Older Than They Look / Anime & Manga

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• A very minor age-difference with Koruri from 7 Seeds. She's one of the shorter characters, without much development and her curly hair makes her seem even more youthful. She is 17 years old but looks about 13 years old. The other teams are surprised to learn that she's the same age as the other members of her team, especially her boyfriend, who is a year younger than she.
• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You:
  • Kusuri is 18 years old, but due to a failed immortality drug she took, she looks like a young child unless she takes an antidote.
  • Chapter 74 introduces Kusuri's parents, who took the same drug. Her mother is 55, while her father's age is unmentioned, but both resemble 8-year-olds. Chapter 75 introduces her 89-year-old grandmother Yaku, who took an enhanced version of the drug and thus permanently looks like a child.
  • Suu is a first year in high school, but she looks young enough that she’s able to participate in a competition for youngsters.
• The title character of Acony has the body of a 12- or 13-year-old girl but claims to be 23. Her high school aged neighbor laughs at this, saying that if she's going to lie she should go all out and say she's Really 700 Years Old, but it's true; she was involved in a superhero origin-esque botched scientific experiment that slowed her aging to a crawl. She'll look 23 by the time she's 80, but she'll die around then because her lifespan is still that of a normal human.
• AKIRA: Kyoko, Takashi and Masaru were often mistaken for children; even a police officer does this when he saw Takashi. However, the trio is actually in their late 30s, with Kyoko being oldest in her early 40s like The Colonel. This is due in part of taking medicine to keep their powers in check.
• Angelic Layer's Misaki Suzuhara is of 1st-year middle school age. Yet she gets mistaken for much younger, at one point elementary 3rd year, much to her shock.
• In Inoue Kazurou's (of Midori Days and Ai Kora fame) short story Aoi Destruction, the titular father of the main character is 38 years old, yet looks like a little girl. His late wife, in contrast, was apparently quite masculine in appearance. The problem with that should be obvious.
• In Arata: The Legend, Princess Kikuri looks surprisingly youthful for a 60+-year-old woman. Justified, as her powers suppress the form of her true age.
• ARIA:
  • Alicia is 19 years old and pretty much looks that way, which doesn't quite match her supposed long experience as an undine. She lives on Mars though, where the years last almost twice as long as Earth's. Do the math.
  • President Aria. 20 years have passed and he doesn't look any different, unlike Grandma, who has considerably shortened.
  • Played even straighter by Albert Pitt, who, while one of the eldest members of the main cast, looks like a cute little boy due to his working conditions.
• In the manga Ashidaka The Iron Hero (Tekkai no Senshi), it is hinted that Captain Honchi is older than he looks, since the author mentions that the protagonist [Ashidaka] is not able to smoke cigarettes because "he is a minor" (comparing to his original draft). Meanwhile, Honchi is shown smoking cigars on various occassions.
• Mai "Ino" Inose, the Token Mini-Moe of Asteroid in Love, is a 1.44m tall eleventh-grader and looks quite childish.
• Attack on Titan:
  • Levi is this according to Shrug of God. His exact age is unknown, other than being this trope almost word for word.Word of God is that he's over 30.
  • Ymir is an unusual example. She was trapped in Titan form for 60 years, and did not age a single day during that time. As such, she is technically in her late 70s but looks to be in her late teens.
• In Azumanga Daioh, Tomo Takino mentions that she frequently gets mistaken for a middle school student despite being in high school, expressing jealousy at Yomi for being hit with the opposite trope. Similarly, Chiyo Mihama is unusually small for a 10- to 13-year-old, to the point where author Kiyohiko Azuma used a modified version for the 5-year-old title character of Yotsuba&!.
• Speck from the Most Evil Death Row Convicts saga of Baki the Grappler looks to be a freakishly tall and muscular middle-aged man, but he's actually 97 years old. It's implied the only thing driving his body forward is his determination to know defeat, hence his apparent immunity to aging as well as his ability to go a long time without breathing and to shrug off any injury. Once he gets his wish, he rapidly deteriorates into a malnourished old man while under hospital care and goes out with a smile.
• In Bakuman。, Natsumi Kato looks like a high school student or young college student, but she's actually around 30.
• Berserk is frequently guilty of this, especially when Miura starts using a more cutesy art style on his characters.
  • Ricket tends to be the biggest offender as he was 16 at the end of the Golden Age and is currently 19, but he still looks like a cutesy 12-year-old Bishōnen boy.
  • Griffith is currently 24 but thanks to his haunting supernatural beauty he still looks like a feminine teenage compared to Guts despite being the same age. Though being the reincarnated Dark Messiah might have something to do with it.
  • Initially averted with Casca who looked her age albeit somewhat younger than Guts however when Eclipse happened and Miura art style shifted Casca is drawn looking the same age as Farnese who is 19, despite Casca being five years her senior. This may be Hand Waved due to mental trauma making Casca become child-like as when she regains her former personality Casca’s facial features change and she looks more mature.
  • Charlotte is a particularly egregious example as she’s 20 by the time of the latest arc, but still drawn as young and cutesy as Schierke or Isama.
• In Black Cat, because of being shot with a nanomachine Lucifer bullet, Train transformed into a kid (that looks around seven to 8 years old), even though he's actually 23.
• Pinoko from Black Jack looks no older than six, but insists that she's at least eighteen due to the very bizarre circumstances up until her "birth". Specifically, she spent the first 18 years of her "life" encased in a cyst within her Twin Sister's body. Black Jack, her legal guardian, argues the exact opposite.
• Mafuyu of Blend-S is a college student that is often mistaken as an elementary school child, and plays the role of a Little Sister Heroine in a Cosplay Café. Even characters who are perfectly aware of her age, such as her co-workers, have their perceptions of Mafuyu colored by this. Kaho and Akizuki both find it uncomfortable to watch her chugging a beer, while recently hired Hideri, when thinking about what Mafuyu might wear outside of work, imagines her in a preschooler's smock.
• Leonardo Watch from Blood Blockade Battlefront is old enough to drink, but looks and sounds like he's around 15 years old.
• Yuka of Blood-C. She's apparently old enough to be a politician (which would put her somewhere in early thirties at least) but can pass as a high school student.
• In Bokurano, the assassin who shoots Machi in the head looks like a young boy, but according to Koyemshi, is actually "a grown man. Pushing 40."
• Nene from Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 is rather short and undeveloped, and tends to act like a young teenager rather than the 20-year-old woman she is. It seems to be her Berserk Button, if her reaction when she flirts with her boss (His reply? “I don’t like little kids”) or when 15-year-old Makkie comes onto her is any indication.
  • Makkie also looks like a kid who just entered his first year in middle school.
• In Chapter 10 of Cannon Busters, an old assassin with the appearance of a little kid tries to kill the protagonist.
• Cardcaptor Sakura's Eriol Hiiragizawa is actually the same age as Sakura's father, despite looking to be around the same age as her because he magically halted his aging process.
• Case Closed:
  • The main premise: a Million to One Chance Fountain of Youth turning Teen Geniuses into Preteen Geniuses.
  • Vermouth looks like she's in her twenties, but is suspected to be Sharon Vineyard, the mother of her supposed public identity.
• Tooru from A Channel is 16 and in highschool, but due to her short stature she looks considerably younger.
• In Chatting at the Amber Teahouse, Seriho looks like a teenager. She's really 25.
• All the demons in Chrono Crusade fall under this, but Chrono in particular. Thanks to a need to conserve his spiritual energy, his typical form makes him look like a 12-year-old, and even in his true form he looks like he's in his early twenties. However, there's at least about 60 years that he's confirmed to have lived, and it's likely he's much, much older. His former comrades, the sinners, all appear to be in their late teens or early twenties, but they're all near the same age.
  • There's also Father Remington (who appears to be in his early thirties at the latest but is seen dueling Chrono half a century prior in a flashback).
  • In the manga finale Fiore/Floretta and Satella (due to becoming Human Popsicles for 75 years).
• A very similar situation to Double Arts (listed below) happens in Code:Breaker, although this time with the female protagonist's mom, and the mom being a bit more endowed.
• V.V. from Code Geass looks like a child, due to immortality, but is actually in his sixties.
• High-school-aged Kaoruko in Comic Girls is being mistaken as an elementary school child by every recurring character in the first episode.
• Cassian from Count Cain's growth was stunted such that he looks twelve or so but is an adult. This being a vaguely-Victorian world, he wound up working in the circus for a while.
• Faye Valentine from Cowboy Bebop is much older than she appears, having been cryonically frozen for 54 years while recovering from injuries she sustained in a space shuttle accident (possibly one of the first public space shuttles).
