History Main / AMinorKidroduction

* ''Film/ConanTheBarbarian1982'' began when Conan was just a little boy being taught about the riddle of steel. However this would be an aversion since the movie shows Conan in various stages of his upbringing until he reaches manhood.
** The 2011 film goes a step further, showing him in the ''womb''--just before his mother is stabbed in the stomach, necessitating a battlefield C-Section by his father.

* ''Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie'' originally lacked one. However, later television airings and home releases included ''The Birth of Mewtwo'' sequence. It tells Mewtwo's backstory and is an adaptation of [[Radio/PokemonTheBirthOfMewtwo a radio drama]].

* ''WesternAnimation/CloudyWithAChanceOfMeatballs'' opens with 8-year-old Flint showing off one of his first inventions, and later receiving his trademark labcoat from his mom.

* ''Literature/TheShipWhoSang'' starts with Helva as an infant, with her severe birth defects relegating her to either [[BuryYourDisabled euthanasia]] or becoming a [[ManInTheMachine shellperson]], thereby introducing shellpeople, the central conceit of the series. There's also a short section of her at fourteen, humming as she paints a replica of the Last Supper on the head of a pin, and being complimented on her voice, which leads to her developing it and becoming the titular ship who sings.

* ''Literature/TheShipWho Sang'' starts with Helva as an infant, with her severe birth defects relegating her to either [[BuryYourDisabled euthanasia]] or becoming a [[ManInTheMachine shellperson]], thereby introducing shellpeople, the central conceit of the series. There's also a short section of her at fourteen, humming as she paints a replica of the Last Supper on the head of a pin, and being complimented on her voice, which leads to her developing it and becoming the titular ship who sings.

May show them playing with a WeaponJr. See also KidHeroAllGrownUp. Subtrope of DistantPrologue. Can overlap with AHeroIsBorn.

* The movie ''Film/{{Us}}'' begins in [[TheEighties 1986]] with a 7-year-old Adelaide/[[spoiler:Red]] at the Santa Cruz boardwalk where she [[spoiler:encounters her doppelgänger]] for the first time.

* ''Fanfic/{{Spider-Ninja}}'' starts with [[GenderFlip Petra Parker]] as a 4-year-old being adopted by Master Splinter and meeting his 5-year-old sons, before time-skipping to them meeting April.

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' has one thats a bit longer than most examples. The first two episodes show Eren, Mikasa, and Armin as children, on the day [[DoomedHometown their home village]] is destroyed by the Titans.

* ''Film/{{Big}}'', a bit of an untraditional example, follows a young boy named Josh Baskin, who is shown in the opening of the film as a kid before wishing on a Zoltar machine and waking up the next morning as a fully-grown adult.

* The ''wuxia'' ''Film/TheMightyOne'' has a DownerBeginning where a little boy witnesses his father and sisters getting killed by the main villain, Abbot Long, before passing out from being flung aside with BloodFromTheMouth, seemingly dead. In a few scenes later, it turns out a TimeSkip had occured, and the new, mysterious wandering swordsman called the Water Knight is that little boy from the beginning. In a twist of fate that borders on BaitAndSwitch, the ActionGirl sidekick that tags behind Water Knight is actually his younger sister, who seemingly died in the opening scene as well!

* Franhcise/MonsterVerse:

* ''Fanfic/HarryTano'' starts with the 17-year-old Ahsoka Tano meeting the 4-year-old Harry Potter, with the first few chapters explaining how Ahsoka became Harry's foster mother and kept him safe until he was 8 (when the story kicks off).

* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'' opens up with Galadriel as a child, while adult Galadriel narrates her memories of her once idyllic childhood, before morphing to the original DarkLord Morgoth beginning the war for Middle-earth. Even as a child, Galadriel was always assertive elves, which is shown when she launches herself at a bratty fellow Elf for ruining her paper boat and has to be stopped by Finrod.

