A Minor Kidroduction

Over a decade later, and you still gotta deal with it.

Screenwriter: So now that we've established that both main characters were once children, we can move on.
Producer: I guess it will be helpful moving forward to know that these were once children, and that they weren't born fully-grown men.

— Screen Rant Pitch Meetings for Star Trek (2009)

Sometimes a work begins by showing us the main character as a child. It can also show us an important supporting character, but it's usually the main character. These kinds of introductions are barely longer than a few minutes at most, and they seldom affect the plot in any way other than being a way to highlight some basic character motivation and possibly foreshadow important character traits, or perhaps provide the origin of some Character Catchphrase. After the introduction is done, we are transferred to the present day (often via Age Cut) where the main character is grown up (and played by the featured actor or actress).

May show them playing with a Weapon Jr.. See also Kid Hero All Grown-Up. Subtrope of Distant Prologue. Can overlap with A Hero Is Born. Quite often is either a contrast to their adult self or an Establishing Character Moment.

Truth in Television considering it's pretty universally true that people's most formative experiences tend to happen in their childhood.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Afro Samurai introduces us to kid Afro and provides him his motivation for the rest of the gore-fest to come.
• The Anthem of the Heart starts with a young Jun discovering her father's infidelity.
• Asteroid in Love starts with how Mira and Ao, then as children, made The Promise at a campsite.
• Attack on Titan has one that's a bit longer than most examples. The first two episodes show Eren, Mikasa, and Armin as children, on the day their home village is destroyed by the Titans.
• Bakuman。 begins with Mashiro Moritaka getting a visit from his uncle Mashiro "Kawaguchi Taro" Nobuhiro (who is dead by the time the main story begins), who praises him for his artwork and suggests that he will be an artist when he grows up. Moritaka then notes that he wasn't referring to him becoming a mangaka.
• Black Fox begins with Rikka at 10 years old or thereabouts, and hints at her future struggle with her family's tradition as ninjas, and her desire to follow her father's footsteps as a scientist.
• The last chapter of Naruto sets up the young generation for Boruto. Boruto and his peers are far younger in that chapter, being around 7-8 years old, whereas when the anime starts, they are older.
• Code Geass:
  • Code Geass starts with a little kid version of Lelouch Lamperouge and Suzaku Kururugi surrounded by smoking debris, implied to be the result of a Britainnian attack. Lelouch vows to oppose Britannia for as long as he lives. Cue opening song.
  • Code Geass: Nightmare of Nunnally begins similarly, showing Nunnally and Lelouch at some point not long after their exile, with Lelouch promising to protect Nunnally.
• EDENS ZERO opens with a scene of Shiki's childhood, showing his upbringing among robots and him learning the importance of friendship. The anime extends it slightly to further foreshadow the First-Episode Twist of space travel, and to introduce other elements early like Shiki's phobia of bugs and his dream of finding Mother.
• The first Fatal Fury OVA starts off with Terry and Andy (and Lily) as kids, and shows us the source of their motivation for the remainder of the cartoon.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Fullmetal Alchemist starts out with a page of 10-year-old Ed, right after his failed human transmutation.
  • The 2003 anime version likewise begins with said failed transmutation; two episodes later, we get the whole story.
• Hayate the Combat Butler begins with a flashback to Hayate's childhood where Santa tells Hayate that he wouldn't ever bring him a present, and provides one of the reasons why Hayate is so strong-willed.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure starts off with Jonathan Joestar and Dio Brando meeting as grade-school boys. Just a couple chapters later and we see them again as young adults.
• Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! opens with a scene showing how main character Midori Asakusa first discovered her passion for animation, having been fascinated with the movies she watched as a young child and incorporating it into her already-present love of drawing and worldbuilding. After this, the story flashes forward to the start of her first year in high school (not exactly adulthood, but a great chronological leap from early childhood nonetheless), from which point the rest of the plot carries on.
• Love Hina. It features two of the protagonists; later it has a bit of a retcon that adds a third one.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS begins with Subaru as a kid being saved by Nanoha, motivating her to join the Time-Space Administration Bureau.
  • ViVid Strike! has Fuka protecting Rinne from some bullies when they were children.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Reflection opens with a scene with the Florain sisters as children.
• One Piece: The first chapter of the manga introduces Luffy as a young boy and has him gain his powers and the motivation for becoming King of the Pirates. However, he's still too small and weak to begin his adventure, and the story skips to 10 years later where Luffy is now a strong young man and finally sets out to sea^note The anime changes this into a flashback episode just after Zoro joins the crew.
• One Stormy Night begins with Mei (still a kid) being forced to run away when his mother is mauled to death by wolves. A "kid" is actually a baby goat.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Pokémon: The First Movie originally lacked one. However, later television airings and home releases included The Birth of Mewtwo sequence. It tells Mewtwo's backstory and is an adaptation of a radio drama.
  • Pokémon Journeys: The first episode is set in a flashback that depicts Ash as a kid, establishing his adventurous spirit and love for Pokémon, while introducing the secondary protagonist Goh, who is shown to be very knowledgable of Pokémon for his age. In addition, Pikachu is introduced as a wild Pichu living with a group of Kangaskhan prior to becoming Ash's first Pokémon. Pichu had also evolved by the time he had been caught by Professor Oak.
• Pretty Cure:
  • Episode 4 of Doki Doki! PreCure^note Episode 3 for those following Glitter Force Doki Doki opens with a young Alice being bullied in school, and young Mana and young Rikka stand up for her.
  • Go! Princess Pretty Cure's first episode opens with a young Haruka getting bullied in school for liking princesses, which leads her to meeting Prince Kanata.
  • The first episode of KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode starts with a young Ichika watching her mother bake, thus inspiring a love of baking in herself.
• Sailor Moon: The title sequence of the SuperS movie features the five main Sailor Soldiers as children.
• Saint Seiya Omega begins with the main character Kouga as a baby being taken care of by Saori, before Mars interrupts the family moment.
• Sound of the Sky's first scene has Kanata, the main character, dreaming of the time from her childhood when she met a certain military bugler that gave her the idea to become a bugler herself.
• Special A begins with kid Hikari practicing martial arts with her father, and then kid Kei comes and defeats her easily, realeasing plot.
• The first chapter of Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee shows a 7-year-old Lag Seeing being delivered to Cambel Litmus, establishing his goals of finding his mother and meeting Gauche again. By the end of the chapter, he's five years older, and ready to set out to become a Letter Bee.
• Tekken: The Motion Picture begins with a flashback with Kazuya Mishima and Jun Kazama as kids. This scene is very important for the plot later in the movie.

Asian Animation

• Happy Heroes: Season 9 begins with a scene showing young Doctor H. building a time machine and trying and failing to save his father from being abducted by aliens.

Comic Books

• Batman: Tim Drake is first subtly introduced as a young kid in a flashback in Batman 436 to the night of the Grayson murders which establishes a backstory and origin for him when he shows up following Batman four issues later.
• The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016): Diana is a child in the first issue, which establishes the changes made to Themyscira and the Amazons for this Elseworld and that there is a looming threat over the island which most of the other Amazons do not notice. There is then an Age Cut while she trains under Alcippe which brings her to the young adult age she is at when Steve Trevor crashes onto the island and she ends up leaving to the wider world.
• Supergirl (1984) introduces Kara as a little girl. A few pages later, she is a 17-year-old young lady.

