria. 20 years have passed and he doesn't look any different, unlike Grandma, who has considerably shortened. |
| 27 | ** Played even straighter by Albert Pitt, who, while one of the eldest members of the main cast, looks like a cute little boy due to his working conditions. |
| 28 | * In the manga ''Manga/AshidakaTheIronHero'' (Tekkai no Senshi), it is hinted that Captain Honchi is older than he looks, since the author mentions that the protagonist [Ashidaka] is not able to smoke cigarettes because "he is a minor" (comparing to his original draft). Meanwhile, Honchi is shown smoking cigars on various occassions. |
| 29 | * Mai "Ino" Inose, the TokenMiniMoe of ''Manga/AsteroidInLove'', is a 1.44m tall eleventh-grader and looks quite childish. |
| 30 | * ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': |
| 31 | ** [[WorldsStrongestMan Levi]] is this according to ShrugOfGod. His exact age is unknown, other than being this trope almost word for word.[[spoiler:WordOfGod is that he's over 30.]] |
| 32 | ** [[spoiler: Ymir]] is an unusual example. [[spoiler: She was trapped in Titan form for 60 years, and did not age a single day during that time. As such, she is technically in her late 70s but looks to be in her late teens.]] |
| 33 | * In ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh'', Tomo Takino mentions that she frequently gets mistaken for a middle school student despite being in high school, expressing jealousy at Yomi for being hit with [[YoungerThanTheyLook the opposite trope]]. Similarly, Chiyo Mihama is unusually small for a 10- to 13-year-old, to the point where author Creator/KiyohikoAzuma used a modified version for the ''5''-year-old title character of ''Manga/{{Yotsuba}}''. |
| 34 | * [[spoiler:Speck]] from the ''Most Evil Death Row Convicts'' saga of ''Manga/BakiTheGrappler'' looks to be a freakishly tall and muscular middle-aged man, but he's actually 97 years old. It's implied the only thing driving his body forward is his {{determinat|or}}ion [[DeathSeeker to know defeat]], hence his apparent [[TheAgeless immunity to aging]] as well as his ability to [[TheNeedless go a long time without breathing]] and to [[ImplacableMan shrug off any injury]]. [[spoiler:Once he gets his wish, he [[RapidAging rapidly deteriorates into a malnourished old man]] while under hospital care and [[GoOutWithASmile goes out with a smile]]]]. |
| 35 | * In ''Manga/{{Bakuman}}'', Natsumi Kato looks like a high school student or young college student, but she's actually around 30. |
| 36 | * ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' is frequently guilty of this, especially when Miura [[ArtEvolution starts]] using a more cutesy art style on his characters. |
| 37 | ** Ricket tends to be the biggest offender as he was 16 at the end of the Golden Age and is currently 19, but he still looks like a cutesy 12-year-old {{Bishonen}} boy. |
| 38 | ** Griffith is currently 24 but thanks to his haunting supernatural beauty he still looks like a feminine teenage compared to Guts despite being the same age. Though being the reincarnated DarkMessiah might have something to do with it. |
| 39 | ** Initially averted with Casca who looked her age albeit somewhat younger than Guts however when [[BreakTheCutie Eclipse happened]] and Miura art style shifted Casca is drawn looking the same age as Farnese who is 19, despite Casca being five years her senior. [[spoiler: This may be HandWaved due to mental trauma making Casca become child-like as when she regains her former personality Casca’s facial features change and she looks more mature]]. |
| 40 | ** Charlotte is a particularly egregious example as she’s 20 by the time of the latest arc, but still drawn as young and cutesy as Schierke or Isama. |
| 41 | * In ''Manga/BlackCat'', because of being shot with a nanomachine Lucifer bullet, Train transformed into a kid (that looks around seven to 8 years old), even though he's actually 23. |
| 42 | * Pinoko from ''Manga/BlackJack'' looks no older than six, but insists that she's at least eighteen due to the very bizarre circumstances up until her "birth". [[spoiler:Specifically, [[AndIMustScream she spent the first 18 years of her "life" encased in a cyst within her Twin Sister's body]].]] Black Jack, her legal guardian, argues [[YoungerThanTheyLook the exact opposite]]. |
| 43 | * Mafuyu of ''Manga/BlendS'' is a college student that is often mistaken as an elementary school child, and plays the role of a LittleSisterHeroine in a CosplayCafe. Even characters who are perfectly aware of her age, such as her co-workers, have their perceptions of Mafuyu colored by this. Kaho and Akizuki both find it uncomfortable to watch her chugging a beer, while recently hired Hideri, when thinking about what Mafuyu might wear outside of work, imagines her in a preschooler's smock. |
| 44 | * Leonardo Watch from ''Anime/BloodBlockadeBattlefront'' is old enough to drink, but looks and sounds like he's around 15 years old. |
| 45 | * [[spoiler:Yuka]] of ''Anime/BloodC''. She's apparently old enough to be a politician (which would put her somewhere in ''early thirties'' at least) but can pass as a high school student. |
| 46 | * In ''Manga/{{Bokurano}}'', [[spoiler:the assassin who shoots Machi in the head]] looks like a young boy, but according to Koyemshi, is actually "a grown man. Pushing 40." |
| 47 | * Nene from ''Anime/BubblegumCrisis Tokyo 2040'' is rather short and undeveloped, and tends to act like a young teenager rather than the 20-year-old woman she is. It seems to be her BerserkButton, if her reaction when she flirts with her boss (His reply? “I don’t like little kids”) or when 15-year-old Makkie comes onto her is any indication. |
| 48 | ** Makkie also looks like a kid who just entered his first year in middle school. |
| 49 | * In Chapter 10 of ''Anime/CannonBusters'', an old assassin with the appearance of a little kid tries to kill the protagonist. |
| 50 | * ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura'''s [[spoiler:Eriol Hiiragizawa]] is actually the same age as Sakura's father, despite looking to be around the same age as her because he magically halted his aging process. |
| 51 | * ''Manga/CaseClosed'': |
| 52 | ** The main premise: a MillionToOneChance FountainOfYouth turning {{Teen Genius}}es into Preteen Geniuses. |
| 53 | ** Vermouth looks like she's in her twenties, but [[spoiler:is suspected to be Sharon Vineyard, the mother of her supposed public identity]]. |
| 54 | * Tooru from ''Manga/AChannel'' is 16 and in highschool, but due to her short stature she looks considerably younger. |
| 55 | * In ''Manga/ChattingAtTheAmberTeahouse'', Seriho looks like a teenager. She's really 25. |
| 56 | * All the demons in ''Manga/ChronoCrusade'' fall under this, but Chrono in particular. Thanks to a need to conserve his spiritual energy, his [[SleepModeSize typical form]] makes him look like a 12-year-old, and even in his true form he looks like he's in his early twenties. However, there's at least about 60 years that he's confirmed to have lived, and it's likely he's much, much older. His former comrades, the sinners, all appear to be in their late teens or early twenties, but they're all near the same age. |
| 57 | ** There's also [[spoiler:Father Remington]] (who appears to be in his early thirties at the latest but is seen dueling Chrono half a century prior in a flashback). |
| 58 | ** In the manga finale [[spoiler:Fiore/Floretta and Satella]] (due to becoming {{Human Popsicle}}s for 75 years). |
| 59 | * A very similar situation to ''Double Arts'' (listed below) happens in ''Manga/CodeBreaker'', although this time with the ''female'' protagonist's mom, and the mom being a bit more endowed. |
| 60 | * V.V. from ''Anime/CodeGeass'' looks like a child, due to immortality, but is actually in his sixties. |
| 61 | * High-school-aged Kaoruko in ''Manga/ComicGirls'' is being mistaken as an elementary school child by ''every'' recurring character in the first episode. |
| 62 | * [[spoiler: Cassian]] from ''Manga/CountCain'''s growth was stunted such that he looks twelve or so but is an adult. This being a vaguely-UsefulNotes/{{Victorian|Britain}} world, he wound up working in the circus for a while. |
| 63 | * Faye Valentine from ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' is much older than she appears, [[spoiler:having been cryonically frozen for 54 years while recovering from injuries she sustained in a space shuttle accident (possibly one of the first public space shuttles).]] |
| 64 | * In the original ''Anime/CuteyHoney'', the shape-shifting android Honey was [[YoungerThanTheyLook Younger Than She Looked]] (supposedly 16 but was probably built more recently than that). By the time ''New Anime/CuteyHoney'' came around, she looked a little older (early- to mid-twenties, probably voluntary aging from her powers), but being over a 100 years old, she had moved to the opposite trope. |
| 65 | * Rebecca in ''Anime/CyberpunkEdgerunners'' is a SmallGirlBigGun who appears to be an adolescent but is in her early 20s according to WordOfGod. At one point a bouncer stops her from entering a bar and she [[TheNapoleon pulls a gun on him]]. |
| 66 | * ''Manga/DGrayMan'': |
| 67 | ** The age of [[spoiler:Road]] is revealed in Chapter 187 to be [[spoiler:over 35. What isn't known is whether the young form we see is her real body, or an illusion; for example, although we know she is human, we've also seen her in the form of a doll.]] |
| 68 | ** ChivalrousPervert Cross Marian is a big case as well. [[spoiler: He's been allied with Neah for over 35 years, Winters and Klaud are forty and thirty-five respectively, so Cross has been in the war since they were children.]] In an extra, Komui's Talk Corner #3, the characters debate Cross' age. Johnny says he looks to be in his late twenties, but that he has to be at least forty. Tyki says he's making himself look scarily young. Wisely then asks Allen-who says his master hasn't aged a year since he met him. He then says it's scary, after calling Cross a monster. Hoshino herself, keeps his age hidden in the character info. |
| 69 | ** Shown in chapter 215 to be true of [[spoiler:Allen]] as well. [[spoiler:The Fourteenth is shown wondering why Allen's body hadn't aged in the last 35 years and comments that it has in fact gotten younger.]] |
| 70 | * There's several vampires in ''Manga/DanceInTheVampireBund'' who look young while being decades old. |
| 71 | * Amber in ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack'' looks like a teenager. This is because her [[PowerAtAPrice remuneration]] is MerlinSickness; a flashback to five years earlier shows her looking twenty-something. We have no idea how old she actually is. |
| 72 | * ''Manga/DeathNote'': |
| 73 | ** At the start of the series, L is 24 years old, but he doesn’t look older than the 17 years old Light. In fact, his messy hair, casual clothing style and little genius quirks make him look younger. |
