History ChildSoldiers / AnimeAndManga

** The pilots in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'' are all 15 at the start of the series, but the most extreme case is Trowa, who (according to ''[[AllThereInTheManual Episode Zero]]'') was picked up by mercenaries after spending the first few years of his life completely alone, and thus has been a soldier since before he was able to talk. The show's protagonist Heero has many similarities to [[Literature/FullMetalPanic Sousuke Sagara]], such that many consider Sousuke to be a SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute for him.

** The pilots in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'' are all 15 at the start of the series, but the most extreme case is Trowa, who (according to ''[[AllThereInTheManual Episode Zero]]'') was picked up by mercenaries after spending the first few years of his life completely alone, and thus has been a soldier since before he was able to talk. The show's protagonist Heero has many similarities to Sousuke Sagara (mentioned above), such that many consider Sousuke to be a SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute.

* The Shinigami in ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' permit recruits to join up while still ''biologically'' children so long as they can meet the entrance requirements. Of course, Shinigami are all ReallySevenHundredYearsOld, but [[HotLibrarian Ise Nanao]], [[StepfordSmiler Ichimaru Gin]], [[AdorablyPrecociousChild Hitsugaya Toshiro]], and [[CuteBruiser Kusajishi Yachiru]] were VERY young by Soul Society standards and still often acted childish or immature. Yachiru is still a child in the current timeline, as is Toushirou -- ''and he's the 10th squad captain''.

** This story without a doubt fits this trope, as Naruto, as of the gradually building climax-arc of the series, is [[spoiler:[[TheChosenOne the savior and prophet]] everyone is relying on to save the day.]] Naruto himself grew into the role of MessianicArchetype not by destiny or conscious choice, but because of the various events and realities of his life, and the choices he made eventually culminating in a person and reputation that effectively becomes messianic. In a sense, the UpbringingMakesTheHero combines with several wise mentors passing on their full or partially messianic philosophies onto Naruto, who sees the reality of the world around him and puts two and two together.

* ''Manga/TheRideOnKing'': Since the village only has the elderly and former child slaves, Purchinov sees no other choice but to train the latter into a militia unit.

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' both the military inside the walls and the [[spoiler: Marley Warrior program]] start recruits when they are as young as twelve. [[spoiler:And Marley specifically has the option for ELDIAN children to begin the process as young as FIVE to see if they can even qualify for the program.]] Sadly it makes sense as killing Titans is a skill that needs to be taught young, and many in the Survey Corps especially live short lives. Though many enter the military with the Garrison or Military Police in mind (much safer options), they still go through the same training as everyone else, which itself has resulted in casualties. {{Justified|Trope}} in story as every recruit is trained with the assumption they will encounter a Titan until the time comes for them to choose a faction to join.

* Downplayed in ''Literature/DateALive''. Due to the fact that the talent to use [[AppliedPhlebotinum the]] [[RealityWarper Realizer]] is very rare, the Anti Spirit Team(AST) has to take child recruits. All the ones seen so far in combat are orphans and generally very good. Their mission is to [[BullyingADragon exterminate the]] [[PersonOfMassDestruction Spirits]], but that turns out to mean "bug them till they leave on their own". Downplayed that everyone heads to shelters when an incomming spirit is detected, the AST can 't really [[NighInvulnerable hurt the Spirits]], and the spirits themselves don't try all that hard to fight back. So all that really happens is property damage most of the time. When they do get a spirit [[TheGlovesComeOff angry enough]] it tends to go poorly for them.

* In ''Manga/TheDemonGirlNextDoor'', {{Magical Girl}}s were scouted by their {{familiar}}s for their inborn {{Mana}}. As a result, many start fighting long before the usual for this genre. For example, both Momo and Mikan starting fighting no later than ''six''. While the experience has had little effect on [[GyaruGirl Mikan]], Momo has become a full-blown ShellShockedVeteran in the PresentDay... when she's only ''fifteen''.

* Fujita and Ebisu(18 and 13 respectively) from ''Manga/{{Dorohedoro}}'' are teen sorcerers who serve in En's elite organization on the hunt for the Sorcerer killer Caiman, with all the trauma that implies. En doesn't seem to discriminate as long as your magic is powerful enough.

