Younger Than They Look: Difference between revisions

 

 

Other times there may be a young adult with the appearance of a middle aged or even older man. Gray hair, a prematurely receding hairline, generally cause someone to look older. Certain types of facial hair also can make a younger man seem older.

Subtropes include [[Older Alter Ego]], a magical ability for younger kids to temporarily turn into adults and back, and [[Plot-Relevant Age-Up]], the same permanently.

 

 

Often found to be a [[Truth in Television]], with many potential factors that can result in premature "aging".

 

 

Contrast [[Animation Anatomy Aging]].

 

* It is revealed that Maria in ''[[Hayate the Combat Butler]]'' is only 17, but she is incredibly mature and everybody mistakes her for a beautiful woman in her mid-to-late-20s, leading Hayate to believe that he likes older women. It also becomes a [[Running Gag]] that Maria is irritated when people mention "young girls" as if she doesn't fit into that group.

** Specifically, she keeps saying "I'm 17-years-old" with increasing irritation. It's also a [[Shout-Out]] to [[Kikuko Inoue]].

** Arf is another example. She looks to be in her mid twenties or so, but in reality is probably only three or four years old tops considering Fate created her, and Fate herself is a another example as a clone with a copy of the memories from the girl she was cloned from.

*** By extension, this trope applies to {{spoiler|Erio and Zest}} for the same reasons as Fate.

* Occurs with the all young girls in Junko Mizuno's ''[[Pure Trance]]'' manga; they appear to be about three when they're born, and one quickly ages about 16 years in a matter of months due to her ability to ''shed her skin like a snake''.

* The silpelits from ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' Age at about double the rate of normal humans. Nana looks 14-15 and is really around seven years old. Similarly, Mariko is really somewhere around three years old.

* Most people assume ''[[Baccano!]]'''s Luck Gandor to be somewhere in his late twenties. [[All There in the Manual|Delving into the light novels]] and doing a little rough math, however, will reveal that he's only in his late ''teens''.

* ''[[Air Gear]]'' stars Ikki, a 13 year old who looks and sounds like he's 20. To say nothing of Ringo, who might be the most well endowed 14 year olds in anime.

* A [https://web.archive.org/web/20120123102756/http://www.pokemopolis.net/frames/jailbait.htm favorite topic] on the ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' fansite Pokemopolis is how certain characters, particularly May, fit this trope.

** Professor Oak fits as well. Sure he looks super super old, but in the animeverse he can't be much older than 50. Which means he became a grandfather around 40.

** It seems like there's no two sources that say the same thing about characters' ages. Some official Japanese sites have different characters listed as different ages within the same site. Jessie and James are usually the most ambiguous, and often are listed as being around 22 years old, especially if one goes by the timeline established in the CD dramas.

* Pinoko of ''[[Black Jack]]'' depends on how you count it. She started life as a teratoma (a form of tumor) that had grown everything but a body while attached to an eighteen-year-old woman. If you count her life starting with her "sister", she's eighteen and [[Older Than They Look]]; if, like Black Jack, you count her life from when she was removed, she's less than a year. Either way, her artificial body looks about six.

** Kanzaki and Oriana also looks around 20-25 when they're both only 18.

* George of ''[[Dragon Crisis]]'', despite looking about thirty, actually turns out to be 19.

* The protagonist of ''[[Accel World]]'' is 13 years old but looks at least 2 years older.

* Kyouichi from the first chapter of ''Himitsu Kichi'' [http://mangafox.me/manga/himitsu_kichi/v01/c001/10.html looks like a 20 year old] when he's no older than 10 or 11.

 

== Comic Books ==

* ''[[Animal House]]'': "I'm only thirteen!"

* Ree's mother in ''[[Winter's Bone]]''. She's probably in her late 30's but looks more like 60.

 

== Literature ==

** Also, Heath's sister...does not look 15, much to Beaver's dismay when he hit on her during Parents' Week. Although you do have to [[Take Our Word for It]]...

* An episode of ''[[The Inbetweeners]]'' had a mechanic who was really fifteen but looked to be in his mid-thirties.

* ''[[Mork and Mindy]]'': Orkans are born looking old and grow younger looking as they age, so when they're old they look like babies. [[Jonathan Winters]] plays M&M's son in later seasons.

* A ''[[Law and Order]]'' episode had two fashion models, one the [[Victim of the Week]] and her "workmate" who both had a few racy photoshoots. The victim was 14 and her acquaintence is in the eighth grade.

* Angela Orosco from ''[[Silent Hill 2]]'' is only 19, but looks at least in her 30s. {{spoiler|This was done intentionally by the animators, to show how her past of sexual abuse and killing her abusive father has prematurely aged her and taken a physical, as well as emotional, toll on her. It was also done to separate her from young and supposedly innocent characters, like Laura, and to emphasize that she isn't to be sexualized in any way, as much of the symbolism in the game places emphasis on sexuality. Originally, the character was conceptualized as 15 or 16, but the voice actress chosen to portray her gave her an older-sounding voice, and the design team changed her accordingly.}}

* Chuck Downfield of ''[[Backyard Sports|Backyard Football]]'' looks like he's in his 20s. His age? ''9''. He just knows the game so well and dresses like an adult.

