Born as an Adult

"I was born ten days ago. A full-grown man born ten days ago."

— Mr. Trent, from The Outer Limits (1963) episode "Demon With a Glass Hand"

When a creature or species essentially comes into the world in an adult body. This may result from the creature having been deliberately created by someone else, or it just may be the way their species works. A given for robots (aside from the occasional Robot Kid), as they are not technically "born", they are built.

If the character is lucky, they will be born with the sufficient skills to survive in the world. If not, the character is probably in for a very rough and awkward time.

Such a character is potentially subject to Merlin Sickness — being born old but then proceeding to age backwards. It's also possible that the character Really Was Born Yesterday.

Sub-Trope of Younger Than They Look and Our Clones Are Different.

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Examples:

Advertising

• The McDonald's commercial "The Night Birdie the Early Bird Came to McDonaldland" establishes that Birdie hatched from her egg fully grown, already clad in her standard apparel and able to speak.

Anime & Manga

• Ayakashi Triangle: Unlikely most tsukumogami, Garaku looks like a human instead of the object he was born from. When he was born 150 years ago, he already looked like a teenager, and currently looks like an adult.
• In Death Parade, all the employees in the tower are created and not born, so most of them look like adults whether they've existed for 5 years or 50. There are some that look younger and some that look much older, but regardless, they cannot age. The last episode reveals that they used to be humans who were sent to the void.
• In Dragon Ball, Great Demon King Piccolo's children are fully grown and ready for battle as soon as they hatch. His reincarnation, also named Piccolo, was the only one who was a baby when he hatched, and even then he aged to an adult in three years.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • In the manga and Brotherhood, most of the homunculi are created with adult bodies, are functionally immortal and unaging, and from what we see of the Dwarf in the Flask and the 2nd Greed's creation, a new homunculus already has sentience, awareness, speech and desires. Averted with Wrath, who was born a human and made a homunculus with a Philosopher's stone injection. Selim/Pride is an unusual case of being a shadow-based Eldritch Abomination with a "container" form that resembles a child, despite being over 300 years old, and is implied to have both a child and adult mindset. Near the end, his shadows and container form are destroyed, leaving behind a palm-sized fetus with a Death of Personality, and this form is shown to age and behave like a normal human child.
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), homunculi are the result of human transmutation, so the age they're "born" as depends on the time of death of the human they're based on. Wrath is the notable exception as he was transmuted from a stillbirth and was able to age to a preteen boy in the Gate. The homunculi's master also boasts that Pride is able to age like a human, though it's unknown when his human counterpart died.
• In a scene from Gall Force, this is suggested to be the case with the Solnoid species.
• Haibane in Haibane Renmei are hatched out of cocoons as children, ranging from early childhood to teenagers. Why they range in age is never specified, as is what exactly are Haibane, however it's implied they're Dead to Begin With and living in purgatory.
• A variation exists in Hetalia: Axis Powers: While the exact details are unclear, the nation personifications seem to be "born" as very young children, looking to be the physical equivalent of toddlers. One notable exception is Germany, who was born as an older child, looking to be around 10 years of age. It's said to be because, unlike the other nations, he already had a "body" before he was "born" (i.e. something of him already existed) and this may have, in fact, been the Holy Roman Empire.
  • Micronations don't appear to form as toddlers like nations do but as a tween or teen, and stay at that age. Wy (who appears somewhere around 10) is startled to find out that her junior Slowjamastan appears to be a teen despite being only two years old.
• In Kamisama Minarai: Himitsu no Cocotama, the titular Cocotamas are a race of small, god-like beings who come into existence from people cherishing their belongings strongly enough. Most of the Cocotamas are born fully articulate and reasonably intelligent, with one of the few exceptions being Nikori, who came into being as an infant Cocotama due to being born from Nozomi's old baby blanket.
• Pokémon: The First Movie: Mewtwo was genetically engineered and only emerged from its tank when it was full grown. Although in an intro cut from the American release we do see Mewtwo as a "child" interacting telepathically with the other clones in the facility, though it doesn't remember this as an adult.

Art

• The Birth of Venus (Botticelli): As was the case in the classical myth that inspired it, Venus is born from a clam's shell in the ocean having already passed puberty.

Asian Animation

• Noonbory and the Super 7: PinkAru from the segment "Tooba Tooba Noonbory". During her debut episode, she was born from a lotus flower at her current age of six.

Comic Books

• Conan the Barbarian: In the Savage Sword of Conan story "At the Mountain of the Moon-God", Conan discovers a giant egg that hatches into a fully-grown Pteranodon at the story's climax.
• Spider-Man's numerous clones are all the same physiological age as Peter Parker upon creation, and usually have his memories.
• Superman:
  • While Superman definitely had a childhood in most continuities, the 1940s radio program had him spend all of his time in transit between Krypton and Earth aging from infant to adulthood, where he was when he finally reached Earth. While he had adult knowledge, it took the help of a young boy and his father to help the new arrival figure out his place in the world.
  • Superboy (1994): Kon-El/Superboy was cloned and "born" as a teenager with some knowledge implanted inside his head. Apparently, the same went for his clone, Match.
  • In "The Condemned Legionnaires", Satan Girl, a full-grown -and evil- Supergirl's duplicate, is created as an adult woman.
  • "Girl Power": Dark Supergirl is born as a fully grown girl when Supergirl gets exposed to Black Kryptonite.
  • "Bizarrogirl": The titular character was spawned by Bizarro as a fully formed teenager girl. Bizarro himself was also created as an imperfect duplicate of an adult Superman (although how and by whom varies according to the continuity).
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1942): Rykornians are born fully grown and with a functional vocabulary and knowledge of their king's current plots, which he uses to create invasion armies overnight.
  • In Wonder Woman (2011), Donna Troy's history as Wonder Girl was removed and she was created as an adult villain using magic and clay, even though in this continuity it was decided such an origin was too goofy for Wondy herself who is now the inbred daughter of Zeus instead of a clay statue brought to life. This change to Donna origin and characterization was disliked by fans and even before DC Rebirth writers were ignoring it and claiming a younger Donna as Wonder Girl had taken part in founding the Teen Titans. As of DC Rebirth Donna is back to being an orphan raised by the Amazons.

Fairy Tales

• The Love of Three Oranges: in both oral and literary variants, the heroine comes out of the orange (or another citrus fruit) already in adult form, ready to marry the prince.

Fan Works

• In the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf series, Psyches are grown in gestation chambers for a year until they become the equivalent of 50-year-old Smurflings. No specific reason is given for this.
• Wonder Smurfette of Hero: The Guardian Smurf, the Opposite-Sex Clone of Hero, came into being as an adult Smurf when lightning struck the Magic Mirror Hero was seeing his opposite-sex self in.
• Joys of the Parenthood - The Țepeș Edition: Liliana explains to Lisa that succubi and incubi are not so much born in the traditional human sense so much as they are created using sexual energy collected by other incubi and succubi, coming into being as they are, hence why Liliana finds Lisa's pregnancy so fascinating.
• In Queen of Shadows, all Shadowkhan males, being created directly from the mixed chi of the Queen and the tribes' Generals, come into existence fully grown.
• The witches in Royal Heights are prone to be born from their power source as full grown women that never physically age.
• In Echoes of Eternity, Shadow was created with the body and mind of a teenager.
• The Dream Must Go On!: The Emotions are all born as adults, so they didn't know what it was like to grow up or have parents.
• In Hellsister Trilogy, Mordru uses his magic to recreate Supergirl's evil duplicate Satan Girl as a fully grown adult woman.
• Played with in Throw Away Your Mask; Ryoji spent time in Minato's head as the child-shaped Pharos, then started his human life as a teenager, but is also a part of the immortal goddess of Death, Nyx. He ends up confusing himself when he tries to figure out how old he is.

Films — Animation

• In the Cars series films, it's heavily implied that all vehicles are born in this manner, with many of them sounding and acting like adult humans from the day of their birth, as best demonstrated with Doc Hudson in his youth, Lightning McQueen in the first film, and Cruz Ramirez and Jackson Storm in the third.
• The three Remnants of Sephiroth in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children are some kind of fragments of Sephiroth's essence with separate personalities of their own. They appear ready-made as young adults.
• Thumbelina: When she is born, she is at least a teenager.
• The titular character of The Boss Baby is an odd example, as he's physically a baby — mentally, however, he is an adult and he confirms to Tim that he was born that way.
• Wreck-It Ralph: Felix, Ralph, Calhoun, and all the adult characters if you believe that the moment their game is plugged in is their actual birthday.