** The original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' explains that the war between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon has been so brutal that both sides are now recruiting from minors, as there aren’t enough healthy adults left to fill the ranks. The fact that the teenage protagonists are ''civilians'' in possession of classified military equipment gets more attention than the fact that they’re children.
** The pilots in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Gundam Wing]]'' were all 15 at the start of the series, but the most extreme case is Trowa, who (according to ''[[AllThereInTheManual Episode Zero]]'') was picked up by mercenaries after spending the first few years of his life completely alone, and thus has been a soldier since before he was able to talk. The show's protagonist Heero has many similarities to Sousuke Sagara (mentioned above) such that many consider Sousuke to be an {{Expy}}.
** Setsuna F. Seiei in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Gundam 00]]'' was brainwashed by and fought for religious extremists in the Middle East some years younger than ten. Being sixteen in the series proper, he's still older than most Gundam teen leads: Uso Erwin in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitVictoryGundam Victory Gundam]]'' is the youngest Gundam pilot at 13.
** And for Uso, it speaks of how children are forced to fight. While all teenagers in real life would want to pilot a giant robot and crush all the adults. Imagine if it was a tank, and you don't even got your driving license... real scary thought.
*** Indeed, a Zanscare pilot that Uso downs shoots himself when he sees how old Uso is, because he can't bear to live in a world where children so young are made into soldiers.
** In ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeed Gundam SEED]]'' and ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeedDestiny Gundam SEED Destiny]]'' the same thing applies with most of the main cast, hero Kira Yamato ''and'' the antagonistic aces of ZAFT's Le Creuset Team being in their teens. Although in this case, most of the child soldiers in ZAFT actually volunteered to fight for their countries; many of them soon realized that they bit off far more than they could chew, though.
*** The Extended as well. They even had to go through torture and abuse in their training as children, in order to be molded into soldiers that surpass the Coordinators.
*** The side story ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDStargazer'' shows that the terrorist group Blue Cosmos has been abducting orphans to serve in their Phantom Pain units through [[FantasticRacism anti-coordinator brainwashing]] and TrainingFromHell for years before the conflict even began. The same series shows a trio of even ''younger'' coordinator children who use a stolen mobile suit to attack naturals indiscriminately in retaliation for their parents' deaths at the hands of Blue Cosmos.
** Most blatant example: ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamZZ Gundam ZZ]]'''s Elpeo Puru. A 10-year-old Newtype girl trained for combat in a prototype war machine, mentally conditioned to focus on the pilot of the Gundam (this backfired: she focused on him all right, but her obsession became affection and she only wanted to be his little sister). Then it's revealed that they cloned her at least a dozen times and treated the resultant girls as equipment rather than people, nothing more than pilots who were to obey their commander and fight whomever he ordered. ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Unicorn]]'' shows one of the clones having survived to adulthood, and it wasn't a good time for her.
** Desil Galette of ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamAge Gundam AGE]]'' is one of the most [[EnfanteTerrible revoltingly evil]] examples of this ever created, being a 7-year-old boy who joined the army because it gave him the chance to kill people. By the Second Generation he's more or less grown up into an {{expy}} of [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Ali Al-Saachez]] and [[Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam Yazan "I'm gonna violate you" Gable]], the franchise's two defining [[PsychoForHire Psychos For Hire]]. On the other side, we also have the third generation's protagonist, Kio Asuno, whose grandfather (first protagonist Flit Asuno, who himself was fourteen when ''he'' first got involved in this mess) raised practically from birth to pilot the Gundam AGE 3 and continue his bloody vendetta against the Vagans.
** Mikazuki Augus of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamIronBloodedOrphans'' fits this, an extremely deadly pilot and soldier thanks to the implants given to him as he has not one but three of the implants which is the maximum a human can have. Mika is notably ruthless towards his foes in battle and more than willing to give him up his physical well being to push the Barbatos to it's limits, however this will eventually cost him his life at the end of the series. By proxy his allies in Tekkadan are also relatively skilled pilots as well with Ride and Takaki being the youngest of the bunch. This is also played for tragedy as most of them will not survive to the end of the series or become emotionally and mentally scarred by it.
** In ''Manga/MobileSuitGundamThunderbolt'', the Moore Brotherhood is horrified when the Federation a group of new pilots and they find out they're nothing more than teenagers being shoved inside mobile suits. Io Fleming can't help but realize that they're probably not coming back home. Indeed, the Psycho Zaku tears through the entire team like paper.
** Mostly averted (both ways) in ''[[Manga/MobileSuitGundamSeedAstray Gundam SEED Astray]]'''s Kazahana Aja. Although she is an official member of the Serpent Tail mercenary group at the tender age of six, she's only the team's civilian liaison, and thus is generally a non-combatant (Plus, her mother is part of the group, too). Her report at the end of ''X Astray'' is a bit of a TearJerker, however.

