Coming Of Age Story - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Coming Of Age; Coming Of Age Stories

A generic story featuring a teenage adolescent making the mental leap from child to adult. In real life, this happens over the course of several years. But for a movie, things have to be compressed to several months at the most, so expect some really accelerated character development. Tends to happen to a character anywhere from 13 to 20 years of age.

Usually includes some combination of the following:

Death By Newbery Medal
Down The Rabbit Hole
The Heros Journey
First disagreement with parents.
First experimentation with drugs, alcohol, tobacco or any combination of the three.
Growing Up Sucks
The divorce of the main character's parents.
Sex As Rite Of Passage

An increasingly popular comedy subversion is the Delayed Coming of Age Story, in which the person has remained mentally a child his entire life and only finally experiences these things sometime between his late 20s and mid-40s.

Mainstream film coming-of-age stories tend toward dramedy. Independent film or novel stories lean toward drama, sometimes jumping headlong into Wangst.

In a case of True Art Is Foreign the word bildungsroman ("educational novel") or bildungsgeschichte ("educational story") are sometimes used to describe these kinds of stories.

Examples

A Little Princess
Candy Candy
A Separate Peace
Driving Lessons
The Chosen
Thumbsucker
Running with Scissors.
ef - a tale of memories
Nearly anything written by Judy Blume.
Super Dimension Fortress Macross and its sequels, Macross 7 and Macross Frontier, with Hikaru Ichijo being the first in the franchise to fit this trope. He starts off not wanting anything to do with the military, but the death of Roy Fokker forces him to mature and become a great pilot.
- Then again, before Hikaru there was Amuro Ray of Mobile Suit Gundam and probably the best of the earliest examples in mecha anime. Amuro got slapped very often by Bright Noa and this helped shape him into a man. Even Bright explicitly tells him that a good smacking would force him to become one.
Arguably FLCL. But since it's made by Studio Gainax, it's a coming of age story combined with Humongous Mecha, a Mind Screw plot, and loads of confusing and gratuitous sexual symbolism and humor.
- More than arguably, as all of the crazy shit that's happening is all symbolism for the confusion of puberty.
I don't need to mention that other thing Gainax made that can be described exactly the same way, do I?
- Neon Genesis Evangelion is more a subversion: It's about most of the people failing to come of age and suffering for it. Really, Shinji learns almost nothing until the very end of The Movie. And by then it's way too late.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, also made by Gainax.
If you boil all the Unwanted harem bits and leave only the core of the plot, you can see that Mahou sensei Negima is basically a story of Negi growing from good-natured and smart but somewhat clumsy and socially awkward kid into a great hero, a true successor to his legendary father. Only with magic and kung-fu. It's also a literal coming of age story, as his constant use of Evangeline's Year Inside Hour Outside resort has presumably aged him up by at least a year.
Narutaru. Shiina copes with loss and tragedy and learns a great deal about friendship, love, and the complexities of people and the world. Then she and her partner/ShadowArchetype, Mamiko, wipe out all of mankind together.
HBO's Rome contains a few examples. Brutus goes from a half drunk socialite controlled by the whims of fate and his manipulative mother to a self possessed stoic cutting the straps from his armor as he walks alone against an entire platoon. Octavian meanwhile goes from a geeky wimp at the start of the series to a very, very, creepy Magnificent Bastard in the close.
SLC Punk!
The musical A Chorus Line crams sixteen coming-of-age stories into the montage "Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love". Lyrics here.
Y The Last Man features a reasonably realistic delayed coming of age story amongst the Gendercide, war, cloning, cultists and conspiracies going on all over the place.
Arguably, Sky Girls, combined with Humongous Mecha and Fanservice, and Character Development. Oh yeah, character development, arguably the thing that elevated its fanservice-vehicle OVA into a solid series.
Edge of Seventeen
Now And Then Here And There
Piano
A fairly large portion of Australian movies are examples of this. They also tend to be rather samey-December Boys is probably the most notable example of recent years, only because it had Daniel Radcliffe in it, and promoting largely used his role in it even though it was relatively minor.
Mokke, where ghosts are being used to illustrate lessons about life. It's actually rather well done.
Binbou Shimai Monogatari
The main premise of Hidamari Sketch, if not particular clear to some, is on Yuno's wanting to be mature. It is kind of lampshaded when she was overjoyed on any suggestions that she has matured whatever a small bit.
Full Metal Alchemist, Lampshaded so many times by so many characters you'd think they're paid for it.
Windy Tales
Hitohira
Diamond Daydreams
Twin Spica
Sugar Rush
A New Hope, and the movies following it. 19-year-old Luke takes his first steps into a larger world and goes on the Journey of the Hero. Okay, it's also a Space Opera, but he really does grow up through the films.
Katekyo Hitman Reborn, when it boils down to it. It's really mostly about Tsuna being shaped and trained by Reborn into becoming a real man fit for being the 10th Generation Vongola boss.
Ashita No Nadja
If you look past the, er, special premise, Kodomo No Jikan is basically this.
Now And Then
Eureka Seven showed the maturation of several characters, even beside the protagonist Renton.
Chrono Crusade seems to be a coming-of-age story for Rosette, particularly in the manga. It might be one for Chrono as well, although he'd be a "late bloomer" example as he's Really Seven Hundred Years Old.
The Graduate.
Mega Man Star Force seems to be one of these, as the main character (Geo) starts out by shutting out the world in the first game, then grows up through the second game, so that by the third he is able to step up and take charge of the gang when Luna Platz has been datafied.
Aoi Hana
Most Studio Ghibli movies, including Spirited Away and The Cat Returns.
The Legendof Zelda somewhat fits this trope. For example, in Ocarina of Time, Link starts out as a mere orphan, but he eventually becomes well trained in the art of the sword and obtains the great status of the Hero of Time.
Onani Master Kurosawa
- In every sense of the word.
All three of Fate Stay Night's routes. The first two leave his future developments open. The last route, Heaven's Feel, is basically one possible conclusion.
Real heartbreakingly deals with teenagers forced to grow up because of the disabilities that they've suddenly had to accept in order to deal with the world around them
Full Moon wo Sagashite also deals with the protagonist, Mitsuki, having to grow up while dealing with the fact that she doesn't have much time to live.
17-year-old Baby goes through this in Dirty Dancing.
Fushigi Yuugi is a coming-of-age story, among other things, for just about all the good guys—yeah, especially Miaka. Bonus points because, while it takes somewhere between a few weeks to a few months for them to finish their journey in the book, it's only two days in the real world.
To some extent, Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid might count as a coming-of-age story for Sousuke. During the season, he got separated from Kaname which pissed him off royally. By the last episode, he even goes so far as to verbally insult a GENERAL to get his will through. Mardukas and Kalinin both comment on it afterward (although it's clear why he did it); it was also the first instance where he properly socialised with Tessa (so much so that she was gawking at him in shock).
A Bronx Tale.
Arguably a main point in Niea_7, at least for Mayuko.

