Daijoubu

This is about “Age Deflation” in anime. Watching Denno Coil recently, I thought that these kids are very mature for what are supposed to be children in elementary school. I certainly can’t imagine myself at that age (or even later!) being able to master the kind of technology that they use with the ease of advanced hackers. And issues like Fumie and Daichi’s complex relationship and Haraken’s emotional baggage also seem quite heavy for kids that age. Yes, I know that making them children is probably very important for the meaning of the story, with children’s society and imaginative life being contrasted with that of adults, but this bias towards making characters as young as possible happens again and again in the world of anime and manga. This tends to strain the viewer’s suspension of disbelief. I remember reading that Watsuki Nobuhiro, the creator of Rurouni Kenshin, wanted to have his character be in his 30s, but was pressured to make him 27, meaning that, in the past, the supremely accomplished and unbeatable Hitokiri Battousai was only 15!

Kenshin brings to mind the many other even younger characters in anime who are typically given troubled “pasts” that would mess up a much older and more mature person. Naruto is full of them, as is much of Shounen Jump. It’s found in other genres as well. You have teenagers, like Kanon’s Yuuichi, who we have to accept had all of these traumatic experiences with Makoto, Mai, Nayuki and Ayu that he’s then suppressed in his memory. These complex harem relationships come from a past time when he was a very young kid indeed, and yet there are even series, like Kodocha, where the elementary-age kids themselves have these deep “pasts”! Now, many kids deal with traumatic events and are often very resilient in recovering from them. But anime characters are frequently able to deal with their issues in a surprisingly adult way, and without the serious counseling that a grown adult would probably need, lol.

Returning to Denno Coil, the younger sister Kyoko certainly acts her age, but then look at Isako. With her short skirt, air of authority and awesome moves, she presents a cool and sexy image indeed. But wait! She is an elementary school student! And yet, would you think she was still only a loli? I mean, she’s more mature than any of the adults in this show! And then there’s Haraken’s aunt Tamako. IIRC, this sexy gal is supposed to be a teenager! That’s perhaps more believable, although her skills seem beyond that too. If you look at character profiles for many series, particularly those set in fantasy or sci-fi worlds and not high schools, you often find ages that you might not have assumed. Sometimes I feel like just mentally adding at least five years to any given age of a character in such a series so that it makes better sense >_<

Of course, there are also those moe series that do a good job of presenting characters who act as proper lolis. Ichigo Mashimaro comes to mind. And then theere are those anime, from Manabi Straight to Kanon to Lucky Star, that present High School age girls in a more young loli-ish manner. It’s interesting that anime style can encompass so much diversity. Imagine some inter-high school conference where Manabi & co., Konata and friends, the SOS Dan, and the girls from School Days and Joshi Kousei were to stand side-by-side: quite a contrast. So that’s more like age inflation for a girl with Manabi’s more childlike style. If Isako was at that conference, she’d be much more mature/sexy than Manabi. But those who think Isako is totally awesome have to accept that she is a loli, although mature for her years. (However, my rule of adding five years would make her almost legal ^_^;)

Manabi’s age inflation is a whole other topic, which I’ve addressed in relation to Kanon, in which the girls are mentally made to be much younger then their supposed physical ages. This is done to create moe characters. In Kanon, it’s done to pander to a particular male desire to care for helpless lolis. Such age inflated characters sometimes also pop up in an anime with a cast of more mature characters, in order to add a variety of character types. But most action series tend to feature seemingly overly mature characters. However you look at it, age deflation or inflation, which comes in many forms and is used for different reasons, is a commonplace of anime.

Of course, live-action series often use 20-something actors to play teenage characters. Like with those productions, Anime creators want to appeal to their adolescent audiences by having characters be a similar age. Denno Coil is somewhat different, as it seeks an even broader appeal, in which characters, plot and setting are given equal weight in what is really a complex “concept” piece. It has a well-rounded group of characters in an anime that, like a Miyazaki film, can resonate with many audiences. These characters need to be emotionally complex individuals. But, for its plot and concept to work, the characters have to exhibit a dual nature that straddles the line between innocent childhood antics and a mature sense of responsibility and conflicted emotions that children of that age would not usually have to contend with.