• In the original Cutey Honey, the shape-shifting android Honey was Younger Than She Looked (supposedly 16 but was probably built more recently than that). By the time New Cutey Honey came around, she looked a little older (early- to mid-twenties, probably voluntary aging from her powers), but being over a 100 years old, she had moved to the opposite trope.
• Rebecca in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a Small Girl, Big Gun who appears to be an adolescent but is in her early 20s according to Word of God. At one point a bouncer stops her from entering a bar and she pulls a gun on him.
• D.Gray-Man:
  • The age of Road is revealed in Chapter 187 to be over 35. What isn't known is whether the young form we see is her real body, or an illusion; for example, although we know she is human, we've also seen her in the form of a doll.
  • Chivalrous Pervert Cross Marian is a big case as well. He's been allied with Neah for over 35 years, Winters and Klaud are forty and thirty-five respectively, so Cross has been in the war since they were children. In an extra, Komui's Talk Corner #3, the characters debate Cross' age. Johnny says he looks to be in his late twenties, but that he has to be at least forty. Tyki says he's making himself look scarily young. Wisely then asks Allen-who says his master hasn't aged a year since he met him. He then says it's scary, after calling Cross a monster. Hoshino herself, keeps his age hidden in the character info.
  • Shown in chapter 215 to be true of Allen as well. The Fourteenth is shown wondering why Allen's body hadn't aged in the last 35 years and comments that it has in fact gotten younger.
• There's several vampires in Dance in the Vampire Bund who look young while being decades old.
• Amber in Darker than Black looks like a teenager. This is because her remuneration is Merlin Sickness; a flashback to five years earlier shows her looking twenty-something. We have no idea how old she actually is.
• Death Note:
  • At the start of the series, L is 24 years old, but he doesn’t look older than the 17 years old Light. In fact, his messy hair, casual clothing style and little genius quirks make him look younger.
  • The same can be said about Near, who’s 18 years old post-Time Skip, but looks like a preteen in pajamas.
  • Pre-Time Skip, Misa is 19, making her two years older than Light, but her petite stature and childlike behavior make her appear younger than she is.. This is even acknowledged in-universe: post-Time Skip, the 25 years old Misa (who doesn’t seem to have aged a bit) is called a brat by the 24 years old Kiyomi Takada.
• Chilchuck from Delicious in Dungeon may look like a Mouthy Kid, but he's actually a 28-year-old halfling adult with a wife and three daughters. Being child-sized and youthful-looking is the norm for halflings, and their actual ages can be hard for other races to discern. Even after he tells them outright how old he is, Marcille and Senshi still seem to think he's very young because their races (an elf and dwarf respectively) are Long-Lived and mature much more slowly (Marcille is boggled when she finds out that not only is Chilchuck married with children, all his children are independent adults). Chilchuck himself is implied to be roughly "middle-aged" by halfling standards; at one point Chilchuck is transformed into a human, and ends up looking much older than any of the other adventurers in the party. This trope is Deconstructed a little with halflings in general: because they're small and cute, other races tend to treat them as children regardless of their chronological age, and it contributes to the general condescending, disrespectful attitude that halflings have to live with.
• In Digimon Frontier, Kouichi's mom looks more like his sister.
• Somewhat related cross-cultural example: when Digimon Tamers was translated for Western network television, they raised the kids' official ages by a few years (from ten to thirteen), possibly due to what happens to them and the relations they get into squicking the translators a bit. Digimon Adventure 02 and Digimon Frontier also had all the kids' ages raised a year.
  • The same thing happened with 4Kids' dub of Tokyo Mew Mew, presumably for similar reasons; an especially jarring example is Bu-Ling, who begins the series at 8 years old, yet the dubbed version managed to make her fourteen. Oddly, Tokyo Pop's manga translation moved the characters down a year to appeal more to a young audience.
• In the 8th Dirty Pair OVA we have Tia, who was locked in a capsule by her father to save her from the guerilla invaders who massacre him and the other passengers of the ship, twenty years pass and Kei and Yuri find her capsule and she hasn't aged at all, despite being in her mid twenties and technically older than them, she still looks like a little girl about 5 or 6 years old.
• Mika-sensei in Doki Doki School Hours is a 27-year-old woman, though she appears to be 10 years old. This doesn't prevent one of her students, Kitagawa, from being attracted to her. In fact, it encourages it.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Chronicles of the Moon Exploration: The Espals are immortal but stop physically aging in the youth. Goddard even warns his subordinates not to underestimate the Espals based on their child-like appearances.
• Double Arts pulled this on one of the main characters. She goes to meet a new found friend's family, and is introduced to a little girl she assumes to be his little sister. But wait! That's his mom!
• Dragon Ball:
  • The Saiyans: By the time they're in their twenties, they still look like teens or preteens, and it isn't until well later on in the series that they're looking like adults (though Vegeta goes through this relatively quickly). Even to the degree that in Dragon Ball GT/late Dragon Ball Z it gets highlighted by Vegeta, saying that he might be in his 50s, but he ages slower than the rest of the cast. Bulma does not enjoy this.
  • Vegeta's brother Tarble is probably the best example of this as far as Saiyans go — he looks like he could be in his teens despite being older than Goku, who was around 40 years old when they met.
  • For Dragon Ball Super: Broly Toriyama confirmed that Goku, Vegeta, and Broly are 43 years old by the time the movie takes place, of course none of said Saiyans look remotely close to that age looking more like 20-something-year-old hunks. (It should be noted that Toriyama seems to forget Goku was dead for 7 years along with canonically being 5 years younger than Vegeta. So that would put Goku at 33-34.)
  • In the original Dragon Ball Goku looks around seven when he's twelve, and at age fifteen he looks more-or-less the same. It's not until age eighteen that he finally starts to look like a teenager.
  • Mrs. Briefs, Bulma's mother, doesn't seem to get any older over the entire course of the series. By the Buu Saga, her daughter is over 40, and she looks the same as she did when she'd first appeared roughly 25 years earlier.
  • Bulma also qualifies in the Buu Saga. At that point, she's in her early 40s, but could still easily pass for late 20s/early 30s.
    • And for those starting out with Dragon Ball Z back in the mid-90's, Bulma looks like she is in her high school years, while Krillin looks like he's in his middle school years. They're both well into their 20s.
    • Dragon Ball Super: Broly would end up justifying this when Bulma searches for the Dragon Balls with the intention of wishing to be five years younger, with the implication that she's done this before and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero outright confirming and showing it in real time.
  • And then there's Chiaotzu, who looks like a 10-year-old child through his entire life. By his last appearance in Z, he's 46 years old, three years older than Goku, and he still looks like a little kid. This is kind of explained in that his original design was based on a traditional Chinese ghost.
  • A non-human/Saiyan example might be Frieza. Between flashbacks to the Bardock special, which occurred at least twenty+ years ago, to the present, he hasn't visibly aged a bit. He could easily be Really 700 Years Old, but his age is never given.
  • Krillin, who has incredibly low height, does not look his age throughout Dragon Ball Z. Neither does his wife 18, whose modified body ages very slowly.
  • The Pilaf Gang — Emperor Pilaf, Shu, and Mai — are all chronologically older than Bulma, likely by several years. However, thanks to a badly worded wish, they were given child bodies whilst their adult minds and memories remain.
  • Cus/Kusu, the angel of Universe 10, is the Grand Priest’s oldest child, but she looks and sounds like a little girl.
  • Goten and Trunks have fallen into this in Super. Despite the show taking place over the course of several years, neither of them have aged a day since the Buu saga, and arguably look even younger. As of Dragon Ball Super: Broly, they're supposed to be 13 and 14 respectively, yet they still show no signs of the six years worth of growth they should have had. Trunks' case is particularly jarring, as he's the same age as his future counterpart was in Dragon Ball Z: The History of Trunks. Averted in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero and recent manga chapters where Trunks and Goten finally look their age, with Gohan justifying it by explaining that Saiyans have sudden growth spurts.
  • It appears to run in the Briefs family; Tights is 58 by Super and doesn't look a day over 30.
• Akira Toriyama has stated in one interview that Arale the android from Dr. Slump is meant to be 13; however she looks and acts like a 7- or 8-year-old.
• In Eureka Seven Ao, Eureka is a good deal older than she was in the original series (it's more complicated than that due to time travel hijinks), but still looks roughly the same as she did in the past (mostly because she isn't human). She does pull off an older look, though, by way of clothing choices and hairstyles.