| 74 | ** The same can be said about Near, who’s [[WordOfGod 18 years old]] post-TimeSkip, but looks like a preteen in pajamas. |
| 75 | ** Pre-Time Skip, Misa is 19, making her two years older than Light, but her petite stature and childlike behavior make her appear younger than she is.. This is even acknowledged in-universe: post-Time Skip, the 25 years old Misa (who doesn’t seem to have aged a bit) is called a brat by the 24 years old Kiyomi Takada. |
| 76 | * Chilchuck from ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'' may look like a MouthyKid, but he's actually a 28-year-old [[{{Hobbits}} halfling]] adult [[spoiler: with a wife and ''three'' daughters]]. Being child-sized and youthful-looking is the norm for halflings, and their actual ages can be hard for other races to discern. Even after he tells them outright how old he is, Marcille and Senshi still seem to think he's very young because their races (an elf and dwarf respectively) are LongLived and mature much more slowly (Marcille is boggled when she finds out that [[spoiler: not only is Chilchuck married with children, all his children are independent adults]]). Chilchuck himself is implied to be roughly "middle-aged" by halfling standards; at one point [[spoiler:Chilchuck is transformed into a human, and ends up looking much older than any of the other adventurers in the party]]. This trope is {{Deconstructed}} a little with halflings in general: because they're small and cute, other races tend to treat them as children regardless of their chronological age, and it contributes to the general [[FantasticRacism condescending, disrespectful attitude]] that halflings have to live with. |
| 77 | * In ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'', Kouichi's [[MumLooksLikeASister mom looks more like his sister]]. |
| 78 | * Somewhat related cross-cultural example: when ''Anime/DigimonTamers'' was translated for Western network television, they raised the kids' official ages by a few years (from ten to thirteen), possibly due to what happens to them and the relations they get into {{squick}}ing the translators a bit. ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'' and ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'' also had all the kids' ages raised a year. |
| 79 | ** The same thing happened with [[Creator/FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids]]' dub of ''Manga/TokyoMewMew'', presumably for similar reasons; an especially jarring example is [[TokenMiniMoe Bu-Ling]], who begins the series at 8 years old, yet the dubbed version managed to make her ''fourteen''. Oddly, Creator/TokyoPop's manga translation moved the characters ''down'' a year to appeal more to a young audience. |
| 80 | * In the 8th ''Anime/DirtyPair'' OVA we have Tia, who was locked in a capsule by her father to save her from the guerilla invaders who massacre him and the other passengers of the ship, twenty years pass and Kei and Yuri find her capsule and she hasn't aged at all, despite being in her mid twenties and technically older than them, she still looks like a little girl about 5 or 6 years old. |
| 81 | * Mika-sensei in ''Manga/DokiDokiSchoolHours'' is a 27-year-old woman, though she appears to be 10 years old. This doesn't prevent one of her students, Kitagawa, from being attracted to her. In fact, it encourages it. |
| 82 | * ''Anime/DoraemonNobitasChronicleOfTheMoonExploration'': The Espals are immortal but stop physically aging in the youth. Goddard even warns his subordinates not to underestimate the Espals based on their child-like appearances. |
| 83 | * ''Manga/DoubleArts'' pulled this on one of the main characters. She goes to meet a [[LoveInterests new found friend's]] family, and is introduced to a little girl she assumes to be his little sister. But wait! That's ''his mom''! |
| 84 | * ''Franchise/DragonBall'': |
| 85 | ** The Saiyans: By the time they're in their twenties, they still look like teens or preteens, and it isn't until well later on in the series that they're looking like adults (though Vegeta goes through this relatively quickly). Even to the degree that in ''Anime/DragonBallGT''/late ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' it gets highlighted by Vegeta, saying that he might be in his 50s, but he ages slower than the rest of the cast. Bulma does not enjoy this. |
| 86 | ** Vegeta's brother Tarble is probably the best example of this as far as Saiyans go -- he looks like he could be in his teens despite being older than Goku, who was around 40 years old when they met. |
| 87 | ** For ''Anime/DragonBallSuperBroly'' [[WordOfGod Toriyama confirmed]] that Goku, Vegeta, and Broly are 43 years old by the time the movie takes place, of course none of said Saiyans look remotely close to that age looking more like 20-something-year-old hunks. (It should be noted that Toriyama seems to forget Goku was dead for 7 years along with canonically being 5 years younger than Vegeta. So that would put Goku at 33-34.) |
| 88 | ** In the original ''Manga/DragonBall'' Goku looks around seven when he's twelve, and at age fifteen he looks more-or-less the same. It's not until age eighteen that he ''finally'' starts to look like a teenager. |
| 89 | ** Mrs. Briefs, Bulma's mother, doesn't seem to get any older over the entire course of the series. By the Buu Saga, her daughter is over 40, and she looks the same as she did when she'd first appeared roughly 25 years earlier. |
| 90 | ** Bulma also qualifies in the Buu Saga. At that point, she's in her early 40s, but could still easily pass for late 20s/early 30s. |
| 91 | *** And for those starting out with ''Dragon Ball Z'' back in the mid-90's, Bulma looks like she is in her high school years, while Krillin looks like he's in his middle school years. They're both well into their 20s. |
| 92 | *** ''Anime/DragonBallSuperBroly'' would end up [[JustifiedTrope justifying]] this when Bulma searches for the Dragon Balls with the intention of [[FountainofYouth wishing to be five years younger]], with the implication that she's done this before and ''Anime/DragonBallSuperSuperHero'' outright confirming and [[VanityIsFeminine showing it in real time]]. |
| 93 | ** And then there's Chiaotzu, who looks like a 10-year-old child through his entire life. By his last appearance in ''Z'', he's 46 years old, three years older than Goku, and he still looks like a little kid. This is kind of explained in that his original design was based on a traditional Chinese ghost. |
| 94 | ** A non-human/Saiyan example might be Frieza. Between flashbacks to the Bardock special, which occurred at least twenty+ years ago, to the present, he hasn't visibly aged a bit. He could easily be ReallySevenHundredYearsOld, but his age is never given. |
| 95 | ** Krillin, who has incredibly low height, does not look his age throughout ''Dragon Ball Z''. Neither does his wife 18, whose modified body ages very slowly. |
| 96 | ** The Pilaf Gang -- Emperor Pilaf, Shu, and Mai -- are all chronologically older than Bulma, likely by several years. However, thanks to a badly worded wish, they were given child bodies whilst their adult minds and memories remain. |
| 97 | ** Cus/Kusu, the angel of Universe 10, is the Grand Priest’s oldest child, but she looks and sounds like a little girl. |
| 98 | ** Goten and Trunks have fallen into this in ''Super''. Despite the show taking place over the course of several years, neither of them have aged a day since the Buu saga, and arguably look even younger. As of ''Anime/DragonBallSuperBroly'', they're supposed to be 13 and 14 respectively, yet they still show no signs of the six years worth of growth they should have had. Trunks' case is particularly jarring, as he's the same age as his future counterpart was in ''Anime/DragonBallZTheHistoryOfTrunks''. Averted in ''Anime/DragonBallSuperSuperHero'' and recent manga chapters where Trunks and Goten finally look their age, with [[AuthorsSavingThrow Gohan justifying it]] by explaining that Saiyans have sudden growth spurts. |
| 99 | ** It appears to run in the Briefs family; Tights is ''58'' by ''Super'' and doesn't look a day over 30. |
| 100 | * Akira Toriyama has stated in one interview that Arale the android from ''Manga/DrSlump'' is meant to be 13; however she looks and acts like a 7- or 8-year-old. |
| 101 | * In ''Anime/EurekaSevenAo'', Eureka is a good deal older than she was in the [[Anime/EurekaSeven original series]] (it's more complicated than that due to time travel hijinks), but still looks roughly the same as she did in the past (mostly because she isn't human). She does pull off an older look, though, by way of clothing choices and hairstyles. |
| 102 | * The main characters in ''Anime/FairyMusketeers'' look more like 7- or 8-year-olds than 14-year-olds. "''Juushi''" could be a pun. In the title, it means "musketeer", but ''juushi'' -- using different kanji -- means "fourteen". |
| 103 | * Natsu and Gajeel from ''Manga/FairyTail'' are hinted to be this. During the Battle of Fairy Tail arc, they get trapped with Master Makarov by a spell that only affects people over the age of 80... but the confusing part is that they're shown to have grown up normally in the past few years. However, [[WordOfGod Hiro Mashima]] [[SubvertedTrope officially debunked this shortly afterward]], suggesting that something other than their age was at work. During the Tartarus Arc, [[spoiler:we learn that their dragon foster-parents were sealed inside their bodies]]. However, another possible explanation comes later: [[spoiler: they were born 400 years ago, having traveled through time to a point where the dragons thought they could defeat their arch-enemy, Acnologia]]. Natsu and Gajeel have no memory of either of these facts, so they were unable to explain why they couldn't pass the age barrier. |
| 104 | * In ''Manga/FinalFantasyLostStranger'', Shogo is 26 years old, but has a young-looking face that makes it easy to think he's a teenager. The rest of his party is shocked when they learn of this, figuring he was the same age as Sharuru when he's actually the second-oldest after Duston. He's also quite annoyed when he's referred to as "kiddo", complaining that Japanese people tend to look younger longer but this treatment is just too much. |
| 105 | * Yun-Ook Jang, the main character in ''Forest of Gray City'' is a 25-year-old who keeps getting mistaken for a teenager. |
| 106 | * Momiji from ''Manga/FruitsBasket'' looks and acts like an elementary school kid. When Tohru finds out that he's going to go to her high school, she is shocked. He eventually goes through a growth spurt, and becomes as {{Bishonen}} as the rest of the boys (if not more). |
| 107 | * ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003'': |
