Kids in Anime

[Don]

So Sine's post got me thinking. What is it so bad about kids in Anime (and probably games/manga, because they're sort of the same culture)? Well I think the problem is most of the time, any kid in a Anime is just there to look cute or to have someone the reader can identify with. Generally speaking there is no reason for kids to show up in most Anime in terms of story. Even if you look at something like Dragonball, most of the fighting is done by adults except Gohan who is obviously someone really really special. If you look at most Anime that stars some kid, there is usually none or at least a very superficial reason why they are there. For example in Eva it's something like only 14 year olds can pilot Eva for reasons no one can understand.

If you look at something like say Azumanga Daioh, a story that is entirely about what a bunch of girls did in 3 years in high school, I don't think anyone can say that the characters present being kids is inappropriate. Even something like Ranma 1/2 is supposed to be somewhat focused about the school aspect so even though you got aliens invading or whatever crazy thigns going on, it still makes sense that the characters involved are kids because the story is tied together by the school. Comparatively Inuyasha doesn't make much sense why the main characters are young, and that's almost entirely because the setting is feudal Japan instead of high school Japan. One could argue the world of Ranma 1/2 is even more whacked and supernatural than Inuyasha, but the kids fit because of the setting in the former, and not the latter.

So if the kids have no purpose in terms of story, what are they there for? To be cute, and whatever the counterpart to cute is for girls (see Prince of Tennis for kids tailored to girl readers). Also it's useful to have kids as villians because like the real world, if you kill people or wipe out a planet as a kid you just get sent to some correctional facility. Actually you probably just have to cry about how your childhood sucks and all is forgotten, and Japanese stuff seems to be a sucker for happy endings no matter how improbable. Shin Tenchi Muyo comes to mind, where after all the nasty things that have happened, all is forgiven because the villian was just a young girl. It didn't matter even if she was probably going to wipe out a planet or two while throwing a tantrum.

I'd like kids characters, both good or bad, take more responsibility for what they do. Actually, more of them needs to die, period.

[SineSwiper]

They don't need to die. They just need to not exist. There are some rare exceptions, like the ones in Naruto, since the point of the series is about young ninjas growing up and learning.

By not using kids as the backbone of your anime, you're telling your audience:

1. "Hey, I'm not going to rely on this cutesy bullshit to make up for story."
2. "Since the main characters are adults, you can actually relate to these people, since you guys are adults."
3. "This is a more adult series with more adult and deeper themes. Sometimes that leads to overconfusion, but hey, that's better than a story that's too shallow."

It also leaves to better believability. A series like GitS represented a real world with real issues and a real story. Same with Cowboy Bebop or Ergo Proxy. Sure, you had to cross the gap of vampires in Hellsing, but at least it wasn't littered with too much unneccesary comedy. (Well, that vampire chick was really annoying.)

It's just one of the anime cliches that shouldn't be in any anime. Stop turning everything into a comedy. Stop with the "anime only chicle" bullshit. Just treat it as a medium, and make it something realistic. No RPG-ish animations for showing emotion. No cartoonish jaw dropping or eye popping or any of that.

[Don]

Actually kids in Naruto absolutely needs to die. Half of them shouldn't be fighting these random super powerful guys that can wipe out an entire nation. At one point they said it's these kids who will carry on the future, and they're not going to be seeing very much future fighting guys who can take out an entire nation. Sure you got a few kids who are qualified enough to be taking on world destroying villians (Naruto and Sasuke definitely does) but if you look at the way ninjas are assigned versus the Akatasuki (or whatever it's called) they basically have a death wish. This is why having kids breaks down your story because usually in most manga kids cannot die. If for some reason Sakura decided to fight Itachi or Orochimaru 1 on 1 you know there's no way she could die because she's still a kid. The funny thing is that if Kakashi died in a similar fight no one would be too surprised because he is not a kid even though Kakashi is wayyyyyy more powerful than Sakura. Actually World of Warcraft shows this problem very well. Every child NPC in that game is unkillable. If you put one of those against say, Illidan, the kid would eventaully win simply due to the virtue of being unkillable. So you got to protect the kids, but the kids are invinicible!

Sure you can have a story about people growing up, but there's not much growing up when you have a bunch of unkillable kids. The only series that ever successfully used unkillable kids was Saint Seiya, but it is pretty clear from the onset that the kids that star this story is absolutely unkillable, like you can rip their head off and it'll probably just grow back as long as someone say 'believe in love!' One of the guy repeatedly self destructs and comes back after blowing himself to a million pieces.