• The main characters in Fairy Musketeers look more like 7- or 8-year-olds than 14-year-olds. "Juushi" could be a pun. In the title, it means "musketeer", but juushi — using different kanji — means "fourteen".
• Natsu and Gajeel from Fairy Tail are hinted to be this. During the Battle of Fairy Tail arc, they get trapped with Master Makarov by a spell that only affects people over the age of 80... but the confusing part is that they're shown to have grown up normally in the past few years. However, Hiro Mashima officially debunked this shortly afterward, suggesting that something other than their age was at work. During the Tartarus Arc, we learn that their dragon foster-parents were sealed inside their bodies. However, another possible explanation comes later: they were born 400 years ago, having traveled through time to a point where the dragons thought they could defeat their arch-enemy, Acnologia. Natsu and Gajeel have no memory of either of these facts, so they were unable to explain why they couldn't pass the age barrier.
• In Final Fantasy: Lost Stranger, Shogo is 26 years old, but has a young-looking face that makes it easy to think he's a teenager. The rest of his party is shocked when they learn of this, figuring he was the same age as Sharuru when he's actually the second-oldest after Duston. He's also quite annoyed when he's referred to as "kiddo", complaining that Japanese people tend to look younger longer but this treatment is just too much.
• Yun-Ook Jang, the main character in Forest of Gray City is a 25-year-old who keeps getting mistaken for a teenager.
• Momiji from Fruits Basket looks and acts like an elementary school kid. When Tohru finds out that he's going to go to her high school, she is shocked. He eventually goes through a growth spurt, and becomes as Bishōnen as the rest of the boys (if not more).
• Fullmetal Alchemist (2003):
  • Martel looks like she's in her 20s but is actually old enough to be Ed and Al's mom. She has a lot of snake venom to clear her wrinkles.
  • Al is one year younger than his brother, but during Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa' he looks thirteen while his brother is eighteen. Justified by the fact that when he got his body back he came back as the same age he was when he tried to revive his mother.
• Futari Ecchi: Shoko Shiina is 24, despite looking like a little girl.
• Ryouhei Sumi from Future GPX Cyber Formula looks like he's a little kid, but he is in fact 15 (at the beginning of the series) making him a year older than Hayato, the main character.
• Chiharu the fox demon from Fuuun Ishin Dai Shogun she looks like a 13- or 14-year-old girl but she's 250 years old.
• Galaxy Angel has Mint, a 15-year-old who looks like she's ten.
• Presumably the first Club President of Genshiken, who later turns out to have been the only Club President the Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture had ever had until he handed it off to Madarame. The members briefly speculated how old the Prez actually was after finding manga books in the clubroom that date back to 1987.
• Ghost in the Shell:
  • Major Kusanagi is age 44 at the time she meets the Puppet Master/the Pupetteer and a few years younger in Stand Alone Complex, but her almost completely artificial body looks noticeably younger.
  • And in one episode there's a female Russian assassin with a similar cybernetic body, who is said to be over 80.
• Meiko Rokudou from Ghost Sweeper Mikami comes to mind. For most of the manga's run, her insecurity, cutesy look, and the nature of her crush on Mikami could easily make a reader think that she's anywhere from 17 to 19 years old (Mikami's 20-21). Then, in one of the last story arcs, we are shown Meiko's mother while she's pregnant with her. The thing is that this is the beginning of the story arc describing how Mikami's parents met. So Meiko's probably 22-24...
• Hanako Kujou, the protagonist of Goodbye, My Rose Garden, is rather short and cute, so she looks like a teenager. Alice Douglas, a British noblewoman who employs Hanako as a maid, is shocked to hear that Hanako was a teacher back in Japan, having thought that Alice was only 17(although she keeps that last part to herself).
• Kirin from Gourmet Girl Graffiti is often mistaken as an elementary school student. Due to a lack of Comic-Book Time, she started as an eighth-grader and is currently (as of April 2015) a tenth-grader.
• Tohma Seguchi of Gravitation is 32 but looks 16. In the flashbacks where he's supposed to be 16, he looks twelve. The same problem appears with a bunch of other characters in the series as well.
• It's implied that the girls from Gunslinger Girl are a few years older than they seem. Being made into cyborgs and given conditioning drugs stunted their growth.
• Minnie-May Hopkins from Gunsmith Cats took "growth retarding" drugs in order to appeal to a certain type of clientele in a brothel. However, this is supposed to be squicky to the viewers. It squicked out the American editors so much they reversed it in their translation so she's taking drugs to counter an unnamed medical condition. In the English version, May had tried to make herself look older than she was in childhood in order to not squick her adult boyfriend so much (he was a paedophile, but understandably had serious issues about the morality of their relationship) but it backfired, leaving her first looking older than she was, but not growing an inch since.
• The main character Hinata Shouyou in Haikyuu!! is barely 5'4 and is always around tall volleyball players which makes him look even shorter in comparison. Due to his height and his rather immature behavior, he's mistaken for a middle- and sometimes grade-schooler on more than one occasion. Ironically, Hinata is actually the oldest first year on the Karasuno volleyball team, half a year older than the tall and intimidating Kageyama. His second-year teammate Nishinoya, who's a year older and even shorter than Hinata, has the same problem.
• Azuma and Seira Umeda from the manga series Hana-Kimi. They both look pretty young despite the fact that Seira is fifty-one and Azuma is fifty-four.
• We aren't privy to her real age, but Athena of Hayate the Combat Butler appears to be the same age as the main character, but the time where she's been staying for the years before her appearance has a different standard of time. When she shows up in the current time, she looks to have aged appropriately since she's been locked out of the castle. She also acted rather like an adult back when she was supposed to be six. And her mindset is from even further back. The mindset she instilled in Hayate. And now she's back at her 6-year-old appearance, while even only given the years we've seen she's at least 16.
• Even if almost all of them have a case of Really 700 Years Old, the anthropomorphic countries in Hetalia: Axis Powers rarely even look their "human age". England is supposed to be physically 23, but is often drawn not looking any older than 15. Latvia's "human" age is 15, but he looks and sounds closer to 11 or 12. In-universe, this is the case for Japan; Italy thinks Japan is too young to drink, when he's actually way older than Italy.
• The art style of Hidamari Sketch made everyone like this, but Yuno needs some specific mention. Her extreme proneness to childlike mood swings/general childish behavior and her 1.44m height made her seem more like seven than fifteen. Actually part of this series' premise was on her trying to grow out of this.
• Mikako from Himegoto - Juukyuusai no Seifuku is eighteen but tells the men she has sex with that she's a 15-year-old. She also dresses in a Sailor Fuku when doing so. She started prostituting when she was fifteen, so when she tells men she began "three years ago" it is not technically a lie.
• The first story in Himitsu Kichi is about a May–December Romance between a sixth grader and a high schooler. He mistook her for an elementary schooler while she thought he was a college student.
• Tsubasa Shibahime from His and Her Circumstances is a high schooler like the rest of the cast, but looks like she's twelve.
• Hagu from Honey and Clover is apparently 18 at the beginning of the series, despite looking and acting like an 8-year-old — which doesn't keep some guys from falling in love with her. Which is made worse by the fact that it is openly stated she stopped growing at six and she barely changes by the time she's twenty.
• Hozuki's Coolheadedness:
  • It seems that most Demons and Youkai naturally live hundreds of years, but some characters still stand out.
  • Hozuki's two assistants, Nasubi and Karauri, look like children because of their short size but they are actually adults from a race of imps that naturally look like this. Nasubi's attitude doesn't help clear the confusion.
  • Hakutaku is this even compared to the others Good-luck beasts, who themselves can be this even by the standards of the others Really 700 Years Old characters. Good-luck beasts can choose the appearance of their human form, Ho-oh for example look like a young child despite being hundreds or thousands of years old. However, Both him and Kirin show sign of their actual age such as rheumatism. Hakutaku, on the other hand, have the appearance and attitude of a young man and show no signs of his age despite being just as old as them, making it hard for other characters to guess his real age.
• Kurapika from Hunter × Hunter is seventeen at the start but doesn't look much older than the 12-year-olds Gon and Killua.
  • Biscuit appears to be a 12-year-old girl but is later revealed to be a very masculine 57-year-old, who uses her Nen ability to stay looking young.
• I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying:
  • Rino looks and acts like she's five despite being 25. Her husband Nozomu even mistook her for a Child Prodigy when they first met in college (and feared that he'd be mistake for a pedophile when they started dating). She mentions at one point that they rarely have sex, with Kaoru suggesting that it's because he's probably afraid of hurting her due to her small size though that doesn't stop her from safely giving birth to triplets in the epilogue of their spin-off.
