History Main / MerlinSickness

* The plot for ''EMIT'', a VisualNovel trilogy on the UsefulNotes/SuperFamicom, dealt with a parallel universe where time flowed contrary to our own; thus, anyone traveling from there to our world would begin to age backwards. But, [[EdutainmentGame since the whole thing was just a framing device for an English-language tutoring system]], [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot it didn't get explored in much depth]].

* In ''Literature/{{Elsewhere}}'', this is how the afterlife works; you start at the age you were at death, then age backwards until you are sent back to Earth as a baby to be reincarnated.

* The ''Literature/KnightLifeSeries'' uses ''[[Literature/TheOnceAndFutureKing Once and Future King]]'' type. Merlin is an 8-year-old child in the modern day but remembers the past. This is explained as being the result of a spell he cast on himself; apparently, children have more magical power than adults, and he wants to be a child when he has the knowledge to take advantage of this.

* The ''Literature/KnightLifeSeries'' uses ''[[Literature/TheOnceAndFutureKing Once and Future King]] type''. Merlin is an 8-year-old child in the modern day but remembers the past. This is explained as being the result of a spell he cast on himself; apparently, children have more magical power than adults, and he wants to be a child when he has the knowledge to take advantage of this.

* Provos from Creator/PiersAnthony's first two Mode books remembers the future but not the past; in fact, everyone from the Mode or planet or whatever she's from is like that.
* Swedish author Per Nilsson's novel ''Baklängeslivet'' (the backwards life) starts with the protagonist as an old man at a retirement home. Divine agents Soneson and Anderson (compare the Swedish word ande = spirit) explain to him that there's been a mistake and he'll have to live his life backwards, until he's young enough to go "home to mother, [[{{Squick}} and into her]]."

* The title character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story "Literature/TheCuriousCaseOfBenjaminButton" suffers from an strange illness that makes him younger as he ages.

* In Gabrielle Zevin's book ''Literature/{{Elsewhere}}'', this is how the afterlife works; you start at the age you were at death, then age backwards until you are sent back to Earth as a baby to be reincarnated.
* The ''Literature/HyperionCantos'' by Dan Simmons.
** Rachel Weintraub is the less obvious TropeNamer. After an encounter on Hyperion when she's in her mid-20s, she starts aging backward, growing younger every day, and each night she loses two days worth of memories, for a net loss of a day. Each morning when she wakes, she finds that "yesterday was years ago," until finally she asks her father to stop reminding her.

* One example that uses the T.H.White type is ''Knight Life'' by Peter David, in which Merlin is a child in the modern day but remembers the past. This is explained as being the result of a spell he cast on himself; apparently children have more magical power than adults, and he wants to be a child when he has the knowledge to take advantage of this. The ''Literature/KnightLifeSeries'' trilogy deconstructs this by having the TropeNamer in the modern day... as an 8-year-old kid, who has to magically turn water into alcohol...

* In ''Literature/MondayBeginsOnSaturday'' (by the Creator/StrugatskyBrothers), the director of the [[ExtranormalInstitute Scientific Research Institute of Sorcery and Wizardry]], Janus Poluektovich Nevstruev, is known to be one man with two bodies (Janus-A and Janus-U, respectively). Janus-U is visibly older than Janus-A, and there are subtle personality differences, but for the most part they are identical. No-one ''really'' understands what this means, until the characters learn that [[spoiler: Janus-U ''is'' Janus-A, who began living backwards through time as the result of a magical experiment at some point in the future.]] Oh, and the book also has a parrot with Merlin Sickness.
* Merlyn from ''Literature/TheOnceAndFutureKing'' by T. H. White. He remembers the future, and as such serves as partial excuse for the book's AnachronismStew. More recent adaptations of Arthurian legend often use this detail in some form. Pay enough attention to ''The Sword in the Stone'' and a pretty powerful effect of this comes into play when Wart (Arthur) meets Merlyn for the first time. After Merlyn has figured out that it really is the first time they've met, tears come to his eyes for no apparent reason. It's not elaborated on as such, but if you think about it, Merlyn just realized that from his perspective, this is the very ''last'' time he and Arthur will ever see each other.