So yeah if you're willing to acknowledge that the kids are indeed indestructible, it can work, but obviously most series don't acknowledge this so you're supposed to believe Sakura can logically take on, well, anybody, because she's an unkillable kid.

Hunter X Hunter has a good example where kids get smacked by reality the hard way. Up until the Chimera Ant arc it looks like your standard bunch of kids and friendship triumphs above all, and then Gon and Killua decided to take on a royal guard. Katt sacrificed his life so the kids can escape, and after they escaped, Gon was saying like believe in hope! I'm sure Katt is still alive! And then next scene you see the royal guard kicking Katt's severed head around, saying, "Guess I am pretty strong after all!", because the royal guard needed someone that will last longer than 3 seconds to test her powers (which is why the kids didn't die, because killing them would be too easy).

Here innocence is appropriately punished, as Gon is clearly out of his mind to try to take on a royal guard, who are the 2nd most powerful entity in all of HXH. Of course he has won his own share of impossible battles being the main character of HXH, but here the miracles end and reality kicks in. Growth is only meaningful if there is at least some possiblity of failure, and most kids are too invinicible to even consider the possibility of a kid losing to anybody.

[Don]

On the issue of adult themes, Eva is plenty serious even though the main characters are 14 year olds. Now you can say Eva was also just on crack, but they certainly weren't trying to portray kiddie themes in it. On the opposite end, you got something like Kenshin who is supposed to be about ~30 but acts more like a kid. For example he talks about how he has learned to not kill but obviously he's still fine with killing people and it was only by a freak accident that he didn't kill anyone (like anyone could've known his new sword was also the reverse bladed kind). So certainly the ideas in Kenshin are fit for a childish Anime even though most of the characteres are at least over 20. So no I don't see the age of the characters limits the story itself. You can have kids if they react responsibility to the pressures that exist in the world. It's only bad if you have a kid saying some random nice slogan ("believe in love!") and then everything magically gets solved. But then there's nothing stopping an adult from doing the same thing, and this happens in Anime too.

[Flip]

One that has kids (both Al and Ed) but not the annoying little kids was Full Metal Alchemist. Al and Ed were played extremely mature, its still one of my favorite anime's of all time alone with Bebop.

[Don]

If kids never makes a mistake related to his age, why are they kids? That's not to say adults don't make mistakes, but stuff like wisdom is supposed to come with age.

In the case of Full Metal Alchemist I'd say the fact that the main characters being kids amounted to nothing. If they were adults the story would be exactly the same.

[Flip]

If kids never makes a mistake related to his age, why are they kids? That's not to say adults don't make mistakes, but stuff like wisdom is supposed to come with age.

In the case of Full Metal Alchemist I'd say the fact that the main characters being kids amounted to nothing. If they were adults the story would be exactly the same.

Thats why its so good. They made mistakes, sure, but like you said, adults in their situation making the same mistakes would still make the same anime. Now i'm pumped and need to watch it again.

[kent]

one reason to have kid characters is so you can tell your story without having to tell a really long back story. it also becomes really easy to write the motivation for the characters because kids in general are not saddled with years of experience and other emotional baggage that dictates how they react. this is also another big reason why so many of these kids are orphans, just so the writer doesn't have to write about their parents. i don't know if those count as good reasons to have kid characters but it definitely factors into the equation.

FMA needed to have kid characters, the story starts with a childish mistake. young children messing with something they don't understand to bring back their dead mother. if you have older characters, that wouldn't have the same effect. 2 brothers 30-40 years of age would be much less inclined to do that. they would be married/dating, have children of their own and not so dependent on their mother.

there are anime that use very few children, in Claymore there's only one kid, and it's necessary for that person to be a kid, so the main character can play a motherly role.

here's an interesting one, do you think the people in Full Metal Panic needed to be kids? Tessa shouldn't be a kid, but she is one so that she can be in a love triangle with Sousuke and Kaname. Sousuke is one because he needs to at least be young enough to pretend to be a High School student to covertly protect Kaname. does Kaname have to be a teenager? could the story have had the same effect if she was a 24 year-old OL? Fumoffu wouldn't have been as good if she was older.

Death Note is stupid that all the main characters are kids. L, Mellow and Near all should've been older. Light could've been older but to keep his father involved and not lose the family aspects of the story, he seemed like the right age.

[SineSwiper]

I do agree with FMA, and they pull it off well. I think the reason why they had L and Light being the same age was to make them better arch-enemies/friends. If L was older, he wouldn't have the same wunderkind aura around him. For M and N, it didn't really work, because they all acted less intelligent than L.