* ''Anime/LycorisRecoil'' has the Lycoris, orphans girls who are trained as assassins from a very young age - the protagonist Chisato stopped a terrorist attack 10 years ago... and she's still only 17 now.
* The armed forces of the Space-Time Administration Bureau from ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' doesn't seem to have a minimum age requirement. Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate become active members at the age of ten[[note]]a year after the two major incidents[[/note]] and proceed to skyrocket through its ranks. Unlike most examples, the child soldiers of the series all join out of their own volition. (However, this is also a BoxedCrook arrangement, as these tend to be the opponents of previous seasons; and anyone ''not'' working for the [=TSAB=] is still in prison or at least confined to a frontier world.)

** Though YoungerThanTheyLook (though, there is one who is OlderThanSheLooks), most of the Numbers had bodies of teenagers when they were engaged with the Jail Scaglietti Incident. While Uno, Due and Tre are biologically in their mid- and early twenties, the oldest of teenager was officially 16, while most of the others are either 14 or 13. However, it seems that the Numbers don't age like the Type-0 prototypes, as Tre, Quattro and Cinque looked exactly the same as in the Combat Cyborg Incident eight years ago, and they would be 12, 6 and 8 respectively, but they didn't look like.

* At the beginning of ''Manga/MusashiNumberNine'' the titular character is 16 and one of the top elite soldiers in her secret paramilitary organization.
* In ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', the job of Pro Hero is regarded as the most ideal job for any child to have. This has resulted in HeroAcademy institutions that train high school students to become Pro Heroes. They're even given the opportunity to fight alongside adult Pros to defeat high-ranking villains. The concept of a child wanting to engage in a dangerous situation and risk their lives is brought up every now and then but nothing is done to keep the hero hopefuls from entering the fight. That said, there are some tragic examples as described below.
* This is basically the entire concept of ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', where the main characters, at the start, are 12-years-old and already sent into occasionally life-threatening missions. To the author's immense credit, the series does not shy away from this. The fact that they ''are'' ninja and they're accompanied by more experienced ones helps, a little, but [[ThereAreNoTherapists tough cookies if you watch your family die before you one night, or have to leave your teammate to die.]] The trope is played with rather interestingly, as the series of [[MessianicArchetype messiah-like characters]] see this trope as a major part of the problem with the whole ninja system in general, which they seek to fundamentally change or end (most ''fail'', but they leave the world a little bit better every time as well).
** This story without a doubt fits this trope, as Naruto, as of the gradually building climax-arc of the series, is [[spoiler: [[TheChosenOne the savior and prophet]] everyone is relying on to save the day.]] Naruto himself grew into the role of MessianicArchetype not by destiny or conscious choice, but because of the various events and realities of his life, and the choices he made eventually culminating in a person and reputation that effectively becomes messianic. In a sense, the UpbringingMakesTheHero combines with several wise mentors passing on their full or partially messianic philosophies onto Naruto, who sees the reality of the world around him and puts two and two together.
** Some characters start even younger, as Kakashi graduated at the age of 5, became a Chunin at 6, and by 13, was a Jonin who would have died on several occasions if not for his teammate Rin's medical ninjutsu. Itachi saw consequences of war at 4, graduated at 7, Chunin at 10, ANBU at 11 and ANBU Captain at 13, at which point he massacres his entire family and clan in an apparent fit of madness (and psychologically tortures his surviving 8-year-old brother for good measure); its later revealed that [[spoiler: he did this UNDER ORDERS because they were plotting a rebellion after being wrongly blamed (mostly) for the demon attack that kicked off the story.]]
*** For that matter, Naruto and Gaara both had demons stuck into them ''at birth''; in the case of Gaara, this was done with the ''express purpose'' of turning him into a supernatural child soldier -- he was later deemed unstable (surprise, surprise) prompting his own father to try and fail kill him. And Gaara was ''still'' expected to work for him and his ninja village. [[spoiler: The actual circumstances are a bit more complex and sympathetic, but still pretty bad.]]