| 108 | ** Martel looks like she's in her 20s but is actually old enough to be Ed and Al's mom. She has a lot of snake venom to clear her wrinkles. |
| 109 | ** Al is one year younger than his brother, but during ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemistTheConquerorOfShamballa''' he looks thirteen while his brother is eighteen. Justified by the fact that [[spoiler:when he got his body back he came back as the same age he was when he tried to revive his mother]]. |
| 110 | * ''Manga/FutariEcchi'': Shoko Shiina is 24, despite looking like a little girl. |
| 111 | * Ryouhei Sumi from ''Anime/FutureGPXCyberFormula'' looks like he's a little kid, but he is in fact 15 (at the beginning of the series) making him a year older than Hayato, the main character. |
| 112 | * Chiharu the fox demon from ''Anime/FuuunIshinDaiShogun'' she looks like a 13- or 14-year-old girl but she's 250 years old. |
| 113 | * ''Anime/GalaxyAngel'' has Mint, a 15-year-old who looks like she's ten. |
| 114 | * Presumably the first Club President of ''Manga/{{Genshiken}}'', who later turns out to have been the ''only'' Club President the Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture had ever had until he handed it off to Madarame. The members briefly speculated how old the Prez actually was after finding manga books in the clubroom that date back to 1987. |
| 115 | * ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell'': |
| 116 | ** Major Kusanagi is age 44 at the time she meets the Puppet Master/the Pupetteer and a few years younger in ''Stand Alone Complex'', but her almost completely artificial body looks noticeably younger. |
| 117 | ** And in one episode there's a female Russian assassin with a similar cybernetic body, who is said to be over 80. |
| 118 | * [[ShrinkingViolet Meiko Rokudou]] from ''Manga/GhostSweeperMikami'' comes to mind. For most of the manga's run, her insecurity, cutesy look, and the nature of her [[HoYay crush on Mikami]] could easily make a reader think that she's anywhere from 17 to 19 years old (Mikami's 20-21). Then, in one of the last story arcs, we are shown Meiko's mother while she's pregnant with her. The thing is that this is the beginning of the story arc describing how Mikami's parents ''met''. So Meiko's probably 22-24... |
| 119 | * Hanako Kujou, the protagonist of ''Manga/GoodbyeMyRoseGarden'', is rather short and cute, so she looks like a teenager. Alice Douglas, a British noblewoman who employs Hanako as a maid, is shocked to hear that Hanako was a teacher back in Japan, having thought that Alice was only 17(although she keeps that last part to herself). |
| 120 | * Kirin from ''Manga/GourmetGirlGraffiti'' is often mistaken as an elementary school student. Due to a lack of ComicBookTime, she started as an eighth-grader and is currently (as of April 2015) a tenth-grader. |
| 121 | * Tohma Seguchi of ''{{Manga/Gravitation}}'' is 32 but looks 16. In the flashbacks where he's supposed to be 16, he looks twelve. The same problem appears with a bunch of other characters in the series as well. |
| 122 | * It's implied that the girls from ''Manga/GunslingerGirl'' are a few years older than they seem. Being made into cyborgs and given conditioning drugs stunted their growth. |
| 123 | * Minnie-May Hopkins from ''Manga/GunsmithCats'' took "growth retarding" drugs in order to appeal to a certain type of clientele in a brothel. However, this is ''supposed'' to be {{squick}}y to the viewers. It squicked out the American editors so much they reversed it in their translation so she's taking drugs to ''counter'' an unnamed medical condition. In the English version, May had tried to make herself look older than she was in childhood in order to not {{squick}} her adult boyfriend so much (he was a paedophile, but understandably had serious issues about the morality of their relationship) but it backfired, leaving her first looking older than she was, but not growing an inch since. |
| 124 | * The main character Hinata Shouyou in ''Manga/{{Haikyuu}}'' is barely 5'4 and is always around tall volleyball players which makes him look even shorter in comparison. Due to his height and his rather immature behavior, he's mistaken for a middle- and sometimes grade-schooler on more than one occasion. Ironically, Hinata is actually the oldest first year on the Karasuno volleyball team, half a year older than the tall and intimidating Kageyama. His second-year teammate Nishinoya, who's a year older and even shorter than Hinata, has the same problem. |
| 125 | * Azuma and Seira Umeda from the manga series ''Manga/HanaKimi''. They both look pretty young despite the fact that Seira is fifty-one and Azuma is fifty-four. |
| 126 | * We aren't privy to her real age, but Athena of ''Manga/HayateTheCombatButler'' appears to be the same age as the main character, but the time where she's been staying for the years before her appearance has a different standard of time. When she shows up in the current time, she looks to have aged appropriately since she's been locked out of the castle. She also acted rather like an adult back when she was supposed to be six. And her mindset is from even further back. The mindset she instilled in Hayate. And now she's back at her 6-year-old appearance, while even only given the years we've seen she's at least 16. |
| 127 | * Even if almost all of them have a case of Really700YearsOld, the anthropomorphic countries in ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'' rarely even look their "human age". England is supposed to be physically 23, but is often drawn not looking any older than 15. Latvia's "human" age is 15, but he looks and sounds closer to 11 or 12. In-universe, this is the case for Japan; Italy thinks Japan is too young to drink, when he's actually ''way'' older than Italy. |
| 128 | * The [[PuniPlush art style]] of ''Manga/HidamariSketch'' made everyone like this, but Yuno needs some specific mention. Her ''extreme'' proneness to childlike mood swings/general childish behavior and her 1.44m height made her seem more like seven than fifteen. Actually part of this series' premise was on [[ComingOfAgeStory her trying to grow out of this]]. |
| 129 | * Mikako from ''Manga/HimegotoJuukyuusaiNoSeifuku'' is eighteen but tells the men she has sex with that she's a 15-year-old. She also dresses in a SailorFuku when doing so. She started prostituting when she was fifteen, so when she tells men she began "three years ago" it is not technically a lie. |
| 130 | * The first story in ''Himitsu Kichi'' is about a MayDecemberRomance between a sixth grader and a high schooler. He mistook her [[YoungerThanTheyLook for an elementary schooler]] while she thought he was a college student. |
| 131 | * Tsubasa Shibahime from ''Manga/HisAndHerCircumstances'' is a high schooler like the rest of the cast, but looks like she's twelve. |
| 132 | * Hagu from ''Manga/HoneyAndClover'' is apparently 18 at the beginning of the series, despite looking ''and acting'' like an 8-year-old -- which doesn't keep some guys from falling in love with her. Which is made worse by the fact that it is openly stated she stopped growing at six and she barely changes by the time she's twenty. |
| 133 | * ''Manga/HozukisCoolheadedness'': |
| 134 | ** It seems that most Demons and {{Youkai}} naturally [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld live hundreds of years]], but some characters still stand out. |
| 135 | ** Hozuki's two assistants, Nasubi and Karauri, look like children because of their short size but they are actually adults from a race of imps that naturally look like this. [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Nasubi's]] [[ManChild attitude]] doesn't help clear the confusion. |
| 136 | ** Hakutaku is this even compared to the others Good-luck beasts, who themselves can be this even by the standards of the others ReallySevenHundredYearsOld characters. Good-luck beasts can choose the appearance of their human form, Ho-oh for example look like a young child despite being hundreds or thousands of years old. However, Both him and Kirin show sign of their actual age such as rheumatism. Hakutaku, on the other hand, have the appearance and attitude of a young man and show no signs of his age despite being just as old as them, making it hard for other characters to guess his real age. |
| 137 | * Kurapika from ''Manga/HunterXHunter'' is seventeen at the start but doesn't look much older than the 12-year-olds Gon and Killua. |
| 138 | ** [[spoiler: Biscuit]] appears to be a 12-year-old girl but [[spoiler: is later revealed to be a very masculine 57-year-old, who uses her Nen ability to stay looking young]]. |
| 139 | * ''Manga/ICantUnderstandWhatMyHusbandIsSaying'': |
| 140 | ** Rino looks and [[ManChild acts]] like she's five despite being 25. Her husband Nozomu even mistook her for a ChildProdigy when they first met in college (and feared that he'd be mistake for a pedophile when they started dating). She mentions at one point that they rarely have sex, with Kaoru suggesting that it's because he's probably afraid of hurting her due to her small size [[spoiler:though that doesn't stop her from safely giving birth to triplets in the epilogue of their spin-off.]] |
| 141 | ** Mayotama says that people often think he's in junior high when he's actually a college student. Of course, he's 1.55m tall, some 19cm shorter than the average Japanese male (but around the female average). |
| 142 | * ''Manga/ImaizuminChiWaDouyaraGalNoTamaribaNiNatteruRashiiDeep'': Keita's mom looks no older than the classmates he's living with. |
| 143 | * [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] and [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed]] in the first episode of the {{ecchi}} sex comedy ''Manga/InterspeciesReviewers''. One of main character Stunk's favourite prostitutes is a beautiful elf maiden more than 500 years old. His companion Zel, a comparatively younger (a bit over 200 years old) elf who looks like a young boy himself, thinks Stunk is gross for sleeping with what he considers a hag older than his mother, while his own preferred girl is a 50-year-old [[{{Gonk}} chubby and homely]] human woman, who he nevertheless considers incredibly attractive just because she's so much younger than him (he has a thing for humans because they're always younger than 100, making him a sort of parody of ComedicLolicon). Zel justifies his opinion by saying that the elf prostitute's mana is rotten while his human girl's life force is very rich (something Stunk can't judge), so he's clearly not judging on appearance (he's also been visiting her for thirty years since she was still [[IWasQuiteALooker young and hot]]). The two seek second opinions from a pair of other adventurers to settle their argument. The beastman complains that the elf girl [[TheNoseKnows smells old and stale]], while he likes the human for her plumpness. The halfling just judges them entirely on their age, irrespective of their appearance, and isn't into either of them, although he gives the human the edge for being comparatively not as old. Conventionally speaking, the elf is obviously far more attractive, but within the series Stunk is the only one to think so. |