Fan Works

• Rose of Pollux's Doctor Who works have two for Jamie, Great Things and This All Happened Once Before. In the former, he first meets the Doctor at the age of two months old, and is around 10 in the latter.
• In Which Guzma Is Frustrated starts with a young Guzma being frustrated because he wasn't chosen to be his island's kahuna. It then leaps two years into the future with Guzma trying to become a different island's kahuna.
• In A Colder War, as well as meeting Tony Stark when he's a teenager, Steve also meets Hope van Dyne while she's a child and has a seemingly chance encounter with a teenage Phil Coulson and Melinda May at the space shuttle launch. Later, Steve's new neighbours when he gets his own apartment are Sam Wilson's parents, and a rogue Black Widow rescues Natasha when the would-be Black Widow of the Avengers is just a little girl.
  • While Steve doesn't meet them directly, various chapters include a brief reference to what the future canon Avengers are doing at this point in their lives, such as two boys running off to join the circus (Clint Barton and his brother), or another attending his mother's funeral while trying to suppress his rage at his father (Bruce Banner).
• Harry Tano starts with the 17-year-old Ahsoka Tano meeting the 4-year-old Harry Potter, with the first few chapters explaining how Ahsoka became Harry's foster mother, raising him alone until they met Sirius, Remus, the Grangers, and the Weaselys when Harry was eight. Much like in the books, the story really kicks off when Harry turns eleven.
• Let Us Be Your Poison begins with a flashback of Ruby, her sister Yang, and their mother Summer back when she was a little kid. It shows Ruby's last interaction with Summer before her Public Execution.
• Light of the Moon: The story starts when Varian's a baby, and the earliest chapters cover the first eight years of his life. A Time Skip follows Varian's abduction and being taken to the tower, with him being fourteen by the start of the film.
• The first portion of the first chapter of The Masks we Wear (JiggleWigs) takes place 15 years earlier. It starts with the attempted Ruling Family Massacre of the Fire Nation when Azula was a baby and Zuko was a toddler.
• Several sidestories of Pokémon Reset Bloodlines begin with their protagonists as children. Examples include the Cynthia, Skyla and Misty Gaidens.
• In A Saga of Parallel Worlds, The Nerd is introduced through a video of his past self on Christmas Day 1993, opening the Super Nintendo CD alongside some games.
• Spider-Ninja starts with Petra Parker as a 4-year-old being adopted by Master Splinter and meeting his 5-year-old sons, before time-skipping to them meeting April.
• Symbiosis begins with a 2-year-old Ash being hidden in the Viridan Forest by his father's Mareep to escape the people who killed Ash's parents and him settling into life there with his adoptive pokemon father, Poison Lance. It then Age Cuts to Ash entering and leaving elementary school and finally to him leaving Viridan Forest at age 10 to become a Pokemon trainer.
• Team Rocket Roots starts with Jessie's mother Miya giving her to foster care as a toddler because she can't keep Jessie at the headquarters. It then timeskips to 23 years later, with Jessie now being an adult.
• Warmth starts over a decade ago, with Nyamo and Yukari's "love letter" Noodle Incident from high school.
• Many of the stories in With Pearl and Ruby Glowing start with a movie fragment of the focus character when they were younger.