* The ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'' TV movie "Operation: Z.E.R.O." opens with a flashback on two brothers discovering ''The Book of KND'' and overthrowing Grandfather. Those boys turn out to be [[spoiler:Monty Uno (aka Numbuh Zero) and his brother Benedict (aka Father)]].

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': "A Tale Of Two Stans" starts with Stan and [[spoiler:his twin brother Ford]] playing and exploring a cave together as children in the 1960s.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' introduces Korra as a pudgy, spirited 4-year-old ChildProdigy who has already begun to bend [[MakingASplash water]], [[DishingOutDirt earth]], and [[PlayingWithFire fire]], proving beyond a doubt her Avatar status to the [[TheOrder Order of the White Lotus]]. "I'm the Avatar, you gotta deal with it!" A scene of her lighting a small, candleflame-sized fire {{Age Cut}}s to her at 17 in a training duel against three firebenders, clearly having mastered firebending.
* ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' begins with the title character as a child. After he has to flee his home, we see a montage of him going all over the world, training with various people and cultures, until he returns home as an adult.

** In ''Series/HouseOfTheDragon'', the child (not teen) who gets the most focus before being seen as an adult or young adult is Aemond Targaryen (Leo Ashton), with his [[EstablishingCharacterMoment character-defining moment]] having him claim the oldest and biggest living dragon, Vhagar, as his own [[DragonRider mount]]. Then his TimeShiftedActor Creator/EwanMitchell enters the scene in the following episode.

* ''Literature/TheSunneInSplendour'': The main character, Richard of Gloucester, is introduced when he is a child and is lost in the woods, with his older brothers Edmund and Edward concerned for his whereabouts.

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

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

** ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' starts out with a page of ten-year-old Ed, right after his failed human transmutation.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': The first chapter of the manga introduces Luffy as a young boy and has him gain [[RubberMan his powers]] and the motivation for becoming King of the Pirates. However, he's still too small and weak to begin his adventure, and the story skips to ten years later where Luffy is now a strong young man and finally sets out to sea[[note]]The anime changes this into a flashback episode just after Zoro joins the crew[[/note]].

* The first chapter of ''Manga/TegamiBachiLetterBee'' shows a seven-year-old Lag Seeing being delivered to Cambel Litmus, establishing his goals of finding his mother and meeting Gauche again. By the end of the chapter, he's five years older, and ready to set out to become a Letter Bee.

* ''ComicBook/Supergirl1984'' introduces [[ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} Kara]] as a little girl. A few pages later, she is a seventeen-year-old young lady.

* Creator/RoseOfPollux's Doctor Who works have two for Jamie, ''Great Things'' and ''This All Happened Once Before''. In the former, he first meets the Doctor at the age of two months old, and is around ten in the latter.

* In ''Fanfic/AColderWar'', as well as meeting Tony Stark when he’s a teenager, Steve also meets Hope van Dyne while she’s a child and has a [[spoiler:seemingly]] chance encounter with a teenage Phil Coulson and Melinda May at the space shuttle launch. Later, Steve’s new neighbours when he gets his own apartment are Sam Wilson’s parents, and [[spoiler:a rogue Black Widow rescues Natasha when the would-be Black Widow of the Avengers is just a little girl]].
** While Steve doesn’t meet them directly, various chapters include a brief reference to what the future canon Avengers are doing at this point in their lives, such as two boys running off to join the circus (Clint Barton and his brother), or another attending his mother’s funeral while trying to suppress his rage at his father (Bruce Banner).
* ''Fanfic/HarryTano'' starts with the seventeen-year-old Ahsoka Tano meeting the four-year-old Harry Potter, with the first few chapters explaining how Ahsoka became Harry's foster mother and kept him safe until he was eight (when the story kicks off).