| 144 | * ''Manga/{{Inuyasha}}'': this is common for {{youkai}} characters due to their supernatural heritage. |
| 145 | ** Inuyasha is set up to appear, and behave, as though he's the same age as the 15-year-old Kagome. However, he is half-{{youkai}} and his appearance has not changed in 50 years. Flashbacks of his mother show her dressed in Heian-era aristocratic clothing, which would imply that Inuyasha could be as much as 500 years old. The third anime film declares that he is 200 years old, although there's no age given in canon. |
| 146 | ** Creator/RumikoTakahashi has stated that Sesshoumaru is the {{youkai}} equivalent of a 19-year-old (although the anime ages him up to look like he's in his twenties). He is Inuyasha's older brother, so he's definitely more than 50 years old. Given that the third anime film makes Inuyasha 200 years old, the anime team regards Sesshoumaru as being even older than that. |
| 147 | ** Sesshoumaru's mother looks barely any older than Sesshoumaru himself. There is no indication how old she is in the manga, but she's been around for more than fifty years. |
| 148 | ** Shishinki is an old enemy of Inuyasha's {{youkai}} father, but looks barely older than Sesshoumaru. Inuyasha's father died when Inuyasha was a young child (Inuyasha tells Sesshoumaru he doesn't have many memories of their father as a result), and Inuyasha is over 50 years old. When Jaken hears that Shinshinki was the father's enemy, he's shocked by how youthful appears to be. |
| 149 | ** In the sequel ''Anime/YashahimePrincessHalfDemon'' there are also a lot of youkai, which are much older than they look. Only the hanyou Shiori is still in a human lifespan. Because of her demonic heritage, she looks like she is 20 years old or less. But in fact she is almost 30 years old. |
| 150 | ** Also in the sequel, Kagome is 38 or 39 years old but doesn't seem to have aged at all from when she was 15. |
| 151 | * ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'': |
| 152 | ** Jotaro Kujo should be over 40 by the time the ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean Stone Ocean]]'' arc (whose 19-year-old protagonist also happens to be his daughter) rolls around -- but he barely looks like he's aged a day since his teen years [[YoungerThanTheyLook (though he looked like a guy in his twenties back then)]]. In fact, some say he actually looks ''younger'' in the later arcs. Compare his appearance at [[https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTkTcEVqtKPGFQslcH9jUcg-zbPHj97bcIxKQ&usqp=CAU age 17]] to his appearance [[http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080110031932/jjba/images/2/29/Jotaro_Kujo_Part_VI.jpg in his 40s]]. |
| 153 | ** In ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency Battle Tendency]]'', Joseph's brain nearly breaks trying to comprehend how [[spoiler:Lisa Lisa]] could be 50 years old. The answer, incidentally, is the Ripple. Supernatural powers in this series slow aging. |
| 154 | ** In ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable Diamond is Unbreakable]]'', Koichi Hirose starts out at 16 years old, but [[TinySchoolboy one could easily mistake him for an elementary schooler due to his short height]] and his high voice. It gets even more ridiculous in ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind Golden Wind]]'' when he is 18, but he is barely half the height of Giorno Giovanna, who is ''15 years old''. |
| 155 | ** There's also Poor Tom, a minor antagonist from ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureJoJolion JoJolion]]''. He has the appearance of a toddler, but he's actually ''57.'' |
| 156 | ** Interestingly enough, Creator/HirohikoAraki himself is [[MemeticMutation jokingly known]] for the fact that he never seems to age, allowing him to still look like he's in his 30's, despite being 60 years old. In a way, it seems almost inevitable that his characters would carry on this trend. |
| 157 | * In the ''Manga/JunjiItoKyoufuMangaCollection'' story "Face Thief", Kamei is a shapeshifting schoolgirl who involuntarily takes the appearance of anyone she spends time around. It is stated at the end of the story that she is not really a student and has been attending the school without permission, but no one knows how to get rid of her. They believe she is far older than she really appears. |
| 158 | * The title character of ''Manga/KamichamaKarin'', as well as her TrueCompanions, are all in the seventh grade, but look to be no older than seven, while other characters such as Kirio Karasuma and Kirika Karasuma look to be around sixteen, even though they are only [[YoungerThanTheyLook one year older than the main cast]]. This is more Koge-Donbo's style than anything else. In one panel in the first chapter, Karin is shown drawn as her true age; for almost all of the rest of the series, she and her classmates are drawn as chibis. The same goes for the author's other series Pita-Ten. |
| 159 | * Manga/{{Kazan}} hasn't aged a day since he encountered a water demon. When the story begins he's been six for 10 years. |
| 160 | * Yuka in ''Anime/{{Kemonozume}}'' is about 30, but looks like she's in her early-to-mid twenties. She seems pleased when someone correctly guesses her age. |
| 161 | * Nanoka in ''Manga/KoiKaze'' is fifteen at the start of the manga, turns sixteen a few chapters in, and is eighteen by the end. She can pass for a 12-year-old which makes her relationship with someone nearly thirty ever the more {{squick}}y, even ignoring the BrotherSisterIncest. |
| 162 | * ''Manga/KotouraSan'': |
| 163 | ** Daichi is excessively short; when Haruka first met him he was mistaken to be an elementary schooler. |
| 164 | ** Haruka herself is short among the girls, and her mother often teases her for looking child-like. |
| 165 | * In the epilogue of ''Anime/{{Kuromukuro}}'' Yukina is in her twenties, but still looks 17, because piloting an [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Efidolg]] [[HumongousMecha machine]] locked her physical age at this point through the regenerative {{nanomachines}}. |
| 166 | * The protagonist of ''Kuroneko Guardian'' is 13 but could pass for a nine or 10-year-old. |
| 167 | * Rin from ''Manga/LaidBackCamp'' is a high schooler who happens to look like a middle schooler at best (to Sensei's sister), and an elementary schooler at worst (to Nadeshiko). If anything, she's by far the most mature of the main cast. |
| 168 | * Link in one of ''Manga/TheLegendOfZelda'' manga based off the [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI original game]] is older than the teenage Zelda but looks like a little kid because he's half-elf, and elves age slower than humans. [[spoiler:He is in fact her half-brother.]] |
| 169 | * Nico Yazawa in ''Franchise/LoveLive'' is sometimes mistaken for a first-year student, due to her pigtails, childish antics, and less developed body. However, she's actually a third-year student like Nozomi and Ayase, who are taller than her. |
| 170 | * ''Manga/LuckyStar'': |
| 171 | ** Every single female character (and males, discounting [[ComedicLolicon Konata's dad]]). PuniPlush can do that for you. |
| 172 | ** The extreme cases fell on Konata, Kanata, and Yutaka -- their heights are 1.42 m, 1.43 m, and 1.38 m respectively[[note]] For those of you less familiar with metric, that's 4'8", 4'8¼", and 4'6" respectively[[/note]]. The relation between this trope and ComedicLolicon has been thoroughly explored: Kanata is the (deceased) wife of Soujiro, and Konata wore SchoolSwimsuit to attract "people with special interests" in the BeachEpisode, and when Yutaka lamented her lack of boyfriend due to being a DelicateAndSickly [[OlderThanTheyLook fauxli]], Konata told her that a lot of people are looking for her, ''should she not choose''... Yutaka's [[CheerfulChild demeanor]], and the fact that she and [[MoeCouplet her interactions]] with [[HugeSchoolgirl Minami]] seem ''[[ShoutOut very]]'' {{s|houtOut}}imilar to [[Manga/AzumangaDaioh another yonkoma-based anime with an]] ''[[Manga/AzumangaDaioh actual]]'' [[Manga/AzumangaDaioh child]] don't help her case -- even the mangaka shouted that out when Yutaka introduced herself in front of the class, and gave her [[GirlishPigtails pigtails]]. |
| 173 | * ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'': |
| 174 | ** Cinque looks like she's around ten, but she's one of the oldest members of the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Numbers Cyborgs]], and is officially the same age as Teana. |
| 175 | ** Fate's familiar, Arf, in the third season when a ten-year TimeSkip means she actually ''is'' old enough to appear as a grown woman... and she looks like a child in order to conserve energy. Before that, she was YoungerThanTheyLook. |
| 176 | ** And in a less extreme example, Chrono Harlaown looked to be roughly nine or ten years old during the first two seasons despite being fourteen. According to supplimental material, he went though a growth spurt shortly after the events of the second season and thus actually looks his age in ''[=StrikerS=]'' (where he's twenty four). |
| 177 | ** Poor Caro. The years have not been kind to her as she still has the same child-like appearance that she had in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'' despite being of adolescent age, a fact that Lutecia mocks her for in ''Manga/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaVivid''. |
| 178 | ---> '''Lutecia''': Even though we've got one shrimp, the three of us are of the same age.\ |
| 179 | '''Caro''': What did you say!? But I've grown taller by 1.5cm! |
| 180 | ** Precia Testarossa, the BigBad of the original series, looks like she's in her 20s. She's ''54''. |
| 181 | ** Likewise, by the time of ''[=StrikerS=]'', the now 41-year-old Lindy Harlaown doesn't appear to have aged a day in the 10 years since her first appearance. And for that matter, she was 31 in the original series and looked like she was in her early 20s. |
| 182 | ** Ditto for Momoko Takamachi, who still looks like she's in her twenties during her cameo in ''[[Manga/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaVivid ViVid]]'', despite being 47. |
| 183 | ** In the alternate continuity of ''Manga/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaINNOCENT'', Alicia Testarossa is several years older than her 10-year-old sister Fate, yet she still looks like the same 5-year-old she was in the main series. |