** Mana Tatsumiya is (supposedly) 14/15-years-old, but has been fighting in various trouble spots around the world since her childhood. Her old Pactio card actually shows her, around 10-years-old, with [[GunsAkimbo Desert Eagles Akimbo]].
** There's also Nagi, Negi's legendary hero of a father. The big war in the Magic World started when he was only around 13, and in the Magic World, if you're strong enough, you could fight in wars even if you're just 12 or 13. Nagi being...well, [[WorldsStrongestMan invincible]], he ended the war on his own. At age 15.

** During [[AxeCrazy Donquixote Doflamingo's]] speech about [[MightMakesRight justice]] during the Marineford Arc, when he gets to his "Children who never knew peace" part, we see a couple of these.

* ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'': [[note]]There are also "just plain tragic" examples.[[/note]]

* The Light Novel/Manga/Anime series ''Literature/TheSagaOfTanyaTheEvil'', offers an interesting example in the form of the titular character, [[CreepyChild Lt. (later Colonel) Tanya Degurechaff]], an incredibly gifted mage and a brilliant and ruthless tactician who even earned herself the nickname ''[[RedBaron the Devil of the Rhine]]'', who just so happens to be only around ''10''-years-old. While the Empire (basically a slightly altered WWI Germany in a world with magic) ''does'' allows boys and girls that show exceptional magical ability to volunteer and even go to officer school, it is not actively encouraged and reactions to Tanya not only being a battle hardened soldier, but also a ''officer'' who commands the respect and fear of her adult subordinates ranges from surprise to terror at the thought of someone so young leading operations on the frontlines, with several characters even mentioning in horror that they have children and siblings around her age.
-->'''Erich von Rerugen''': There was a time when I had the chance to see Lt. Degurechaff myself. [...] If I could please offer my opinion: she is a complete and utter monster, in the form of a little girl.

* In ''Anime/SoundOfTheSky'', the oldest member of the 1121st Helvetian Tank Platoon is 18-years-old. The youngest is 14.

* Yu Ominae from the anime/manga series ''Manga/{{Spriggan}}'', was "recruited" (read: kidnapped) into a secret U.S. government black ops unit called COSMOS sometime after his archaeologist parents were killed in Iran. Considering he's no older than 16-17 by present day in the series (he's a high school student), this means he was likely taken around the age of 10.
** COSMOS (Children of Soldier Machine Organic System) was filled out with children kidnapped by the CIA from around the world. They are brainwashed, have their names replaced by a number and given extensive special forces training. To give some perspective as to the results of this training, Yu, after freeing himself from COSMOS' brainwashing, is considered to be one of the deadliest special agents alive in the world of Spriggan. Most of their missions involve classic black ops missions like assassination, artifact retrieval and covert infiltration.
* In ''Anime/StrikeWitches'', all but two of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing's Witches are children, the youngest being only 12 (the two oldest are, appropriately enough, the commander and her second in command). Justified somewhat in that most magic users are teenage girls anyway, and the fact their magic gets weaker the older they get. So by 20 they are decommissioned from service.