* ''Fanfic/{{Spider-Ninja}}'' starts with [[GenderFlip Petra Parker]] as a four-year-old being adopted by Master Splinter and meeting his five-year-old sons, before time-skipping to them meeting April.
* ''Fanfic/{{Symbiosis}}'' begins with a two-year old Ash being hidden in the Viridan Forest by his father's Mareep to escape the people who killed Ash's parents and him settling into life there with his adoptive pokemon father, Poison Lance. It then {{Age Cut}}s to Ash entering and leaving elementary school and finally to him leaving Viridan Forest at age ten to become a Pokemon trainer.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Anastasia}}'' begins ten years before the main story, establishing the title character's relationship with her grandmother and showing how she survived the Russian Revolution, albeit with a head injury that results in IdentityAmnesia. We also briefly see her LoveInterest, Dimitri, a palace servant who helped them escape from the revolutionaries.
* ''WesternAnimation/ArloTheAlligatorBoy'' begins with the newborn Arlo Beauregard abandoned in the New York City sewers on the night of his birth, and shows how he floated all the way to the Louisiana swamp where he was adopted and reared by Edmée for fifteen long years until he learned the truth of his life.

* ''WesternAnimation/CloudyWithAChanceOfMeatballs'' opens with eight-year-old Flint showing off one of his first inventions, and later receiving his trademark labcoat from his mom.

** ''WesternAnimation/{{Bolt}}'' starts up with the titular dog as a puppy getting adopted - whether this scene is a part of the ShowWithinAShow is left unclear, since the show's director heavily favors EnforcedMethodActing.

** ''WesternAnimation/{{Encanto}}'': The movie introduction scene takes place on Mirabel’s fifth birthday, the day she’s supposed to receive her magical gift. Her abuela tells the story of the family miracle through flashbacks, and then encourages Mirabel to go receive her gift and use it to make the family proud. We see Mirabel reach for the door, and some time after it flashes to the present, we learn that it didn’t give her a gift.

** ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'' downplays this: It opens with a New Year’s card for 1994 with young Mei and her parents, then shows more pictures of her growing up, while 13-year-old Mei narrates and explains her family philosophy. The brief montage ends with a similar card for 2002 (the movie’s present) from which Mei literally jumps into the film.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Sing}}'' begins with six-year-old Buster Moon seeing Nana Noodleman perform, and becoming inspired to join the theater business.

* ''WesternAnimation/WendellAndWild'' opens about five years prior to the main story, where we see the incident where a then eight year old Kat loses her parents.

* ''Film/BroadcastNews'': All three main characters are famously introduced as kids - with their main personality quirks being established.

* ''Film/Cinderella2015'' opens when Ella is five and both her parents were still around.

* In ''Film/DeathRidesAHorse'', Bill is introduced as a child watching his family be slaughtered by the villains before the 15 year TimeSkip.

* ''Film/EverAfter'' begins this way, with Drew Barrymore's character as a little tomboy who, quickly on, loses her father to heart attack, then the main plot takes place ten years later.

* ''Film/ForrestGump'' starts off with fifteen minutes of scenes of Forrest's childhood.

* ''Film/{{Hop}}'' has its prologue take place twenty years before the main events of the film, where it shows E.B. as a young bunny being taken on a tour of the Easter factory by his dad, the Easter Bunny. Later, Fred O'Hare is shown as a child seeing the Easter Bunny's egg sled landing in his yard on Easter eve.

* The movies ''Film/LittleGiants'' and ''Film/BigBully'' both begin this way - with the same child actor playing the young version of Rick Moranis' character.

* ''Film/Mandy1952'' opens with Mandy as a two-year-old, when her parents realize she's deaf. The movie then skips ahead to when she's six.

* ''Film/NathansKingdom'' opens with nine-year-old Laura telling fourteen-year-old Nathan about their kingdoms after their father left. The movie then jumps ahead ten years.

* ''Film/TommyBoy'' opens with the young Tommy Callahan being told he's late to school - [[EstablishingCharacterMoment and he promptly runs face-first into the sliding glass door]], with young Richard Hayden teasing him for being late. Afterwards, we skip to the present-day where the now 20-something Tommy is trying to get to his college exams.

* ''Film/UnderworldUSA'', opens with Tolly as 14 year-old punk who witnesses his father being beaten to death by four mobsters in an alley. A brief montage shows various criminal acts of his over the years, finishing with him as adult in prison where the main story starts.