  • Mayotama says that people often think he's in junior high when he's actually a college student. Of course, he's 1.55m tall, some 19cm shorter than the average Japanese male (but around the female average).
• Imaizumin-chi wa Douyara Gal no Tamariba ni Natteru Rashii: ~DEEP~: Keita's mom looks no older than the classmates he's living with.
• Discussed and deconstructed in the first episode of the ecchi sex comedy Interspecies Reviewers. One of main character Stunk's favourite prostitutes is a beautiful elf maiden more than 500 years old. His companion Zel, a comparatively younger (a bit over 200 years old) elf who looks like a young boy himself, thinks Stunk is gross for sleeping with what he considers a hag older than his mother, while his own preferred girl is a 50-year-old chubby and homely human woman, who he nevertheless considers incredibly attractive just because she's so much younger than him (he has a thing for humans because they're always younger than 100, making him a sort of parody of Comedic Lolicon). Zel justifies his opinion by saying that the elf prostitute's mana is rotten while his human girl's life force is very rich (something Stunk can't judge), so he's clearly not judging on appearance (he's also been visiting her for thirty years since she was still young and hot). The two seek second opinions from a pair of other adventurers to settle their argument. The beastman complains that the elf girl smells old and stale, while he likes the human for her plumpness. The halfling just judges them entirely on their age, irrespective of their appearance, and isn't into either of them, although he gives the human the edge for being comparatively not as old. Conventionally speaking, the elf is obviously far more attractive, but within the series Stunk is the only one to think so.
• Inuyasha: this is common for youkai characters due to their supernatural heritage.
  • Inuyasha is set up to appear, and behave, as though he's the same age as the 15-year-old Kagome. However, he is half-youkai and his appearance has not changed in 50 years. Flashbacks of his mother show her dressed in Heian-era aristocratic clothing, which would imply that Inuyasha could be as much as 500 years old. The third anime film declares that he is 200 years old, although there's no age given in canon.
  • Rumiko Takahashi has stated that Sesshoumaru is the youkai equivalent of a 19-year-old (although the anime ages him up to look like he's in his twenties). He is Inuyasha's older brother, so he's definitely more than 50 years old. Given that the third anime film makes Inuyasha 200 years old, the anime team regards Sesshoumaru as being even older than that.
  • Sesshoumaru's mother looks barely any older than Sesshoumaru himself. There is no indication how old she is in the manga, but she's been around for more than fifty years.
  • Shishinki is an old enemy of Inuyasha's youkai father, but looks barely older than Sesshoumaru. Inuyasha's father died when Inuyasha was a young child (Inuyasha tells Sesshoumaru he doesn't have many memories of their father as a result), and Inuyasha is over 50 years old. When Jaken hears that Shinshinki was the father's enemy, he's shocked by how youthful appears to be.
  • In the sequel Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon there are also a lot of youkai, which are much older than they look. Only the hanyou Shiori is still in a human lifespan. Because of her demonic heritage, she looks like she is 20 years old or less. But in fact she is almost 30 years old.
  • Also in the sequel, Kagome is 38 or 39 years old but doesn't seem to have aged at all from when she was 15.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Jotaro Kujo should be over 40 by the time the Stone Ocean arc (whose 19-year-old protagonist also happens to be his daughter) rolls around — but he barely looks like he's aged a day since his teen years (though he looked like a guy in his twenties back then). In fact, some say he actually looks younger in the later arcs. Compare his appearance at age 17 to his appearance in his 40s◊.
  • In Battle Tendency, Joseph's brain nearly breaks trying to comprehend how Lisa Lisa could be 50 years old. The answer, incidentally, is the Ripple. Supernatural powers in this series slow aging.
  • In Diamond is Unbreakable, Koichi Hirose starts out at 16 years old, but one could easily mistake him for an elementary schooler due to his short height and his high voice. It gets even more ridiculous in Golden Wind when he is 18, but he is barely half the height of Giorno Giovanna, who is 15 years old.
  • There's also Poor Tom, a minor antagonist from JoJolion. He has the appearance of a toddler, but he's actually 57.
  • Interestingly enough, Hirohiko Araki himself is jokingly known for the fact that he never seems to age, allowing him to still look like he's in his 30's, despite being 60 years old. In a way, it seems almost inevitable that his characters would carry on this trend.
• In the Junji Ito Kyoufu Manga Collection story "Face Thief", Kamei is a shapeshifting schoolgirl who involuntarily takes the appearance of anyone she spends time around. It is stated at the end of the story that she is not really a student and has been attending the school without permission, but no one knows how to get rid of her. They believe she is far older than she really appears.
• The title character of Kamichama Karin, as well as her True Companions, are all in the seventh grade, but look to be no older than seven, while other characters such as Kirio Karasuma and Kirika Karasuma look to be around sixteen, even though they are only one year older than the main cast. This is more Koge-Donbo's style than anything else. In one panel in the first chapter, Karin is shown drawn as her true age; for almost all of the rest of the series, she and her classmates are drawn as chibis. The same goes for the author's other series Pita-Ten.
• Kazan hasn't aged a day since he encountered a water demon. When the story begins he's been six for 10 years.
• Yuka in Kemonozume is about 30, but looks like she's in her early-to-mid twenties. She seems pleased when someone correctly guesses her age.
• Nanoka in Koi Kaze is fifteen at the start of the manga, turns sixteen a few chapters in, and is eighteen by the end. She can pass for a 12-year-old which makes her relationship with someone nearly thirty ever the more squicky, even ignoring the Brother–Sister Incest.
• Kotoura-san:
  • Daichi is excessively short; when Haruka first met him he was mistaken to be an elementary schooler.
  • Haruka herself is short among the girls, and her mother often teases her for looking child-like.
• In the epilogue of Kuromukuro Yukina is in her twenties, but still looks 17, because piloting an Efidolg machine locked her physical age at this point through the regenerative nanomachines.
• The protagonist of Kuroneko Guardian is 13 but could pass for a nine or 10-year-old.
• Rin from Laid-Back Camp is a high schooler who happens to look like a middle schooler at best (to Sensei's sister), and an elementary schooler at worst (to Nadeshiko). If anything, she's by far the most mature of the main cast.
• Link in one of The Legend of Zelda manga based off the original game is older than the teenage Zelda but looks like a little kid because he's half-elf, and elves age slower than humans. He is in fact her half-brother.
• Nico Yazawa in Love Live! is sometimes mistaken for a first-year student, due to her pigtails, childish antics, and less developed body. However, she's actually a third-year student like Nozomi and Ayase, who are taller than her.
• Lucky Star:
  • Every single female character (and males, discounting Konata's dad). Puni Plush can do that for you.
  • The extreme cases fell on Konata, Kanata, and Yutaka — their heights are 1.42 m, 1.43 m, and 1.38 m respectively^note  For those of you less familiar with metric, that's 4'8", 4'8¼", and 4'6" respectively. The relation between this trope and Comedic Lolicon has been thoroughly explored: Kanata is the (deceased) wife of Soujiro, and Konata wore School Swimsuit to attract "people with special interests" in the Beach Episode, and when Yutaka lamented her lack of boyfriend due to being a Delicate and Sickly fauxli, Konata told her that a lot of people are looking for her, should she not choose... Yutaka's demeanor, and the fact that she and her interactions with Minami seem very similar to another yonkoma-based anime with an actual child don't help her case — even the mangaka shouted that out when Yutaka introduced herself in front of the class, and gave her pigtails.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Cinque looks like she's around ten, but she's one of the oldest members of the Numbers Cyborgs, and is officially the same age as Teana.
  • Fate's familiar, Arf, in the third season when a ten-year Time Skip means she actually is old enough to appear as a grown woman... and she looks like a child in order to conserve energy. Before that, she was Younger Than They Look.
  • And in a less extreme example, Chrono Harlaown looked to be roughly nine or ten years old during the first two seasons despite being fourteen. According to supplimental material, he went though a growth spurt shortly after the events of the second season and thus actually looks his age in StrikerS (where he's twenty four).
  • Poor Caro. The years have not been kind to her as she still has the same child-like appearance that she had in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS despite being of adolescent age, a fact that Lutecia mocks her for in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid.
    Lutecia: Even though we've got one shrimp, the three of us are of the same age.
    Caro: What did you say!? But I've grown taller by 1.5cm!
  • Precia Testarossa, the Big Bad of the original series, looks like she's in her 20s. She's 54.