| 184 | * A lot of people in ''Manga/MadeInAbyss'', usually proportional to the time spent delving, and the depth reached, as the time flows differently down there, and the Abyss itself [[CursedWithAwesome subtly changing them as well]]. [[TheAce White Whistles]], who generally spend a lot of time on the lower levels, are usually most guilty. |
| 185 | ** Ozen The Immovable, the first White Whistle actually shown, is by all indications in her eighties, but looks no older than 30. |
| 186 | ** Lyza The Annihilator, the protagonist's mother, was shown in the flashbacks not to change at all from the time of obtaining her Whistle to her Last Dive, up to a full decade later, when she still looked about 20. |
| 187 | ** Various Narehates in the Capital of Unreturned on the Sixth Level may be {{Time Abyss}}es while looking like teenagers or even ''preteens''. As an example, Vueloelco looks no more than 18, but she's been around from ''before'' the Iruburu (and probably the entire Sixth Level) was created, and the village is ''ancient'', making her milennia-old. |
| 188 | * ''Manga/MagicalPokemonJourney'' has Ginger, who introduces herself as Coconut's sister. She appears to be around 16, which makes her overtones with Grandpa really really creepy...until [[spoiler:Coconut reveals that Ginger is her GRANDMOTHER, and Grandpa's wife. Apparently, she'd discovered a youth formula]]. |
| 189 | * ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth'', another Creator/{{CLAMP}} series: |
| 190 | ** After Hikaru stated that she was 14 years old, Umi and Fuu were shocked (Hikaru is significantly shorter), and one of them said that she thought Hikaru was still in elementary school. |
| 191 | ** An element of Cephiro is people being able to change how old they look. Character bios for the childlike Clef and Emeraude state that they are Really700YearsOld. This is averted in ''Anime/RayearthOVA''. |
| 192 | * Aladdin in ''Manga/MagiLabyrinthOfMagic'' starts off the series as a 10-year-old and biologically he is. [[spoiler: Chronologically he is a lot older due to being suspended for ''years'' as a fetus.]] |
| 193 | * In ''Manga/{{Mahoromatic}}'', Suguru's teacher is shown to look exactly the same at the series end as at its start; [[spoiler:the series ended after a twenty-year TimeSkip where she considered Suguru too old at the ripe age of thirty-four]]. This kinda begs the question; how old was she at the series start? |
| 194 | * Loco from ''Manga/{{MAR}}'' is 32 years old, despite looking like she's somewhere around ten. This is because the Darkness Arms she specializes in de-age her every time she uses them. At one point she ends up de-aging herself into infancy. |
| 195 | * [[AGodAmI God]] from ''Manga/MariaHolic'' came upon a long rotted love letter given to her years before, which looked to be pre-War Japan. She looks no different than she does in the present, and since she looks to have been the dorm leader even then, she would have to be at least 70 or 80. Also, Yonakuni. |
| 196 | * Kinue Hayase in ''Manga/MasamuneKunsRevenge'' is the main character's mother, age 42, but she appears to look between 10 and 12. |
| 197 | * Mametarou from ''Manga/MassuguNiIkou'' meets a small, sensitive dog with a high-pitched voice. He thinks that the dog is a puppy but is later told that he's seven (making him a senior). |
| 198 | * ''Manga/MedakaBox'': Zenkichi's mother looks like a 12-year-old girl but she's actually 42. |
| 199 | * Hope Stelar, Geo's mother, in ''VideoGame/MegaManStarForce'' looks more like an older sister. Then again, Geo's only ten or eleven, so she can't be too old. She looks older in the game. |
| 200 | * Kōran, the heroine of ''Mikado no Shihō'' looks much younger than her actual age of eighteen, causing her to [[RunningGag repeatedly]] [[InsistentTerminology remind]] everybody else that no, she is not a child. [[spoiler: And then there is tall and handsome Shiki who is really ''[[YoungerThanTheyLook seventeen]]'', younger than the heroine herself.]] |
| 201 | * ''Manga/MissionYozakuraFamily'': |
| 202 | ** Despite being half Mutsumi's size and dressed in gothic lolita clothing, Futaba is Mutsumi's older sister. |
| 203 | ** Makoto looks like a young man in his twenties. He's been alive for [[spoiler: over a century]]. |
| 204 | * Dragons in ''Manga/MissKobayashisDragonMaid'' are all {{Time Abyss}}es, but the only indications Ilulu is any older than [[TokenMiniMoe Kanna]] are her massive boobs. This is due to Ilulu having poorer shapeshifting abilities than the other dragons, resulting in her unbalanced appearance. She's actually around the same age as Tohru. |
| 205 | * Momo of ''Manga/MomoSora'' looks like a child. She's actually old enough to drive, be legally married and drink alcohol. |
| 206 | * Harpies in ''Manga/MonsterMusume'' are generally like this, though it's justified by their bodies needing to be small and light for the sake of flight. The harpy among the cast, Papi, looks like a young teenager, prompting everyone to regard her as a child and, in the case of Miia and Centorea, means she isn't a potential rival for Kimihito. This changes upon learning that, despite her small body and childlike nature, she's roughly the same age as them. |
| 207 | ** Papi's, Miia's, and Centorea's mothers all look very young, reaching MotherLooksLikeASister territory. Papi's mother is justified since she's a harpy, Miia and Centorea's just looking that young, and Mero's mom while not as much as the others is quite young looking. This could be explained by how most mythological creatures [[JustifiedTrope have much longer lifespans than humans]]. |
| 208 | ** Like harpies, devils can look younger than they really are depending on what class of devil they are. Lilith is a Lesser Devil and so has the body of a young child despite being an adult. The bonus chapter reveals that she likes to exploit this in petty ways like paying child fares for buses and movies. |
| 209 | ** Backbeard monoeyes look like little girls no matter how old they really are. |
| 210 | * Chiyo Sakura from ''Manga/MonthlyGirlsNozakiKun'' gets this, as she's very short. Seo even accuses Nozaki of being a paedophile after she notices him hanging around Sakura. |
| 211 | * Jim, Adam, Turkes and Lint in ''Manga/MotherKeeper'' are all this. Lint and Turkes are both cyborgs so it's understandable why they haven't aged, however Jim would presumably be about 60-70 if she made Lint yet she doesn't look older than her 30s. Turkes makes a mention to the fact he's known Adam 20 years and he hasn't aged at all either. |
| 212 | * ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'': |
| 213 | ** Mineta is by far the shortest member of Class 1-A and has a childlike appearance, but he's the same age as everyone else in the class. |
| 214 | ** La Brava looks like an elementary schooler, but she's actually 21. It helps that she's paired with the YoungerThanTheyLook Gentle. |
| 215 | * Subverted in ''Anime/MyHime'': Mai thinks Natsuki's too old to still be in high school, prompting Natsuki to explain that she's only a year or two older than her, but only ''looks'' much older than her peers because she missed a year of school. |
| 216 | * ''Manga/MyMonsterSecret'': |
| 217 | ** Downplayed with Shimada. He's actually one year older than the rest, having doubled a class, but he's about as tall as Mikan. |
| 218 | ** Rin is around 16. She looks and acts like a 12-year-old. |
| 219 | * Hanabusa Seki, Thobari's girlfriend, of ''Manga/NabariNoOu''. She's 40... |
| 220 | * ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': |
| 221 | ** Tsunade uses a transformation jutsu to keep herself looking like she's in her late twenties or early thirties (however, the use of her ''[[HealingFactor other]]'' jutsu makes her appearance without it appear ''even older'' than she really is). |
| 222 | ** Orochimaru's [[GrandTheftMe body-switching jutsu]] causes him too look like he's still in his early-to-mid-thirties. Both are between 50 and 53 years old. |
| 223 | ** Jiraiya presumably doesn't use any jutsu to keep himself looking young, as he is the only one who looks his age. With that said fans have noted Jiraiya doesn’t [[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/dd/d6/35/ddd6355cf08b5c340ca5750414a23d2c.jpg look that much different when he’s in his 50s compared to when he was in his 20s]]. In fact it’s only when he uses [[SuperMode Sage Mode]] that Jiraiya grows a beard and gets wrinkles, and he actually avoids using Sage Mode so chicks won’t be grossed out. Ironically this means unlike the other Sannin Jiraiya kept his youthfulness without artificial means. |
| 224 | ** In the third movie, Sakura fights a female assassin named Karenbana who appears to be about 12. When Sakura says to her, "You wear too much perfume for a kid", she replies with, "Kid? I'm twenty-two!" to which Sakura replies, "Oops!" |
| 225 | ** Jugo [[SleepModeSize temporarily]] looks like he is several years younger after [[spoiler:transferring part of his flesh to Sasuke to save him from a mortal injury. He later recovered when he [[HumanResources takes the body parts of an already dead opponent]] to survive a mortal injury]]. |
| 226 | ** Sasori is 35 years old. But because he modified his body to become an unaging puppet, his physical appearance is that of a 15-year-old. |
| 227 | ** The First Hokage lived long enough to have grandchildren. Nevertheless, neither him nor his brother the Second Hokage look like they've aged beyond their early 40s; for all we know, they could have been relatively young when the grandkids were born. |
| 228 | ** When they meet, Naruto instantly assumes that [[spoiler:Yagura]] is a child who never had the chance to properly experience life. He's actually both an adult (though his age isn't given) and [[spoiler:the Fourth Mizukage to boot]]. |
| 229 | ** At the end of the series and in the ''Boruto'' series, Shizune still looks as young as before. Given that she's Tsunade's student, that must be the reason. |
| 230 | * In ''Manga/{{Needless}}'', Disc is [[spoiler:a half-cyborg from the time before the big war. This makes her over 100 years old, despite her appearance as the TokenMiniMoe]]. When this is pointed out in Episode 7, Adam is less than pleased. |
| 231 | * ''Franchise/{{Negima}}'': |
| 232 | ** ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'': |
| 233 | *** Asuna Kagurazaka, who looks and is assumed by the people around her to be 14. It isn't clear just ''how'' old she is, but flashback chapters later in the manga have confirmed her to have traveled as a little girl with Nagi's company -- twenty years ago [[spoiler:(it turns out she's over 100 years old)]]. It should be noted that Takamichi, Asuna's adult teacher who also traveled with Nagi, was ''also'' a little kid at the same time. |
| 234 | *** It's hinted that Takamichi spent a ''lot'' of time training in Evangeline's time condenser, and therefore his actual age may not match his chronological age. |
