Age Lift / Anime & Manga

• Arabian Nights: Adventures of Sinbad reimagines Sinbad as a young boy, while in the original tales he was an adult.
• Beyblade: The four main characters' ages differ between the Japanese and English versions. In the English dub (and dubs based on it) Tyson and Max are 13-15 and Kai and Ray are 14-16, depending on the season. In the Japanese version, Takao and Max are aged 10-12, a full three years younger, while Kai and Rei are aged 12-14, two years younger.
• Classi9 has an interesting example, especially if considering the respective timelines of the real-life musicians. Haydn, who was born before all the other composers except for Bach, ended up being the youngest member of the cast. The rest is at least 16, but no older than 18, which makes Wagner roughly the same age as Liszt even though he married his daughter in real life. Beethoven is about as old as Mozart, even though in real life he was young enough to be his pupil. Bach remains the oldest and most responsible member of the cast, though.
• In the original Cutey Honey anime and manga, Honey and Natsuko are both high school students. In Re: Cutie Honey (as well as the live-action movie that inspired it), they're both young adults, with Honey working as a temp and Natsuko working as a police inspector.
• In the '60s animated Cyborg 009 films (as well as the ensuing 1968 animated series), Cyborg 007 was changed from a middle-aged man to a young child. Reportedly, this is because the producers really wanted a Kid-Appeal Character for the audience to relate to.
  • A minor example in the 2001 series that in order to keep 004's background as an East Berliner and 002's brother being a World War Pilot the same while doing a Setting Update, they had 001, 002, 003, and 004 cryogenically frozen for several decades due to their bodies rejecting the implants - so while they are mentally and physically the same age, they're chronologically much older.
• In the original Japanese version of Demon City Shinjuku Chibi is a preteen orphan boy who helps out Kyoya and Sayaka on their journey for a price, in the English dub he is a grown man who speaks in a Spanish accent.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: When transferring Ume (Daki) and Gyutaro to the High School AU universe, the series' author Gotouge gave a new spin for the siblings' ages as a humans, in there Ume is 16 years old and Gyutaro is 18 years old; in the main series Ume is only said to be 13 years old before a tragedy happened and she becomes a demon along with her brother, and Gyutaro's age is never given.
• Digimon: The English dubs went all over the place with this. The first series left the ages alone, but the second one, a three year Time Skip sequel to the first, had the gap increased to four years and accordingly aged everyone up by an extra year, including the newly introduced characters in order to maintain the same age differences with the original cast. Tamers, perhaps because it was Darker and Edgier, aged the ten-year-old main characters up by two years... which ended up creating some rather poor implications that weren't originally there, as at one point Ruki/Rika's mother's age is explicitly stated and this age is left unchanged, dropping the age difference between mother and daughter from 18 years to 16. Meanwhile, Frontier's dub aged most of the children by a year as per the second series, but didn't do so with the youngest member of the team, increasing the age difference between him and the rest of the characters from two to three-four years.
• A Dog of Flanders (1975): In the original A Dog of Flanders story, Nello was 15 years old and Alois was 12 years old. In the anime Nello is 10 and Alois is 8.
• In Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan, Broly is said to have been born on the same day as Kakarot/Goku. In Dragon Ball Super: Broly, Broly is instead said to have been born on the same day as Vegeta, making him roughly 5 years older than Goku. Broly's father Paragus is also much older than in the original, as he looks like he's elderly, and Saiyans only start visibly aging from their prime once they are in their 80s.
• Wolfgang Krauser, the final boss from Fatal Fury 2 was changed from a moustachied middle-aged man with a scar on his forehead to scarless and clean-cut young man still in his 20's in the anime adaptation.
• The anime adaptation of The Flowers of Evil changes the characters from middle school students to high school kids, possibly due to the violent and psychosexual nature of the story, and the animation is rotoscoped.
• Fullmetal Alchemist (2003): Pride, aka Selim Bradley, is the oldest homunculi in the manga. In the 2003 anime, Envy is the oldest, as he was the son of the Big Bad Dante and the Elrics' father Hohenheim Came Back Wrong while Selim is just a normal boy.
• Galaxy Express 999: Tetsuro is about ten years old in the original Manga and TV series, but in the movies he is implied to be in his early to mid teens, and while still hot-blooded, he lacks the childish naivete that kickstarted a lot of the Manga/TV only incidents.