* In ''Literature/{{Roadmarks}}'' by Creator/RogerZelazny there are creatures who appear on the Road[[note]]a highway that allows to travel to any time as well as to alternate histories of Earth[[/note]] as old humans, live so long they forget their past and slowly keep getting younger. When they are killed [[spoiler:they become dragons]], but it's never mentioned how young they may get if they live long enough. Their children age normally, but [[spoiler:at least some of them become dragons when killed]]. The Road may or may not have been created solely as a playground for [[spoiler:those infant dragons]]. Figuring this all out is central to the plot.
* Gerald Morris' Arthurian novel ''[[Literature/TheSquiresTales The Squire's Tale]]'' uses this not for Merlin but for the hermit Trevisant. He ages normally but remembers less of the past and more of the future as time goes by, until [[spoiler:at his death]] he sees only the future. Later in the series it's revealed that [[spoiler:he wasn't born that way; he voluntarily had a spell cast on him so he could forget a traumatic event in his past.]]
* The White Queen from ''Literature/ThroughTheLookingGlass'' remembers the future because she is "living backwards". This has the strange effect of having her imprison a man before he commits a crime, effectively causing a TimeParadox. She doesn't care though, she's TheDitz.
* ''Literature/TimesArrow'' by Martin Amis is written from from the perspective of a separate consciousness living inside the mind of a dying German Holocaust doctor, telling his life backwards.

* ''Literature/WaywardChildren'': Ms. Lundy purchases [[NeverGrewUp eternal childhood]] to [[LoopholeAbuse exploit a loophole]] in a magical world's rules. The treatment makes her age in reverse at a one-quarter rate, ensuring [[GoneHorriblyRight she'll spend the rest of her life a child]]. Then she's kicked out for rule-breaking anyway.

* The character remembers the past, but remembers successively less of it as they get younger. Usually this occurs when Merlin Sickness is contracted partway through life, while the other two options are more associated with characters who are "born" (that is to say, who die) with it.

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

* In Creator/FritzLeiber's short story "The Man Who Never Grew Young", it happens to ''everyone'' — except the immortal title character — and history itself runs backwards.
* In the hilarious USSR-parody Sci-Fi/Sci Magic novel ''Literature/MondayBeginsOnSaturday'' (by the Creator/StrugatskyBrothers), the director of the [[ExtranormalInstitute Scientific Research Institute of Sorcery and Wizardry]], Janus Poluektovich Nevstruev, is known to be one man with two bodies (Janus-A and Janus-U, respectively). Janus-U is visibly older than Janus-A, and there are subtle personality differences, but for the most part they are identical. No-one ''really'' understands what this means, until the characters learn that [[spoiler: Janus-U ''is'' Janus-A, who began living backwards through time as the result of a magical experiment at some point in the future.]] Oh, and the book also has a parrot with Merlin Sickness. And when the younger researchers figure out why it keeps getting resurrected, HilarityEnsues.

* At the end of the ''Literature/RedDwarf'' novel ''Better Than Life'', Lister -- who has become an old man due to time dilation -- is left in the backwards universe with the intent that the others will do the time dilation thing again, and pick him up when he's back in his twenties. At this point the universe splits in two. In ''The Last Human'', this works as planned. In ''Backwards'', the retrieval goes wrong, and leaves the Dwarfers trapped on Backwards Earth for another ten years, by which point Lister and Cat are teenagers.
* Macros the Black, in Raymond E. Feist's ''[[Literature/TheRiftwarCycle Riftwar Saga]]'', is another who remembers the future instead of the past. Though he was born and aged normally until he stopped aging. He inherited this immortality from his father, hinted to be the Wandering Jew. At least until it was revealed in a later novel that he makes up MultipleChoicePast stories for his own amusement and his true story is totally different.

* ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' had a villain with this (who also looked like Sauron) in one episode.
* ''Series/BestFriendsWhenever'': This happened to Shelby and Cyd when they traveled back to kindergarden in "When Shelby Met Cyd".
* ''Series/BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury'' also had a one-off appearance by a golden-skinned race who aged backwards. They had the intrinsic power to transmute elements, but this weakened as they aged (i.e., became more childlike).

