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{{trope}}
[[File:800 yr old lap.png|400px|thumb]]
'''Evangeline:''' What?? [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|I'm over a hundred years old, you know]]!
'''Nagi:''' [[Failure Is the Only Option|Well, then it's because you're an old hag]].
|''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]''}}
There are [[Moe]] characters whose youth and innocence attract a fanbase of sexual lust [[Misaimed Fandom|in spite of an author's intentions]] and then there's these characters who are meant to appeal to [[Lolicon]] tastes.
▲{{quote|'''[[Our Vampires Are Different|Evangeline]]:''' Why don't you like me?<br />
▲'''[[World's Strongest Man|Nagi]]:''' Eh, I'm not into little girls.<br />
▲'''Evangeline:''' What?? [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|I'm over a hundred years old, you know]]!<br />
▲'''Nagi:''' [[Failure Is the Only Option|Well, then it's because you're an old hag]].|''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]''}}
Girls (and occasionally boys) who ascribe to this trope are invariably [[Older Than They Look]] adults, or supernatural beings that are [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old]]. The narrative takes great pains to remind the audience that they are adults, thereby (poorly) attempting to justify the [[Fan Service|sexualization]] of their [[Squick|apparent innocence and youth]] because they are ''technically'' adults, and therefore that (supposedly) alleviates the reader of possible guilt. It can also reduce the disgust of those that aren't into kids, and thus drive fewer people away.▼
▲There are [[Moe]] characters whose youth and innocence attract a fanbase of sexual lust [[Misaimed Fandom|in spite of an author's intentions]] and then there's these characters who are meant to appeal to [[Lolicon]] tastes.
It's not just the guilt or disgust of the
▲Girls (and occasionally boys) who ascribe to this trope are invariably [[Older Than They Look]] adults, or supernatural beings that are [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old]]. The narrative takes great pains to remind the audience that they are adults, thereby (poorly) attempting to justify the [[Fan Service|sexualization]] of their [[Squick|apparent innocence and youth]] because they are ''technically'' adults, and therefore that (supposedly) alleviates the reader of possible guilt.
Finally, this trope is also more often than not [[Not Growing Up Sucks|played for ''drama'' as well]]; the stigma of being a "forbidden object of lust" trapped in a "child's" body when one is an adult with sexual desires is a veritable ''goldmine'' of [[Angst]] driven drama and plot.▼
▲It's not just the guilt of the readers, mind you. There are countries where publishing acts of ''drawn'' underage sex is illegal. This is sometimes as close as the publishers can legally get if they want to sell their work in those countries. Note, however, that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_cartoon_pornography_depicting_minors countries have differing laws on the matter], and what may be an effective legal dodge in one country may equal jail time in another.
A
▲Finally, this trope is also more often than not played for ''drama'' as well; the stigma of being a "forbidden object of lust" trapped in a "child's" body when one is an adult with sexual desires is a veritable ''goldmine'' of [[Angst]] driven drama and plot.
{{noreallife|this trope is ''full'' of [[Unfortunate Implications]]. Also, this is a trope about how characters are depicted in media.}}
▲A combinatorial trope of [[Jail Bait Wait]], [[Fetish Fuel Station Attendant]] and [[Lolicon]]. Occasionally meets [[There Should Be a Law]]. A ''real life'' version of this can be the result of [[Dawson Casting]].
{{examples}}
* 900-year-old ChibiUsa<ref>She's insistent that she's 90'''2''' years old, as of the manga story that was used as the basis for the ''Sailor Moon S'' movie.</ref> of the ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' manga is technically an example, but she's a lot more childlike a lot more often than she is mature and adult. However, Naoko does sometimes write her as acting more adult/mature than Usagi, so it varies. Not that being more mature than [[Idiot Hero|
▲== Anime & Manga ==
▲* 900-year-old ChibiUsa of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' is technically an example, but she's a lot more childlike a lot more often than she is mature and adult. However, Naoko does sometimes write her as acting more adult/mature than Usagi, so it varies. Not that being more mature than [[Idiot Hero|Usa]][[Dumb Is Good|gi]] takes very much; there are probably several ''genuine'' ten-year-olds who do it on a daily basis.
* By far the most extreme example of this trope is Al Azif, the lead heroine of ''[[Demonbane]]''. Despite taking the appearance of a young girl, Al Azif is in fact the avatar of the Necronomicon (yes, ''[[Cthulhu Mythos|that]]'' Necronomicon); she's stated to be several thousand years old, but given the history of the Necronomicon, may actually be many times that age.