Film — Animation

• Alpha and Omega begins with Kate and Humphrey meeting each other as young wolf pups.
  • Not to mention Kate's sister Lilly and Humphrey's buddies.
• Anastasia begins 10 years before the main story, establishing the title character's relationship with her grandmother and showing how she survived the Russian Revolution, albeit with a head injury that results in Identity Amnesia. We also briefly see her Love Interest, Dimitri, a palace servant who helped them escape from the revolutionaries.
• Arlo the Alligator Boy begins with the newborn Arlo Beauregard abandoned in the New York City sewers on the night of his birth, and shows how he floated all the way to the Louisiana swamp where he was adopted and reared by Edmée for 15 long years until he learned the truth of his life.
• Blue Sky Studios really liked this trope:
  • Rio begins with Blu as a fledgling, who's kidnapped from the Brazilian jungle and taken to Minnesota, where he's adopted by a little girl, Linda.
  • Robots begins with baby Rodney, and shows both how his family is poor and how he dreams of one day becoming an inventor on par with his hero, Bigweld.
  • Ferdinand: The movie starts with Ferdinand as a calf, showing him being teased by the other calves for liking flowers over fighting. It also shows how he left the bull ranch and had a happy life growing up on the flower farm.
• In The Book of Life, La Muerte and Xibalba first make The Bet when they see Manolo, Maria, and Joaquin playing together as children.
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs opens with 8-year-old Flint showing off one of his first inventions, and later receiving his trademark labcoat from his mom. The second film starts off with his 8-year-old self again, this time revealing his admiration towards Chester V, further establishing his aspiration for becoming an inventor.
• Disney Animated Canon:
  • Atlantis: The Lost Empire begins with a young Kida crying for her mother, the former Queen of Atlantis as she is sacrificed by the Crystal to save her kingdom from a tidal wave. This fails, and as a result the Queen dies and Atlantis ends up underwater. Milo was also briefly shown as a child in both an old photograph of his as well as on an old film reel just right after the titles appear.
  • Bolt starts up with the titular dog as a puppy getting adopted — whether this scene is a part of the Show Within a Show is left unclear, since the show's director heavily favors Enforced Method Acting.
  • Cinderella briefly shows the titular heroine and her stepsisters as little girls during the film's prologue.
  • At the very beginning of Dinosaur, Zini is actually shown as a baby lemur alongside with a pregnant Plio during the scene where Aladar's egg is shown landing in a small bush on Lemur Island and immediately hatching out of said egg.
  • At the beginning of The Emperor's New Groove, Kuzco is briefly shown as a baby right after he is introduced in his llama form. It then cuts to his teenage human form prior to his transformation.
  • Encanto: The movie introduction scene takes place on Mirabel's 5th birthday, the day she's supposed to receive her magical gift. Her abuela tells the story of the family miracle through flashbacks, and then encourages Mirabel to go receive her gift and use it to make the family proud. We see Mirabel reach for the door, and some time after it flashes to the present, we learn that it didn't give her a gift.
  • Frozen opens with Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, and Sven as children, setting up the back story for why Elsa is reclusive, Anna feels unwanted, and why the sisters are separated.
    • Frozen II opens on a flashback of Anna and Elsa as children, with their father telling them the story of the enchanted forest of the Northuldra people.
  • The first half of The Lion King (1994) centers around Simba growing up prior to becoming a full-grown lion.
  • Moana begins with the titular Moana listening to a relevant background story, having a special relationship with the sea and voyaging, and being chosen by the Sea to find Te Fiti's Heart as a toddler. It segues into an Age-Progression Song that shows her growing up and her peers trying to dissuade her from her fascination with the ocean.
  • The Princess and the Frog opens with Tiana and Charlotte as little girls, hearing the story of... well, guess.
  • Raya and the Last Dragon: The beginning is set when Raya is a preteen. The bulk of the film is set six years later.
  • At the very beginning of Sleeping Beauty, we see Prince Phillip as a young child and baby Princess Aurora (well, it's implied since we don't actually see her,) at Aurora's Christening.
  • Tangled begins with Rapunzel as a baby, then briefly shows her as a toddler and a young child before starting the main plot on her 18th birthday. These scenes are relevant, though, as they show Mother Gothel kidnapping Rapunzel from the castle and Rapunzel developing her obsession with the lanterns, both of which drive the plot throughout the entire movie.
  • Tarzan has the first half or so of the movie be about Tarzan growing up, with the first sixth being about the apes finding him as an infant and the second sixth being about him meeting Terk and Tantor as a child. It culminates with the Age-Progression Song "Son of Man".
  • Treasure Planet starts with Jim and his mother reading a bed-time story about Captain Flint and the planet where he hid his treasure.
  • Zootopia opens with scenes of Judy participating in a play about the savage beginnings of their world and later has her defending her sheep friends from a fox bully.
• The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, unlike the original, only briefly shows Kiara as a cub on the day she meets Kovu.
• Ariel's daughter Melody was introduced as an infant in the beginning of The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea.
• Ariel and her sisters were briefly shown as little girls at the very beginning of The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning.
• The Loud House Movie: The "Life is Better Loud" sequence begins with showing how Lynn Sr. and Rita first met, before showing them getting married and then siring the Loud kids. We see the births of all eleven siblings, with shades of Early Personality Signs to boot.
• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa opens with Alex as a cub, showing how he was separated from his family in Africa and wounded up in the Central Park Zoo, where child versions of Marty, Melman and Gloria are also seen.
  • Likewise, the first four minutes of the spinoff film Penguins of Madagascar opens with baby versions of Skipper, Kowalski and Rico in Antarctica along with a newborn Private, before picking up from the ending of the third movie.
• Megamind starts out with the title character narrating how both he and rival Metro Man landed on Earth as infants and then later encountered each other again in elementary school which sets up their rivalry.
• Mr. Peabody & Sherman: A brief flashback at the start of the film shows a puppy Peabody that nobody wants to adopt, and then a scene of a grown-up Peabody finding a baby Sherman abandoned in a cardboard box and adopting him.
• My Little Pony: A New Generation opens with a scene of Sunny Starscout (the main protagonist of the movie) as a child having a playdate with Sprout and Hitch before moving on to her as an adult.
• Pixar:
  • Brave shows Merida as a young child at the beginning. Her three mischievous brothers aren't shown because they weren't born yet.
  • Elemental (2023) opens with the birth of protagonist Ember Lumen and later, several scenes of her life growing up in Firetown are shown with her parents Bernie and Cinder. Additionally in the opening, young Ember helps contribute to her family's shop, the Fireplace, which includes helping out with her father's deliveries and learning to run the shop.
  • Inside Out opens with the main human character, Riley, as a baby and then shows a few scenes of her life growing up before reaching the main events of the film, in which Riley is a pre-teen girl who has just moved to a new town.
  • Monsters University opens with Mike Wazowski on a field trip to the scare floor, where he gets inspired to try to become a Scarer.
  • Andy at the very beginning of Toy Story 3, portrayed as footage from a Happier Home Movie.
  • Turning Red downplays this: It opens with a New Year's card for 1994 with young Mei and her parents, then shows more pictures of her growing up, while 13-year-old Mei narrates and explains her family philosophy. The brief montage ends with a similar card for 2002 (the movie's present) from which Mei literally jumps into the film.
  • Up opens with Carl and Ellie meeting as little kids, and it does set up the rest of the movie... by showing how important they were to each other, and their united dream of seeing the wilds of South America.
• The Prince of Egypt naturally begins with a scene where Moses is put in the river by his mother Yocheved, accompanied by young Miriam and Aaron. Miriam even gets a solo in the song. We also see toddler Ramses, who is with the Queen when she finds Moses.
• Quest for Camelot introduces Kayley in this way along with Garrett as a stable boy in Camelot.
• Robots begins with the construction of the film's main character, Rodney Copperbottom, by his soon to be parents, and then follows him as he grows up from a baby to a young kid to a teenager and eventually to his graduation from college.
• Shaun the Sheep: The Movie opens with a teenaged Farmer bottle-feeding Shaun the lamb, while Blitzer the puppy runs up to play with them.
• Sing begins with 6-year-old Buster Moon seeing Nana Noodleman perform, and becoming inspired to join the theater business.
• Spies in Disguise: The opening scene of the movie focuses on a young Walter and his mother.
• Superman: Red Son starts with a childhood flashback of Svetlana and Somishka. Somishka reveals his Super-Strength to Svetlana.
• Titan A.E. begins with Cale being escorted to an evac ship by his father who later says goodbye for the last time before boarding the Titan as the entire population of Earth abandons the planet before the Drej obliterate it.
• Trolls: Poppy, the main protagonist, is seen as a baby in the beginning after her father led the Trolls to escape from the Bergens. Gristle Jr. and Bridget are also seen as young toddlers during the intro.
• Wendell & Wild opens about five years prior to the main story, where we see the incident where a then 8-year-old Kat loses her parents.