  • Likewise, by the time of StrikerS, the now 41-year-old Lindy Harlaown doesn't appear to have aged a day in the 10 years since her first appearance. And for that matter, she was 31 in the original series and looked like she was in her early 20s.
  • Ditto for Momoko Takamachi, who still looks like she's in her twenties during her cameo in ViVid, despite being 47.
  • In the alternate continuity of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha INNOCENT, Alicia Testarossa is several years older than her 10-year-old sister Fate, yet she still looks like the same 5-year-old she was in the main series.
• A lot of people in Made in Abyss, usually proportional to the time spent delving, and the depth reached, as the time flows differently down there, and the Abyss itself subtly changing them as well. White Whistles, who generally spend a lot of time on the lower levels, are usually most guilty.
  • Ozen The Immovable, the first White Whistle actually shown, is by all indications in her eighties, but looks no older than 30.
  • Lyza The Annihilator, the protagonist's mother, was shown in the flashbacks not to change at all from the time of obtaining her Whistle to her Last Dive, up to a full decade later, when she still looked about 20.
  • Various Narehates in the Capital of Unreturned on the Sixth Level may be Time Abysses while looking like teenagers or even preteens. As an example, Vueloelco looks no more than 18, but she's been around from before the Iruburu (and probably the entire Sixth Level) was created, and the village is ancient, making her milennia-old.
• Magical Pokémon Journey has Ginger, who introduces herself as Coconut's sister. She appears to be around 16, which makes her overtones with Grandpa really really creepy...until Coconut reveals that Ginger is her GRANDMOTHER, and Grandpa's wife. Apparently, she'd discovered a youth formula.
• Magic Knight Rayearth, another CLAMP series:
  • After Hikaru stated that she was 14 years old, Umi and Fuu were shocked (Hikaru is significantly shorter), and one of them said that she thought Hikaru was still in elementary school.
  • An element of Cephiro is people being able to change how old they look. Character bios for the childlike Clef and Emeraude state that they are Really 700 Years Old. This is averted in Rayearth OVA.
• Aladdin in Magi: Labyrinth of Magic starts off the series as a 10-year-old and biologically he is. Chronologically he is a lot older due to being suspended for years as a fetus.
• In Mahoromatic, Suguru's teacher is shown to look exactly the same at the series end as at its start; the series ended after a twenty-year Time Skip where she considered Suguru too old at the ripe age of thirty-four. This kinda begs the question; how old was she at the series start?
• Loco from MÄR is 32 years old, despite looking like she's somewhere around ten. This is because the Darkness Arms she specializes in de-age her every time she uses them. At one point she ends up de-aging herself into infancy.
• God from Maria†Holic came upon a long rotted love letter given to her years before, which looked to be pre-War Japan. She looks no different than she does in the present, and since she looks to have been the dorm leader even then, she would have to be at least 70 or 80. Also, Yonakuni.
• Kinue Hayase in Masamune-kun's Revenge is the main character's mother, age 42, but she appears to look between 10 and 12.
• Mametarou from Massugu ni Ikou meets a small, sensitive dog with a high-pitched voice. He thinks that the dog is a puppy but is later told that he's seven (making him a senior).
• Medaka Box: Zenkichi's mother looks like a 12-year-old girl but she's actually 42.
• Hope Stelar, Geo's mother, in Mega Man Star Force looks more like an older sister. Then again, Geo's only ten or eleven, so she can't be too old. She looks older in the game.
• Kōran, the heroine of Mikado no Shihō looks much younger than her actual age of eighteen, causing her to repeatedly remind everybody else that no, she is not a child. And then there is tall and handsome Shiki who is really seventeen, younger than the heroine herself.
• Mission: Yozakura Family:
  • Despite being half Mutsumi's size and dressed in gothic lolita clothing, Futaba is Mutsumi's older sister.
  • Makoto looks like a young man in his twenties. He's been alive for over a century.
• Dragons in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid are all Time Abysses, but the only indications Ilulu is any older than Kanna are her massive boobs. This is due to Ilulu having poorer shapeshifting abilities than the other dragons, resulting in her unbalanced appearance. She's actually around the same age as Tohru.
• Momo of Momo Sora looks like a child. She's actually old enough to drive, be legally married and drink alcohol.
• Harpies in Monster Musume are generally like this, though it's justified by their bodies needing to be small and light for the sake of flight. The harpy among the cast, Papi, looks like a young teenager, prompting everyone to regard her as a child and, in the case of Miia and Centorea, means she isn't a potential rival for Kimihito. This changes upon learning that, despite her small body and childlike nature, she's roughly the same age as them.
  • Papi's, Miia's, and Centorea's mothers all look very young, reaching Mother Looks Like a Sister territory. Papi's mother is justified since she's a harpy, Miia and Centorea's just looking that young, and Mero's mom while not as much as the others is quite young looking. This could be explained by how most mythological creatures have much longer lifespans than humans.
  • Like harpies, devils can look younger than they really are depending on what class of devil they are. Lilith is a Lesser Devil and so has the body of a young child despite being an adult. The bonus chapter reveals that she likes to exploit this in petty ways like paying child fares for buses and movies.
  • Backbeard monoeyes look like little girls no matter how old they really are.
• Chiyo Sakura from Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun gets this, as she's very short. Seo even accuses Nozaki of being a paedophile after she notices him hanging around Sakura.
• Jim, Adam, Turkes and Lint in Mother Keeper are all this. Lint and Turkes are both cyborgs so it's understandable why they haven't aged, however Jim would presumably be about 60-70 if she made Lint yet she doesn't look older than her 30s. Turkes makes a mention to the fact he's known Adam 20 years and he hasn't aged at all either.
• My Dress-Up Darling: Sajuna "Juju" Inui, a cosplayer Marin is a huge fan of, looks like an elementary-schooler due to her short height and petite body. Gojo is surprised to learn she's actually 17 years old and in second year of high school.
• My Hero Academia:
  • Mineta is by far the shortest member of Class 1-A and has a childlike appearance, but he's the same age as everyone else in the class.
  • La Brava looks like an elementary schooler, but she's actually 21. It helps that she's paired with the Younger Than They Look Gentle.
• Subverted in My-HiME: Mai thinks Natsuki's too old to still be in high school, prompting Natsuki to explain that she's only a year or two older than her, but only looks much older than her peers because she missed a year of school.
• My Monster Secret:
  • Downplayed with Shimada. He's actually one year older than the rest, having doubled a class, but he's about as tall as Mikan.
  • Rin is around 16. She looks and acts like a 12-year-old.
• Hanabusa Seki, Thobari's girlfriend, of Nabari no Ou. She's 40...
• Naruto:
  • Tsunade uses a transformation jutsu to keep herself looking like she's in her late twenties or early thirties (however, the use of her other jutsu makes her appearance without it appear even older than she really is).
  • Orochimaru's body-switching jutsu causes him too look like he's still in his early-to-mid-thirties. Both are between 50 and 53 years old.
  • Jiraiya presumably doesn't use any jutsu to keep himself looking young, as he is the only one who looks his age. With that said fans have noted Jiraiya doesn’t look that much different when he’s in his 50s compared to when he was in his 20s◊. In fact it’s only when he uses Sage Mode that Jiraiya grows a beard and gets wrinkles, and he actually avoids using Sage Mode so chicks won’t be grossed out. Ironically this means unlike the other Sannin Jiraiya kept his youthfulness without artificial means.
  • In the third movie, Sakura fights a female assassin named Karenbana who appears to be about 12. When Sakura says to her, "You wear too much perfume for a kid", she replies with, "Kid? I'm twenty-two!" to which Sakura replies, "Oops!"
  • Jugo temporarily looks like he is several years younger after transferring part of his flesh to Sasuke to save him from a mortal injury. He later recovered when he takes the body parts of an already dead opponent to survive a mortal injury.
  • Sasori is 35 years old. But because he modified his body to become an unaging puppet, his physical appearance is that of a 15-year-old.
  • The First Hokage lived long enough to have grandchildren. Nevertheless, neither him nor his brother the Second Hokage look like they've aged beyond their early 40s; for all we know, they could have been relatively young when the grandkids were born.
  • When they meet, Naruto instantly assumes that Yagura is a child who never had the chance to properly experience life. He's actually both an adult (though his age isn't given) and the Fourth Mizukage to boot.
  • At the end of the series and in the Boruto series, Shizune still looks as young as before. Given that she's Tsunade's student, that must be the reason.
• In NEEDLESS, Disc is a half-cyborg from the time before the big war. This makes her over 100 years old, despite her appearance as the Token Mini-Moe. When this is pointed out in Episode 7, Adam is less than pleased.