* In ''Anime/ValvraveTheLiberator'', the AntiVillain Karlstein agents are this, to contrast with (and [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruct]]) the KidHero [[spoiler:supposedly]] OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent team who FellIntoTheCockpit of the titular mecha. It's only because of the ''ridiculously'' advanced level of the Valvraves ([[spoiler:powered by a space-vampire energy that humanity at large is still unaware of]]) that the students can even hope to beat the Karlstein team -- and the fact that they have a defector from that team, L-elf, as their strategist, who knows his former team well. The second season shows the conditions they trained under, and the level to which death and killing was such a part of their lives even when they were very young.
** Special mention goes to Q-vier, the youngest of the group at 14, who looks even younger than that. He's the most vicious, a definite BloodKnight, who sees the world like a big fighting game.
** The Karlstein agents also have number-letter [[YouAreNumberSix codenames instead of names]], and only one of their [[NoNameGiven names is revealed]] in the series.
** The Valvrave pilots also [[BreakTheCutie break]] into a form of this -- [[spoiler: except that the two survivors were already [[BrokenBird somewhat broken]] to begin with]].

* All ''{{Franchise/Gundam}}'' pilots under age 18 are [[BreakTheCutie horribly traumatized and haunted by the horrors of warfare]] You can take nearly everyone mentioned in the previous section and fit them down here, too. But there are some standouts:
** [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Setsuna F. Seiei]] (mentioned above) also falls into this category. He was forced to watch his fellow child soldiers die and [[spoiler: killed his parents at the bidding of his group's leader.]] Years later, he still dreams about dodging bullets and wishes he could go back in time and save his younger self.
** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamIronBloodedOrphans'' decides to make this trope the central focus of the series: Tekkadan are a group of orphan kids/teens raised as child soldiers by PrivateMilitaryContractors who look upon them as disposable, even labelling some of them "Human Debris". Forced to undergo invasive surgery for piloting implants, most of them don't survive long enough to see old age. The group Tekkadan slowly loses their humanity throughout the series, becoming more violent and nihilistic after [[spoiler: Biscuit's death]] and ends with [[spoiler: All of the Gundam frames pilots, Mika included, were killed on their battlefields while Orga, their leader was gunned down by Nobliss Gordon's assassins as part of Rustal finishing off what's left of Tekkadan]].
*** Technically Human Debris are viewed even worse, they are bought or even enslaved by the raiders and pirates and made to pilot Mobile suits and armor that can make use the system and one group that uses them first and foremost are the Brewers who are as unpleasant as they come with the Debris seen as even less valuable than the machines they pilot. Of all of the human debris rescued by Akihiro after the tragic battle with the Brewers that led to the death of his brother, only Derma, a MauveShirt survived to the end of the series. As all of them are slaves who are forbidden from surrendering before the enemy and given the same implants and are mentally broken to the point of suicidal despair and fights like brutal animals and their deaths are often seen onscreen.
** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamTheWitchFromMercury'' takes it even further with Ericht Samaya in the prologue episode, who [[FallingIntoTheCockpit fell into the cockpit]] when she had just turned '''''four''''', and innocently proved herself to be an ace pilot ''par excellence'' as she fought off a group of assassins. Then there's Suletta Mercury in the series proper, who, by the end of the first cour, had been coaxed by her mother into having no problems with taking others' lives if it is to protect her loved ones. [[spoiler:This culminates in her saving her friend Miorinne from a would-be assassin by [[SquashedFlat crushing him like a bug]], treating it like no big deal while Miorinne watched in utter shock.]]

* In ''Anime/{{Obsolete}}'' the Third World is much faster to adopt the military use of [[MiniMecha Exo-Frames]] due to the imported robot's literal dirt cheapness and a lack of lobbying from megacorps. So, naturally, all the malnourished child soldiers in every tin-pot dictator's armies were given cheaply armed Exo-Frames instead of AKs and kicked into battle against tanks and attack helicopters. They don't last too long.

* In ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'' Soujiro slaughtered his entire [[BreakTheCutie abusive family]] and joined Shishio as a preteen, to become his foremost assassin as a teenager. [[note]]There are also "precociously talented" examples.[[/note]]

* Chise from ''Manga/{{Saikano}}''. In high school (or was it Junior High?) but being forced to be in the military and going as far as [[spoiler: turning into a machine with a BerserkButton that is automatically triggered by battle]].