Film — Live-Action

• 27 Dresses starts with Jane and Tess at their first wedding as kids. They see the bride in the bathroom with her dress ripped, so Jane takes Tess's hair ribbon to fix it. The bride then asks Jane to hold her train, showing the first time with her fate as a bridesmaid.
• Almost Famous begins with the protagonist as a 11-year-old before fading to him as a teen.
• Amélie: a large portion of the first act is relating Amelie's childhood, in which she begins showing her defining characteristics.
• American Splendor: The film opens in Halloween 1950 when a woman asks a young Harvey Pekar why he doesn't wear a superhero costume like the kids he is with.
• Angel, Angel, Down We Go opens with Tara as a child, being yelled at and ignored by her wealthy, constantly fighting parents.
• Angels with Dirty Faces starts with a flashback of Father Jerry and the gangster Rocky as teens. Rocky pulls a prank on his future love interest, the two steal from a trainyard, and Rocky gets sent to juvy, starting him down his life of crime.
• Anger Management starts with Dave Buznik as a 12-year-old in 1978.
• Art School Confidential opens with Jerome as a kid.
• Assassin's Creed starts in the youth of Callum Lynch and sees his mother die and his father being abducted by the Templars.
• Firefighting movie Backdraft begins with the main characters, Stephen 'Bull' McCaffery and Brian McCaffery, as kids.
• Basquiat: The film starts with a young Jean-Michel seeing his mother moved to tears by a Pablo Picasso painting, which is implied to have set him on his path to becoming an artist.
• Batman Returns opens with the birth Oswald Cobblepot, and while he isn't shown onscreen, it's clear based on reactions that he's grotesque looking. After his parents dump his buggy into a river, the opening credits play as it traverses the sewers, before coming up to a flock of penguins. It then jumps 33 years to the present.
• Big, a bit of an nontraditional example, follows a young boy named Josh Baskin, who is shown in the opening of the film as a kid before wishing on a Zoltar machine and waking up the next morning as a fully-grown adult.
• Inverted in Billy Elliot. The plot takes place during Billy's childhood, but ends with a brief flash forward of him as a professional ballet dance.
• Black Widow (2021) begins with a flashback sequence showing a teenage Natasha Romanoff as well as fellow Black Widow Yelena Belova and the adult KGB-agents Melina Vostokoff and Alexei Shostakov and Melina Vostokoff posing as an American family. Than the film skips to right after the events of Captain America: Civil War.
• The Boss starts with a five-year prologue of Michelle Darnell being rejected and returned to the orphanage by various foster parents.
• Boyz n the Hood opens up with Tre moving to Crenshaw to live with his father, where he's reacquainted with his local friends, Chris, Ricky and Doughboy. Ricky loves football and is the younger brother of Doughboy. The childhood scenes end with Chris and Doughboy being sent to juvenile hall for shoplifting, before fast forwarding seven years later.
• Broadcast News: All three main characters are famously introduced as kids, with their main personality quirks being established.
  Young Tom: What can you do with yourself if all you do is look good?
  Caption: Future Network Anchorman
• Carrie would have started out like this had the special effects necessary for the scene worked properly. They didn't, and so the scene was scrapped. The remake, thanks to the advance of CGI, was able to include this scene, albeit not at the very beginning.
• Cinderella (2015) opens when Ella is 5 and both her parents were still around.
• The Cobbler opens with a scene showing Max as a little boy watching his father at work. The rest of the movie deals with Max in his adult life.
• Conan the Barbarian (1982) begins when Conan was just a little boy being taught about the riddle of steel. The 2011 film goes a step further, showing him in the womb—just before his mother is stabbed in the stomach, necessitating a battlefield C-Section by his father.
• Contact begins with with the lead heroine losing her father in a traumatic way early in life.
• The DC Extended Universe does this a fair bit:
  • Man of Steel begins with Kal-El/Clark Kent's birth, and we see him being sent to Earth as a baby.
  • In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, we see Bruce Wayne as a child as he witnesses the murder of his parents, then him running off in grief at their funeral and accidentally discovering what will one day become the Bat Cave.
  • Wonder Woman: Diana is introduced to the audience as a child to establish the Amazon's society before she ages up to a teenager and later the young adult she is when she leaves the island to try and help protect the world after learning about World War I from Steve Trevor.
    • Wonder Woman 1984 starts with young Diana again, this time with her participating in the Amazons' Games.
  • The opening of Aquaman shows how Arthur's parents met, conceived him, and eventually separated. We get to see the young Arthur in an aquarium and later in the film through flashbacks.
  • SHAZAM! puts a spin on this, as the kidroduction is for the Big Bad rather than The Hero. The film begins with Thaddeus Silvana as a child being brought to the Rock of Eternity and tested by the wizard Shazam whether he is worthy of becoming the wizard's champion. He fails, leading to his Start of Darkness.
  • Birds of Prey opens up with a montage of Harley Quinn's youth, starting with a sperm inseminating an egg (because she's got a dirty mind). As a homage to her debut in the animated series, the entire sequence is a cartoon.
• In Death Rides a Horse, Bill is introduced as a child watching his family be slaughtered by the villains before the 15-year Time Skip.
• The Doors (1991) opens with a rather traumatic episode from Jim Morrison's childhood.
• The Eddie Murphy version of Dr. Dolittle.
• The opening to the Live-Action Adaptation of Dudley Do-Right opens with Dudley, Nell and Snidely as kids. Even back then, Snidely wore his trademark black hat and cape.
• Ever After begins this way, with Drew Barrymore's character as a little tomboy who, quickly on, loses her father to heart attack, then the main plot takes place 10 years later.
• The Evil Karate: This Taiwanese kung-fu movie probably had the longest example: the protagonist is a little girl for the first 45 minutes of the film! We didn't see her proper as an adult until the end of the second act. Justified that her martial arts training requires its practitioners to begin with their ages at single digits.
• Fantastic Four (2015) opens with Reed as a kid trying to build his quantum teleporter and befriending Ben Grimm. We then cut to "seven years later", where Reed and Ben have finally got the thing to work.
• The movie Fighting with My Family begins in 2002 with 10-year-old Paige (AKA: Saraya) and her 12-year-old brother Zak arguing over the TV.
• The 2004 film The Final Cut does this.
• Fireproof opens with the heroine having a Mother, I Want To Marry My Father conversation in voiceover.
• Apart from a short segment from near the end of the film, Float Like A Butterfly begins with a scene of Frances as a younger child that establishes her love of boxing and her mother's tragic death.
• Forrest Gump starts off with 15 minutes of scenes of Forrest's childhood.
• Four Sisters and a Wedding: The prologue shows the sisters as children hoping for a baby brother before cutting to the present when they're all grown.
• GoodFellas starts showing how Henry Hill enters the mafia world during his childhood. It Age Cuts to Ray Liotta after a few minutes.
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone starts with a baby Harry Potter being left as a Doorstop Baby at the Dursleys while McGonnagal protests and quickly jumps nine years forward to the rest of the story.
• Interestingly, both of the Hellboy films first show the title character this way, the first time just after he's conjured to this world as a toddler and the second when he's a young child being told a bedtime story.
• The opening scene of He's Just Not That into You has the child version of Gigi, one of the characters, is abruptly pushed off a jungle gym by a boy. When she tearfully asks why he did that, he yells, "Because you smell like dog poo!" In trying to comfort her, her mother claims, "Do you know why he did that? Because he likes you!" As an adult, Gigi angrily points out that telling girls this sets them up for years of ill-treatment at the hands of men because of being conditioned to believe that it's actually a form of affection.
• Hidden Figures: The film begins with a young Katherine being moved into an elite school on a full scholarship while also moving her from the sixth grade into the eighth grade. While there, she impresses the entire classroom by solving a complex mathematical equation on the chalk board.
• Hop has its prologue take place 20 years before the main events of the film, where it shows E.B. as a young bunny being taken on a tour of the Easter factory by his dad, the Easter Bunny. Later, Fred O'Hare is shown as a child seeing the Easter Bunny's egg sled landing in his yard on Easter eve.
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade starts off with an extended sequence featuring Indiana as a teenage Boy Scout. It ends when he loses the Cross of Coronado, and there's a cut to the adult Indiana on a ship trying to recover the Cross.
• Into the Grizzly Maze opens with brothers Beckett and Rowan Moore encountering a grizzly bear in the Alaskan wilderness as children, then jumps forward to the adult Rowan returning home having Just Got Out of Jail.
• It's a Wonderful Life technically begins with prayers being heard towards George Bailey, and angels in the afterlife assigning Clarance to look after George, but the beginning of the flashback first shows George as a child as a quick way to establish just how selfless and friendly is. This also applies to his little brother Harry, his childhood crush Mary Hatch, and his other friend Violet Bick who are also introduced as children and would serve as major influences towards him up to when they become adults.
• It's Pat! begins with the title character's birth and a scene from when Pat was in school.
• In Jack the Giant Slayer Jack and Isabelle are introduced to us as kids being read a bed time story about giants.
• Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back starts with the titular duo, as infants, being left by their mothers in front of the convenience store where they would later spend almost all of their time. Also, we see young Jay learning his favorite word.
• In Kingsman: The Secret Service we first see Eggsy as a young child when Galahad goes to inform his mother about his father's decease.
• Comedy film Kinky Boots opens with drag queen Lola dressing up as a girl when he was a little boy. After his brief introduction as a child, he spends the rest of the movie as an adult.
• Like Normal People opens with Roger's infancy, with his family worried by his unresponsive behavior. It follows him during his childhood as he is diagnosed with intellectual disability and bullied by the other kids.
• Lion has an exaggeratedly long one, following young Saroo's journey through being a Street Urchin in the slums of India and eventually Happily Adopted. Only after about half the movie has passed do any of the main stars make an appearance.
• The movies Little Giants and Big Bully both begin this way — with the same child actor playing the young version of Rick Moranis' character.
• The opening scene of Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent shows Alan and Becky as kids, stealing the voodoo stick. After Alan's father is dragged away by the serpent, it cuts to the adult Alan waking from a nightmare of these events.