| 235 | *** Also, Fate Averruncus and Zect Filius, the two white-haired pretty boys: While Fate apparently bathed in some FountainOfYouth, Zect is referenced as a "man" despite looking way younger than "Just a little brat" Nagi. And nobody finds this weird, so it may be a racial trait or something. |
| 236 | *** Then we've got the normal (we think) girls like the Narutaki twins, who look 10 years old despite being around fifteen like the rest of the class. They're actually the ''oldest'', other than [[Really700YearsOld the vampire]] and ghost. Likewise, the oldest-looking girl (Chizuru) is [[YoungerThanTheyLook actually the youngest]]. The epilogue chapter and cover shows the twins looking the age they actually are. |
| 237 | ** In ''Manga/UQHolder'', [[spoiler:Nodoka and Yue]] retain their appearance from the end of ''Negima!'' despite the 80 year gap between the two series. This is explained by [[spoiler:Negi engaging in a Permanent Pactio with the two, and his {{Immortality}} halting the aging of their bodies in the process]]. Despite looking no older than their early twenties, they're almost a century old. |
| 238 | * 14-year-old Shinji Ikari from ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' looks 12 or younger. |
| 239 | ** His [[SexyMentor guardian]] Misato is stated as being 29 years old, but she could pass for an in-universe 18-year-old (or even younger, if not for her height and figure). |
| 240 | ** With Rei and Kaworu's true identities being [[spoiler:the souls of Lilith and Adam, transplated into clone bodies that has been subjected to some degree of artifically accelatered aging]], they actually have a really strange case of [[spoiler:both being YoungerThanTheyLook]], at same time as they are also ''[[TimeAbyss Much]]'' Older Than They Look. |
| 241 | ** Come the third movie of ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion'', [[spoiler:Asuka and Mari]] are this after a fourteen year TimeSkip because of a yet unexplained condition called "curse of Eva", presumably a side-effect of piloting the titular Evangelions. And then there's Kaworu, who still looks like a teen after said 14 years, due to not being human. The epilogue of the manga reveals that [[spoiler: Mari]] is even ''older'' than expected, as she was apparently [[spoiler:knew Shinji's mother and even had an unrequited crush on her -- and it was revealed in ''3.0+1.0'' that she's the same age in ''Rebuild'' as well.]] |
| 242 | * Aoba and Nene of ''Manga/NewGame'', both 18 or 19 years old, have been mistaken as middle schoolers in-universe. |
| 243 | * Minoru from ''Anime/OccultAcademy'' is apparently old enough to smoke and be a high school teacher yet doesn't look much older than his students. |
| 244 | * Yukiya from ''Manga/OkaneGaNai'' is hit seriously with uke stereotypes. He's an 18-year-old college student but looks more like a 12-year-old boy, or an [[DudeLooksLikeALady 18-year-old woman]]. |
| 245 | * ''Franchise/OnePiece'': |
| 246 | ** Luffy, the 17-year-old hero. He looks older when he is serious (and in some of the earlier arcs he was drawn with a mature look) but with his short stature[[note]]Relatively. At 174cm (5'8½") he's slightly above-average height for the real world. But ''One Piece'' is a world of literal giants, where "normal" humans can be as much as 8 meters tall and actual giants average 12 meters and in one extreme case reached ''180 meters'' in height.[[/note]], big round head and eyes, big mouth and small nose it's hard to believe he is much older than 10 years unless you know better. Doesn't really help on the age estimation that he is also a ManChild. After the TimeSkip he is now 19, but looks like a 10-year-old as much as ever. |
| 247 | ** Chopper looks like a baby reindeer, while he is in fact 15 (17 post TimeSkip). In his semi-human form, he looks closer to his age, but no matter what form he takes, he keeps his child voice in the anime. |
| 248 | ** Nico Robin looks as young and beautiful as the then 18-year-old Nami so some viewers assumed she was the same age and got a shock to learn she’s actually 28 and 30 years old post TimeSkip. It’s even revealed Robin was a little girl around the time Gol D. Roger was still alive and most of the crew hadn’t even been born yet. This also justifies why Robin is so good at being TeamMom. |
| 249 | ** Similarly in a SBS questions, a fan did some maths, and was amazed to discover Franky was 34. Heck with that, in Franky's flashback (eight years before Water 7), he was 26 years old! While looking just like a slight grown up from his childhood! |
| 250 | ** Boa Hancock is in the same boat as Robin, being 29 when she’s introduced and 31 by the TimeSkip. But judging by [[WorldsMostBeautifulWoman appearance]] and her SmittenTeenageGirl attitude towards Luffy, you could mistake Boa for a woman a good decade younger than she actually is. |
| 251 | ** Sugar, an agent from Donquixote Pirates, is an interesting example. While she has the body and looks of a 10 to 12-year-old girl, she is actually 22 years old. This is due to [[CreepyChild her eating Hobby Hobby Fruit]] which makes her stick at the age at which she ate the fruit, [[LittleMissBadass but still no less a fighter]]. Trebol and Lao G lampshade this. |
| 252 | ** A minor case for Miss Goldenweek, who appears to be around the same age as the aforementioned Sugar but was actually 16 years old. (18 post time-skip.) |
| 253 | ** {{A|loofAlly}}okiji may look like he's in his mid-to-late twenties or early thirties, but he's actually 47/[[TimeSkip 49]]. |
| 254 | ** Shakuyaku looks like a rather young woman, but she's actually a ''62-year-old'' RetiredBadass who quit piracy forty years prior to the start of the story. A flashback to twenty years before the start of the story shows that she looked ''absolutely identical'' even back then. |
| 255 | ** Kureha looks to be in her sixties, but she's actually ''139''. Due to her body looking far more youthful than her ButterFace, a RunningGag with her involves people assuming her to be a young woman until they notice said ButterFace. |
| 256 | ** Charlotte Katakuri, one of Big Mom's Co-Dragons and her second eldest son is 48 alongside his two younger triplet brothers, yet he could easily pass for nearly half that age. |
| 257 | ** Charlotte Custard and Broyé are 46 and 43 respectively, yet appear to be around the same age as Nami at 20. In contrast, Broyé's twin sister Brûlée looks like she's at least a decade older than she actually is. |
| 258 | ** Prior to his training with Garp, Coby looked like a short and scrawny child of around 12. He was actually already a teenager of 16 years, the same age as Vivi. He stops counting for the trope after his training with Garp, which caused him to undergo an impressive physical growth; and ironically, after the TimeSkip, the [[YoungerThanTheyLook reverse trope applies]]. |
| 259 | * Tatsumaki from ''Webcomic/OnePunchMan'' looks like a teenager, but is actually 28 (Saitama [[MemeticMutation famously]] [[https://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/001/254/096/cd8.jpg mistakes her for a "lost child"]]). Her younger sister Fubuki actually looks older. |
| 260 | * In the manga ''Manga/OujaNoYuugi'' the magic-wielding strategists look like children or teenagers, but in fact they are adults trapped in child's body: inability to grow up is a price they had to pay for their super-powers. |
| 261 | * Mitsukuni "Honey" Haninozuka from ''Manga/OuranHighSchoolHostClub'' looks and acts like a 10-year-old to appeal to the [[LoliconAndShotacon Shotacon]] crowd, but is really 17/18 years old, and therefore, the oldest member of the club. At one point he infiltrates the elementary school section of Ouran just by wearing his old uniform. Part of the joke surrounding this is that Honey's birthday is on February 29th (so he technically only has a birthday once every four years on a Leap Year), thus he looks only 1/4th his actual age. |
| 262 | * Break and Sharon from ''Manga/PandoraHearts'' don't age and are at least ten years older than they appear. [[spoiler:Break is around 12 years old, though he looks like he's in his twenties. Sharon looks 13, but is really 23]]. There's also Zwei. Another example is Rufus Barma, who appears to be in his twenties or thirties despite actually being over 70 years old. |
| 263 | ** Given the bizarre way that time works in the Abyss [[spoiler:and that most of the characters are contractors]], most of the cast actually falls into this. Apart from the above examples, there's [[spoiler:Oz, who is 25 though he still looks 15, and Vincent and Gil, who look in their early twenties, were eight and nine years old at the Tragedy of Sablier... a hundred years ago. The Baskervilles also apply as they have been seen in flashbacks over one hundred years ago. And Alice, for that matter. Interestingly, when the lack of aging from first brought up, Break had said that it was a 'possible' side-affect from entering in a contract. So far every contractor has been proven to be older than they look, it makes you wonder why they bothered adding in the 'possibly'.]] |
| 264 | ** [[spoiler:Now in all likelihood this applies to Riem also due to his contract witht the March Hare]]. |
| 265 | * The main girls in ''Anime/PetitePrincessYucie'' are all 17 years old but appear no older than ten thanks to a spell cast when they were babies. |
| 266 | * Mikako Koda from ''Manga/ParadiseKiss'' is around fifteen years older than her sister Miwako, and they both look like [[{{Expy}} twins]]. |
| 267 | * In ''Anime/PleaseTeacher'', Kei is an 18-year-old male lead who is functionally 15 years old due to a coma that resembled suspended animation. Among other things, this also served as LampshadeHanging to explain the contrivance of him and Mizuho shacking up together, since eighteen is minimum age to marry... [[spoiler:And in a plot twist late in the story, he finds out that the LittleMissSnarker in his circle of friends has the exact same condition, and is actually in her ''twenties''.]] |
| 268 | * Yellow from ''Manga/PokemonAdventures''. All the Johto Dex Holders have a hard time believing that someone a foot shorter than them is in fact a year older. |
| 269 | * Okashi Nako of ''Manga/PoorPoorLips'', who looks like a kid despite, well... |
| 270 | --> '''Ren:''' That's odd. I wrote 18 to 25 in the ad. \ |
| 271 | '''Nako:''' I'm 21!! |
| 272 | * ''Manga/PrincessPrincess'': When two of the "Princesses" first met Sakamoto Akira's mother, they thought she was his sister and couldn't even figure out if she was older or younger than him. When he told them she's his mother, he even had to clarify she's not a ''step''mother. |
| 273 | * In ''Anime/PrincessPrincipal'', 20-year-old Dorothy is sent to infiltrate a high school alongside actual 15 years old Ange. Chise and Beatrice are also 15 but look around 13. |