* The Sibyllae of ''Anime/{{Simoun}}'' by necessity, as the titular Simoun are unable to be piloted by anyone who's chosen a permanent gender, which is traditionally done at 17 (though the Sibyllae are granted an exemption if they choose to fight). Particularly tragic is they were never meant to fight: the Simoun were originally used for religious/ritualistic purposes, and were only used for war when they became the most effective weapon against Argentum. The Sibyllae are in a bit of denial about it too, for the longest time they insisted they were "[[InsistentTerminology praying to the sky]]" and "inscribing Ri Maajon". They...don't take it well when they realize they started saying they were "going on patrol" and "fighting".
** Even among the Sibyllae, Rimone is an extreme example of the precocious type, having become a Simoun pilot at a young age (most of the pilots are or can pass for their teens, while Rimone is still clearly a child).

* [[spoiler: Suitengu]] of ''Anime/SpeedGrapher'', with the added angst of having been literally sold into it as a slave to repay his parents' debts after their deaths.

* At the beginning of ''Manga/MusashiNumberNine'' the titular character is 16 and one of the top elite soldiers in her secret paramilitary organization.

* At the beginning of ''9 Banme no Masashi'' the titular character is 16 and one of the top elite soldiers in her secret paramilitary organization.

** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamTheWitchFromMercury'' takes it even further with Ericht Samaya in the prologue episode, who [[FallingIntoTheCockpit fell into the cockpit]] when she had just turned '''''six''''', and innocently proved herself to be an ace pilot ''par excellence'' as she fought off a group of assassins. Then there's Suletta Mercury in the series proper, who, by the end of the first cour, had been coaxed by her mother into having no problems with taking others' lives if it is to protect her loved ones. [[spoiler:This culminates in her saving her friend Miorinne from a would-be assassin by [[SquashedFlat crushing him like a bug]], treating it like no big deal while Miorinne watched in utter shock.]]

* In ''Literature/WorteniaSenki'', the ''protagonist'' Mikoshiba Ryouma bolsters his new territory's forces by taking in a bunch of former slave children and training them to be elite soldiers. The New World is such a CrapsackWorld (it has ''no'' concept of human rights) that Ryouma is still considered a major improvement.

* ''Manga/SailorMoon'': In Sailor Moon, the Senshi, which translates approximately as soldier, features one teenage boy and almost a dozen other girls who are under eighteen, some who are even younger children, who fight some pretty big battles with villains, some of whom are mundane but other villains are planet destroyers and most senshi have died at least once, some several times over.

* Thorfinn from ''Manga/VinlandSaga'' joins Askeladd's mercenary band and starts fighting in the Danish invasion of England at the age of six, and continues to do so for a decade. This ends up having [[TheAtoner severe]] [[ShellShockedVeteran consequences]] once he reaches adulthood.

* Thorfinn from ''Manga/Vinland Saga'' joins Askeladd's mercenary band and starts fighting in the Danish invasion of England at the age of six, and continues to do so for a decade. This ends up having [[TheAtoner severe]] [[ShellShockedVeteran consequences]] once he reaches adulthood.

** Setsuna F. Seiei in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Gundam 00]]'' was brainwashed by and fought for religious extremists in the Middle East some years younger than ten. Being sixteen in the series proper, he's still older than most Gundam teen leads: Usso Eving in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitVictoryGundam Victory Gundam]]'' is the youngest Gundam pilot at 13.
** And for Usso, it speaks of how children are forced to fight. While all teenagers in real life would want to pilot a giant robot and crush all the adults. Imagine if it was a tank, and you don't even got your driving license... real scary thought.
*** Indeed, a Zanscare pilot that Usso downs shoots himself when he sees how old Usso is, because he can't bear to live in a world where children so young are made into soldiers.
** In ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeed Gundam SEED]]'' and ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeedDestiny Gundam SEED Destiny]]'' the same thing applies with most of the main cast, heroic ''and'' antagonistic being in their teens. Although in this case, most of the child soldiers actually volunteered to fight for their countries; many of them soon realized that they bit off far more than they could chew, though.
*** The Extendeds as well. They even had to go through torture and abuse in their training as children, in order to be molded into soldiers that surpass the Coordinators.