• Mandy (1952) opens with Mandy as a 2-year-old, when her parents realize she's deaf. The movie then skips ahead to when she's 6.
• Man on the Moon as a whole is introduced by the adult Andy Kaufman (Jim Carrey), but he kicks the story off by showing the audience some "home movies" that segue into this trope by showing Andy as a kid, performing impromptu TV shows to a wall in his bedroom. His father tells him that, contrary to what Andy might believe, there are no cameras in the walls and if he wants to perform it has to be in front of real people. So little Andy starts performing for his little sister with an Audience Participation Song ("The Cow Goes Moo"). Cue a Match Cut to the audience of a comedy club about 20 years later, where the adult Andy is performing the exact same routine.
• Marathon (2005) opens with scenes of Cho-won as a child who has frequent meltdowns and gets lost at the zoo at one point. After his father walks out on him, his mother takes him into the forest to try to teach him the names of things.
• Midnight Mary: Mary and Bunny are introduced as kids rummaging through a garbage dump.
• Miss Congeniality begins showing that Gracie to be quite "masculine", even as a girl. She physically defends a boy from bullies, but he thanks her by telling her to get away from his face.
• The wuxia The Mighty One has a Downer Beginning where a little boy witnesses his father and sisters getting killed by the main villain, Abbot Long, before passing out from being flung aside with Blood from the Mouth, seemingly dead. In a few scenes later, it turns out a Time Skip had occurred, and the new, mysterious wandering swordsman called the Water Knight is that little boy from the beginning. In a twist of fate that borders on Bait-and-Switch, the Action Girl sidekick that tags behind Water Knight is actually his younger sister, who seemingly died in the opening scene as well!
• Mississippi Masala: Though the focus is on her father, the movie first introduces Mina when she and her parents are forced to flee Uganda. We then see Mina 18 years later after her family has settled in Mississippi.
• Mo' Better Blues opens with Bleek being forced to practice his music instead of playing with friends. Interestingly, his son, played by the same actor as young Bleek, goes through the same thing as Bleek-only, this time he is allowed to play with them.
• MonsterVerse:
  • Godzilla: Ford Brody first appears in the movie's Distant Prologue as a child. His bedroom in Japan is shown to be littered with army toys and a NASA rocket (foreshadowing his present day self's profession in America), and a couple dinosaur toys and a kaiju movie poster (foreshadowing his sense of connection to the dinosaurian kaiju Godzilla later in the movie). He's also all but ignored by his distracted workaholic father from the moment he gets up to when he's left for school, in contrast to how he and his mother are shown quietly conspiring to make a birthday surprise for Joe, showing that Ford felt closer to the latter and foreshadowing his future relationship with the former once his father becomes obsessed with finding the truth. Ford is even the focus during the time-skip from the tail-end of the Distant Prologue to the start of the movie's main time frame.
  • Godzilla: King of the Monsters: Madison Russell makes her first appearance as a nine-year-old girl in the opening flashback, in which she expresses awe at the sight of Godzilla despite the destruction surrounding her; foreshadowing her sense of emotional connection to and positive view of the Protector Titans like Godzilla, and her ability to look deeper at them past the destruction their presences cause. The young Madison is also physically close to and being held/supervised by Emma, foreshadowing that she's closer to her mother in the movie's present at first, and that Emma has a powerful emotional grip on Madison.
• Mother and Child begins with Karen, at 14 years old, having sex with her boyfriend, followed by her becoming pregnant and having to give up the baby for adoption, which sets the events of the story in motion.
• Mulan: The live-action remake adds scenes from Mulan's childhood at the start of the film to establish her natural ability to use Qi as well as to establish that as a daughter, she would be looked down upon for using it in public.
• In Mystic River, Jimmy, Sean and Dave all first as kids playing hockey in the street before Dave is abducted. The action them jumps to the present day.
• Nathan's Kingdom opens with 9-year-old Laura telling 14-year-old Nathan about their kingdoms after their father left. The movie then jumps ahead 10 years.
• National Treasure starts with the main character being given a clue by his grandfather, 30 years before the rest of the movie.
• Pearl Harbor begins with Rafe and Danny as young boys, their love of flight, and Rafe protects Danny, setting up the central action of the film.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl begins with a shipwreck scene where Elizabeth and Will are both children.
• The Pride of the Yankees starts with kid Lou Gehrig throwing a baseball through a neighbor’s window accidentally during a street game. His mom thinks he’s wasting time as she wants him to go to school and it sets up a bit of irony given what he became famous for later.
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time opens with Dastan as a kid, establishing him as a rebellious and athletic character. After three minutes there is a Time Skip to him being in his 20s.
• In Princess of Thieves, Gwyn first appears a young girl before an Age Cut takes us to her as a teenager.
• Before the opening credits of Queens Logic, we see Al as a teenager climbing the Hellgate Bridge, while the younger versions of Carla, Dennis, Patty, Ray, and Vinnie watch and cheer him on. Then, in the credits, the movie does a Time Skip to Al (and eventually the others) as a grown-up. This also serves as a Chekhov's Gun, as Al tries to climb the bridge again near the end of the movie. He doesn't succeed this time.
• The Rage: Carrie 2, starts with a scene of Rachel's mother trying to "protect her from demons" before Rachel is taken by social services and her mother is taken to a mental hospital.
• Regeneration: The opening scenes feature a 10-year-old Owen dressed in rags, living in a filthy tenement, made a quasi-slave by his neighbors after his mother's death leaves him orphaned. Then there's a time skip to Owen at age 19.
• In The Ribald Tales of Robin Hood, Robin is introduced as a boy who is Forced to Watch as Prince John murders his father, and orders his mother and sister raped. The film then jumps to when Robin is an adult and a permanent thorn in John's side.
• Rogue One features a rather dark variation. A young Jyn Erso witnesses Lyra, her mother, get gunned down by Imperials, and her father Galen get captured by them. When the Death Troopers start searching for her, Jyn is forced to flee her home and ends up hiding for her life. Saw Gerrera finds her, and the movie jumps to the present.
• Shallow Hal begins with the death of Hal's father while deliriously preaching about titties.
• Sister Act: Deloris Van Cartier shows her disrespect against Roman Catholicism and Roman Catholic convents by naming the apostles John, Paul, George, and Ringo. The nun says that Deloris will be doomed to a life of sin if she doesn't change her ways. Cue the grown-up Deloris being involved in a relationship with a married mob boss in Reno.
• The prologue of Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) introduces Sonic as a child peacefully living on his planet with his guardian Longclaw. It ends with Longclaw giving Sonic her bag of portal rings to protect himself from enemies, kicking off the events of the film.
• Snow Dogs begins this way with a young Ted Brooks visiting his father's dental practice for Career Day and being allowed to examine a patient, then fast-forwarding 25 years later with a now-adult Ted running his own successful dental practice along with his brother.
• Space Jam begins with a young Michael Jordan, before fast-forwarding to him as an adult—-played by himself.
• Splash begins when the main characters were kids.
• Star Trek (2009) starts with Kirk's birth and gives childhood scenes for both Kirk and Spock. The scene with Kirk's birth is important to the plot; the other scenes are not, but they do help establish what kind of people the two characters are.
• Superman: The Movie: Following the origin, we first get introduced to Supes while he's still a baby getting sent to Earth.
• Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny starts out with young JB leaving home for Hollywood to become a rock musician.
• Thor begins with a young Thor and a young Loki being told the story of Asgard's fight with the Frost Giants by Odin, with both Thor and Loki showing elements of their personalities: Thor eagerly promising to wipe out the Frost Giants once he's old enough and Loki eagerly seeking their father's approval.
• The Three Stooges opens with the trio being left at the orphanage, with the three babies already having their recognizable hairdos.
• Tommy Boy opens with the young Tommy Callahan being told he's late to school — and he promptly runs face-first into the sliding glass door, with young Richard Hayden teasing him for being late. Afterwards, we skip to the present-day where the now 20-something Tommy is trying to get to his college exams.
• The prologue of The Tripper shows Gus a child during the Vietnam War; ending when he murders a protestor with a chainsaw. The film then jumps to the presnt day with Sam and her friends travelling to the festival.
• TRON: Legacy opens up with Sam Flynn as a child, talking with his father about the plot of the original TRON the night before he mysteriously disappears. Also notable for being the only real-world scene where CGI is used to make Jeff Bridges look younger.
• Twister begins with the lead heroine losing her father in a traumatic way early in life.
• Underworld U.S.A., opens with Tolly as 14-year-old punk who witnesses his father being beaten to death by four mobsters in an alley. A brief montage shows various criminal acts of his over the years, finishing with him as adult in prison where the main story starts.
• The movie Untamed Heart opens with Adam as a child at an orphanage, where we see how sickly he is, and where the nuns who run the orphanage first tell him the story about his heart (or what they claim is the story).
• The movie Us begins in 1986 with a 7-year-old Adelaide/Red at the Santa Cruz boardwalk where she encounters her doppelgänger for the first time.
• During Watchmen's opening sequence, we see a very young Rorschach staring balefully at his prostitute mother's clients. And we see a young Laurie walking in on her mother arguing with her stepfather.
• What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? begins with the sisters as children in the 1910s.
• When Time Got Louder begins with a scene of Abbie and Kayden as children on Christmas morning, before skipping ahead to their late teens.
• Wild in the Streets opens with Max Frost's conception, followed by scenes from his childhood.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • X-Men starts with Magneto as a boy in a concentration camp.
  • X-Men: The Last Stand begins with a younger Professor X and Magneto visiting Jean Grey as a child. We also see a young Warren Worthington III.
  • X-Men Origins: Wolverine starts with Wolverine and Sabretooth as children.
  • X-Men: First Class begins with Charles Xavier and Raven Darkholme as children, and recaps a young Erik Lehnsherr in the concentration camp.
• You and Your Stupid Mate opens with scenes of the protagonists playing pranks as kids.
• The Young Poisoner's Handbook opens with Graham as young boy, as his narration explains how he developed a fascination for science, and chemistry in particular, at young age. If flashes forward to him at 14, where the story really starts.