* Evangeline A.K. McDowell of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' is a '''500+''' year old vampire with the body of a 10 year old girl, dressing in [[Elegant Gothic Lolita]] style. But boy is she
** There's also the magic age changing pills, which change the pubescent (though still young) students into younger girls (or vice versa, for Negi and Kotarou).
** Inverted by the third princess of the Hellas Empire. She's 30, but Hellans live longer than humans, so claims to be closer to 10 so Rakan will spoil her. Backfires on her when Rakan says little kids aren't allowed to drink alcohol and orders fruit juice for her.
* Mina Tepes of ''[[Dance in
** The manga eventually shows that it's not her true form but a pretense she uses to avoid arranged marriage.
*
** Constantly lampshaded throughout the anime. Notable examples include: Asking her friends to pretend they're her sisters so she can get the children's discount, not having grown an inch (up or [[A-Cup Angst|out]]) on [[Measuring Day]], and wearing a [[School Swimsuit]] that was apparently issued
* Hagumi Hanamoto from ''[[Honey and Clover]]''.
* Fuko Ibuki from ''[[Clannad (
* In ''[[Spice and Wolf]]'', Holo's human form is explicitly described in every adaptation as that of a ''fifteen'' year old girl, in spite of being over four-centuries old and implied to be more experienced in "that" aspect of life than Lawrence (who has actually embezzled his mentor's treasury as a boy to visit houses of ill-repute). Though bear in mind the "legal age" does not quite exist in Medieval Times yet, so Holo's frankness with her sexuality is not so much [[
* Centuries
* Mimi of ''[[Mnemosyne]]'' looks like a child but is really [[Older Than They Look|much older]] {{spoiler|thanks to her immortality.}}
* In a similar vein, Minnie May Hopkins of ''[[Gunsmith Cats]]'', who took anti-aging drugs so that the man she loved would recognize her the next time he saw her.
* Morino Ichigo of ''[[
* An in-universe example of ''[[
* Konjiki No Yami (aka Golden Darkness) of ''[[To
* The [[Yaoi]] manga ''[[Okane ga Nai]]'' barely avoids being
* Shizuku the Mizuchi of ''[[Omamori Himari]]''. Her exact age isn't specified, but she is at least 100 years old and looks about ten, gets just as many [[NSFW]] [[Fan Service]] shots as the more mature-looking girls, and has spent most of the series blatantly and obviously trying to get the teenage male lead into bed.
* ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' has Vita, a [[Ridiculously
* ''[[
* In-universe example in ''[[Ouran High School Host Club]]'' with Honey, who looks about 6 and actually is the eldest of the Club, at about 18.
* ''[[Detective Conan]]'' gives us Haibara Ai, the biochemist who {{spoiler|is responsible for creating the drug that turned Shinichi into Conan}}, and is a victim of the exact same poison. Her real age, as {{spoiler|Miyano Shiho/Sherry}}, is approximately 18, but due to the effects of APTX-4869, she appears to be no older than eight.
* Chrono from ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'' is a demon that appears to be about twelve years old in his [[Sleep Mode Size|sealed form]], but his true form appears to be in his early twenties and he's [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|really at least half a century old, possibly about 85 in the manga]]. This is [[Lampshaded]] in the manga by Satella, who "[[Shotacon|likes younger boys]]" and is happy to be able to flirt with him guilt-free.
** There's also {{spoiler|Florette "Fiore" Harvenheit}}, who appears to be fifteen, but when you do the math she's actually about twenty-five. {{spoiler|This is because Florette was killed at the age of fifteen, and Fiore is a "doll" made out of an artificial soul and [[Squick|Florette's reanimated body]]}}.
* Ageha in ''[[Toshiue no Hito]]'' is mistaken for jailbait, but she is {{spoiler|an 26 year old widow who just has an underdeveloped body.}}
* [[Deliberately Cute Child|Amber]] of ''[[Darker
* Washu-chan from ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]]''.
* Kuonji Miyu from ''[[They Are My Noble Masters]]'' looks like a very young girl, despite being in her early twenties.
* Mimina from ''[[Ladies
* ''[[Futari Ecchi]]'' plays with this. A neighbor of the protagonist couple looks really young for her age. Every single panel that features her nude and/or having sex with husband features a little note mentioning her actual age.