| 274 | * ''Manga/PsychicSquad'': |
| 275 | ** There's a rather odd version of this where the EvilMentor who looks like a middle school student is really in his 80s. This changes his stated intent to "groom" the titular 10-year-olds from weird to squicky. |
| 276 | ** The said evil mentor's childhood friend and GoodCounterpart, ''three years older'' Fujiko, who looks and behaves like a horny teenage {{Kawaiiko}}, but notwithstanding her looks the titular "children" characters often call her "granny". |
| 277 | * Being [[spoiler: a time traveler stuck in a GroundhogDayLoop]], Homura of ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' has an uncertain age. Most fan estimates, based on WordOfGod [[spoiler: (around one hundred loops of forty-five days)]] suggest her to be around 26 years old, next to her middle-school peers. However, she looks the same age as the rest of the cast -- in fact, she's actually a UsefulNotes/{{Pettanko}} and the second shortest girl. Explanations, from side-effects of her powers to actual immortality, abound in the fanbase. |
| 278 | * ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'': |
| 279 | ** Hinako Ninomiya has the appearance of an innocent child though she is actually much older. When she [[EnergyAbsorption drains the battle auras]] of "delinquents", she reverts to her true age and becomes a buxom woman in her late twenties. |
| 280 | ** Also Lukkosai, who is the same age as Happosai but is cursed to turn into a little boy when splashed with cold water. |
| 281 | * ''Manga/Reborn2004'' invokes this trope with all of the Arcobaleno. |
| 282 | * Atsumi from ''Manga/RecorderAndRandsell'' is 137 cm/4'5 feet tall and looks exactly like an 11-year-old kid. |
| 283 | * Hinata Hakamada from ''Manga/RoKyuBu'' is a sixth-grader but looks and acts like she's around seven. Subverted as she does have noticeable breasts. Humorously enough, her "little" sister Kagetsu is YoungerThanTheyLook. |
| 284 | * Sun Otonashi in ''Manga/RosarioPlusVampire'' looked like a middle schooler more than a year after graduating from high school. |
| 285 | * ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'': |
| 286 | ** Kaoru refuses to believe that the youthful-looking Kenshin is a whopping 28 years old (which is ''quite'' old for a {{shonen}} manga protagonist), although that doesn't stop them from getting together in the end -- even though Kaoru is only 17 when they first meet. Likewise, when Yahiko and Misao discover that Kenshin's master Hiko Seijuurou is a remarkably well-preserved 43, they wonder if it's a side-effect of the Hiten Mitsurugi style. |
| 287 | ** And speaking of Misao, she's 16, but looks quite a bit younger, something that she doesn't react well to. One particular filler episode had all the female characters poke fun at this, even innocent little Tsubame, who is shocked that Misao is that much older than her. |
| 288 | * ''Manga/SaijouNoMeii'': Saijou should be in his 20's but he looks about 15 and acts even less than that. Probably to make it easier for the readers to identify with, as the author's stated goal in writing the manga was to inspire young people to study medicine. |
| 289 | * Souichi Tomoe, Hotaru's dad in ''Franchise/SailorMoon'', is in his late thirties, but looks at least a decade younger, not appearing to age since the incident where Hotaru almost died. Whether it's due to Germatoid's possession's effect is unknown. |
| 290 | * ''Manga/SaintSeiya'': |
| 291 | ** Libra Dhoko fills both this and the YoungerThanTheyLook trope (oddly enough). He's over 200 years old, with the body of a 21-year-old (after shedding his old skin) OR a 21-year-old in a very old body. |
| 292 | ** To elaborate more: Dohko learned a technique that allows him to slow down his metabolism and retreat himself into an [[SleepModeSize severely aged and weaker body]], but with an extremely expanded lifespan. Anytime he stops using said technique, he returns to the age he had before activating it. |
| 293 | * Yuuki of ''Manga/{{Saki}}'' is a first-year high school student who plays the role of TokenMiniMoe since she still looks like a kid. Koromo is even worse, she manages to look even younger than Yuuki despite being one year older, to the point at which a security guard mistakes her for a little kid, rather than a high school mahjong player. In fact, Koromo's the oldest member of the Ryuumonbuchi team, albeit by a small margin, since they're all second-years. |
| 294 | ** Similar to Koromo, Kurumi of Miyamori is quite short and is occasionally childish, but she is, like her teammates (which includes [[HugeSchoolgirl the incredibly tall]] [[GentleGiant Toyone]]), a third-year in high school. |
| 295 | ** Hayari Mizuhara, a pro player, is 28, something that is repeatedly pointed out every time her name is shown, despite (or because) of how she has a youthful-looking face that hasn't changed much since she was 11. |
| 296 | * Most of the girls in ''Manga/SchoolLive'' all look like middle schoolers instead of high schoolers due to the art-style. Yuki's KiddieKid [[GenkiGirl personality]] and naivety make her seem especially young. |
| 297 | * In ''Manga/SchoolRumble'', Yakumo is calm, mature, and the object of Hanai's affection. Tenma is short, acts childish, and has ExpressiveHair. Try and guess which one is older. |
| 298 | * Suzu from ''Manga/SeitokaiYakuindomo'' looks like an elementary schooler, but is actually in high school. She's a little touchy about the subject. |
| 299 | * Lain from ''Anime/SerialExperimentsLain'' is fourteen however seems younger than her similarly-aged friends. She's noticeably shorter (barely taller than the elementary-aged Taro) and more babyfaced then them. She's also less developed physically than Alice and the others. Her childishness is pronounced by her bear pyjamas and her [[GirlsLoveStuffedAnimals stuffed animals]]. In the [[VideoGame/SerialExperimentsLain video game]], Lain barely looks different between eleven and fourteen. |
| 300 | * ''Manga/TheSeveringCrimeEdge'': Iwai, due to her short stature, looks like a little girl but is actually 14 years old. |
| 301 | * ''Manga/SgtFrog'': |
| 302 | ** [[spoiler:Pururu. One episode even has Keroro catching a glimpse of her face sans makeup in a fantastic [[TheUnreveal Unreveal]].]] |
| 303 | ** Space Policewoman Poyon is implied to have captured rogue aliens on Earth since ''feudal times''. |
| 304 | * The main character of ''Manga/{{Shibatora}}'' is a 22-year-old police detective, but is frequently mistaken for a middle school student thanks to his diminutive stature, baby face, and complete inability to grow facial hair. When dressed in a middle school uniform, he easily blends into a class of actual teenagers with none of them the wiser, to the point that his bosses note that he's started talking like them, too. |
| 305 | * Shiomi of ''Manga/ShiteiBouryokuShoujoShiomiChan'' is a 56-year-old man who must go into hiding to protect his life from potential assassins. He opts to get plastic surgery, only to end up looking like a teenage girl. |
| 306 | * Yuzuru from ''Manga/ASilentVoice'' is a middle schooler but several times gets mistaken for an elementary schooler. |
| 307 | * ''Anime/SkyGirls'': |
| 308 | ** All the girls [[http://www.jcstaff.co.jp/sho-sai/skytv-shokai/skytv-index.htm appear to be about 12,]] though in reality they're aged 15 to 17. |
| 309 | ** Also, the twin mechanics Haruko and [[http://media.photobucket.com/image/sky%20girls%20ranko/crisuskeer/MyAnimeList/skyGirls25-04.jpg Ranko]] Mikagami are supposed to be older than [[http://animewriter.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/ryohei-otoha.jpg Ryohei]]. |
| 310 | * ''Literature/{{Slayers}}'': From the fourth and fifth seasons of the anime, [[BrattyHalfPint Pokota]] the prince has the voice and the demeanor of a 10-year-old. In reality, when his kingdom was struck by a plague about a decade before the series proper, his then 10-year-old body was sealed away (along with the rest of the country's citizens), and his soul was [[SoulJar placed in a stuffed animal]]. Realistically, he should be a bit older than Lina. |
| 311 | * Kamuri of ''Manga/SlowStart'' is a high-school girl who hasn't grown since elementary school. |
| 312 | * Downplayed in ''Literature/SoundEuphonium''. Yuuko is very girly and looks as if she were younger because of her hair ribbon and the way she conducts herself; thing is, she is actually of average height, but she hangs out with Kaori, who is almost a head taller than her. |
| 313 | * The Blade Children of ''Manga/{{Spiral}}'' are all the same age, that is, 17... yes, even [[TokenMiniMoe Rio]]. She actually uses her youthful, cute appearance to make unwitting enemies [[LittleMissBadass underestimate her]]. (And by the way, although he looks more his age, Eyes is the ''youngest'' of them all, despite being the second tallest of the main five and possibly the most [[TheStoic intimidating]].) |
| 314 | * Reiji Miyabi (aka Head) from ''Anime/StarDriver'' appears to be about 15 to 17 years old. Flashbacks to the time when he [[spoiler:fathered his now 15-year-old son, Takuto Tsunashi,]] suggest he's at least twice that age, if not much older. |
| 315 | ** In the same vein, there is Shingo, who looked more or less the same age as Head when he befriended him in the aforementioned flashbacks and just like him, he doesn't appear to have aged a day in the 15 years following. He's been comatose these 15 years and when he wakes up, he cryptically talks about how he "stopped growing up", but that doesn't really explain how this is possible. People have been speculating it's his first phase, but there's no official word on that. |
| 316 | * In ''VisualNovel/SteinsGateZero'', poor Maho Hiyajo keeps getting treated upon first impression as a little underage kid when she is in fact 21 years old. Daru came up with the infamous meme phrase "Legal Loli FTW" for her. |
| 317 | * ''Manga/TalesOfWeddingRings'': |
| 318 | ** Princess Nephrites is fifty-four, but resembles an 18-year-old due to being an elf (elves age slower than humans, and don't age once they reach adulthood). |
| 319 | ** Amber, an ArtificialHuman, is roughly a thousand years old, but looks the same age as everyone else. |
| 320 | * White from ''Manga/{{Tekkonkinkreet}}''; by the way he looks and acts you'd think he's a 5-year-old, but he's 11. |
| 321 | * ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'': |
| 322 | ** Simon is actually 14, but his [[OneHeadTaller stature]] and [[ShrinkingViolet attitude]] makes him look at most 12. |
| 323 | ** Viral [[spoiler:will become this because of his immortality.]] |
| 324 | * ''Manga/TokyoGhoul'' has a few examples among the cast. |
| 325 | ** Touka Kirishima mentions that Kaneki Ken still has a "kid's face", and easily passes for a highschooler. He's also mistaken for a high school student by one of the Ghoul Restaurant patrons. Compare Kaneki (19 y/o) to Touka's younger brother [[YoungerThanTheyLook Ayato]] (14 y/o) and probably she has a point. |
