Not Allowed to Grow Old

"As revenge, Safin killed Madeleine's mother when Madeleine was just a kid. So now that Madeleine is all grown up, they're the same age."

— Screenwriter Guy, Screen Rant Pitch Meetings: No Time to Die

Ah, the Time Skip. Some fans' favorite moment of the series. Everyone is stronger, smarter and more attractive. The babies are kids, the kids are teens, the teens are adults and the adults are...um, still adults.

This is somewhat Truth in Television; if only a few years have gone by, the difference between how much an adult changes and how much an adolescent does can be drastic. There's a much more visible difference aging from 10 to 15 than there is aging from 35 to 40.

However, this gets particularly noticeable when after reaching a certain age, adults in a series stop showing signs of aging at all. No wrinkles, no gray hairs, no change in build, and often no costume changes or new hairstyles, either.

See also Absurdly Youthful Mother and Hollywood Old.

Compare Not Allowed to Grow Up for children. May overlap with Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome and Perma-Shave for adult, male characters who are clean-shaven.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• CLANNAD: None of the characters seems to age after the Time Skip. Nagisa's mother still looks as young as she was back when she was able to pass as a high-school girl^note her daughter was also at high school at that time..
• In the Distant Finale of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Leeron is indistinguishable from when he was first shown 27 years earlier, even when the other older characters during are already geezers and grandmas.
• Dragon Ball has both averted this trope and played it straight:
  • Some human characters like Krillin, Chi-chi and Bulma visibly get older over time, with Bulma in particular managing to dress well no matter her age. The final 10 year timeskip at the end of the manga aged up practically every character.
  • Earthlings characters like Yamcha, Tenshinhan, Chiaotzu, Puar and Bulma's mother don't visibly change at all, despite having a difference of 40 years between the start and end of the series, and not enjoy the extended youth of the Saiyans and Nameks.
  • In Dragon Ball Super, Bulma does not seem to age visibly, despite being almost as old as she was in the original manga's epilogue, and her older sister also looks very young.
  • Bulma's youthful appearance is at least partially justified, as it's shown in Dragon Ball Super: Broly and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero she has been using the Eternal Dragon periodically for cosmetic touch ups.
• In Boruto, many adult characters do not look very different from what they looked like in Naruto Shippuden. The events of Boruto happen 15 or 16 years after the end of Shippuden (not counting the epilogue).
• Lindy, Shiro, and Momoko from Lyrical Nanoha were already in their 30s when they're introduced in the first season, yet all three of them still look exactly the same in their appearances during StrikerS and ViVid (set 10 and 14 years later respectively). Lindy can be forgiven, since she is from a technologically and magically advanced culture that would presumably have the ability to slow down aging, but Momoko and Shiro have no excuse.
• Jotaro Kujo from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Started 17 in Part 3, ended 45 in Part 6. Throughout all of this, Jotaro doesn't look any less different since Part 3, aside from the obvious changes in outfit and artstyle.
• In the Kozuki Oden flashback in One Piece, a noteworthy number of Whitebeard's adult crew members and allies are drawn to look the exact same age as in the present story even though they are 30 years younger. This is especially noteworthy with Whitey Bay who still looks a shapely, young woman in the present time, but a guy like Karma (whose age is more ambiguous) seemingly hasn't aged a day either.

Comic Books

• Inverted and Played for Laughs in Asterix: When there were flashbacks to Asterix's birth or childhood years, the village's oldest resident Geriatrix appeared unchanged.
• The defining example of this in American comics are the characters of DC and Marvel. Dick Grayson went from childhood to (in modern comics) his mid-20s, yet Bruce Wayne hasn't aged a day. (And Bruce, unlike his pal Clark, doesn't have superpowers as an excuse/Hand Wave.) The same goes for Dick's fellow Titans and the DCU's other younger characters versus their older Justice League counterparts.
• In Spider-Man, the mainline 616-Universe Peter was allowed to grow from a teenager to an young adult with relative ease in the past, but then Marvel’s editorial grew ever more concerned with Peter growing past his mid-twenties, according to them their biggest superhero can’t move beyond the relatable young image that made Spider-Man so famous in the first place. That didn’t create issues before but the more decades in real life go by it is getting harder and harder to justify so many of Spidey’s adventures, especially the life-altering ones, all happening in what seems to be one day after the other; this gets more hard to understand when some of Peter’s supporting cast start to make families while he seems to be frozen in time, as in Eddie Brock was outright revealed to have a son conceived after he became Venom, the kid is a teenager now, think about that and try make sense of it.