* Nagato Yuki from ''[[
* This is zigzagged to hell and back in ''[[Excel Saga (
* At the end of the ''[[Ghost in
* ''[[
* [[Adorkable]] supporting character and occassional [[Friendly Enemy]] to the main cast, [https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Mimi_Atachi#cite_note-ep7-2 Mimi Atachi] from ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS]]''. She's 37 years old, and even has a 10-year-old son, but looks barely older than 12 herself.
== Comic Books ==
* Captain Boomerang Jr. once declared his love for [[Supergirl]], but while she is chronologically an adult, she's ''biologically'' sixteen. They were together for a while though.
* In ''[[Green Lantern]]'', in the late 80s and early 90s, Hal Jordan was romantically involved with Arisia, who (when introduced) appeared to be and was described as 13 (Earth) years old. (26 of her planet's years.) He steadfastly discouraged her crush on him until she subconsciously used her ring to physically age herself up to adulthood over the course of a few weeks. He then justified getting involved with her because the ring had also given her ''mental'' maturity. Much later it was retconned that "due to the elongated orbit around its two suns, thirteen years on Graxos IV were like two-hundred and forty on Earth." This nominally decreased the creepiness (or perhaps ''reverses'' it, making ''Hal'' the jailbait), though it contradicts the original comics.
* S'aru from ''[[Red Hood and
▲== Fan Fic ==
* An unintentional version has been known to cause problems in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' fanfic with fans who've only seen the movies and aren't aware that the nonhuman races age slower than humans in bookverse. Hobbits come of age at thirty-three, so a sixteen-year-old hobbit is roughly the equivalent of a ten-year-old human, and elves aren't counted as adults until they're fifty.
** Affected them in the movie universe, too. Apart from the hobbits' ages getting shuffled, Orlando Bloom's Legolas went from "these trees make me feel young again, as I have not since I traveled with you children" (he's between 500 and 3000 years old), to getting a pat on the arm and a "let it go, lad" from Gimli, who's only 139.
* ''[[
== Film ==
* In ''[[Let the Right One In]]'' [[Our Vampires Are Different|Eli]] has been twelve...for a long time.
* Played with in ''[[The Santa Clause (film series)|The Santa Clause]]'', when Scott meets an elf who looks ten, but is several hundred years old. He innocently remarks about her looks and ''she'' is the one who takes it the other way:
{{quote|
'''Judy:''' Thanks, but I'm seeing someone in wrapping. }}
== Literature ==
* An often overlooked effect of prolong in ''[[
** It's considerably worse than three-to-one; as you get older, aging (and development) slows down, so at thirty you look about fifteen. The limit is not known, as no third-gen prolong receivers have yet noticeably aged beyond their twenties.
*** Allison Harrington (who just broke her second hundred) looks, from the descriptions, about thirty. Honor, who's also third-gen and 62, is barely in the twenties by the look alone.
** And then there are the (very few) ill-fated fourth-generation prolong receivers, who just don't mature. At all, apparently. This unfortunate consequence has caused Beowulf to tighten up their rules again.
** Ragnhild Pavletic (who appears in ''Shadow of Saganami'') is a third-generation Prolong recipient, who also was cursed with a slow maturation rate and small stature, making her look like she was eleven or twelve. A certain level of frustration was hinted at this in the book, especially considering one of her fellow middies was a former pleasure slave, bio-engineered to be a sex toy.
* Claudia in [[Anne Rice]]'s ''[[Interview
* Xulai in Sheri S. Tepper's ''[[The Waters Rising]]'' looks "about seven or eight" when the hero first meets her which disturbs him because he finds himself inappropriately attracted to her. Imagine his relief when her body changes to match her true age of twenty.
* In [[Ian McDonald]]'s ''Cyberabad Days'' a number of rich Indian families have their offspring genetically engineered in the womb both for superior intelligence and long life. This, however, comes at the price of aging literally half as fast, This results in [[Arranged Marriage|marriages]] between people who are
* Sylvia Martius in ''[[Stationery Voyagers]]'' is really at least a century old. But she thinks like a 12-year-old and gets treated like one by everyone around her. In 60 years' time, she's managed to mature enough to be treated like a 17-year-old.
** Stella-Marie is an inversion: She was mechanized as a child, and put in a teen robot body. She still thinks like a 7-year-old; and only the most die-hard [[Robosexual]] would even consider her.
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* In Charles Stross' ''[[Eschaton]]'' series there is a subculture of people who have themselves altered via nanotech surgery to look prepubescent. They have a symbiotic relationship with [[Ephebophile|another subculture]].