* The movie ''Film/{{Us}}'' begins in [[TheEighties 1986]] with a seven-year-old Adelaide/[[spoiler:Red]] at the Santa Cruz boardwalk where she [[spoiler:encounters her doppelgänger]] for the first time.

* The ''Literature/CrazyRichAsians'' trilogy opens with eight-year-old Nick and Astrid and 12-year-old Eddie. [[EarlyPersonalitySigns Even then]], Nick and Astrid are more interested in adventure than material wealth, while Eddie is able to expound at length on the virtues of Iranian caviar.

* ''[[Literature/TheRedVixenAdventures Shadow of Doubt]]'' begins by introducing Alinadar at age eight, just before she's forced to [[ChildrenForcedToKill murder her first victims]] in service to the SpacePirates who kidnapped her.
* ''Literature/SmithOfWoottonMajor'': We first meet Smith at age nine, when he acquires the star, but the rest of the story happens in his adulthood.

** ''Series/StarTrekPicard'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekPicardS1E04AbsoluteCandor Absolute Candor]]", Elnor is introduced in a flashback which takes place fourteen years prior as an orphaned boy being cared for by the Qowat Milat sisterhood. He and Jean-Luc Picard have a surrogate father-son relationship. Seeing Elnor first as a child is meant to elicit an "Awww!" reaction from the viewers because he's the first major Romulan character in the franchise who's fully on the side of the heroes (as opposed to his species' traditional depiction as villains), so it's important to establish from the get-go that he's [[TheCutie sympathetic]].

* Although it's not the very first scene, the first episode of ''Series/TheUmbrellaAcademy'' has a flashback to the Hargreeves siblings as preteens using their powers to stop a bank robbery - the first time the titular [[SuperFamilyTeam Umbrella Academy]] was made known to the world.

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV'' opens with the main character's birth, and starts you off playing as a five-year-old.

* The first chapter of ''VideoGame/OldSchoolMusical'' takes place during Tib and Rob's childhood, with them being ten and three years old respectively. At the end, it skips forwards to 13 years later, from where the rest of the game happens.

** ''VideoGame/TalesOfBerseria'' starts with a scene of 9-year old Velvet and 4-year old Laphicet running away with their brother-in-law Arthur during the Scarlet Night.

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

* In ''Webcomic/{{Drowtales}}'', Ariel is introduced as a baby in the first page of chapter 1. Next time we see her, she is a 10 years old child.

* ''Webcomic/JosephAndYusra'''s first chapter deals with how the two became friends around the age of six before jumping to their teenaged years.
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' book ''Start of Darkness'' begins with a single page showing us a four-year-old Xykon crying over the death of his pet dog. [[spoiler:By the end of the page, he's zombified the dog by accident, then delighted as it devoured a bird's brain.]]

* ''Webcomic/{{Rain|2010}}'' begins with a prologue focusing on a four-year old Rain (then presenting as a boy), before time-skipping to her final year of high school.

* ''Webcomic/StarImpact'' opens with a nine-year-old [[TheProtagonist Aster]] at a title fight featuring [[LivingLegend the Legend]], an illustrious boxer who she would idolize for the rest of her life.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' introduces Korra as a pudgy, spirited four-year-old ChildProdigy who has already begun to bend [[MakingASplash water]], [[DishingOutDirt earth]], and [[PlayingWithFire fire]], proving beyond a doubt her Avatar status to the [[TheOrder Order of the White Lotus]]. "I'm the Avatar, you gotta deal with it!" A scene of her lighting a small, candleflame-sized fire {{Age Cut}}s to her at seventeen in a training duel against three firebenders, clearly having mastered firebending.

* ''Film/PrideOfTheYankees'' starts with kid Lou Gehrig throwing a baseball through a neighbor’s window accidentally during a street game. His mom thinks he’s wasting time as she wants him to go to school and it sets up a bit of irony given what he became famous for later.