** The Doctor was originally played by a fifty-five-year-old actor who [[YoungerThanTheyLook looked somewhat older]]. Their incarnations gradually got younger-looking from them on, with Matt Smith being the youngest to date. The casting of fifty-five-year-old Peter Capaldi seems to have [[HistoryRepeats brought things full circle]]. Very appropriate, given that in-series the Doctor is scheduled to ''[[YouWillBeBeethoven be]]'' Merlin at some point.[[note]]Unless they've done so already offscreen.[[/note]]
** The Doctor and River Song's relationship has elements of this — they keep meeting in the wrong order, so that the first time the Doctor meets her, she has known him for years. Almost every time he sees her after that, she knows less and less about him, although the pattern isn't absolute. There's a reason they have to co-ordinate their diaries.
*** Even stranger when River is "first" introduced to the Doctor in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler "Let's Kill Hitler"]] (from her perspective). She outright says that she'll age herself backwards, just to mess with people's heads (a fourth-wall-knocking joke about the fact we meet River as she becomes successively younger, but Alex Kingston is getting older).
* A throwaway ContinuityNod in ''{{Series/Eureka}}'' reveals that this happened to Walter after his accident in the pilot, letting him be TheNthDoctor for his next appearance.
* The Creator/StephenKing-penned miniseries ''Series/GoldenYears'' centers around a janitor at a research lab who begins to undergo this after an explosion.
* Avoided with the titular character in ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'', though there are hints that this might be the case for the character of Taliesin.
* All the members of Mork's species from ''Series/MorkAndMindy'' age backwards. The original lamp shading was that it happened this way so the children would be treated with respect from day one, and the elderly would be cute and cuddly, thus more likely to be willingly cared for.
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S3E4LastSupper Last Supper]]", a scientist is tracking down an immortal woman so that he could use her blood to reverse his aging. When he finally caught up with her, he ''vastly'' [[PhlebotinumOverdose overestimated the required dosage]], and ended up a damp stain on the rug.
* The ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode "Backwards" was set in a backwards universe. Kryten and Rimmer became a magic act for doing things forwards; there was a "[[BarBrawl bar-room tidy]]". The SpinOff novel ''Better Than Life'' ends with an aged Lister growing younger this way.
* Happens to a whole universe in the ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' episode "As Time Goes By". The sliders experience time in waves of semi-normality with backwards jumps in between, like a skipping record. Unfortunately [[spoiler:Quinn's attempt to prevent a tragedy leads to a paradox that probably destroys that world eventually]].

*** Kes gets it briefly in "Before And After" when she finds herself traveling backwards through time from the point of her death to her birth and even conception. Unfortunately, it happens even faster than her normal aging, which is already pretty fast.
*** Tuvok also encounters a race of beings who -- unbeknownst to him and the audience -- become cute little cherubs as they grow old, which coupled with a serious case of alien Alzheimer's renders them indistinguishable from the children of practically any other species you'd care to name. HilarityEnsues.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''
*** Non-living example in the series finale where an anti-time anomaly is created when the Enterprise uses the same Phlebotinum Wave in three separate points in time. The anomaly becomes larger in the past until it eventually consumes a large chunk of the galaxy, preventing life on Earth from getting past the primordial soup. Fortunately, Picard fixes it.[[spoiler: He should, [[TimeyWimeyBall he caused it to happen,]] courtesy of Q's meddling.]]
*** Another episode had someone who needed to engage in negotiations with rebels. So, he took a lot of a reverse aging drug to be youthful and strong for the talks. The drug reversed him to around age 25 (he was over 60), but caused him immense pain and physical trauma as his organs could not take the strain. Eventually, he dies as a result of the drug.

* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': In ''The Amazing Spider-Man'' #73-75, the villain Silvermane (with the help of Doctor Connors/The Lizard) decodes a tablet that has the secret to eternal youth on it. Silvermane makes the potion and drinks it. However, in a cruel twist of fate, he promptly becomes a teenager, then a child, then an infant, then dies. Until he returns.

