History Main / RecruitTeenagersWithAttitude

** ''Series/KousokuSentaiTurboranger'' from ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' is probably the TropeCodifier, as it's the first Sentai team to consist of just teenagers, but they've yet to be referred as 'Teenagers With Attitude' (this was before ''Power Rangers'' was even conceived in its current form).
** Interestingly, this is downplayed with certain Sentai much older than ''Turboranger'', but no less embody the spirit of this trope. In these cases, such as ''Denziman'', ''Goggle V'', and ''Dynaman'', while the heroes fit the bill of "specifically recruited for their skills", the fact that they are complete strangers to each other seems to be glossed over when they're functioning as a cohesive unit by their first outing.
** ''Series/ChoujinSentaiJetman'' does both play this trope's spirit partly straight while deconstructing it, as while TheLeader certainly was part of the military unit that developed the powers, the villains pulling an AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs scattered the remaining four powers into random civilians (one of whom was an actual high school girl) who could barely function as fighters, let alone a team and had to be trained with much difficulty. TheLancer in particular refused to play ball during much of the early episodes, leading to much drama between him, TheLeader, and TheChick, but eventually, all five grew into a perfectly competent and coherent team (of friends), even outclassing a later group of attempted and supposedly superior replacements with their experience.

* Sort of done all throughout ''Franchise/{{Digimon}},'' though they're more of the tween-age in most of the shows - all apart from ''Anime/DigimonSavers'', which stars a HotBlooded [[{{Delinquent}} street punk]] that's recruited by a secretive government organisation when he forms a partnership with and Agumon.

** When the Animorphs gain the ability to increase their numbers, they seek out more teenagers. Because they figured teenagers adapt to new situations [[WeirdnessCensor more quickly than adults]], and that teenagers would listen to them and be happier to let them take the lead [[NotNowKiddo than adults would]]; in addition they deliberately seek out disabled kids as there's no way the Yeerks would be using them as hosts.

->''"Alpha, Rita's escaped! [[TropeNamer Recruit a team of teenagers with attitude!]]"''

* Lampshades HARD in the grim-n-gritty Power/Rangers "deboot", where Rocky laments that if Zordon really WAS one of the "good guys", he would have never made ''teenagers'' fight in an intergalactic war that they couldn't possibly hope to comprehend, and that the Rangers have no right to take the moral high ground on anything after that. The former rangers' messed up and/or tragically cut-short lives are a testament to this.

* Explained as the reason why the Mother Planetoid adopted the ''WesternAnimation/BRATSOfTheLostNebula'' and gave them the equipment they needed to battle the Shock forces, as the Planetoid's creator believed that only teenagers and their chaotic nature could outmaneuver the Shock's forces.

** The rest of the ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' franchise downplays this, however. Many seasons do have teen heroes, but justify them by either having them already in training as members of an ancient order (''[[Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm Ninja Storm]]'', ''[[Series/PowerRangersJungleFury Jungle Fury]]'', ''[[Series/PowerRangersSamurai Samurai]]'') or the only ones in the vicinity to have powers to begin with (''[[Series/PowerRangersDinoThunder Dino Thunder]]'', ''[[Series/PowerRangersMysticForce Mystic Force]]'', ''[[Series/PowerRangersDinoCharge Dino Charge]]''). The remaining entries narrowly avert this trope, as there the Rangers are usually (but not always) twentysomething adults and either ''are'' a genuine military unit of some kind (''[[Series/PowerRangersTimeForce Time Force]]'', ''[[Series/PowerRangersSPD SPD]]'', ''[[Series/PowerRangersRPM RPM]]'', ''[[Series/PowerRangersBeastMorphers Beast Morphers]]'') or are specifically recruited for the skills that they've already demonstrated in their careers (''[[Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy Lost Galaxy]]'', ''[[Series/PowerRangersLightspeedRescue Lightspeed Rescue]]'', ''[[Series/PowerRangersWildForce Wild Force]]'', ''[[Series/PowerRangersOperationOverdrive Operation Overdrive]]'').

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Averted, mostly. Most of the Scoobies weren't exactly recruited - they were just swept up in events. Anya and Tara were genuinely recruited, but they had extensive knowledge of demons and magic, respectively (and in Anya's case, was over a thousand years old despite physically being a teenager). Also, in later seasons, they stopped being teenagers. Slayers though are always chosen from teenage girls, and few of them live past 18. About the only explanation for this is that the [[ArtisticLicenseHistory creepy old men who created the Slayer role figured younger girls would be easier to control]] or [[ValuesDissonance they lived before "teenager" appeared as a concept and what is now a teenager was considered an adult.]]