* In-universe example in [[Wheel of Time]]: the grandfatherly general Gareth Bryne is romantically involved with (and later proposes to) Suian Sanche, who is chronologically around the same age but due to a magical mishap appears young enough to be his granddaughter. A few characters mention how odd their pairing seems in passing, but nobody seems to have too big a problem with it. Possibly [[Justified Trope|justified]] in that magic-using women (and presumably men, not that that many survive long enough for it to be an issue) in that setting age more slowly; presumably they must be used to being seen with apparently much older men.
* In ''[[
* An episode of ''[[Law and Order SVU]]'' had a 17
▲== Live Action TV ==
** She had [
▲* An episode of ''[[Law and Order SVU]]'' had a 17 year old dating an older man despite her having the body of a 10 year old. Notable in that the main source of her angst was the fact that her father treated her like she was one.
▲** She had [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner%27s_syndrome Turner's syndrome], and was attempting to make the most of what little fertility she had (by seeking artificial insemination and the like). Although she was a senior in high school, she looked much younger as a result of her genetic abnormality, and [[All of the Other Reindeer|her classmates always teased her because of it.]]
* ''[[Star Trek]]''
** An inversion in ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'': Kes is a young adult and looks like one. Her race lives for only 9 years and thus physically and mentally matures at an appropriately accelerated pace. At the start of the series, Kes is ''<s>two</s> one'' (her second birthday is in the season 1 finale). This doesn't stop humanlike-aging Neelix (and, in an alternate timeline, Tom Paris) from doing the deed with her.
** Another ''[[Star Trek]]'' inversion
*** Miles did at least figure out that he can still comfort Keiko and that they would figure out the rest later. Thankfully it wasn't necessary.
** Yet another is the [[Star Trek:
* Juliet in ''[[Wizards of Waverly Place]]'' passed as a high school student, including dating one, despite being a vampire 2,193 years old.
* The producers of ''[[Dateline (TV series)|To Catch a Predator]]'' made increasing use during its run of 18-year-old actors to pose as underage children to meet the alleged predators when they show up at the decoy house for sex. They fooled virtually everyone.
** One question this raises is why the alleged predators are in trouble at all, if in reality they're visiting an 18-year-old, and besides all of their previous interactions had been with adults posing as underage children. The reason is that they solicited someone whom they understood to be underage for sex, which is sufficient for legal purposes.
* ''[[Being Human (
* One episode of ''[[She Spies]]'' had Cassie, Shane and DD investigating a charity run by two brothers whose poster child was a disabled little girl called Amy; it was a con racket which the "girl" - actually [[Older Than They Look|an adult woman whose aging system was slowed down due to illness]] - was the ringleader of.
== Video Games ==
* The ''[[
** Etna is a [[Stripperiffic]] young girl who appears and acts 14 or so but is 1470.
** [[Love Freak|Flonne]], who could almost pass as a late-blooming 15 year old, is 1509.
** Laharl, who's "only" 1,313. And combines it with [[Walking Shirtless Scene]].
** [[Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice|Raspberyl]] does double duty by being [[Older Than She Looks]] even by the 1=100 years demon standard conversion.
* In ''[[
* From the [[Nasuverse]], there's ''[[Tsukihime]]'s'' Len, who is an unspecified number of centuries old and looks about ten in her human form. She's also a [[Horny Devils|Succubus]] who is very intimate with teenage Shiki Tohno.
** Nasu's works also feature a less extreme example in Ilya from ''[[Fate/stay
* [[Boys Love]] game ''[[Gakuen Heaven]]'' takes place in a high school with teenaged love interests... save for Professor Umino who is a teacher in his 20's but looks to be about twelve.
* The ''[[Harvest Moon]]'' series has Luna, one of the possible bachelorettes. Her exact age is unspecified, though she is old enough to get married. She's also a short girl with [[Elegant Gothic Lolita]] clothes and [[Girlish Pigtails]].
** In the next game her height is gone, she's even taller
** Katie also looks, and [[Adult Child|acts]], young but insists that she's an adult; she's a bachelorette also.
* ''[[Absolute Obedience]]'' features two characters as "targets" that appear to be very young teenagers, but are officially 18 and 19.
* ''[[Wild
* Remilia and Flandre Scarlet of the ''[[Touhou]]'' games both count, as they're 500 and 495 year old vampires, respectively, but have the bodies of ten year old girls. At least Remilia ''can'' act mature when she wants to. Flandre, on the other hand, amps up the [[Squick]] by having the mind of a child due to centuries of isolation. ''Touhou'' contains plenty of these characters, who range in age from Cirno, at least sixty years old, to Suwako, at least ''two thousand'' years old.