* ''[[Tsukihime]]'': While the 800 year old Arcueid only looks like she's in her late teens to early twenties {{spoiler|she may well be much younger than that, mentally, as she was put into sleep mode when she wasn't killing Fallen True Ancestors, and after the True Ancestors died out, whenever Roa's incarnations were inactive.}}

* The vat-grown people from ''[[Shin Megami Tensei II]]'' (that is, {{spoiler|Aleph, Beth, Daleth, Gimmel and Zayin}}) were grown to adulthood in a single day. This means that {{spoiler|the main character}} is only a few days old from the start.

* ''[[Sengoku Basara]]'''s incarnation of [[Date Masamune]] looks like he's well into his twenties...when he's actually 19. To a lesser extent Sanada Yukimura as well, who is only 17, but looks older in most of his ''Basara'' incarnations.

* ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'''s Jak, from [[Jak II Renegade|the second game]] on. According to his bio on the official ''Jak X'' site, the [[Jak 3|18-year-old]] "is a seasoned hero, with etched lines on his face that show the many challenges he's overcome, and the many adventures he's had to endure."

* [[Super Mario Bros.|Mario]] looks around 40 years old, but the ages of other characters would put his age closer to 20.

* Kreia from ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]] II'' looks to be in her 70s. However, according to her creator, [[Chris Avellone]], she's only around 50. The reason for her older appearance is likely due to her heavy use of Dark Side powers since the Mandalorian Wars.

 

== Real Life ==

 

Place information about specific people in the category below this one.

* Hard living in general can make you look older. Homeless people often look middle-aged in their late twenties, due to poor health practices and chronic stress. Back when it was common practice for women to have 10 or more kids while living on a fairly poor diet, they aged pretty fast too. And people who do very hard labour that's risky to your health, such as coal mining, often end up Younger Than They Look as well.

* Anyone born with [[wikipedia:Progeria|progeria]], a disease that causes rapid aging; sadly, sufferers never become As Old As They Look, rarely living past their teens. The disease was the basis for ''Jack'', as seen above.

** Also [[wikipedia:Werner syndrome|Werner Syndrome]].

** True for most drugs. Substance abuse is notorious for rapidly accelerating the accumulation of cellular damage and decay we normally identify as "aging".

* This is generally true for most people in extremely stressful jobs. Most American Presidents seem to age around a decade for each term. Just look at pictures of [[George W. Bush]] before and after his term. Hell, look at pictures of [[Barack Obama]] before his term and during his term.

* Some people with [[wikipedia:Giantism|giantism]] can fit this because of their rapid growth. This was happened to be the case for [[wikipedia:Brenden Adams|Brenden Adams]] who was born in 1995, yet he's called "Tallest teenager in the world" for a reason, even bigger the [[The Great Khali (Wrestling)|The Great Khali]]... the tallest in current WWE roster.

 

* [[Mila Kunis]] got her first major role playing Jackie on ''[[That '70s Show]]'' when she was just 14, even though everyone auditioning was required to be 18 or older. When Mila was asked if she was 18, she said that she would be, [[Loophole Abuse|but didn't specify when]]. Eventually she was found out, but was still considered the best fit for the part.

* Hollywood lore has it that three-time Oscar winner Walter Brennan's career took off after he lost his teeth in a fight and found that without them he could play old men.

* Florence Thompson, the woman in this [[wikipedia:File:Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg|famous photograph]] by Dorothea Lange was '''thirty-two''' when it was taken. It showed the devastating effects of [[The Great Depression]] more than words possibly could.

** And when the photographer (Steve McCurry) met her again, [http://artisticthings.com/the-afghan-girls-escalation-say-hello-to-sharbat/ this] is how she looked at 35 years of age.

* In 1970, the much-older-looking [[wikipedia:Mary Ann Vecchio|Mary Ann Vecchio]] was, in fact, a 14-year-old runaway. Jon Filo's photograph of her crying over Jeffry Miller, who'd been killed in the Kent State shootings, won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1971.

* Nobody could tell how old Michael Jackson was in his later years, mainly because he [https://web.archive.org/web/20120317210716/http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/famecrawler/2008/10/23-End/michael-jackson-neverland.jpg barely looked human.] When he was young, however (Thriller and before), he looked a bit old for his age, particularly when he was a kid, looking to be around 11 or 12 when he was just 8 or 9.

* Michael Gross (Steven Keaton from ''[[Family Ties]]'') shares the same birthdate with Meredith Baxter (Elyse), but while Baxter looked her age when she was cast for the series, Gross looked about 5–10 years older largely thanks to his thinning, prematurely gray hair.