* One of Creator/AlanMoore's ''ComicBook/ThargsFutureShocks'' [[http://againwiththecomics.blogspot.com/2009/05/man-reversible-moores-alan.html strips]] was about a man aging backwards: he started lying in the street undying of a heart attack, got better, he started a job and got demoted until he was the teaboy, his kids moved into his house and finally vanished (would have been more unpleasant for their mother), split up with his wife, moved home, went to school to forget things... Bonus points for a [[DeathIsDramatic dramatic]] [[InvertedTrope birth.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries''. Happens to the crew when they get stuck in an AlternateUniverse with different physical laws in "The Counter-Clock Incident".

* In an old story in the original ''Franchise/SpiderMan'' comics, the villain Silvermane (with the help of Doctor Connors/The Lizard) decodes a tablet that has the secret to eternal youth on it. Silvermane makes the potion and drinks it. However, in a cruel twist of fate, he promptly becomes a teenager, then a child, then an infant, then dies. Until he returns.

Merlin Sickness is generally associated with fantasy and softer sci-fi.

* ''VideoGame/{{Braid}}''. "People like [[spoiler:Tim]] seem to live oppositely from the other residents of the city. Tide and riptide, flowing against each other."

* In the manga version of ''LightNovel/{{Dokkoida}}'', the [[KnightOfCerebus enemy]] Sweet Pea is like this.

* The character remembers the future, and is exceedingly confusing. This can be a form of CursedWithAwesome--it allows the character to serve as a [[{{Seers}} seer]], but if taken seriously more or less precludes them from developing much of a connection with anyone (as just about any event carries the opposite sort of emotional resonance for them as for anyone else). Sometimes a character like this may come off as a MadOracle or TheCassandra.

* In an old story in the original Franchise/SpiderMan comics, the villain Silvermane (with the help of Doctor Connors/The Lizard) decodes a tablet that has the secret to eternal youth on it. Silvermane makes the potion and drinks it. However, in a cruel twist of fate, he promptly becomes a teenager, then a child, then an infant, then dies. Until he returns.

* The daughter of Sally Floyd, Minnie, who appeared in flashback in the Generation M ''Comicbook/XMen'' mini series was a {{mutant}} whose power was backwards aging at normal speed. It manifested at about the age of two, and before the age of five she had regressed past the point when not even the incubators and life support in the maternity ward could keep her alive. To pile on the tragedy, this was a few months before the [[BroughtDownToNormal Decimation]] event that depowered over 99% of the earth's mutants.

* In the ''Series/MorkAndMindy'' fanfic ''FanFic/MorkAndMindysTwentyFifthAnniversary'', Mork's backward aging becomes part of the plot given that he keeps looking younger as Mindy is growing older.

* [[https://m.fanfiction.net/s/4014617/1/Reversion Reversion]]: A semi-open secret is that Miles Prower suffers this, aging backwards in time from his previous adult incarnation. In a twist on how they usually met, Miles was the one who adopted a child Sonic, only later contracting the disease after exposure to an artifact from Little Planet. Tragically the younger Tails becomes, the more his memories of the past fade as his neural pathways rework themselves, forcing Sonic to adopt the "Older Brother" role he is better known for. A big part of the story set in the present is Sonic and others having to come to terms with Tails potentially disappearing from their lives when the disease runs it's course.

* In [[Creator/DaveDuncan Dave Duncan's]] novel ''The Cursed'', there's a disease that gives those that survive it one of several different kinds of supernatural abilities, all of which tend to be [[BlessedWithSuck far more trouble than they're worth]]. One of these is the ability to remember the future but not the past. They ''can'' change the future by doing something that contradicts their memories, but if they do, they lose the ability to remember ''anything at all'', leaving them with the mind of a newborn infant.

* One of ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' radio plays contains a throwaway joke about a race of beings called the Hrarf-Hrarf that begin life old, age backwards, and culminate their lives with the exciting event of being born. While other creatures have midlife crises, these creatures have midlife celebrations. They also enjoy a hangover, because they know that it will soon be followed by a fabulous evening of drinking.