* ''[[Dirge of Cerberus]]'', the ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' "sequel," features Shelke. She's nineteen, but physically stopped aging, leaving her in the body of a nine-year-old but with a very mature behavior.
* In ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]: [[Strange Journey]]'', Crewman [[Chivalrous Pervert|Anthony]] ''tries'' to invoke this trope to justify his attraction towards centuries-old female demons who happen to look like beautiful young women. It backfires horribly when the latest object of his affections, the demon [http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Moh_Shuvuu Moh Shuvuu], not only has the body of a little girl but also the ''personality'' of one, and she's more than understandably [[
* In the ''[[Blade Runner]]'' game, one of the endings features your character running off into the sunset with a suspected replicant that looks like a 14 year old girl. About [[Randomly Generated Levels|75% of the time]] it turns out she's [[Squick|actually human]], but when she's a replicant her real age (like all replicants) is under 4. As an android, [[Crapsack World|her age is probably not considered an issue.]]
* [[Our Vampires Are Different|Rachel]] [[Dracula|Alucard]] of ''[[
* [[Bratty Half
* The fifth ''[[Elder Scrolls]]'' game, ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim|Skyrim]]'', has Babette, who looks like she's about ten, and is a member of the Dark Brotherhood. She's actually a several centuries old vampire. When you first enter the Sanctuary, she is telling the others about her latest mark, with the implication being that she seduced a pedophile.
* [[Ditzy Genius| Purah]] from ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild]]'' is over 120 years old (older than [[Cool Old Lady| her sister Impa]], who is visibly elderly), but a botched experiment has made her physically a child.
** In the sequel, she has managed to perfect the process, and [[She's All Grown Up]], and [[Breakout Character|fans have certainly noticed.]]
* Fans of the [[Dating Sim]] game ''[[HuniePop]]'' have actually debated whether sleeping with Momo is breaking some sort of statutory rape law. Momo claims to be an actual cat who turned out a [[Cat Girl]], and is one year old. [[Word of God]] states that this is a cat's equivalent of 18, meaning she would be considered legal age. however, "cat to human conversion years" is not always agreed on, and it could mean anything from 15 to 24, depending on who is talking. Of course, even ''in game'' there is also some controversy over [[What Measure Is A Non Human| whether or not it's bestiality]]; seriously, players ''actually debate this''.
== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'', halflings and gnomes. Female adults of these races often look like children, [[Rule 34|does anything more need to be said?]]
==
* Chibi-Sue in ''[[
* Would [[Rule 34]] fanart of [https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Meloetta_(Pok%C3%A9mon) Meloetta] (an [[Olympus Mons]]) be child porn? [https://www.deviantart.com/rilexlenov/art/Lewd-Idol-740989508 One trainer] (an [[Author Avatar]]) is able to ask Meloetta how old it is, and it replies, "Older than humanity." The artist shrugs and says, "Works for me." (Be warned, the link is SFW, but much of the artist's other work is not.)
== Web Original ==
* A few have popped up in ''[[The Gungan Council]]'', but Toph Graystone is notable for using ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender|Toph]]'' as an avatar despite being ''18''.
* The [[Cute Monster Girl]] in ''[[
== Western Animation ==
* [[Tear Jerker|Played for tragedy]] in the "Baby Doll" Arc of ''[[Batman:
** And one-upped by her next (and last) appearance in "Love Is a Croc", where she's absolutely lovey-dovey (and has [[Squick|resumed her child-like "Baby Doll" persona]]) with Killer Croc, having developed an unhealthy fixation with him after hearing him talk about how hard his life was as a result of being different. Killer Croc has no interest in her, but she's a good enough crime-partner to put up with her quirks, for a while anyhow. When she secretly follows him and overhears his plans on abandoning her soon, [[Woman Scorned|she snaps and makes it clear which of them is more dangerous]].
* Strawberry Sweetcake from ''[[Drawn Together]]'' is a [[Dead Baby Comedy|very deliberate]] implementation of this trope. Too bad she's {{spoiler|[[A Nazi
{{quote|
* The Warner siblings in ''[[
* In the "Live Filming" of an episode of ''[[The Cleveland Show]]'', 15 year old Roberta states in a drunken rant she is actually 25.
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[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]
[[Category:Turn-On Tropes]]
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