Literature

• Bravelands begins with Swiftcub getting his "adult name" in a Naming Ceremony, right before his father Gallant is murdered and he's run out of his pride. The next chapter starts off a year later, with Fearless being a yearling raised by baboons.
• The Crazy Rich Asians trilogy opens with 8-year-old Nick and Astrid and 12-year-old Eddie. Even then, Nick and Astrid are more interested in adventure than material wealth, while Eddie is able to expound at length on the virtues of Iranian caviar.
• The Crimson Tide begins with the hero, then 13 years of age, witnessing his hometown being destroyed by Eastern barbarians, his mother taken from him, and must salvage what's left of his hometown before setting off on a journey—which takes several years—to the capital city and avenge his family.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel: The book's beginning details Greg's entire life, from before he was born to where he is now in middle school.
• The first four chapters of Doglands tell of Furgul's life as a puppy and shows how he escaped Dedbone's Hole. Part II tells of his temporary life as a pet dog and spans several months.
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone starts with Harry being left to the Dursleys as a Doorstop Baby. The second chapter skips forward almost ten years to the preteen Harry we'll follow for the rest of the novel.
• Discouraged and mocked as "The Long Runway" in How NOT to Write a Novel.
• Each book in the InCryptid series starts with a flashback prologue to the viewpoint character's childhood, the only part of the book written in third person.
• The non-fiction book The Life and Death of Sherlock Holmes by Mattias Boström does this with some of the Sherlockians it features. Most notably, rather than introducing Christopher Morley as the founder of the Baker Street Irregulars in 1934, perhaps with a note that he'd been a fan since childhood, he first appears about three decades earlier, as the book illustrates the popularity of the William Gillette play by describing a young boy known as Kit re-enacting it with his friends (and also establishing in passing Kit's lifelong fondness for establishing clubs with unusual names; the group of friends had had a variety of sorbiquets, but were currently The Sign of Four). He reappears in the 1910s as a Rhodes scholar going by the name Chris, attending the lecture in which Ronald Knox created the concept of "The Canon", before finally being given his full name with the founding of the Irregulars.
• Lords and Ladies opens "fifty years or more before the ever-moving now" with a teenaged Esmeralda Weatherwax's first encounter with The Fair Folk. The young man who gets mentioned as having been walking with her, but who has managed to lose her by this point, later turns out to be Mustrum Ridcully.
• Shadow of Doubt begins by introducing Alinadar at age 8, just before she's forced to murder her first victims in service to the Space Pirates who kidnapped her.
• The Ship Who... Sang starts with Helva as an infant, with her severe birth defects relegating her to either euthanasia or becoming a shellperson, thereby introducing shellpeople, the central conceit of the series. There's also a short section of her at fourteen, humming as she paints a replica of the Last Supper on the head of a pin, and being complimented on her voice, which leads to her developing it and becoming the titular ship who sings.
  • The Ship Who Searched spends several chapters on Tia and shows how Parental Neglect led to her being paralyzed and scouted for the shellperson program, also establishing her lifelong interest in xenoarchaology. Other than her and her doctor, none of the characters in this section appear in the rest of the book.
• Smith of Wootton Major: We first meet Smith at age 9, when he acquires the star, but the rest of the story happens in his adulthood.
• The Sunne in Splendour: The main character, Richard of Gloucester, is introduced when he is a child and is lost in the woods, with his older brothers Edmund and Edward concerned for his whereabouts.
• The first Survivor Dogs book begins Yap and Squeak talking with their Mother-Dog as puppies. It then segues to Yap, now an adult named "Lucky", in a shelter right before an earthquake hits.
• The young adult editions of The Wheel of Time have a special prologue not present in the adult editions where we see the main characters as children listening to Tam's story of the Dragon. It's told from Egwene's point of view, but we see all the Emond's Fielders.
• Books in the second series of Wings of Fire all have a prologue featuring the main character as a younger dragonet. The prologue of Moon Rising goes further and shows Moonwatcher's birth.
• The Wolves of Paris starts with a half-grown protagonist being hunted by humans.

Live-Action TV

• Awaken: The children in the prologue grow up to be Jamie and Jung-woo. Another child shown in flashbacks grows up to be Jae-woong.
• The prologue to the first episode of Blackadder introduces us to the title character's father as the beloved nephew of King Richard III. It then replaces the cute and cheerful kid via Age Cut with a huge-bearded, maniacally laughing BRIAN BLESSED.
• The first episode of Cloak & Dagger (2018) opens with a young Ty hanging around with his brother and his friends, while a young Tandy gets picked up from ballet class by her father. Then things get bad. There are further flashbacks to the events immediately following this throughout the series.
• The first episode of Daredevil (2015) opens with the car accident that blinds Matt.
• The first episode of Dharma & Greg opened on a subway with both characters with their parents just happening to be there at the same time, though they didn't actually meet.
• Invoked in Daisy Jones & The Six. Daisy is unsure where to start their tell-all documentary, so the interviewer suggests telling where her love of music began. Cue flashback to her rocking out in her room as a child.
• Amy Pond is introduced this way in Doctor Who, and boy, does it have a lasting impact on her life!
• One episode of Firefly begins with a flashback to when Simon and River were children, mainly showing how close they were and how River was a playful, imaginative girl before her brain was hacked up. There are several other flashbacks, mainly dealing with Simon trying to rescue River, but none have them as children.
• A few episodes of Frasier open with Frasier and Niles as children, generally to establish that whatever behavior will drive the plot of the episode has been going on since childhood.
• Game of Thrones has one which opens Season 5, focusing on Cersei Lannister receiving a prophecy from Maggy the Frog, which haunts her for life. Notably, it's the first time the show dabbles on flashbacks.
• Hawkeye (2021):
  • The series begins with a young Kate with her parents in their New York apartment, right before the Chitauri attack. She gets a front-row view of the Avenger in action, but her father is killed in the invasion.
  • The episode "Echoes" opens with a young Maya having trouble in school because it's not geared for deaf children, and then curb-stomping a larger opponent in the dojo, before flashforwarding to her father's death at the hands of Ronin and the present day.
• Many episodes of Jane the Virgin focuses on the titular character as a child that associate with the episode's plot.
• The Lone Gunmen frequently used this.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power opens up with Galadriel as a child, while adult Galadriel narrates her memories of her once idyllic childhood, before morphing to the original Dark Lord Morgoth beginning the war for Middle-earth. Even as a child, Galadriel was always one of the most assertive Elves, which is shown when she launches herself at a bratty fellow Elf for ruining her paper boat and has to be stopped by Finrod.
• A handful of Lost episodes have a childhood flashback in the first act, followed by a later-life story in the remaining flashbacks. "White Rabbit" begins with a scene from Jack's childhood, "He's Our You" with Sayid's. "White Rabbit" actually keeps the child story going for a few flashbacks, probably because it shows Jack's relationship with his dad, who is dead for the rest of the episode.
• Mouse (2021):
  • Mu-chi and Mu-won first appear as little boys who witness their mother's murder.
  • Jae-hoon/Ba-reum first appears as a child who's already showing signs of becoming a serial killer.
• Never Wipe Tears Without Gloves introduces Benjamin and Rasmus as children.
• Scenes between young Jaron and Younger Sydney (the latter still played by Patrick Bauchau) were close to a Once an Episode feature on The Pretender.
• Nearly every episode of Psych starts with a "Young Shawn" sequence, with Gus showing up in some of them. One episode even began with a "Young Juliet" sequence.
• Each episode of Pushing Daisies typically starts with a look into the childhood of one of the characters. For most of the first season it was Ned, but later they added flashbacks of Chuck, Olive, Emerson, and even, in the last episode, Lily and Vivian.
• The Rise of Phoenixes: The prologue shows Ning Yi as a child. It's cute to begin with as he plays hide-and-seek with his mother, but quickly turns frightening when he dreams of his older self murdering his mother.
• Search: The North Korean defector hands a baby to the South Korean soldiers in the Distant Prologue. Towards the end of the series we learn that baby was Ye-rim.
• Smallville: The first episode's prologue is this to Clark Kent and Lex Luthor.
• Star Trek
  • Star Trek: Voyager. Two episodes focusing on Tuvok and Chakotay had an introduction showing them as Former Teen Rebels who rejected their cultures.
  • Star Trek: Enterprise: The first person we see in the pilot episode is a young Jonathan Archer, about thirty years before he assumes command of Enterprise.
  • Star Trek: Picard: In "Absolute Candor", Elnor is introduced in a flashback which takes place 14 years prior as an orphaned boy being cared for by the Qowat Milat sisterhood. He and Jean-Luc Picard have a surrogate father-son relationship. Seeing Elnor first as a child is meant to elicit an "Awww!" reaction from the viewers because he's the first major Romulan character in the franchise who's fully on the side of the heroes (as opposed to his species' traditional depiction as villains), so it's important to establish from the get-go that he's sympathetic.
• The pilot episode of Supernatural begins with Dean as a kid and Sam as a baby, on the night that their mother was killed.
• Although it's not the very first scene, the first episode of The Umbrella Academy has a flashback to the Hargreeves siblings as preteens using their powers to stop a bank robbery — the first time the titular Umbrella Academy was made known to the world.

Music

• Sound Horizon's Moira begins by showing the twins of fate as children. In the span of one song they turn from kids to adults.

Podcasts

• Mystery Show started its first episode with a monologue from Starlee about how she and her sister found an old safe as kids, and how that sparked her love of mysteries.
  • Subverted in episode six when Jonathan asks if he should start from the beginning, and Starlee asks if "beginning" means childhood.
  Jonathan: Not that beginning.

Radio

• The radio adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde opens with Jekyll at age 12, following him through his life up to death.

Theatre

• Similar to its film entry above, the musical version of Kinky Boots opens with Lola and Charlie as children, emphasizing how shoes have played a formative role in both of their lives. Charlie is aged up before the end of the opening song, while adult Lola shows up a few scenes later.
• Although it roughly halfway during the first act, Les Misérables features Cosette and Eponine as children during the song Castle on a Cloud (and are featured in the songs Master of the House and The Bargain, although neither speaks). Two songs and a time skip later, and they're both grown up.
• Once on This Island begins with Ti Moune as a young child who is found in a tree after a hurricane. During the song "One Small Girl", she grows up to a teenager.
• The first scene of the musical On Your Toes shows Phil Dolan III as a child doing a vaudeville act ("Two-a-Day for Keith") with his parents, Phil II and Lil. The rest of the play takes place 15 years later.
• The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee opens with Rona winning the 3rd Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which is revealed to be a flashback as the adult Rona prepares to host the 25th Annual.