Fan Works

• In Pokémon Ralphie, Red and Bill don't look like they've aged a day over the 20 years since Red's journey in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. Meanwhile, Red's Unknown Rival Ralphie, once a Bug Catcher Red defeated handily who's apparently younger than him (Red is in turn younger than Bill) is balding and overweight after 20 years. This is because the series uses sprites based on those from the original game.
• In SlifofinaDragon's Sengoku Basara fanfics, while Date Masamune and Sanada Yukimura's two children Yuki and Masa grow from infants to 20-21 years of age, the rest of the SB cast remain their appearance in spite of years passing. Though it may be ironically thanks to Kyogoku Maria casting a non-aging spell that not only affects her but also half of Japan.

Films — Animation

• Pretty much ANYBODY in Cars doesn't show a single sign of aging. Forty years in between the time of Radiator Springs' heyday and the time it vanished from the map, not one of the residents ever seem to age, although Mater was originally baby blue before he became rusted, but is still the same. Lightning McQueen himself also shows no signs of aging across the whole franchise, not even by 3 when he is teased of being old despite looking the same as he did when he was a rookie. Even Doc Hudson looks the same as he did back when he used to race for the Piston Cup in the '50s.
• Disney's Frozen: By the end of the prologue (just before their deaths) Elsa and Anna's parents still look like they're in their early twenties, despite their daughters now being 18 and 15. The mother in particular just looks like a taller, brunette version of her teenage daughters.
• Throughout the Ice Age franchise, Manny, Sid, Diego, Ellie, and the possum brothers age very little throughout the movies. They look pretty much the same before Peaches was born and after she grew up and got married.
• The Lion King has a few examples. Most are justified because lions age differently from the other animals in the film.
  • Most noticeable in the time-skip sequence when Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa are walking across the log, Simba goes from lion cub to adolescent to adult. Timon and Pumbaa don't change at all. It takes around 2-5 years for a lion's mane to grow. Nor do they visibly age at all from Kiara's birth to her adulthood in the sequel, while the interquel has them looking the same age even before Simba was born.
  • The most triumphant example is probably Zazu, who presumably had been employed by Mufasa for sometime before the series began (and in earlier script drafts and the stage musical, was confirmed to have been babysitter for Mufasa himself), but from Simba's presentation ceremony as a cub at the start of the 1st film, to his full-grown daughter finding a mate and inheriting the kingdom at the end of the 2nd, he hasn't aged a day. However, the lifespan of a wild lion is about 10 years, where wild hornibills can live for up to 45 years. He probably still has at least one or two more generations left in him before he turns gray.
  • On the other hand, Simba looks pretty much the same from Hakuna Matata (where he would be about age 5) to the finale of The Lion King II a full generation later (about age 10 and should be getting old or at least significantly weaker than Kovu in his prime).
  • Averted for Timon and Pumbaa in The Lion King (2019) - they are actually shown to be older after the time skip (Pumbaa has some gray hairs, etc.)
• The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea: Ariel, Eric, Grimsby and other human characters don't show any signs of aging between the 12-year Time Skip. Somewhat justified for Ariel, given that she's a mermaid and her father has used the trident on her, but everyone else has no excuse.
• The Prince of Egypt: While the adult male characters are shown to noticeably age after the second time skip (Moses, Rameses, and Aaron especially), Miriam and Tzipphorah don't age at all.
• Also happens in Sleeping Beauty: None of the characters who were adults during Aurora's baby shower look any older sixteen years later. This is possibly justified for Flora, Fauna, Merryweather, and Maleficent since they're fairies, but there's no excuse for King Stephen, his queen, or King Hubert.
• Tangled: Rapunzel father has grown a few more wrinkles and grey hair since their daughter's disappearance eighteen years before, but her birth mother hasn't aged a day (apart from maybe a few tired lines under her eyes).^note This has led to a fan theory that since the mother drank the tea containing the flower that gave Rapunzel her youth-restoring magic, the queen might have some residual magic in her to explain why she doesn't age.
• And Disney's Tarzan. Kerchak, Kala, and the other adult gorillas don't look or move any differently from when Tarzan was a baby, despite Tarzan looking to be in his early twenties by the time Jane arrives.
  • Even Sabor the leopard is shown to be still alive after roughly 20 years, and doesn't seem to have aged any more than the gorillas.