Examples of Late Bloomer Subversions:

The 40-Year Old Virgin
- Arguably, Knocked Up and Pineapple Express, too. The protagonists do drugs and have sex, but they're still mentally about fifteen.
Getting It Right
The Winner
Adrian Mole, who basically went through an extended 20-year adolescence from age 13 to his mid-30s.
Flowers For Algernon, arguably.
A parody of this version of the trope seems to be the recent Step Brothers.
Avenue Q. Princeton is a college grad, but he's still not ready for real adult life.
Failure To Launch
Georgy Girl is a female version of this.
As a friend of this troper pointed out, Muriel's Wedding is best analyzed as a (subversion of a) coming of age story; the protagonist becomes prettier as the film progresses, and she has a more mature point of view at the film's end.
Isabel Spellman from Spellman Files.
While Kodomo No Jikan is the story of Rin Kokonoe, her Christmas Cake teacher Shirai goes through this variant as well.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer is one enormous coming-of-age story (only, you know, with monsters and superpowers) for Buffy, Willow and Xander, and the run of the series is structured to follow specific stages of adolescence.
Like many shojo manga, Gokinjo Monogatari. Only, since it's Ai Yazawa, the characters' motivations for maturing and growing are mainly their dreams and aspirations of becoming graphic artists and fashion designers.
- The same goes for Paradise Kiss and Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai.