I seriously don’t think I’m the only one who notices this, but what the hell is up with all these young protagonists that look like they’re in their 20s? Now I rarely see a 16 year old look as though they could drink beer with the big boys, but in anime they’re pretty abundant. Not all anime series seem to have this pattern. HunterxHunter for example, which is kind of an old anime that has a current manga series running in Weekly Shonen Jump, has a protagonist named Gon, not the dragon dinosaur thing from Tekken 3, who is 12 years old and looks 12 years old. Now another crazy thing is that this kid, like Goku in Dragonball, is able to just demolish people in fights as though they’ve never fought before, but that’s not what I’m talking about. HunterxHunter is a shonen manga which is targeted to young boys so it makes sense if a kid who hasn’t reached puberty could kick ass.

Now back to the matter at hand, Bleach’s protagonist Ichigo is 16, but IMO he could pass for 18. Yusuke Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakusho was 14 at the start of the series, but even then I think he could’ve passed for 18. Kuwabara could’ve been seen as 21 or older. There are many examples out there of how appearance doesn’t exactly match the age, especially with females. I mean seriously, the 14 year olds would have boobs as big as basketballs. Is this a problem? Not really, especially if the anime is good. I just find it a bit weird. I don’t know if Japanese people look older than their age so I can’t criticize much, but should anime characters be somewhat consistent with their age?