Legal Jailbait: Difference between revisions

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.

 

 

 

{{examples}}

* Fuko Ibuki from ''[[Clannad (visual novel)|Clannad]]'' {{spoiler|after being awaken from the coma. She has a childish mind, understandably}}.

* 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 [[squick]]y as it is unusually "improper" for a young lady of her era and in-universe [[Values Dissonance]] due to lacking human social mores.

* 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]]''.

* Konjiki No Yami (aka Golden Darkness) of ''[[To LOVE-Ru]]'' is the most feared shapeshifting assassin in the galaxy, with the appearance of an adorable 14 year old blonde. In one of the episodes, she claims her age to be "24 years old by Earth reckoning".

* The [[Yaoi]] manga ''[[Okane ga Nai]]'' barely avoids being labeled [[Shotacon]] by clearly stating that the child-like [[Uke|Ayase]] is nineteen years old. He still looks and behaves like a twelve-year-old.

* 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.

* ''[[Black Jack]]'' has [[Ship Tease|hints]] of BlackJackXPinoko. Pinoko looks like a second-grader, whereas she's actually 18–22 years old in any given episode.

* 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.

* 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 than Black]]'' qualifies. Though she's likely at least in her twenties or early thirties, her [[Power At a Price|renumeration]] for using her time-manipulation power is [[Merlin Sickness|aging backwards]], so during the main course of the first season, she looks like a fifteen-year-old.

* Kuonji Miyu from ''[[They Are My Noble Masters]]'' looks like a very young girl, despite being in her early twenties.

* Mimina from ''[[Ladies versus Butlers!]]'' is 19 but looks 8. The main character Akiharu even comments on this, mistaking her for another student's younger sister, accidentally molesting her, then getting accused of being a lolicon.

* At the end of the ''[[Ghost in the Shell (1995 film)||Ghost in The Shell]]'' film Batou puts {{spoiler|The Major combined with program 2501}} into the body of a child. She asks if he goes for that sort of thing. He reminds her that the illegal body trade which he had to depend on for a quick body didn't allow him the luxury to choose.

* ''[[Blood Alone]]'': The implied future for female lead Misaki, played for gentle angst. A young girl who has been turned into an unaging vampire, she has a crush on her 20-something protector but knows it will never go anywhere because she'll never become an adult woman.

 

== Comic Books ==

* S'aru from ''[[Red Hood and the Outlaws]]'' looks like a preteen and lounges around half-naked, but he's really over 400 years old.

 

* 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.

* ''[[The Not So Short Second Life of Bree Tanner]]'' offer the gem of a double subversion, Bree and Alec are both ''biologically'' teenager (15 and 14 respectively) when they are turned, but Alec is around 350 years old.

 

== Film ==

{{quote|'''Scott Calvin:''' You know, you look pretty good for your age.

'''Judy:''' Thanks, but I'm seeing someone in wrapping. }}

 

== Literature ==

* In ''[[Replay]]'', during one of their [[Groundhog Day Loop]]s, Jeff is 18 and Pamela is 14.

 

* 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 [[wikipedia:Turner's 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.

*** 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: The Original Series|TOS]] episode ''"Miri"'', where a [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|long lived]], but emotionally and physically 13-14 year old girl has a crush on Kirk. At the end of the episode, when confronted with how he resisted her charms, Kirk replies "I'm not fond of older women."

** 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 (UK)]]'' had an episode featuring a 40-year-old vampire who looked about sixteen. (The actor was twenty.) His adoptive vampire parents threw a big party for him, where he was encouraged to drain a willing victim and then have sex with his adoptive mother. Even he was squicked by the whole thing.

 

== Video Games ==

* The fifth [[Elder Scrolls]] game, 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.

 

* Chibi-Sue in ''[[Ghastlys Ghastly Comic]]'' is thirty-six, but is trapped in her [[Super-Deformed]] chibi body. Normal men want nothing to do with her, but she's creeped out by the idea of pedophiles mistaking her for a child or using her as a substitute.

 

== 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 ''[[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]]'' enjoy eternal youth, with some stop aging in child-like state, and most have a lifespan far longer than that of a human. So while some monsters look like children, there's a good chance they're [[Older Than They Look]] and [[Really 700 Years Old]]. The Sabbath cult also has spells that can reverse aging. Downplayed in universe, since marriage to monsters is illegal in anti-monster kingdoms, so it doesn't really matter if they're legal or not age-wise, since Monster's aren't, period.

 

== Western Animation ==

* Strawberry Sweetcake from ''[[Drawn Together]]'' is a [[Dead Baby Comedy|very deliberate]] implementation of this trope. Too bad she's {{spoiler|[[A Nazi by Any Other Name]]}}.

{{quote|"I'm 18, silly, I only ''look'' eight!''}}

* In the "Live Filming" of an episode of ''[[The Cleveland Show]]'', 15 year old Roberta states in a drunken rant she is actually 25.

 

[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]

[[Category:Turn-On Tropes]]

[[Category:Technically a Trope]]