• Negima!:
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
    • Asuna Kagurazaka, who looks and is assumed by the people around her to be 14. It isn't clear just how old she is, but flashback chapters later in the manga have confirmed her to have traveled as a little girl with Nagi's company — twenty years ago (it turns out she's over 100 years old). It should be noted that Takamichi, Asuna's adult teacher who also traveled with Nagi, was also a little kid at the same time.
    • It's hinted that Takamichi spent a lot of time training in Evangeline's time condenser, and therefore his actual age may not match his chronological age.
    • Also, Fate Averruncus and Zect Filius, the two white-haired pretty boys: While Fate apparently bathed in some Fountain of Youth, Zect is referenced as a "man" despite looking way younger than "Just a little brat" Nagi. And nobody finds this weird, so it may be a racial trait or something.
    • Then we've got the normal (we think) girls like the Narutaki twins, who look 10 years old despite being around fifteen like the rest of the class. They're actually the oldest, other than the vampire and ghost. Likewise, the oldest-looking girl (Chizuru) is actually the youngest. The epilogue chapter and cover shows the twins looking the age they actually are.
  • In UQ Holder!, Nodoka and Yue retain their appearance from the end of Negima! despite the 80 year gap between the two series. This is explained by Negi engaging in a Permanent Pactio with the two, and his Immortality halting the aging of their bodies in the process. Despite looking no older than their early twenties, they're almost a century old.
• 14-year-old Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion looks 12 or younger.
  • His guardian Misato is stated as being 29 years old, but she could pass for an in-universe 18-year-old (or even younger, if not for her height and figure).
  • With Rei and Kaworu's true identities being the souls of Lilith and Adam, transplated into clone bodies that has been subjected to some degree of artifically accelatered aging, they actually have a really strange case of both being Younger Than They Look, at same time as they are also Much Older Than They Look.
  • Come the third movie of Rebuild of Evangelion, Asuka and Mari are this after a fourteen year Time Skip because of a yet unexplained condition called "curse of Eva", presumably a side-effect of piloting the titular Evangelions. And then there's Kaworu, who still looks like a teen after said 14 years, due to not being human. The epilogue of the manga reveals that Mari is even older than expected, as she was apparently knew Shinji's mother and even had an unrequited crush on her — and it was revealed in 3.0+1.0 that she's the same age in Rebuild as well.
• Aoba and Nene of New Game!, both 18 or 19 years old, have been mistaken as middle schoolers in-universe.
• Minoru from Occult Academy is apparently old enough to smoke and be a high school teacher yet doesn't look much older than his students.
• Yukiya from Okane ga Nai is hit seriously with uke stereotypes. He's an 18-year-old college student but looks more like a 12-year-old boy, or an 18-year-old woman.
• One Piece:
  • Luffy, the 17-year-old hero. He looks older when he is serious (and in some of the earlier arcs he was drawn with a mature look) but with his short stature^note Relatively. At 174cm (5'8½") he's slightly above-average height for the real world. But One Piece is a world of literal giants, where "normal" humans can be as much as 8 meters tall and actual giants average 12 meters and in one extreme case reached 180 meters in height., big round head and eyes, big mouth and small nose it's hard to believe he is much older than 10 years unless you know better. Doesn't really help on the age estimation that he is also a Manchild. After the Time Skip he is now 19, but looks like a 10-year-old as much as ever.
  • Chopper looks like a baby reindeer, while he is in fact 15 (17 post Time Skip). In his semi-human form, he looks closer to his age, but no matter what form he takes, he keeps his child voice in the anime.
  • Nico Robin looks as young and beautiful as the then 18-year-old Nami so some viewers assumed she was the same age and got a shock to learn she’s actually 28 and 30 years old post Time Skip. It’s even revealed Robin was a little girl around the time Gol D. Roger was still alive and most of the crew hadn’t even been born yet. This also justifies why Robin is so good at being Team Mom.
  • Similarly in a SBS questions, a fan did some maths, and was amazed to discover Franky was 34. Heck with that, in Franky's flashback (eight years before Water 7), he was 26 years old! While looking just like a slight grown up from his childhood!
  • Boa Hancock is in the same boat as Robin, being 29 when she’s introduced and 31 by the Time Skip. But judging by appearance and her Smitten Teenage Girl attitude towards Luffy, you could mistake Boa for a woman a good decade younger than she actually is.
  • Sugar, an agent from Donquixote Pirates, is an interesting example. While she has the body and looks of a 10 to 12-year-old girl, she is actually 22 years old. This is due to her eating Hobby Hobby Fruit which makes her stick at the age at which she ate the fruit, but still no less a fighter. Trebol and Lao G lampshade this.
  • A minor case for Miss Goldenweek, who appears to be around the same age as the aforementioned Sugar but was actually 16 years old. (18 post time-skip.)
  • Aokiji may look like he's in his mid-to-late twenties or early thirties, but he's actually 47/49.
  • Shakuyaku looks like a rather young woman, but she's actually a 62-year-old Retired Badass who quit piracy forty years prior to the start of the story. A flashback to twenty years before the start of the story shows that she looked absolutely identical even back then.
  • Kureha looks to be in her sixties, but she's actually 139. Due to her body looking far more youthful than her Butter Face, a Running Gag with her involves people assuming her to be a young woman until they notice said Butter Face.
  • Charlotte Katakuri, one of Big Mom's Co-Dragons and her second eldest son is 48 alongside his two younger triplet brothers, yet he could easily pass for nearly half that age.
  • Charlotte Custard and Broyé are 46 and 43 respectively, yet appear to be around the same age as Nami at 20. In contrast, Broyé's twin sister Brûlée looks like she's at least a decade older than she actually is.
  • Prior to his training with Garp, Coby looked like a short and scrawny child of around 12. He was actually already a teenager of 16 years, the same age as Vivi. He stops counting for the trope after his training with Garp, which caused him to undergo an impressive physical growth; and ironically, after the Time Skip, the reverse trope applies.
• Tatsumaki from One-Punch Man looks like a teenager, but is actually 28 (Saitama famously mistakes her for a "lost child"◊). Her younger sister Fubuki actually looks older.
• In the manga Ouja No Yuugi the magic-wielding strategists look like children or teenagers, but in fact they are adults trapped in child's body: inability to grow up is a price they had to pay for their super-powers.
• Mitsukuni "Honey" Haninozuka from Ouran High School Host Club looks and acts like a 10-year-old to appeal to the Shotacon crowd, but is really 17/18 years old, and therefore, the oldest member of the club. At one point he infiltrates the elementary school section of Ouran just by wearing his old uniform. Part of the joke surrounding this is that Honey's birthday is on February 29th (so he technically only has a birthday once every four years on a Leap Year), thus he looks only 1/4th his actual age.
• Break and Sharon from PandoraHearts don't age and are at least ten years older than they appear. Break is around 12 years old, though he looks like he's in his twenties. Sharon looks 13, but is really 23. There's also Zwei. Another example is Rufus Barma, who appears to be in his twenties or thirties despite actually being over 70 years old.
  • Given the bizarre way that time works in the Abyss and that most of the characters are contractors, most of the cast actually falls into this. Apart from the above examples, there's Oz, who is 25 though he still looks 15, and Vincent and Gil, who look in their early twenties, were eight and nine years old at the Tragedy of Sablier... a hundred years ago. The Baskervilles also apply as they have been seen in flashbacks over one hundred years ago. And Alice, for that matter. Interestingly, when the lack of aging from first brought up, Break had said that it was a 'possible' side-affect from entering in a contract. So far every contractor has been proven to be older than they look, it makes you wonder why they bothered adding in the 'possibly'.
  • Now in all likelihood this applies to Riem also due to his contract witht the March Hare.
• The main girls in Petite Princess Yucie are all 17 years old but appear no older than ten thanks to a spell cast when they were babies.
• Mikako Koda from Paradise Kiss is around fifteen years older than her sister Miwako, and they both look like twins.
• In Please Teacher!, Kei is an 18-year-old male lead who is functionally 15 years old due to a coma that resembled suspended animation. Among other things, this also served as Lampshade Hanging to explain the contrivance of him and Mizuho shacking up together, since eighteen is minimum age to marry... And in a plot twist late in the story, he finds out that the Little Miss Snarker in his circle of friends has the exact same condition, and is actually in her twenties.
• Yellow from Pokémon Adventures. All the Johto Dex Holders have a hard time believing that someone a foot shorter than them is in fact a year older.
• Okashi Nako of Poor Poor Lips, who looks like a kid despite, well...