* Flashbacks in VideoGame/{{Disgaea 4| A Promise Unforgotten}} of [[http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110721173823/disgaea/en/images/0/02/Valvatorez_Portrait.jpg Valvatorez]] during his [[http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110819234830/disgaea/en/images/a/ad/D4_Tyrant_Valvatorez_Cut-in.jpg Tyrant days]] show that, not only has [[VegetarianVampire abstinence from blood]] depleted his powers, but is also reducing his physical maturity.

* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' has [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-411 SCP-411]].

* In the comic ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'', Monster Girl is really thirty years old but ages in reverse every time she uses her superpower to turn into a monster. She's unfortunately reduced to about a ten-year-old body by this point.

%%* ''Film/TheCuriousCaseOfBenjaminButton'', where it is milked for every ounce of romantic tension and general drama they can wring out of it.

* Merlyn from ''Literature/TheOnceAndFutureKing'' by T. H. White. He remembers the future, and as such serves as partial excuse for the book's AnachronismStew. More recent adaptations of Arthurian legend often use this detail in some form.\\
Pay enough attention to ''The Sword in the Stone'' and a pretty powerful effect of this comes into play when Wart (Arthur) meets Merlyn for the first time. After Merlyn has figured out that it really is the first time they've met, tears come to his eyes for no apparent reason. It's not elaborated on as such, but if you think about it, Merlyn just realized that from his perspective, this is the very ''last'' time he and Arthur will ever see each other.

* Lin-Fa in the manga ''Zombie Fairy''. She's from a race of people that age extremely slowly anyway, but became dismayed when the first tiny sign of aging really showed up (a single wrinkle). Her friend tried to help by casting a spell on her, unfortunately -permanently- reversing the aging process. By the time the manga starts, Lin-Fa has regressed from being a full-grown adult into the series' TokenMiniMoe.
* Kurama gets hit with a weaponized version of this in the Dark Tournament arc of ''Manga/YuYuHakusho''. The gas takes him to childhood, then infancy, then pre-natal, and then shifts him to his previous incarnation, Youko Kurama, who proceeds to torture the man who did this for information as to how.

* In ''Manga/PandoraHearts'', [[spoiler:[[TragicVillain Jack Vessalius]]]] is afflicted with this as a result of [[spoiler:the Abyss rejecting his corrupted soul and excluding him from the hundred-year cycle of rebirth]]. His body is cursed to perpetually age up to [[spoiler:twenty-four years, his age at the Tragedy of Sablier, when his soul was rejected]], and then regress back to infancy. Additionally, each time he completes this cycle, [[spoiler:a piece of what's left of his soul is destroyed, essentially making him a [[TheSociopath sociopath]] by the time he first appears in the story]]. To make matters even ''worse'', [[spoiler:[[BrokenHero Oz]] now inhabits Jack's body, effectively dooming him to the same fate unless he can find a way out of it]].
* In ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'', Torunka, who is better known as the Dark Sage (the 1000 years older form of the Dark Magician), is cursed by Zeman the Ape King with the Minus Curse, resulting that he becomes younger when the time progresses. When Torunka meets Ruca, he's already a small child and still gets younger. He reverts back to his old age after Zeman is killed by [[PantheraAwesome Regulus]].

* Viktor from ''Chronos Ruler'' suffers from this. Demons named horologues feed off humans' time, [[FountainOfYouth making them younger until they usually vanish]], but Viktor managed to survive by having a time covenant relic lodged in the wound the horologue gave him. As a result, he gets younger by a day every day, and slowly loses his memories, so he resorts to using a diary to keep them intact. By the time the series starts, he looks like a teenager no older than his son. The two of them team up to find the horologue who attacked him, so his lost time can be restored. They also come across a young girl who claims to be Viktor's wife who suffered the same fate, aside from memory loss.
* This is what happens to [[spoiler:Walter]] in ''{{Manga/Hellsing}}'', after becoming an artificial vampire. Because the surgery was rushed, he's constantly deteriorating and can't properly regenerate; instead, his body "heals" damage by morphing itself into a healthy but younger form.
* A minor Chess Pieces in ''Anime/{{MAR}}'' uses a set of darkness arms that give her the ability to paralyze opponents and then inflict pain on them through a VoodooDoll, but they have the side effect of causing her to age backwards whenever she uses them. The previous owner was a baby when she met him, and he regressed into nothing immediately after passing the arms to her.