** Decil Galette of ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamAge Gundam AGE]]'' is one of the most [[EnfanteTerrible revoltingly evil]] examples of this ever created, being a 7-year-old boy who joined the army because it gave him the chance to kill people. By the Second Generation he's more or less grown up into an {{expy}} of [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Ali Al-Saachez]] and [[Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam Yazan "I'm gonna violate you" Gable]], the franchise's two defining [[PsychoForHire Psychos For Hire]]. On the other side, we also have the third generation's protagonist, Kio Asuno, whose grandfather (first protagonist Flit Asuno, who himself was fourteen when ''he'' first got involved in this mess) raised practically from birth to pilot the Gundam AGE 3 and continue his bloody vendetta against the Vagans.
** Mikatsuki Augus of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamIronBloodedOrphans'' fits this, an extremely deadly pilot and soldier thanks to the implants given to him as he has not one but three of the implants which is the maximum a human can have. Mika is notably ruthless towards his foes in battle and more than willing to give him up his physical well being to push the Barbatos to it's limits, however this will eventually cost him his life at the end of the series. By proxy his allies in Tekkadan are also relatively skilled pilots as well with Ride and Takaki being the youngest of the bunch. This is also played for tragedy as most of them will not survive to the end of the series or become emotionally and mentally scarred by it.

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' both the military inside the walls and the [[spoiler: Marley Warrior program]] start recruits when they are as young as twelve.[[spoiler: And Marley specifically has the option for ELDIAN children to begin the process as young as FIVE to see if they can even qualify for the program]] Sadly it makes sense as killing Titians is a skill that needs to be taught young, and many in the survey corps especially live short lives. Though many enter the military with the Garrison or Military Police, much safer options, in mind still go through the same training that itself has resulted in casualties. Justified in story as every recruit is trained with the assumption they will encounter a titian until the time comes for them to choose a faction to join.

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitian'' both the military inside the walls and the [[spoiler: Marley Warrior program]] start recruits when they are as young as twelve.[[spoiler: And Marley specifically has the option for ELDIAN children to begin the process as young as FIVE to see if they can even qualify for the program]] Sadly it makes sense as killing Titians is a skill that needs to be taught young, and many in the survey corps especially live short lives. Though many enter the military with the Garrison or Military Police, much safer options, in mind still go through the same training that itself has resulted in casualties. Justified in story as every recruit is trained with the assumption they will encounter a titian until the time comes for them to choose a faction to join.

* ''Manga/SPYXFamily'':

* ''Manga/SpyXFamily'':

** Twilight's wife, [[ProfessionalKiller Yor Briar, aka, the Thorn Princess]] seems to have been of the precociously talented variety, but she and her brother became orphans when they were children and had to fend for themselves. Although it's heavily implied that the Briars lived far enough from the front lines that they weren't directly affected by the fighting (unlike Twilight whose hometown was close enough to the border that it was detroyed in an artillery bombardment), they still suffered through the turmoil the homefront went through including rationing/food shortages andlack of social services as the Ostanian government was too preocupied with the war, and thus Yor had to work odd jobs to support her brother and herself. However, at some point Yor got the attention of [[MurderInc the Garden]], who trained her and has been conducting assassinations since her early teens.

* [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Queen Illuma]] of ''Anime/SpiderRiders'' sees the rather young warriors of Arachna as children. The fact that they are all rather eager to fight the [[BeePeople Invetcids]] invading her homeland, actually seems to [[WhatTheHellHero worry]] her. Rather than reassure her in any way.

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', during [[AxeCrazy Donquixote Doflamingo's]] speech about [[MightMakesRight justice]] during the Marineford Arc, when he gets to his "Children who never knew peace" part, we see a couple of these.
** Defied in Alabasta. A young boy asks Koza to let him join the rebel army, but Koza refuses. Koza has one of his men show the boy his rather horrific battle wounds to scare the boy away.