->''"Alpha, [[BigBad Rita's]] [[SealedEvilInACan escaped]]! [[TropeNamer Recruit a team of teenagers with attitude!]]"''

->''"Alpha, Rita's escaped! Recruit a team of teenagers with attitude!"''

* ''Manga/{{Bokurano}}'': The main characters were very young children.

* Par for the course in the ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTenseiPersona'' series, where most of the party members are high school students. This is downplayed in the ''VideoGame/Persona2'' duology, where ''Innocent Sin'' has one adult in the core lineup and one adult GuestStarPartyMember, and ''Eternal Punishment'' has the entire team consist of adults except for one guy, [[RippleEffectProofMemory who has a very good reason to be there]]. The trope is justified in ''VideoGame/Persona4'', where the party consists of {{Amateur Sleuth}}s and near-victims of the SerialKiller who can't go to the police because [[YouWouldntBelieveMeIfIToldYou nobody would believe them]], and in ''VideoGame/Persona5'', where the heroes are social outcasts explicitly rebelling against corrupt adults.

-->'''Zordon:''' Bring me 5 teenagers [[IdiotHero too stupid]] [[TooDumbToLive to understand]] [[GoodIsDumb the cosmic repurchase one of their actions.]]\\

* ''ComicBook/MightyMorphinPowerRangersBoomStudios'' [[DeconReconSwitch finally answers this]]. Zordon did try to recruit capable people with training but it didn't work out because they couldn't tolerate one another and got killed on the first mission despite their abilities. In the end, he decided it was easier to hire a group of friends willing to do the job and train them than to hire professionals and force them to bond despite unreasonable differences and prejudices. Oddly enough, it also serves as a straight {{Deconstruction}} of a couple of older ''Super Sentai'' shows that did subvert this trope, but completely glossed over the idea that they were originally complete strangers to each other before gathering, and in their first outing, functioned as if they had been an experienced team for the longest time.

* ''ComicBook/MightyMorphinPowerRangersBoomStudios'' [[DeconReconSwitch finally answers this]]. Zordon did try to recruit capable people with training but it didn't work out because they couldn't tolerate one another and got killed on the first mission despite their abilities. In the end, he decided it was easier to hire a group of friends willing to do the job and train them than to hire professionals and force them to bond despite unreasonable differences and prejudices.

* ''WesternAnimation/ToadPatrol'': The titular team of toads, ranging in human equivalent age from young adult to pre-teen, are asked by an elderly sage toad to go out on their own on a journey to find a magical portal.

* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'': [[TheChooserOfTheOne Master Fu]] [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld was for over a century]] responsible of guarding a box of magical jewels that can transform people into superheroes, but lost two of them when he was a kid, when he finds out someone has one and is going to use it to be a supervillain, it's shown that he is now too old to transform, and finds two teenagers to give them the two most powerful jewels, Marinette and Adrien are chosen to be Ladybug and Chat Noir [[OldBeggarTest just because they helped what seemed to be a regular old man]] and have the jewels delivered to their rooms, the justification may be that Master Fu also needed a new guardian that must be young.
** BigBad Hawk Moth is an example of this trope used by a villain, his jewel gives him the power to [[BrainwashedAndCrazy brainwash people into their servants and turn them into supervillains]] as long as they are feeling emotions like sadness or anger, a power that was meant to create heroes instead, he rarely fights against Ladybug and Chat Noir, he just finds random people who are having mundane problems to do that, many of these brainwashed villains are teenagers and children, and friends of Marinette and Adrien.
** Marinette also decided to do the same when she was allowed by Master Fu to temporarily recruit more superheroes for missions where two is not enough, and she chooses to lend the jewels to her friends/classmates [[SecretIdentity while disguised as Ladybug]], it's hinted that everyone in her class will become a superhero at least once.

* Par for the course in the ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTenseiPersona'' series, where most of the party members are high school students. This is downplayed in the ''VideoGame/Persona2'' duology, where ''Innocent Sin'' has one adult in the core lineup and one adult GuestStarPartyMember, and ''Eternal Punishment'' has the entire team consist of adults except for one guy, [[RippleEffectProofMemory who has a very good reason to be there]]. The trope is justified in ''VideoGame/Persona4'', where the party consists of [[AmateurSleuth Amateur Sleuths]] and near-victims of the SerialKiller who can't go to the police because [[YouWouldntBelieveMeIfIToldYou nobody would believe them]], and in ''VideoGame/Persona5'', where the heroes are social outcasts explicitly rebelling against corrupt adults.