| 326 | ** Juuzou Suzuya looks like an androgynous youth (or [[DudeLooksLikeALady a woman]]), with people actually expressing surprise when they realize he's an adult. It's justified in his case, since [[spoiler: he was castrated to prevent puberty]], and so will never ''really'' look like a grown man. He's 19 in the original series, and 22 in the sequel but still looks like a teenager. |
| 327 | ** The horror novelist Sen Takatsuki[[spoiler: (Yoshimura Eto/One-Eyed Owl)]] looks a high schooler despite being on her twenties. |
| 328 | ** Chie Hori is incredibly short and has a round face, causing people to mistake her for a Middle School student. In ''Tokyo Ghoul:Re'', she actually has to produce her driver's license to verify her claim that she's 24. |
| 329 | ** The biggest offender of this trope is [[spoiler: Roma Hoito, the FakeCutie ex-waitress of Anteiku who was treated as a little sister by the staff, and what we presumed to be an childish and idiotic member of [[MonsterClown Pierrot]] is in fact the founder of the organization, [[KingIncognito only pretending to play dumb is because it is part of the game]] [[BreadAndCircuses she's playing to avoid boredom]]. And she's over ''50 years old'' and takes many names and aliases, one of them being SSS-rate Dodgy Mother.]] |
| 330 | * ''Manga/ToLoveRu'': Yami is 24 years old. She looks like a 15-year-old. |
| 331 | * Kotori is 32 (and married) in ''Manga/TonariNoKashiwagiSan'', but looks younger than the teenage cast. |
| 332 | * When he's introduced in Chapter 13 of ''Manga/TorakoAnmariKowashichaDameDaYo'', Torako's older brother, Mashiro, is initially taken as a lost little boy by the Pet Raising Club. The only thing that shocks the girls more than hearing Torako call him "Big Bro" and said big bro throwing the insanely strong Torako around like a ragdoll is the revelation that he's almost 35 years old. |
| 333 | -->'''Bullet:''' Yes!! He's legal!! |
| 334 | * ''Manga/{{Toriko}}'': The title character was surprised to find out when they were at an island known for its alcohol that his partner Komatsu (who looks like a preteen) is the same age he is -- 25. |
| 335 | * ''Manga/TsubasaReservoirChronicle'': |
| 336 | ** Syaoran is subjectively around 21 when the series begins ([[spoiler:TimeTravel is involved]]). He looks like a young teenager. [[spoiler:The clones don't look any older than he is at the end, but both of them are in their early-to-mid 30's... yes, the clones are older than their originals. [[TimeyWimeyBall It's complicated.]]]] |
| 337 | ** Fai looks to be in his twenties, but isn't. His real age is never said, but Yuko commented that despite his apparent youth he had already lived several lifespans. |
| 338 | * Miyu from ''Manga/VampirePrincessMiyu'', looks like a girl in her mid teens, but is hundreds of years old by the time the OVA and television series begins. The obvious reason is because she is a vampire, but furthermore, she is tasked with the fate of battling the Shinma who prey upon human kind for all eternity. |
| 339 | * In the anime of ''Manga/VenusVersusVirus'', [[spoiler:twins Lola and Layla]] don't look much older than [[spoiler:middle schoolers]], but they're actually much older than the teenagers Lucia and Sumire as they're ageless dolls. In the original manga, they're just normal humans. |
| 340 | * Thorkell from ''Manga/VinlandSaga'' is a more realistic example than most but he still in no way looks like he's in his fifties. Even more notable because he is an enormous man whose facial features suggest that he suffers from gigantism, which should mean that at that age he should be at death's door, already. |
| 341 | * ''Manga/WaratteSotomuraSan'': Sotomura's mother looks so young people at first think she's Sotomura's elder sister. |
| 342 | * Saku "[[InSeriesNickname Loli]] Momoi" from ''Manga/WastefulDaysOfHighSchoolGirls''. Because of her short stature, she is often mistaken by her peers to be a child (and her nickname comes from that fact), to her [[BerserkButton ire]]. |
| 343 | * In ''Anime/WelcomeToTheNHK'', one of Satou's "study materials" (i.e. {{eroge}}) has a cover with a big-eyed, small-chested girl... and the title of the game is actually "I Am Not Loli!" |
| 344 | * The Ryoto family from ''Wild Life'' turns this up to eleven. Tsukasa Ryoto is probably in his mid-40s, but still look like a 20-year-old. His ''father'' and ''grandmother'' looks the same age, even though the latter is 100 years old. |
| 345 | * ''Manga/TheWorldGodOnlyKnows'' has Shotaro Shiratori, who despite being a grandfather has the appearance of a {{Bishonen}}. |
| 346 | * ''Manga/WorldTrigger'': |
| 347 | ** Yūma Kuga has an artificial body made of Trion which doesn't show any signs of aging, so he looks like a young boy despite being years older. [[LivingOnBorrowedTime Doesn't mean that he's immortal though...]] |
| 348 | ** A03 Sōya Kazama is one of the few active agents who are older than 20, but is usually mistaken as as a middle schooler due to his petite stature. The author implies that you can tell who knows his age by whoever refers to him as either ''-senpai'' (you're older than me), or ''-san'' (you're the same age frame as me). |
| 349 | * ''Manga/XxxHolic'': [[spoiler:Watanuki takes over Yuuko's shop after her death, he goes into a similar un-aging and anomaly-to-the-universe state. By the end of the series he's over 100 years old but physically looks barely older than the teenager he was when the series started.]] |
| 350 | * Katsuo of ''Manga/YakitateJapan''. When he first appears in the Newcomer Exam, everyone assumes he's a child because of his small stature and boyish appearance. When he makes it to the semifinals, his ''wife'' appears to cheer him on, and he reveals that he's actually 31. |
| 351 | * Nanami in ''Manga/YandereKanojo'' is another high schooler who looks like she's still in elementary. This causes problems when she falls for main character Manabu, who thinks she ''is'' the age she looks, and treats her as having a PrecociousCrush on him. |
| 352 | ** Also of note is the Principal's wife, who looks as if she's still at school, but was actually classmates with her husband. The other characters even lampshade just how weird it is. |
| 353 | * ''Manga/YonaOfTheDawn'': |
| 354 | ** Zeno is seventeen, but looks more like he's 14 or 15. [[spoiler: And he ''certainly'' doesn't look over 2000.]] |
| 355 | ** There's also Kija, who's 20 but looks (and acts) younger than the 18-year-old Hak. This fact is lampshaded in chapter 114 by Yoon. |
| 356 | ** Later chapters introduced Princess Tao, a princess from Kouka's neighbouring kingdom of Xing, who looks to be no older than 13 or 14. She's 19 in reality, three years older and far tinier than the manga's protagonist, Yona, who's fairly petite herself. |
| 357 | * Nono from ''Yotsunoha'' falls under this when the [[TimeSkip gang gets back together]]. Unlike her friends she barely grew over time. |
| 358 | * Yugi's childlike appearance is a source of comic relief in both the ''Manga/YuGiOh'' manga and the [[Anime/YuGiOhFirstAnimeSeries first series]]. He's supposed to be 16 years old. He looks about ten. It's played with even more when you consider his child-like innocence (to an extent at least, he trades pixilated porno tapes with Jonouchi), and how physically vulnerable he is compared to everyone else in the cast. It also bugs him a lot when people mistake him for a grade-schooler. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries'', where he says that he looks like he's 10 and that [[YoungerThanTheyLook Serenity, who is about 12 to 14 years old, looks like she's 16]]. |
| 359 | * Exaggerated in ''Anime/YuGiOhSevens'' with Mimi Atachi, who looks like an elementary-school student despite being ''37 and a '''mother'''''. At least once she's seen drinking in a bar... with a sign on her back saying "I'm An Adult" for the benefit of the other customers. |
| 360 | * ''Manga/YuriIsMyJob'' |
| 361 | ** The protagonist, Hime Shiraki, is a first-year in high school(10th grade, meaning she's 15 at the start of the series), but is short and cute, so her appearance hasn't changed as much since then as her old friend Mitsuki Yano's has. |
| 362 | ** Mai Koshiba is the oldest member of the Liebe Academy salon, having been older than the then 18-year-old Nene Nishidera and 16-year old Sumika Chibana at the time of Liebe's founding, [[VagueAge although her actual age is censored with a bunny symbol]]. She doesn't look it, though, as she's about as short as Hime and similarly cute. |
| 363 | * ''Anime/YuriOnIce'': |
| 364 | ** Main character Yuri Katsuki is 23 (and turns 24 after Episode 9) and is the third oldest competing skater after Christophe and Georgi, but he looks younger than most of the other skaters, [[YoungerThanTheyLook nearly all of whom are in their late teens to early twenties]]. |
| 365 | ** Kenjiro Minami is 17, but he looks younger than Yuri Plisetsky (who's the youngest competing skater at 15), being shorter and very baby-faced. |
| 366 | ** Minako Okukawa is one of the few named characters whose official age hasn't been revealed, but WordOfGod has stated that she's older than Yuri's mother Hiroko (who's 49 and calls Minako "senpai"), which would put her in her ''fifties''. Despite that, she looks even younger than Yuri's sister Mari, who's 30. |
| 367 | * Marube from ''Manga/{{Yuureitou}}'' is a more realistic example than most. He's in his forties but can pass for someone ten years younger. He works out. This is {{foreshadowing}} for [[spoiler:his obsession with staying young and beautiful. He wants to become a woman (though it's superficial instead of being trans) in order to be so. He looks [[CreepyCrossdresser quite attractive dressed up]] despite his age]]. |
| 368 | * ''Manga/YuunaAndTheHauntedHotSprings'': |
| 369 | ** Despite looking like a man in his late twenties, Byakuei has been around for over 120 years. He kept himself from aging by using the techniques he developed in his search for immortality. |
| 370 | ** Chitose looks like a 13-year-old girl. She's actually a ZashikiWarashi, and thus thousands of years old. |
| 371 | * ''Manga/YuushaGojoKumiaiKouryuugataKeijiban'': |
| 372 | ** Legal Loli looks like a preteen. Her real age isn't given, but she's implied to be ''very'' advanced in years. |
| 373 | ** The Hero of Alunt looks like a 10-year-old child, but is actually a little under a century old. |
| 374 | * Ranewater Calder from ''Manga/ZombiePowder'', leader of the Ash Daughter Gang. Although he looks like a young boy, is actually an old man who manages to retain his youthful looks with Phoenix-Samin. His nickname is actually "Old Man Calder". |
| 375 |
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