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.

 

 

{{noreallife|this trope is ''full'' of [[Unfortunate Implications]]. Also, this is a trope about how characters are depicted in media.}}

 

{{examples}}

* 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.

** 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 Vampire Bund]]'' has the appearance of a nine year old child. Although her age hasn't been confirmed neither in manga, nor in anime, she seems to continually beat the watcher around the head that she's much older. How much -- [[Epileptic Trees|is a viewer's guess]].

** The manga eventually shows that it's not her true form but a pretense she uses to avoid arranged marriage.

* Hagumi Hanamoto from ''[[Honey and Clover]]''.

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

* 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. To put it in perspective: there is a flashback from the [[Forgotten First Meeting]] between Kanou and Ayase 4 years before the beginning of the story; Kanou ''does'' looks older than then, but Ayase looks exactly the same.

* 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-Human Robots|Ridiculously-Human Program]] who has the body of an eight-year old despite being a few centuries old. Her appearance is a bit of a sore spot for her and she gets annoyed whenever someone refers to her as a kid. This isn't helped at all by the fact that her "sisters", who are roughly the same age, both have permanent large-breasted 20-something bodies. There's also the combat [[Cyborg]] Cinque, who happens to be one of the oldest members of the [[Quirky Miniboss Squad|Numbers]] despite having the body of a child.

* 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.

* 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.

** Another ''[[Star Trek]]'' inversion: In one episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|TNG]]'', several characters are in a transporter accident which physically regresses them to children, though their minds remain completely intact. When one of them snuggles suggestively up to her husband, he's instantly squicked out, even though she's mentally and emotionally the same person. The philosophical questions behind this [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot|really aren't explored any further]].

*** 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.

* 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.