Video Games

• Assassin's Creed II has Ezio's introduction as a new-born where we get to move our arms and legs a bit.
• Assassin's Creed III similarly introduces Connor as a child.
• In Breath of Fire II, the player starts out as a child, who goes to find his sister Yua and protects her from monsters, only to return and find out that no one in the town remembers him because Aruhamel wiped everyone's memories and abducted his father and sister. He meets his fellow orphan, Bow, and the two become Rangers together years later.
• In Breathof Fire III, the player starts as a child who is adopted by other orphan children who steal to get by.
• In Captain Morgane and the Golden Turtle, the first chapter features the titular Morgane as a child. The chores her mother gets her to do serve to introduce the basic game mechanics.
• Downfall (2009): the prologue of the game stars Joe Davis and his future wife, Ivy, as children.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest V opens with the main character's birth, and starts you off playing as a 5-year-old.
  • Dragon Quest XI opens with the birth of the Luminary and his father, King Irwin, discussing with other kings about the Luminary's birth, before it cuts to monsters attacking Dundrasil and his mother, Queen Eleanor, and a certain girl running with the Luminary in hand from 3 Headless Horseman chasing them.
• Both Fable games set up the plot this way. The first with your town being destroyed and your father getting killed while your mother is sent to prison and your sister kidnapped by bandits, the second when your sister is killed in front of you.
• Fallout 3's tutorial starts with the player character's birth and there's a short section where one must play as a baby. It's one of the greatest examples of a Justified Tutorial in all of gaming: The game teaches you how to walk because you are a baby, and as you grow from a newborn to an infant to a preteen to an older teen to a young adult, you learn to interact with things, talk to other people, use items, and (yes) use weapons.
• Fatal Fury Wild Ambition opens with a "Ten Years Ago" sequence showing young Terry and Andy. It's the day when Geese Howard killed their father.
• Fire Emblem Gaiden: The Echoes remake includes a prologue that takes place seven years before the story officially starts, letting you control child versions of Alm, Celica, and the villagers from Ram.
• The Godfather begins with Aldo witnessing his father's murder and the destruction of their family bakery by the Barzinis and Don Corleone's promise that he'll be able to take his revenge. Flash forward nine years...
• Golden Sun started with Isaac and Garet as kids, during the tragedy in which Isaac's father, Jenna's parents and Jenna's brother lost their lives but it turns out they actually lived.
• After the prologue where you control Maxim and his allies, Lufia & The Fortress of Doom cuts to a very young main character, and shows how he first meets a similarly young Lufia.
• The entire first segment of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time centers around Link's adventures as a child before he seals himself inside the Temple of Time, where he lays dormant for several years and later emerges as an adult.
• My Child Lebensborn asks the player to choose between the male child and the female child during their adoption in 1948, while the game proper starts in August 1951, just before the child's seventh birthday.
• The first chapter of Old School Musical takes place during Tib and Rob's childhood, with them being 10 and 3 years old respectively. At the end, it skips forwards to 13 years later, from where the rest of the game happens.
• Octopath Traveler II: Two of the eight party members are introduced this way. Partitio's story begins with him as a child, arriving at what would be the future site of a bustling silver mining town, as he is just beginning to learn how to be a merchant. Ochette's story starts with her as a child picking her partner that will follow her for the rest of thegame, before skipping ahead 10 years.
• Overlord II opens up with the Overlad, the son of the previous Overlord. We take control of him as he spends the evening terrorizing the other children of the village, responding to their snowballs with lightning, and hanging out with his only friend Kendra. Then the Anti-magic forces of the Glorious Empire and the Minions find him at the same time, bringing him to Gnarl. One years-long Time Skip later and Gnarl has raised the creepy little tyke into a fearsome new Overlord ready to topple the Empire.
• The prologue of Signs of the Sojourner shows the protagonist and their Childhood Friend Elias arguing over the former's mother's locket, with her stepping in to teach them how to make good conversations with each other, serving as the game's tutorial. The story proper then begins 15 years later, after her funeral.
• Tales Series:
  • Tales of Graces has its entire first chapter focus on several of the playable characters as kids, followed by a Time Skip after a key plot event.
  • Tales of Berseria starts with a scene of 9-year-old Velvet and 4-year-old Laphicet running away with their brother-in-law Arthur during the Scarlet Night.

Visual Novels

• Tsukihime's intro is about when Shiki met Sensei right after his accident at age 9, an immensely important time in life for a bunch of reasons. The non-spoiler one is that this is when his eyes activated and got his Mystic Eye killer glasses. And learned slicing stuff in half for shits and giggles wasn't nice.

Webcomics

• In Drowtales, Ariel is introduced as a baby in the first page of chapter 1. Next time we see her, she is a 10-year-old child.
• Fetch Quest: Saga of the Twelve Artifacts first introduces us to young Saffron Lachesis, when she gets the gift of a cane sword from her father, the King of Strife.
• I Love Yoo: In the prologue, we see a collection of memories from Shin-Ae's childhood.
• Joseph & Yusra's first chapter deals with how the two became friends around the age of 6 before jumping to their teenaged years.
• The Order of the Stick book Start of Darkness begins with a single page showing us a 4-year-old Xykon crying over the death of his pet dog. By the end of the page, he's zombified the dog by accident, then delighted as it devoured a bird's brain.
• Parimetra: Somewhat of a subversion seeing as it takes place in chapter 2, but otherwise played straight.
• Rain begins with a prologue focusing on a 4-year-old Rain (then presenting as a boy), before time-skipping to her final year of high school.
• Realta: The first issue introduces Elowen as a child, establishing their fear of the Mist that surrounds their home. They grow up in the second.
• Star Impact opens with a 9-year-old Aster at a title fight featuring the Legend, an illustrious boxer who she would idolize for the rest of her life.
• Suihira has an entire first chapter devoted to showing Princess Protagonist Wahida (and her sister) grow up from adorable little kids into ladies.

Web Original

• The Perfect Castlevania Timeline introduces Alucard as a child in the section of Chapter I: Hunting the Night dedicated to Kid Dracula, before he grows up into becoming a major character and the protagonist of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

Western Animation

• ''Amphibia: The episode "The Third Temple" opens with a flashback to when Anne, Sasha, and Marcy were toddlers, showing that they met when Sasha defended Anne and Marcy from two bullies on the playground.
• Arcane: A double whammy. The first scene features a very young Vi and Powder seeing their dead parent's bodies, establishing their hatred of Piltover and its Enforcers. One Time Skip later, the rest of Act 1 follows a slightly older Vi and Powder and also features Caitlyn and Ekko as kids, and Act 2 and Act 3 follow Vi, Powder, Caitlyn, and Ekko as adults.
• The Codename: Kids Next Door TV movie "Operation: Z.E.R.O." opens with a flashback on two brothers discovering The Book of KND and overthrowing Grandfather. Those boys turn out to be Monty Uno (aka Numbuh Zero) and his brother Benedict (aka Father).
• The title sequence of Fangface shows Sherman Fangsworth as a baby, transforming into a werewolf upon seeing the moon out the window, and then back again after looking at a box of detergent with a picture of the sun on it, thus clearly demonstrating the rules of his lycanthropy.
• The Disney short Feast begins with James finding Winston all alone as a puppy and adopting him.
• Gravity Falls: "A Tale of Two Stans" starts with Stan and his twin brother Ford playing and exploring a cave together as children in the 1960s.
• The Legend of Korra introduces Avatar Korra as a pudgy, spirited 4-year-old Child Prodigy who has already begun to bend water, earth, and fire, proving beyond a doubt her Avatar status to the Order of the White Lotus. "I'm the Avatar, you gotta deal with it!" A scene of her lighting a small, candleflame-sized fire Age Cuts to her at 17 in a training duel against three firebenders, clearly having mastered firebending.
• Samurai Jack begins with the title character as a child. After he has to flee his home, we see a montage of him going all over the world, training with various people and cultures, until he returns home as an adult.
• Like the original films, Superman: The Animated Series begins its 3 episode pilot with the Man of Steel as a baby. We don't see him full grown until halfway through part two.
• In VeggieTales, this is done as a tribute to Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. "Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella" starts off with Minnesota, Marten, and the Scallions as kids.

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