  Ren: That's odd. I wrote 18 to 25 in the ad.
  Nako: I'm 21!!
• Princess Princess: When two of the "Princesses" first met Sakamoto Akira's mother, they thought she was his sister and couldn't even figure out if she was older or younger than him. When he told them she's his mother, he even had to clarify she's not a stepmother.
• In Princess Principal, 20-year-old Dorothy is sent to infiltrate a high school alongside actual 15 years old Ange. Chise and Beatrice are also 15 but look around 13.
• Psychic Squad:
  • There's a rather odd version of this where the Evil Mentor who looks like a middle school student is really in his 80s. This changes his stated intent to "groom" the titular 10-year-olds from weird to squicky.
  • The said evil mentor's childhood friend and Good Counterpart, three years older Fujiko, who looks and behaves like a horny teenage Kawaiiko, but notwithstanding her looks the titular "children" characters often call her "granny".
• Being a time traveler stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop, Homura of Puella Magi Madoka Magica has an uncertain age. Most fan estimates, based on Word of God (around one hundred loops of forty-five days) suggest her to be around 26 years old, next to her middle-school peers. However, she looks the same age as the rest of the cast — in fact, she's actually a Pettanko and the second shortest girl. Explanations, from side-effects of her powers to actual immortality, abound in the fanbase.
• Ranma ½:
  • Hinako Ninomiya has the appearance of an innocent child though she is actually much older. When she drains the battle auras of "delinquents", she reverts to her true age and becomes a buxom woman in her late twenties.
  • Also Lukkosai, who is the same age as Happosai but is cursed to turn into a little boy when splashed with cold water.
• Reborn! (2004) invokes this trope with all of the Arcobaleno.
• Atsumi from Recorder and Randsell is 137 cm/4'5 feet tall and looks exactly like an 11-year-old kid.
• Hinata Hakamada from Ro Kyu Bu is a sixth-grader but looks and acts like she's around seven. Subverted as she does have noticeable breasts. Humorously enough, her "little" sister Kagetsu is Younger Than They Look.
• Sun Otonashi in Rosario + Vampire looked like a middle schooler more than a year after graduating from high school.
• Rurouni Kenshin:
  • Kaoru refuses to believe that the youthful-looking Kenshin is a whopping 28 years old (which is quite old for a Shōnen manga protagonist), although that doesn't stop them from getting together in the end — even though Kaoru is only 17 when they first meet. Likewise, when Yahiko and Misao discover that Kenshin's master Hiko Seijuurou is a remarkably well-preserved 43, they wonder if it's a side-effect of the Hiten Mitsurugi style.
  • And speaking of Misao, she's 16, but looks quite a bit younger, something that she doesn't react well to. One particular filler episode had all the female characters poke fun at this, even innocent little Tsubame, who is shocked that Misao is that much older than her.
• Saijou no Meii: Saijou should be in his 20's but he looks about 15 and acts even less than that. Probably to make it easier for the readers to identify with, as the author's stated goal in writing the manga was to inspire young people to study medicine.
• Souichi Tomoe, Hotaru's dad in Sailor Moon, is in his late thirties, but looks at least a decade younger, not appearing to age since the incident where Hotaru almost died. Whether it's due to Germatoid's possession's effect is unknown.
• Saint Seiya:
  • Libra Dhoko fills both this and the Younger Than They Look trope (oddly enough). He's over 200 years old, with the body of a 21-year-old (after shedding his old skin) OR a 21-year-old in a very old body.
  • To elaborate more: Dohko learned a technique that allows him to slow down his metabolism and retreat himself into an severely aged and weaker body, but with an extremely expanded lifespan. Anytime he stops using said technique, he returns to the age he had before activating it.
• Yuuki of Saki is a first-year high school student who plays the role of Token Mini-Moe since she still looks like a kid. Koromo is even worse, she manages to look even younger than Yuuki despite being one year older, to the point at which a security guard mistakes her for a little kid, rather than a high school mahjong player. In fact, Koromo's the oldest member of the Ryuumonbuchi team, albeit by a small margin, since they're all second-years.
  • Similar to Koromo, Kurumi of Miyamori is quite short and is occasionally childish, but she is, like her teammates (which includes the incredibly tall Toyone), a third-year in high school.
  • Hayari Mizuhara, a pro player, is 28, something that is repeatedly pointed out every time her name is shown, despite (or because) of how she has a youthful-looking face that hasn't changed much since she was 11.
• Most of the girls in School-Live! all look like middle schoolers instead of high schoolers due to the art-style. Yuki's Kiddie Kid personality and naivety make her seem especially young.
• In School Rumble, Yakumo is calm, mature, and the object of Hanai's affection. Tenma is short, acts childish, and has Expressive Hair. Try and guess which one is older.
• Suzu from Seitokai Yakuindomo looks like an elementary schooler, but is actually in high school. She's a little touchy about the subject.
• Lain from Serial Experiments Lain is fourteen however seems younger than her similarly-aged friends. She's noticeably shorter (barely taller than the elementary-aged Taro) and more babyfaced then them. She's also less developed physically than Alice and the others. Her childishness is pronounced by her bear pyjamas and her stuffed animals. In the video game, Lain barely looks different between eleven and fourteen.
• The Severing Crime Edge: Iwai, due to her short stature, looks like a little girl but is actually 14 years old.
• Sgt. Frog:
  • Pururu. One episode even has Keroro catching a glimpse of her face sans makeup in a fantastic Unreveal.
  • Space Policewoman Poyon is implied to have captured rogue aliens on Earth since feudal times.
• The main character of Shibatora is a 22-year-old police detective, but is frequently mistaken for a middle school student thanks to his diminutive stature, baby face, and complete inability to grow facial hair. When dressed in a middle school uniform, he easily blends into a class of actual teenagers with none of them the wiser, to the point that his bosses note that he's started talking like them, too.
• Shiomi of Shitei Bouryoku Shoujo Shiomi-chan is a 56-year-old man who must go into hiding to protect his life from potential assassins. He opts to get plastic surgery, only to end up looking like a teenage girl.
• Yuzuru from A Silent Voice is a middle schooler but several times gets mistaken for an elementary schooler.
• Sky Girls:
  • All the girls appear to be about 12, though in reality they're aged 15 to 17.
  • Also, the twin mechanics Haruko and Ranko◊ Mikagami are supposed to be older than Ryohei◊.
• Slayers: From the fourth and fifth seasons of the anime, Pokota the prince has the voice and the demeanor of a 10-year-old. In reality, when his kingdom was struck by a plague about a decade before the series proper, his then 10-year-old body was sealed away (along with the rest of the country's citizens), and his soul was placed in a stuffed animal. Realistically, he should be a bit older than Lina.
• Kamuri of Slow Start is a high-school girl who hasn't grown since elementary school.
• Downplayed in Sound! Euphonium. Yuuko is very girly and looks as if she were younger because of her hair ribbon and the way she conducts herself; thing is, she is actually of average height, but she hangs out with Kaori, who is almost a head taller than her.
• The Blade Children of Spiral are all the same age, that is, 17... yes, even Rio. She actually uses her youthful, cute appearance to make unwitting enemies underestimate her. (And by the way, although he looks more his age, Eyes is the youngest of them all, despite being the second tallest of the main five and possibly the most intimidating.)
• Reiji Miyabi (aka Head) from Star Driver appears to be about 15 to 17 years old. Flashbacks to the time when he fathered his now 15-year-old son, Takuto Tsunashi, suggest he's at least twice that age, if not much older.
  • In the same vein, there is Shingo, who looked more or less the same age as Head when he befriended him in the aforementioned flashbacks and just like him, he doesn't appear to have aged a day in the 15 years following. He's been comatose these 15 years and when he wakes up, he cryptically talks about how he "stopped growing up", but that doesn't really explain how this is possible. People have been speculating it's his first phase, but there's no official word on that.
• Tales of Wedding Rings:
  • Princess Nephrites is fifty-four, but resembles an 18-year-old due to being an elf (elves age slower than humans, and don't age once they reach adulthood).
  • Amber, an Artificial Human, is roughly a thousand years old, but looks the same age as everyone else.
• White from Tekkonkinkreet; by the way he looks and acts you'd think he's a 5-year-old, but he's 11.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
  • Simon is actually 14, but his stature and attitude makes him look at most 12.
  • Viral will become this because of his immortality.
• Tokyo Ghoul has a few examples among the cast.