• Hellsing: Mina Harker from Dracula is a grown woman likely in her early 20s at most, in Hellsing for some reason she’s depicted as a young girl who looks about 12 as seen in Alucard’s Flash Back. Possibly justified given Hellsing's loose retelling of the novel’s conclusion is already quite different from Bram Stoker’s version (Abraham defeating Alucard/Dracula and taking him back to England instead of Jonathan killing Dracula), implying its an alternative universe where Mina was much younger than she was in the original book.
• Howl's Moving Castle depicts Howl's apprentice, Michael, as a young boy. In the book, he's fifteen.
• In Keijo!!!!!!!!, Nozomi's age is 17 in the manga, but in the anime she's 18. This is because the anime skips a lot of the opening chapters of the manga and begins In Medias Res.
• Komori from Komori-san Can't Decline! is 14 at the beginning of the manga. In the anime, she's 15.
• In the original web-novel iteration of Konosuba, every main (human) character was in their late teens to early adulthood, but when the series was officially relaunched as a light novel series, they were all deaged.
  • Kazuma Satou, the protagonist, went from a 20-year-old man to a 16-year-old teenager.
  • Lalatina "Darkness" Ford Dustiness went from being around 22 years old to an 18-year-old.
  • Megumin got hit the hardest; originally a short and flatchested 17-year-old, she was de-aged to a 14-year-old ^note she technically starts the novel series as a 13-year-old and ages to a 15-year-old by its climax, but she spends the majority of its run at age 14.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • All over the place in INNOCENT, even without factoring in the artificial humans actual ages. For starters, Lindy and Precia are the same age, while Precia was old enough to be Lindy's mother in canon (as Lindy was born the same year as Alicia). Alicia died at the age of five but she's instead depicted as a preteen. Teana and Subaru are both shown to be two years younger than Nanoha (in canon, they're three and four years younger than her respectively). Sette goes from being a one year old adult to an elementary schooler.
  • The Reflection/Detonation duology do this to Yuri and the Materials. In Gears of Destiny, they're all older than the Tome of the Night Sky (which itself dates back to the days of Ancient Belka), while changes to their backstories mean that they're all significantly younger. Yuri is now a part of the Book instead of an even more ancient being that was sealed in it (and therefore the same age as it), while the Materials are only slightly over 40 due to having been kittens during the flashbacks to the Planet Restoration Committee.
• In the original The Moomins books, Little My is, despite her tiny size, Older Than She Looks: Moominpappa meets her before Moominmamma, making her older than Moomintroll and Snufkin. Moomin (1990) makes her an actual child as young as she looks.
• One Million-Year Trip: Bandar Book and Undersea Super Train: Marine Express has Sharaku aged up, voiced by a male seiyū and assuming the roles of a professor and a dictator respectively.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Red from Pokémon Red and Blue is eleven. Ash, Red's anime counterpart, was ten when he began his journey, and still is two decades on.
  • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire to Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire:
    • According to the remakes, May is twelve. In the anime, she is ten like Ash.
    • Tate and Liza seem older in the anime than they did in the game. Tate especially looks less boyish than in the games and has a teenage sounding voice.
  • Serena from Pokémon X and Y has no official age but seems to be around 16 to 19, confirmed by the fact she's older than the canonically 16 Emma. In the anime she's Ash's age (10). She's noticeably taller than Clemont in the games but is around the same height as him in the anime.
  • Pokémon Sun and Moon to Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon
    • Lillie from is around 11 years old in-game, but she's noticeably taller than the protagonists and her own older brother. In the anime, she's given a much softer and younger-looking appearance and is shorter than her brother, around the same height as Ash.
    • All of the Trial Captains in the games are around 13 - 19. In the anime, the Trial Captain class is Adapted Out, and the trainers are 10 - 12 instead (with the probable exception of Kiawe). In the meanwhile, Island Kahuna Hapu is a young adult in the games, but is shown to be 11 in the anime.
• Misty is officially ten in the anime, but is twelve in The Electric Tale of Pikachu.
• Pokémon Adventures:
  • The timeline of the manga screws up the ages of the Pokedex Holders. The games are not in straight chronological order as they contain multiple timeskips and Alternate Universes. Adventures streamlined everything. For example, in the games May and Brendan are either the same age or slightly older (their canon ages are 12 instead of 11 like Red, but Red had already began his adventure when the Hoenn games started) than Red and Blue. Ruby and Sapphire however are a good 6 years younger than the Kanto Pokedex holders.
  • In the X and Y chapter, Calem and Serena's counterparts, X and Y, are 12. In the games, they're probably in their late teens (16-19).
