Ah the Time Skip. Some fans favorite moment of the series. Everyone is
stronger,
smarter,
more attractive. The kids are teens, the teens are adults and the adults are...um still adults.
This is somewhat
Truth In Television, if only a few years have gone by the difference between how much an adult changes and how much an adolescent does can be drastic. There's a much more visible difference aging from 10-15 than there is aging from 35-40.
However this gets particularly noticeable when after reaching a certain age, adults in a series stop showing signs of aging at all. No wrinkles, no gray hairs, no change in build, and often times no costume changes or new hairstyles either.
Not to be confused with
Not Allowed To Grow Up, may overlap with SORAS.
Examples
Anime/Manga
Western Animation
- The Lion King - Most noticeable in the timeskip sequence when Simba Timon and Pumbaa are walking across the log, Simba goes from child, to teen to adult. Timon and Pumbaa don't change at all.
- The most triumphant example is probably Zazu, from Simba's presentation ceremony as a newborn at the beginning of the first movie, to his full grown daughter finding a mate and inheriting the kingdom at the end of the second (two full generations later) he hasn't aged a day.
- Also happens in Sleeping Beauty
- And Disney's Tarzan
- In Batman Beyond: Bruce Wayne is allowed to grow old, but not to die. This leads, in the Distant Finale, for an incredibly ancient-looking Bruce Wayne, who must be at least over a hundred, to still be kicking around the Batcave.
Video Games
- The Legend Of Zelda Ocarina Of Time - After the seven year skip only the kids are shown to have changed to adults. Only exceptions are Ganondorf, and to a small extent Ingo who received a new costume
- Between the 3rd and 4th generations of Record Of Agarest War Alberti grows from a teen to middle-aged. Between the 4th and 5th generations? No change, even though there was a nearly 20 year Time Skip both times.