* At the age of 15, Traci Lords claimed to be 20, used a fake ID, and started appearing in porn magazines and films. Authorities only caught on three years later.

* Metal singer Ivan Moody, vocalist for Five Finger Death Punch. Take a good long look at [http://www.blogcdn.com/www.noisecreep.com/media/2011/03/fivefingerdeathpunch.jpg this photo.] [http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/708397/708397,1299273106,18/stock-photo-colorado-springs-co-september-vocalist-ivan-moody-of-the-heavy-metal-band-five-finger-72455557.jpg And this one.] He's only 31. He looks at least 15 years older than that. This is especially strange because he was 27 when his band's first album released, and looked that age.

* Ritchie Valens practically ''defines'' this trope. He died when he was just 17 years old. [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/images/2009/01/27/ritchie_valens_color_crop.jpg Seriously, look at this dude.] Who the fuck looks like that at ''17''?!! Twice that age, ''maybe''.

* [[John Carpenter]] was only 51 [[wikipedia:File:JohnCarpenter01.jpg|when this picture was taken]]. He looks some 20 years older than that.

* Sir [[Patrick Stewart]] started going bald when he was nineteen and was Younger Than He Looked for much of his life.<ref>He was forty-six when he started filming ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'': Jean-Luc Picard was 59.</ref> Nowadays he's [[Older Than He Looks]].

* Ryan Clark, the lead singer for the heavy metal band [[Demon Hunter]]. The music video for his band's 'Infected' was shot in 2002, when he was just 23. But due to the large beard he had and his lack of hair (not to mention he's a little fat), he looked to be around 10 years older or so. He's now at the age of 32 and looks that age, though.

* Whitman Mayo was only 40 when he portrayed Grady Wilson on ''[[Sanford and Son]]''.

* [http://mg.co.za/article/2011-06-06-die-antwoord-collaborator-leon-botha-dies-age-26/ Leon Botha], who had the aforementioned genetic disease [http://en.wikipedia.org/progeria Progeria]{{Dead link}}, lived to be 26, but looked like he was over 100 years old. Sadly, he was the oldest person on record to have had the disease.

* Some of the people on ''[[Intervention]]'' who are hard into drugs may be in their early 20s, but look like they're an average 30 something.

* Dioxin poisoning causes serious acne problems, which causes rapid aging. Victor Yushchenko, then in his late 40s, underwent this during a bitter campaign for presidency of the Ukraine, as seen [https://web.archive.org/web/20070407022414/http://blog.kievukraine.info/uploaded_images/2968-714119.jpg here]

** It's also worth mentioning that Rogen is pretty well aware of his "old" looks. He occasionally jokes about it in interviews.

* While we're at it, [[Bill Hader]] in some of his films (namely ''Superbad'' and ''Forgetting Sarah Marshall'') looks considerably older than he really is.

* Ditto to [[Jason Segel]]. Awww, hell. Pretty much all of Apatow's "stock actors" (with the possible exception of [[Jonah Hill]]) look older than they really are.

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20111210080120/http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/GeoreOrwell.jpg This photo] of [[George Orwell]] had been taken when he was 30 years old. He could have been anywhere from 45 to 60 by looks only. [http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/09_01/georgeorwellDM0309_468x353.jpg 7 years later] he still looked like a grandpa. [http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/2/24/1298551370244/George-Orwell-1945-007.jpg 12 years later] and suffering from tuberculosis, he was still unchanged, so it could not be blamed on poor living conditions only.

* [[John Lennon]] looked around his age right before his death, but the beard he had in his mid-to-late 20's made him look at least 10 years older.

* Many of the WWE wrestlers. For example, [[Wade Barrett]] is only 31. He looks more like he's in his early-40's.

** [[Stephanie McMahon]], after her voice went through a radical change in 2002-2003 (most likely due to all the screaming she was doing before then), definitely ''sounded'' much older than she really was.

* [[Top Gear|Jeremy Clarkson]] has consistently looked at least ten years older than his real age for some time now. It's a little hard to believe he's only nine years older than Richard Hammond.

** Williams was into drugs and heavy drinking during his early career, which could have contributed to this.

* Ernie Pyle, American journalist and World War II soldier was 44 when he died. When he died he looked like he was in his 60s or 70s.

* Austin St. John (a.k.a. [[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers|The Red Ranger]]) was only 18 years old when he first started playing Jason Lee Scott. He looked more like he was about 20-22. It didn't help that his character was supposed to be 15. He sometimes looked age appropriate, but his build made him seem older.

* Wilford Brimley (the "diabeetus" guy), for years, was a shining example of this trope. To wit: He was only 50 years old when he was cast in ''[[Cocoon]]'', but was able to portray a convincing elderly man with just his hair whitened. And [http://waltons.steve-p.org/pix/54B_00253100.jpg this] is how he looked when he was in ''[[The Waltons]]''. He was in his early 40s at the time.

 

{{reflist}}