Films — Live-Action

• Leonardo Di Caprio was in his twenties playing Howard Hughes in The Aviator, but even when Howard is in his forties, he still looks like a man in his twenties.
• In the film version of Mommie Dearest, Faye Dunaway refused to wear old age make-up for the latter scenes (even though other characters do). The film starts when Joan Crawford is vaguely in her thirties, and it should be said she was in her seventies when she died.
• By the time of X-Men: Apocalypse, the forty or fifty something characters are played by actors in their thirties who had played them as twentysomethings in X-Men: First Class. The only one that has an in-universe justification is Jennifer Lawrence (also the youngest at twenty-five) as Raven, since she's a shapeshifter and can look as young or old as she pleases. This could be hand waved for the Mutants, who may age slower than humans. But Moira still looks like a young woman who apparently just has really good genes. Dark Phoenix is set nine years later with the same actors ... even weirder when you consider that (alternate timelines nonewithstanding) it's a mere eight years before X-Men, where they are all played by older actors.
• Alexander is downright confusing about this. Val Kilmer, who plays Philip of Macedon, is roughly the age he was when he was assassinated (44 versus 46), but he barely looks any different when Alexander is a boy. Olympias goes the opposite way, being about the right age when Alexander is a boy (29), but too young when he is a young man.
• What's Love Got to Do with It (1993): The lives of Ike and Music/Tina Turner from the late 1950s to the early 1980s are depicted in the film. And aside from hairstyle and wardrobe changes, neither Laurence Fishburne nor Angela Bassett look any older over the course of the film. By the time Ike and Tina's children are grown, they look the same age as their parents.

Live-Action TV

• Jesus of Nazareth - Olivia Hussey plays Mary from before Jesus's birth to his crucifixion (thirty-three years give or take) without aging. This is apparently because it's believed Mary didn't age because of her purity.
• Vikings: By the fifth season, 20 years have passed and many characters not even born at the beginning of the show grow into adults. Male characters visibly age over the seasons, with their hair graying, lengthening and sometimes receding. The women, on the other hand, show no signs of age. This is especially pronounced in the case of Lagetha, who has a grandson who is nearly an adult yet is still as youthful and blond as ever.
• Outlander: Claire and Jamie start out the show being in their thirties, and season 3 has a long Time Skip after which they should both be in their fifties. However, there is minimal indication that they're any older other than Claire having a salt-and-pepper wig (and she eventually dyes her hair anyway) and Jamie using reading glasses.
• The events of Rome span from roughly 52 BC through 30 BC. Main characters Pullo and Vorenus remain in peak physical condition the entire time, and none of the other characters appear to have aged two decades either. The series does nod to time passing by recasting some young characters (notably Octavian) with older actors later in the series, but even these characters don't appear to be as old as they should be by the end.
• In The Witcher (2019), Geralt and Yennefer are Older Than They Look, but Jaskier looks inexplicably the same over the course of Geralt's decades-long arc.
• The Crown (2016), a show detailing and dramatizing Queen Elizabeth II's reign beginning from just prior to her father's death, notably averts this by making a point of re-casting everyone after the second season, as the British monarchy enters a new era. And the showrunners still have plans to re-cast them once more after the fourth season, presumably when the show's timeframe would've reached the near-end of 1900s and/or early 2000s. It makes sense as the Windsors are very much well-remembered in the public consciousness, making it impossible to sidestep the ageing question in a way that dramas set in a time when photography and film had not yet been invented would be able to. Even if the actors aren't actually that much older than the previous ones, they're still believably older looking.
• In The Last Kingdom, Uhtred should be at least around his mid to late 40s, as in season 1 he's at least in his late teens when he first interacts with Alfred the Great and his then-infant son Edward, and by season 5 Edward is an adult with children of his own. However, Uhtred looks no different, save for a change in haircut. Similarly, Edward and Aethelflaed look the same throughout most of the show, despite enough time having passed by season 5 for them to have young adult children.

Manhua

• Old Master Q have a Not Allowed to Grow Older for it's characters. Master Q debuts in the mid-1960s and while his age is somewhat ambiguous, readers usually perceives him to be around 40 - 60. And he's depicted at that age ever since, the same way as supporting characters like Big Potato and Mr. Chin. Meanwhile, his on-off Love Interest, Miss. Chan, is still in her early-twenties. It could be justified because of the comic's Negative Continuity nature though.

