Too old for their age?

[lilgumba]

Have you ever watched a show and got so into the characters but suddenly realized they are still kids? Did that make you think that they are too young to be thinking this kind of stuff? I'm past my teens even if it wasn't that far away but I can't remember being that wise, that mature for my age back then. Or are they more mature in Japan? It seems like they get exposed to more stuff than our sheltered kids here in the US. What is your opinion on this?

I especially would like to hear from current teenagers to see if they can relate but all comments are welcomed.

[Yunacat]

I know for a fact that kids in Japan are really more mature than kids in the US or in other locations. I mean, take Detective Conan for instance. Here in the US, the show is rated between PG-TV14 (depends on what happens in it), but in Japan, it was made for kids, so the rating is around Y7-TV12!! (trust me, i have three of the games in Japanese, and the games themselves are very kiddyish but with elements that would easily raise the ratings.)

But that's not the point of this thread. The point of this thread is if we'd be too old or not for the characters we like. Kinda like..looking at them if they were a person in reality, right? I'm 17 myself, so it would be awkward for me to say i like..say..Li Syaoran from Cardcaptor Sakura, who's about 10 years old. The thing about anime is though, it's anime, it's just a story, and it can be anything you want it to be. If you want him to be 17, invision him as 17 and he's the correct age. See?

Point is, you're never too old for the characters you like since anime is what you see it as.

[OmniStrata]

Eiken...

[Bloodfest Butterfly]

But that's not the point of this thread. The point of this thread is if we'd be too old or not for the characters we like. Kinda like..looking at them if they were a person in reality, right? I'm 17 myself, so it would be awkward for me to say i like..say..Li Syaoran from Cardcaptor Sakura, who's about 10 years old. The thing about anime is though, it's anime, it's just a story, and it can be anything you want it to be. If you want him to be 17, invision him as 17 and he's the correct age. See?

Point is, you're never too old for the characters you like since anime is what you see it as.

I hear ya.*applauds*

[requiett]

Have you ever watched a show and got so into the characters but suddenly realized they are still kids?

I get that chill a lot when I'm watching Beyblade. It's uncanny.

[hypes]

Have you ever watched a show and got so into the characters but suddenly realized they are still kids?

Hey I still watch the Magic School Bus, so yea.

[Kaivy]

Have you ever watched a show and got so into the characters but suddenly realized they are still kids?

Hey I still watch the Magic School Bus, so yea.

i haven't seen that show in years. i can't believe you still watch that.

[SarahtheBoring]

"Everyone is 14 in anime. It's the law."

I actually have this feeling constantly while watching/reading Saiyuki - the lead characters are freaking kids, like 19-22 years old. GAH. ...and that means I can't perv on them, and that makes me sad. But that's another story.

The kids in most anime, like the constant 14-year-olds with DEEP MORAL CRISES, they absolutely ring false to me. When I was 14 I was drawing all the time even though I sucked at it and writing Important Secret Things Because I Was Totally Going To Write Famous Books When I Grew Up and bitching about how all the cool kids suck. And listening to Roxette. Because it was 1991. But that's another story too.

Anyway, it's still the end of childhood and the beginning of adolescence, which is a turning point for a lot of people. Setting that internal strife against an external strife in the plot makes sense to some degree. Also that can make the hero an underdog or powerless to start out with, so his/her overcoming of the odds will be more impressive. The classic story has a young hero, probably in part because of that.

Sometimes it makes sense in the story, sometimes it doesn't. NGE's kids really seem like angsty teenagers, and although they seem more like 16-17 to me than 14, it's not that far off. Sometimes, not so much (like Saiyuki with its college-age dudes not acting AT ALL like college-age dudes, or SKU - Utena is fourteen too, which garners a few WTFs at some points in the plot.)

So it depends on how much the writers are willing to destroy characterization in order to serve the plot.

[borpii]

Have you ever watched a show and got so into the characters but suddenly realized they are still kids?

I get that chill a lot when I'm watching Beyblade. It's uncanny.

Me, too. I don't care, though, since I believe I may just be suffering from lingering crushes from back when they first aired (I may have been the right age- I can't remember).


Those anime kids are definitely too mature. I doubt if real Japanese kids are that mature. At seventeen, I feel kiddy when I compare myself to, say, Outlaw Star's 11 year old Jim or some of the Digimon kids, for that matter.





The latter statement may be saying more about me than the kids, but....

[Otohiko]

My encounters with Japanese teens lead me to belive they're far, far from 'more mature'

But don't take that as a rule. Personally, I was probably more mature than most of these guys at 14, depending on what 'mature' means, but that just had to do with the way and curcumstances in which I was brought up.

Frankly, I always thought the Eva characters were spot-on as far as mental age.