* One of Creator/AlanMoore's ''[[ComicBook/ThargsFutureShocks Future Shocks]]'' [[http://againwiththecomics.blogspot.com/2009/05/man-reversible-moores-alan.html strips]] was about a man aging backwards: he started lying in the street undying of a heart attack, got better, he started a job and got demoted until he was the teaboy, his kids moved into his house and finally vanished (would have been more unpleasant for their mother), split up with his wife, moved home, went to school to forget things... Bonus points for a [[DeathIsDramatic dramatic]] [[InvertedTrope birth.]]
* The vampires and other undead of the French graphic novel series ''ComicBook/RequiemVampireKnight'' age in reverse in the world of Resurrection.

* In the comic ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'', Monster Girl is really thirty years old but ages in reverse every time she uses her superpower to turn into a monster. She's unfortunately reduced to about a ten-year-old body by this point.

* The daughter of Sally Floyd, Minnie, who appeared in flashback in the [[Comicbook/XMen Generation M]] mini series was a {{mutant}} whose power was backwards aging at normal speed. It manifested at about the age of two, and before the age of five she had regressed past the point when not even the incubators and life support in the maternity ward could keep her alive. To pile on the tragedy, this was a few months before the [[BroughtDownToNormal Decimation]] event that depowered over 99% of the earth's mutants.
* ''[[Creator/ECComics Tales From the Crypt]]'': In "A-Corny Story", a man who was fired for being too old sends his youth-obsessed boss a hexed oak tree. As the tree ages backwards, so does its owner... until the tree has ended up as an acorn and the boss has de-aged out of existence.
* This happened to ComicBook/LoisLane in ''The Cry-Baby of Metropolis''. Lois is worried about her wrinkles and steps into a youth machine even after Superman told her not to touch anything. After it seemingly doesn't work she sees the professor demonstrate that this trope is in effect with a chicken test subject (which turns into an egg and will soon turn into nothingness) and that only Superman's XRayVision can reverse the process. The next day this happens to Lois too and as she gets younger, not wanting Superman to be angry at her for her disobedience, she tries several times to trick Superman into use his XRayVision on her. But every time, Superman uses some other method to fulfill Lois's request, like "super mathematics" to count the jelly beans in a jar. When Lois is a baby, she gives up, but she is unable to admit to Superman because when she tries to talk it comes out as BabyLanguage. Superman takes her to ComicBook/LanaLang's house to take care of her, which of course makes her angry. Eventually Superman admits that he knew what Lois did the whole time and was just screwing with her to teach her a lesson. And the XRayVision actually doesn't have any effect, it was also just Superman and the professor screwing with her. Superman subsequently humiliates Lois by bottle-feeding her the antidote, in front of Lana. Website/{{Superdickery}} had a field day with this one.
* One ''ComicBook/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' story starts with Merlin- yes, that Merlin - visiting the Spellman family. Rather than the traditional wizard Whitebeard look, this Merlin resembles a young man, an appearance he explains with this trope.

* ''Fanfic/OSMUFanfictionFriction'': Basil Valentine seeks to find out the secret as to how Odd Squad agents go through ProportionalAging, [[Really700YearsOld being decades, centuries, or even millennia old despite looking like children,]] and forces Todd to tell him it. The reason he wishes to find out the secret is so he can stop himself from aging backwards and eventually disappearing forever. His current state is that of a five-year-old boy, who is so small that both Ambrosia and Nectar, his two henchwomen, can carry him on their shoulders with ease.

* In the Chinese film ''League of Gods'' (based on the novel ''Literature/FengshenYanyi''), the fox demon Daji curses Jiang Jiya with a spell that makes him younger whenever he uses his magic. At the end of the movie, he has regressed into being a baby.

* One of the leads in the Japanese movie ''[[Film/MyTomorrowYourYesterday My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday]]'' has a variation of this. [[spoiler:Because Emi's timeline moves in the opposite direction relative to Takatoshi's, her memories are of his future, but she doesn't share any of ''his'' memories. To get around this, she has a notebook containing the details of each day in their relationship, which was written on his last day (which would be her first)]].