Puppet Shows

• Sesame Street: Unlike the human actors, the Muppets and monsters show no signs of aging and will always stay the same age, although they were babies beforehand. In the case of Big Bird's Granny Bird, she looks the same as she does currently when he was a baby bird, remaining a senior even after he became the perma-six-year-old as of today.

Video Games

• The Ace Attorney games has a seven-year time skip between Trials and Tribulations and Apollo Justice. The recurring Judge, who is elderly, looks no older than he did before the time skip. Likewise, Larry Butz, who was in his mid-twenties when he appeared in the original trilogy, doesn't look any older when returns in the DLC case of Spirit of Justice, nine years after his previous appearance.
• The main storyline of Assassin's Creed II spans over two decades, yet neither Ezio nor any of his friends or family visibly age in that time. This is most noticeable in the cases of Ezio and Claudia, who start out as 17 and 15 respectively (though they could easily pass as young adults): Apart from Ezio growing a beard, they still look exactly the same at the end of the game, when they should be pushing 40. The lack of aging is less striking but still noticeable for the older characters, such as Ezio's parents, who don't look any different between newborn Ezio and 17-year-old Ezio; and his mother doesn't look any different at the end of the game, either, which means that on the whole she doesn't age at all in the course of about 40 years.
• Dragon Age:
  • Despite Dragon Age II taking place over the course of seven years, none of the characters so much as change haircuts, let alone age.
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition takes place around ten years after Dragon Age: Origins, but few of the returning adult characters look like they've aged at all. (Leliana and Loghain in particular have been accused of looking younger.)
• Final Fantasy XIV plays the trope both ways. The game takes place five years after the era of the Calamity (basically the original 1.0 version of the game before the reboot that became 2.0), but everyone, including the player character if you had a character back then, more or less looks the same all around. The exceptions to the trope are Cid and Minfilia; Cid grows a beard while Minfilia looks a bit older and has more developed breasts.
• Fire Emblem
  • Averted for the most part when the second half of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War occurs, which takes place 17 years after the first half. While some characters like Finn have aged fairly gracefully (especially for someone who went through hell and back during the interim period and didn't come out of it all that well), others have visibly aged, including Oifey and especially Arvis. The same can be said for Eyvel, who is actually Brigid, in Fire Emblem: Thracia 776.
  • Arguably the most successful sub-series to have shown aging would be the Elibe games, with the former taking place 20 years after the latter. Whomever returns in Binding Blade have all aged, with some like Eliwood especially so due to illness.
  • Generally played straight in Fire Emblem: Three Houses: While all of the students at the Officer's Academy visibly grow older during this game's Time Skip (5 years in this case), the teachers, knights, and other staff who have worked there, along with other adults outside the academy, do not. The only exception is Cyril, who was 14 during Part I, and in the case of Flayn and Seteth, they are ultimately justified in that they're actually slow-aging Children of the Goddess like Rhea. An egregious case would be Shamir, as she's 25 during Part I, but students close to her in age (The DLC unit Balthus starts older than her at 26, for one) all age while she doesn't.
• Growing Up:
  • One full play-through lasts 18 in-game years, where the Player Character grows up from a baby up until high school graduation, but the adults never age one bit. Since you play as the PC's child in the next run, it gets jarring when you encounter the same adults several generations down the line when they should've died many years ago. After all, the game is not called "Growing Old".
  • Zig-Zagged with the PC's classmates. The PC grows up with them and can marry one of them in the epilogue, but you'll inevitably meet the same classmates growing up with the PC's child all over again in future generations, even Jake and Nathan since they die at the end of their routes (but only in the bad ending for Nate).
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • As far as we can tell, none of the Disney characters age at all - Huey, Dewie and Louie have been selling stuff to heroes for at least a decade, and are still kids.
  • Ven, Terra, and Aqua look the same before and after a 10+-year timeskip, while Sora, Riku, and Kairi all look different after only a 1-year skip. Magic is involved in some of these cases, however: Ven's been in stasis in Castle Oblivion, while Aqua is trapped in the Realm of Darkness, where time does not pass.
  • Organization XIII is either affected by this or Immortality Begins at Twenty, it's hard to tell. Ienzo was a young child, while Lea and Isa were in their early teens when they lost their hearts. They've since aged normally, but the rest were already adults and don't look any different ten years on, apart from some of them having longer hair.
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: After the seven-year skip, only the kids are shown to have changed to adults. The only exceptions are Ganondorf, the Fishing Pond owner (who is now balding), and to a small extent Ingo, who received a new costume.
• In Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11, over twenty-five years have passed since the events of the original trilogy. While the human male characters have visibly aged during that time, Sonya looks the same as she always has, and not like a 50-year-old Army general. Her design was particularly criticized in MK 11, where she looks almost exactly like her 28-year-old daughter Cassie. Maybe Johnny's vanity rubbed off on her and she had some work done?
• Between the third and fourth generations of Record of Agarest War, Alberti grows from a teen to middle age. Between the fourth and fifth generations? No change, even though there was a nearly 20-year Time Skip both times.
• The calendar in Resident Evil has advanced in real time over two decades (albeit with numerous Interquels and remakes). Several child characters have grown up, but the recurring characters introduced as adults have aged very gracefully even if they do look somewhat different (even accounting for constant art changes).
• Applies to almost everyone in Sid Meier's Pirates! with the exception of the player character. The player's family members, love interests, and the evil Baron Montelban are unaffected by the ravages of time and look exactly the same for decades of play. However, your character's face becomes increasingly lined and his fighting abilities decline as he ages to reflect his increasingly poor health - at higher difficulty levels it can become impossible to beat Montelban if you're too old.
• In Village Life, your villagers grow from babies until they die of old age, but resident Witch Doctor Maya never seems to age at all. It's unknown if her magic keeps her ageless.
• After the first level of Wolfenstein: The New Order, B.J. Blazkowicz is in a coma for 14 years. Despite over a decade of inactivity his muscles have not atrophied in the slightest, and he looks exactly the same save for a scar on his head. All the other characters returning after the time skip don't appear to have aged either, most notably main villain General Strasse, who was already in his mid-eighties and looks remarkably spry for a 100-year-old man. (Although evil super science may play a part in that one.)