• The Story of Pollyanna, Girl of Love: Pollyanna is eight years old in this version, compared to the novel where she is eleven. Her friends are also similarly de-aged.
• Powerpuff Girls Z
  • The titular girls from the original cartoon are kindergarteners, whereas the anime version made them Eight Graders. Considering the years between the original cartoon and the anime adaptation were released (1998 and 2006, respectively), the age lift actually makes an accurate summation if the original girls aged in real life.
  • The above also applies to the girls' classmate turned Supervillain, Princess Morbucks.
  • The Rowdyruff Boys went from kindergarten-aged like the girls in the original, to slightly younger (clearly pre-teen, implied to be 10-12) than them in the anime.
• In the anime adaptation of Run with the Wind, Hanako is still in high school, unlike her original novel counterpart who attends the same university as the main cast (this also applies to the manga and film adaptations). This doesn't stop her from unofficially acting as the university track team's Cute Sports Club Manager, however.
• Sailor Moon:
  • Mamoru Chiba a.k.a. Tuxedo Mask in Sailor Moon In the manga he's 16 at the start, 18 in the last arc and 24 in the final chapter; in the 1990s anime, he's 18 at the start and they don't have the distant finale making it end with him at 20. Given that Usagi's age is the same in the manga and anime starting her off at 14, some people find him a bit creepier in the anime since he's an 18-year-old college student in a relationship with a middle-schooler. In Sailor Moon Crystal he is a 16-year-old high school student at the start as he was in the manga.
  • In the 90s anime Chibiusa is the same age she seems to be physically. In the manga, however, she is Really 700 Years Old, having been born when Usagi was in her early twenties but perpetually being stuck in a child's body.
  • Had Toon Makers gotten the English rights to the series for their proposed live-action and animated adaptation, Sailor Moon would've gone from 14 to 16, as mentioned in their theme song. The DiC dub kept her at 14.
• The anime adaptation of Sazae-san lowered the age of most of the family. Sazae was 27 in the manga, now 24 in the anime.
• The character of Nobue in Strawberry Marshmallow is aged up from sixteen years old in the manga to twenty in the anime. This isn't done to match a particular actor, but because Nobue is a habitual smoker and drinker and they couldn't show her doing that on TV if she was underage.
• The Secret Garden re-imagines Mary, Dickon and Martha as pre-teens, while in the Frances Hodgson Burnett book, Martha and Dickon were teeangers while Mary was implied to be slightly younger.
• In the Street Fighter II V anime, Chun-Li is a 15-year-old martial arts student instead of an adult policewoman like she is in the games. Ryu and Ken are also both younger than their game counterparts.
• Mametchi and the other main characters of the Tamagotchi anime are written as children, even though they would be in their adult stages in the digital pet toys the anime is based on.
• In the English dub of Tenkai Knights, Guren Nash is 13 years old. In the Japanese version, he was 11.
• In the original The Three Musketeers novel, Constance was in her 20s and already married. She's only 16 in the anime, making her closer in age to d'Artagnan (who is himself at least a few years younger here).
• In Tokyo Mew Mew, Ichigo and Minto were 12-13, Retasu was 13-14, Bu-Ling was 11-12, and Zakuro was 14-15. In the 4Kids dub, Mew Mew Power, "Zoey" and "Corina" became 16, "Bridget" became 15, "Kikki" became 14, and "Renee" became 17. Ichigo, Minto, and Retasu ended up becoming younger in the Tokyopop translation of the manga, going from 12-13 to 11 (though they would go back and forth switching between 11, 12, and 13). The anime reboot Tokyo Mew Mew New makes Ichigo, Minto and Retasu first-year high schoolers while Bu-Ling appears to be around 12. Averted with Zakuro as Minto states tthat the two of them are the same age.
• Variable Geo: In the Advanced V.G. series, Yuka and Satomi's official ages are 18 and 17 years old respectively. But, for reasons unknown, the OVA adaptation makes both of them a year younger.
• Merle was a preteen in The Vision of Escaflowne, whereas in Escaflowne: The Movie she's roughly the same age as the teenaged Van and Hitomi.
• In the Wonder Momo webcomic, Momoko's love interest Natsuhiko is clearly somewhere between 23 and 25. In the anime, he's changed into a high school contemporary of Momoko's. His personality also changes, going from cocksure adult to insecure teenager.
• Zelda in the original The Legend of Zelda is a young child roughly the same age as Kid Hero Link. Zelda in one of the manga based off said game is a teenager. Link is also older than he should be, being Zelda's older half-brother, but looks younger than Zelda due to being part elf.

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