* Creator/PhilipKDick's ''Counter-Clock World'' has ''all of Earth'' doing this.
* The title character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story "Literature/TheCuriousCaseOfBenjaminButton" suffers from this.

%%* Michael in ''[[Literature/GooseBumps The Cuckoo Clock of Doom]]''.

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'':
** Kes gets it briefly in "Before And After" when she finds herself traveling backwards through time from the point of her death to her birth and even conception. Unfortunately, it happens even faster than her normal aging, which is already pretty fast.
** Tuvok also encounters a race of beings who -- unbeknownst to him and the audience -- become cute little cherubs as they grow old, which coupled with a serious case of alien Alzheimer's renders them indistinguishable from the children of practically any other species you'd care to name. HilarityEnsues.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''
** Non-living example in the series finale where an anti-time anomaly is created when the Enterprise uses the same Phlebotinum Wave in three separate points in time. The anomaly becomes larger in the past until it eventually consumes a large chunk of the galaxy, preventing life on Earth from getting past the primordial soup. Fortunately, Picard fixes it.[[spoiler: He should, [[TimeyWimeyBall he caused it to happen,]] courtesy of Q's meddling.]]
** Another episode had someone who needed to engage in negotiations with rebels. So, he took a lot of a reverse aging drug to be youthful and strong for the talks. The drug reversed him to around age 25 (he was over 60), but caused him immense pain and physical trauma as his organs could not take the strain. Eventually, he dies as a result of the drug.

* ''VideoGame/TheSeventhGuest'' has a particular area of Stauf's mansion where one of the elder guests wished to be young again. She got that wish...[[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor and so much more.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Braid}}''. "People like [[spoiler:Tim]] seem to live oppositely from the other residents of the city. Tide and riptide, flowing against each other."
* Flashbacks in VideoGame/{{Disgaea 4| A Promise Unforgotten}} of [[http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110721173823/disgaea/en/images/0/02/Valvatorez_Portrait.jpg Valvatorez]] during his [[http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110819234830/disgaea/en/images/a/ad/D4_Tyrant_Valvatorez_Cut-in.jpg Tyrant days]] show that, not only has [[VegetarianVampire abstinence from blood]] depleted his powers, but is also reducing his physical maturity.
* In ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series, Orgnum, the King of the [[OurElvesAreDifferent Maormer (Sea Elves)]], is said to be an "immortal wizard". Not only is he said to be immortal, he supposedly appears ''more youthful'' with each passing year. (The Altmer, [[ArchEnemy Arch Enemies]] to the Maormer, claim that Orgnum is not actually immortal and uses "foul" magics and sacrifices in order to maintain his youth.)
* ''VideoGame/MoshiMonsters'' has a species of Moshlings, the Baby Tumteedums. Apparently they age in reverse, so baby ones are really hundreds of years old.
* The Franchise/{{Nasuverse}} Merlin has this going on, though it doesn't manifest much, since [[ImmortalityBeginsAtTwenty he's pretty much immortal]] and therefore looks perpetually like a young man. It's suggested that this is also the reason for his exceptional Clairvoyance, since it allows him to see anything in the present, as opposed to the past or future.
* ''VideoGame/{{Ehrgeiz}}'': Lee Shuwen was the master of lethal kempo, only needing to strike his target once. He was murdered via poison ages ago, but a powerful elixir brought him BackFromTheDead. Unfortunately, he's now aging backwards (which can be seen in the intro as his graying hair regains color), which will eventually kill him again. He seeks out the legendary item in the ruins as a way to obtain a cure for this curse.

* ''80 Jours'', a Belgian bande dessinée by Nicolas Vadot and Olivier Guéret. A rich 80-year-old man, nursed at home, begins to grew a year younger every day without explanation. [[spoiler: He "dies" with her nurse watching over him until the end, after having had an affair together half-course. DistantFinale shows her giving birth to a boy named after him.]]

* Another extremely minor Marvel character (so minor she only showed up in like three issues) was a fur bikini-wearing spear-wielding warrior called Spat, who physically looks about 14. According to her partner Grovel (who looked like a giant iguana), she's aging in reverse due to some mysterious incident that Gambit was involved in.