** Marinette also decided to do the same when she was allowed by Master Fu to temporarily recruit more superheroes for missions where two is not enough, and she chooses to lend the jewels to her friends/classmates, it's hinted that everyone in her class will become a superhero at least once.

* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'': [[TheChooserOfTheOne Master Fu]] [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld was for over a century]] responsible of guarding a box full of magical jewels that can transform people into superheroes, but lost two of them when he was a kid, when he finds out someone has one and is going to use it to be a supervillain, it's shown that he is now too old to transform, and finds two teenagers to give them the two most powerful jewels, Marinette and Adrien are chosen to be Ladybug and Chat Noir [[OldBeggarTest just because they helped what seemed to be a regular old man]] and have the jewels delivered to their rooms, the justification may be that Master Fu also needed a new guardian that must be young.
** BigBad Hawk Moth is an example of this trope used by a villain, his jewel gives him the power to [[BrainwashedAndCrazy brainwash people into their servants and turn them into supervillains]] as long as they are feeling emotions like sadness or anger, a power that was meant to create heroes instead, he rarely fights against Ladybug and Chat Noir, he just finds random people who are having mundane problems and chooses them to do his bidding, many of these brainwashed villains are teenagers and children, and friends of Marinette and Adrien.

** BigBad Hawk Moth is an example of this trope used by a villain, his jewel gives him the power to [[BrainwashedAndCrazy brainwash people into their servants and turn them into supervillains]] as long as they are feeling emotions like sadness or anger, a power that was meant to create heroes instead, he rarely fights against Ladybug and Chat Noir, he just finds random people who are having mundane problems and chooses them to do his bidding, many of these brainwashed villains are teenagers and children.

So the BigBad has been unleashed, the [[LaResistance rebellion]] needs more help over-throwing the [[TheEmpire evil empire]], an AlienInvasion is destroying Planet Earth, a ZombieApocalypse has begun, [[ThePlague a deadly disease is spreading all over the world]], or it's TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Who do you get to help? A crack team of trained mercenaries? How about some expert martial artists? Maybe the existing peace-keeping forces such as the police or military? What about a team of super-scientists who have the required technology and mindsets to help stop the problem? Possibly a team of powerful superheroes who can stop the problem with their powers quick? Or how about a legendary warrior brought back from long ago? No? Then how about those kids standing over there? Yeah? Okay, cool, go for it.

So the BigBad has been unleashed, the [[LaResistance rebellion]] needs more help over-throwing the [[TheEmpire evil empire]], an AlienInvasion is destroying Planet Earth, a ZombieApocalypse has begun, [[ThePlague a deadly disease is spreading all over the world]], or it's TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Who do you get to help? A crack team of trained mercenaries? How about some expert martial artists? Maybe the existing peace-keeping forces such as the police or military? Possibly a team of powerful superheroes who can stop the problem with their powers quick? What about a team of super-scientists who have the required technology and mindsets to help stop the problem? Or how about a legendary warrior brought back from long ago? No? Then how about those kids standing over there? Yeah? Okay, cool, go for it.

So the BigBad has been unleashed, the [[LaResistance rebellion]] needs more help over-throwing the [[TheEmpire evil empire]], an AlienInvasion is destroying Planet Earth, a ZombieApocalypse has begun, [[ThePlague a deadly disease is spreading all over the world]], or ItsTheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Who do you get to help? A crack team of trained mercenaries? How about some expert martial artists? Maybe the existing peace-keeping forces such as the police or military? Possibly a team of powerful superheroes who can stop the problem with their powers quick? What about a team of super-scientists who have the required technology and mindsets to help stop the problem? Or how about a legendary warrior brought back from long ago? No? Then how about those kids standing over there? Yeah? Okay, cool, go for it.

So the BigBad has been unleashed, the [[LaResistance rebellion]] needs more help over-throwing the [[TheEmpire evil empire]], an AlienInvasion is destroying Planet Earth, a ZombieApocalypse has begun, or [[ThePlague a deadly disease is spreading all over the world]]. Who do you get to help? A crack team of trained mercenaries? How about some expert martial artists? Maybe the existing peace-keeping forces such as the police or military? Possibly a team of powerful superheroes who can stop the problem with their powers quick? Or how about a legendary warrior brought back from long ago? No? Then how about those kids standing over there? Yeah? Okay, cool, go for it.