  • Touka Kirishima mentions that Kaneki Ken still has a "kid's face", and easily passes for a highschooler. He's also mistaken for a high school student by one of the Ghoul Restaurant patrons. Compare Kaneki (19 y/o) to Touka's younger brother Ayato (14 y/o) and probably she has a point.
  • Juuzou Suzuya looks like an androgynous youth (or a woman), with people actually expressing surprise when they realize he's an adult. It's justified in his case, since he was castrated to prevent puberty, and so will never really look like a grown man. He's 19 in the original series, and 22 in the sequel but still looks like a teenager.
  • The horror novelist Sen Takatsuki (Yoshimura Eto/One-Eyed Owl) looks a high schooler despite being on her twenties.
  • Chie Hori is incredibly short and has a round face, causing people to mistake her for a Middle School student. In Tokyo Ghoul:Re, she actually has to produce her driver's license to verify her claim that she's 24.
  • The biggest offender of this trope is Roma Hoito, the Fake Cutie ex-waitress of Anteiku who was treated as a little sister by the staff, and what we presumed to be an childish and idiotic member of Pierrot is in fact the founder of the organization, only pretending to play dumb is because it is part of the game she's playing to avoid boredom. And she's over 50 years old and takes many names and aliases, one of them being SSS-rate Dodgy Mother.
• To Love Ru: Yami is 24 years old. She looks like a 15-year-old.
• Kotori is 32 (and married) in Tonari no Kashiwagi-san, but looks younger than the teenage cast.
• When he's introduced in Chapter 13 of Torako, Anmari Kowashicha Dame da yo, Torako's older brother, Mashiro, is initially taken as a lost little boy by the Pet Raising Club. The only thing that shocks the girls more than hearing Torako call him "Big Bro" and said big bro throwing the insanely strong Torako around like a ragdoll is the revelation that he's almost 35 years old.
  Bullet: Yes!! He's legal!!
• Toriko: The title character was surprised to find out when they were at an island known for its alcohol that his partner Komatsu (who looks like a preteen) is the same age he is — 25.
• Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-:
  • Syaoran is subjectively around 21 when the series begins (Time Travel is involved). He looks like a young teenager. The clones don't look any older than he is at the end, but both of them are in their early-to-mid 30's... yes, the clones are older than their originals. It's complicated.
  • Fai looks to be in his twenties, but isn't. His real age is never said, but Yuko commented that despite his apparent youth he had already lived several lifespans.
• Miyu from Vampire Princess Miyu, looks like a girl in her mid teens, but is hundreds of years old by the time the OVA and television series begins. The obvious reason is because she is a vampire, but furthermore, she is tasked with the fate of battling the Shinma who prey upon human kind for all eternity.
• In the anime of Venus Versus Virus, twins Lola and Layla don't look much older than middle schoolers, but they're actually much older than the teenagers Lucia and Sumire as they're ageless dolls. In the original manga, they're just normal humans.
• Thorkell from Vinland Saga is a more realistic example than most but he still in no way looks like he's in his fifties. Even more notable because he is an enormous man whose facial features suggest that he suffers from gigantism, which should mean that at that age he should be at death's door, already.
• Waratte! Sotomura-san: Sotomura's mother looks so young people at first think she's Sotomura's elder sister.
• Saku "Loli Momoi" from Wasteful Days of High School Girls. Because of her short stature, she is often mistaken by her peers to be a child (and her nickname comes from that fact), to her ire.
• In Welcome to the NHK, one of Satou's "study materials" (i.e. eroge) has a cover with a big-eyed, small-chested girl... and the title of the game is actually "I Am Not Loli!"
• The Ryoto family from Wild Life turns this up to eleven. Tsukasa Ryoto is probably in his mid-40s, but still look like a 20-year-old. His father and grandmother looks the same age, even though the latter is 100 years old.
• The World God Only Knows has Shotaro Shiratori, who despite being a grandfather has the appearance of a Bishōnen.
• World Trigger:
  • Yūma Kuga has an artificial body made of Trion which doesn't show any signs of aging, so he looks like a young boy despite being years older. Doesn't mean that he's immortal though...
  • A03 Sōya Kazama is one of the few active agents who are older than 20, but is usually mistaken as as a middle schooler due to his petite stature. The author implies that you can tell who knows his age by whoever refers to him as either -senpai (you're older than me), or -san (you're the same age frame as me).
• ×××HOLiC: Watanuki takes over Yuuko's shop after her death, he goes into a similar un-aging and anomaly-to-the-universe state. By the end of the series he's over 100 years old but physically looks barely older than the teenager he was when the series started.
• Katsuo of Yakitate!! Japan. When he first appears in the Newcomer Exam, everyone assumes he's a child because of his small stature and boyish appearance. When he makes it to the semifinals, his wife appears to cheer him on, and he reveals that he's actually 31.
• Nanami in Yandere Kanojo is another high schooler who looks like she's still in elementary. This causes problems when she falls for main character Manabu, who thinks she is the age she looks, and treats her as having a Precocious Crush on him.
  • Also of note is the Principal's wife, who looks as if she's still at school, but was actually classmates with her husband. The other characters even lampshade just how weird it is.
• Yona of the Dawn:
  • Zeno is seventeen, but looks more like he's 14 or 15. And he certainly doesn't look over 2000.
  • There's also Kija, who's 20 but looks (and acts) younger than the 18-year-old Hak. This fact is lampshaded in chapter 114 by Yoon.
  • Later chapters introduced Princess Tao, a princess from Kouka's neighbouring kingdom of Xing, who looks to be no older than 13 or 14. She's 19 in reality, three years older and far tinier than the manga's protagonist, Yona, who's fairly petite herself.
• Nono from Yotsunoha falls under this when the gang gets back together. Unlike her friends she barely grew over time.
• Yugi's childlike appearance is a source of comic relief in both the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga and the first series. He's supposed to be 16 years old. He looks about ten. It's played with even more when you consider his child-like innocence (to an extent at least, he trades pixilated porno tapes with Jonouchi), and how physically vulnerable he is compared to everyone else in the cast. It also bugs him a lot when people mistake him for a grade-schooler. Lampshaded in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, where he says that he looks like he's 10 and that Serenity, who is about 12 to 14 years old, looks like she's 16.
• Exaggerated in Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS with Mimi Atachi, who looks like an elementary-school student despite being 37 and a mother. At least once she's seen drinking in a bar... with a sign on her back saying "I'm An Adult" for the benefit of the other customers.
• Yuri is My Job!
  • The protagonist, Hime Shiraki, is a first-year in high school(10th grade, meaning she's 15 at the start of the series), but is short and cute, so her appearance hasn't changed as much since then as her old friend Mitsuki Yano's has.
  • Mai Koshiba is the oldest member of the Liebe Academy salon, having been older than the then 18-year-old Nene Nishidera and 16-year old Sumika Chibana at the time of Liebe's founding, although her actual age is censored with a bunny symbol. She doesn't look it, though, as she's about as short as Hime and similarly cute.
• Yuri!!! on Ice:
  • Main character Yuri Katsuki is 23 (and turns 24 after Episode 9) and is the third oldest competing skater after Christophe and Georgi, but he looks younger than most of the other skaters, nearly all of whom are in their late teens to early twenties.
  • Kenjiro Minami is 17, but he looks younger than Yuri Plisetsky (who's the youngest competing skater at 15), being shorter and very baby-faced.
  • Minako Okukawa is one of the few named characters whose official age hasn't been revealed, but Word of God has stated that she's older than Yuri's mother Hiroko (who's 49 and calls Minako "senpai"), which would put her in her fifties. Despite that, she looks even younger than Yuri's sister Mari, who's 30.
• Marube from Yuureitou is a more realistic example than most. He's in his forties but can pass for someone ten years younger. He works out. This is foreshadowing for his obsession with staying young and beautiful. He wants to become a woman (though it's superficial instead of being trans) in order to be so. He looks quite attractive dressed up despite his age.
• Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs:
  • Despite looking like a man in his late twenties, Byakuei has been around for over 120 years. He kept himself from aging by using the techniques he developed in his search for immortality.
  • Chitose looks like a 13-year-old girl. She's actually a Zashiki-warashi, and thus thousands of years old.
• Yuusha Gojo Kumiai Kouryuugata Keijiban:
  • Legal Loli looks like a preteen. Her real age isn't given, but she's implied to be very advanced in years.
  • The Hero of Alunt looks like a 10-year-old child, but is actually a little under a century old.
• Ranewater Calder from Zombie Powder, leader of the Ash Daughter Gang. Although he looks like a young boy, is actually an old man who manages to retain his youthful looks with Phoenix-Samin. His nickname is actually "Old Man Calder".

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