Western Animation

• In The Flintstones specials that take place when Pebbles and Bam-Bam are teenagers and adults, their parents Fred, Wilma, Barney, and Betty look exactly the same as they did in the original series when they were babies. It's noticeably averted with Wilma's mother, Pearl, whose hair greys over time.
• In the Phineas and Ferb episode “Act Your Age” that is set 10 years into the future, Lawrence and Linda look the same as they did despite everyone else aging.
• Mostly averted in the Rugrats spin-off All Grown Up! which takes place ten years after the original series. Most of the adults have aged in some way; wrinkles, greying hair, receding hairlines, weight gain, etc. Even Grandpa Lou looks a little older and Charlotte has clearly had cosmetic surgery to try and maintain her youth, even though she looks like the Cheshire Cat. Stu and Kira, however, look more or less the same as in the original series.
• In Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling even though 20 years have passed in universe almost no one has visibly aged, even though most of the cast should be middle aged or elderly. Rocko's dog Spunky who should be quite old and slowing down and the obnoxious bratty kid from "Jet Scream" is still a kid. The major aversion is Filburt and Paula Hutchinson's kids Missy, Gilbert, Shelbert, and Norbert who were babies before the time skip and are now adults.
• Zig-zagged in Samurai Jack. The last time we see Jack's parents in the original run, they are elderly and decrepit prisoners of Aku. However, in the series finale, they are restored back to their healthier years even though Jack returned to a point in time after they were imprisoned.
• Jackie Chan Adventures has a downplayed example. The "J2" episodes both feature Jade time traveling to her adult years. Jackie, Captain Black and Tohru have all changed with age (Jackie has gray in his hair, Captain Black has a goatee, Tohru has extra wrinkles on his face.) The exception is Uncle, who looks exactly the same. Granted, he was already old, but he should have looked even older.
• In The Wild Swans during the 6 year timeskip, Elisa ages from a little girl to a young woman, after her six brothers are finally cured of their curse of being turned into swans they haven’t aged at all, even though some of them were clearly older than her, making her look older than them, this may be justified as they may not have been able to age as long as they were cursed.
• In the Beavis And Butthead episode “Stolen Valor” despite it taking place 30 years after the original series and the duo are middle aged, Tom Anderson is not only still alive he also doesn’t appear to have aged at all since Beavis and Butthead were teenagers, being a World War II and Korean War veteran he should be in his 90’s or a little over a hundred.

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