Films — Live-Action

• Alien: Resurrection: The genetic scientists age the Ripley clones up to adulthood in order to extract the Queen Xenomorph buried inside of her. At least, the ones that weren't too horribly mutated by the mix-up of DNA. Also, her level of knowledge is Hand Waved by her having inherited some of the aliens' Genetic Memory. She can remember some things about her past, but not everything.
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: The eponymous Benjamin Button is born as a very elderly man.
• In the horror movie Embryo (currently providing the page image), Rock Hudson plays a scientist who develops a way of fast-aging embryos in incubators, and does so for a female embryo, but once the baby is born, she continues to age rapidly, until he's able to stop the problem by the time she's an adult woman. Said woman has super learning skills, allowing her to become an Instant Expert in anything she studies. Unfortunately, the Rapid Aging eventually starts affecting her again...
• The Fifth Element: Leeloo, the eponymous "Fifth Element" and "perfect being", is grown in minutes from a collection of cells recovered from a spaceship crash into an adult woman.
• Gremlins: Upon getting wet, both Mogwai and Gremlins are Explosive Breeders that give birth to live offspring that immediately grow to full-size once born, are completely independent, able to think possessing certain knowledge, and are able to immediately have offspring of their own. Furthermore, Gremlins that get wet give birth to full-grown Gremlins rather than Mogwai.
• Judge Dredd. The clones Rico created in the lab would have been full grown if they had lived.
• The egg-born Uruk-hai in the film of The Lord of the Rings.
• Poor Things's main character Bella is a riff on Frankenstein's Monster and was reanimated from a pregnant woman corpse, with the brain of the mother replaced with the one from the unborn child.
• In the film Repli Kate, the hero scientist unintentionally creates a clone of Kate, a reporter who was doing a story on his research. The clone, which they name Repli-Kate, is physically an adult but doesn't know anything, so the hero and his friend educate her, and thanks to her fully developed brain, they manage to teach her language and how to behave like an adult inside of a few days.
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Rocky is a full-grown adult when Frank N. Furter brings him to life and even states that he's "just seven hours old" during the song "Rose Tint My World".

• Samourais - a Japanese woman is pregnant with a demonic entity, and she, as well as the main characters, is trying to stop it from being born. They fail. She gives birth to a cocoon-like sac, which a fully grown man rips out of.

• World on a Wire: Most, if not all of the adult identity units in Simulacron-1 were programmed into the simulation as adults, skipping childhood entirely. Not that they would know, thanks to the False Memories that come with their programming.
• Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning: The doctors at the secret Unisol base inform the protagonist, John, that he was in fact one in a line of cloned humans with fake memories and that he was only born a few weeks before.

Literature

• Not literally the case for the Tendu of The Color of Distance, as they have a tadpole stage and a land-dwelling semiadult stage, tinka, which can last them into their thirties before they're picked to become bami, if they're picked. But those first two stages are not seen as people - tadpoles are eaten and allowed to escape into rivers, tinka wander the jungles and into villages to get worked like slaves, and are often killed in rituals or by wandering animals. However, a tinka that's undergone metamorphosis into the first sentient stage is much more independent than a human child, maintaining the knowledge and coordination they picked up as tinka and now able to apply it and immediately speak well and use complex tools. Bami can't reproduce but are essentially apprentices setting out to learn the more complex details of Tendu life, not children at all.
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is that he was born as an old man.
• Discworld
  • Golems are created (forged) in adult form. And they stay that way for a very, very long time.
  • In Hogfather, Bilious and the other Odd Job Gods who start appearing in the Hogfather's absence all come into being as adults.
• Disney Fairies: Fairies come into being appearing to be young adults.
• One of the Doctor Who New Adventures novels claimed that Time Lords have lost their ability to reproduce naturally, so new Time Lords are made by genetic engineering and emerge fully-grown. This doesn't seem to have held in the TV series.
• In the two The Elder Scrolls novels, everyone on Umbriel is born as an adult.
• Frankenstein’s Monster has an adult-shaped body, although he’s about eight feet tall. However, he is ‘‘born’’ without any previous memories, and has to learn everything a child would (such as how to talk, or to not touch fire). In fact, one of his clues that something is odd about him is that he has no memory of being any younger than he already is.
• The Neverending Story:
  • There's a race of Fantasticans called Sassafranians, who are born old and die as infants.
  • This is also true of Fantastica itself. The minute Bastian wishes something into being, it's as if it has always existed.
• October Daye: Toby's fetch (doppelganger) May Daye Really Was Born Yesterday, and is for all intents and purposes a magical clone/identical twin of Toby. She has all of Toby's memories up to when she was created, so she remembers childhood even if she never actually experienced it.
• The modified cloned super-soldiers of the Ghost Brigades in the Old Man's War series.
• The "Newborns" in Quantum Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner are fully grown, combat-ready humans that are created by The Church's Reincarnation systems.
• The protagonist of "Second Person, Present Tense" by Daryl Gregory. More or less.
• Unlike the other reincarnations in So I'm a Spider, So What?, Kumoko never had a period of time where she was dependent on others for her survival, as she was capable of looking after herself from the moment she hatched.
• In Sunday Without God, gravekeepers, beings who can grant true rest to the deceased, come down to Earth fully formed as adults. The protagonist Ai is the only exception, being half-human and half-gravekeeper.
• Implied with Hearteater's minions in Tailchaser's Song. They all seem to be male and are all adults.
• Tortall Universe: There's a short story in Tortall and Other Lands, "Elder Brother", in which a tree is accidentally "born" as an adult man (a sorcerer unwittingly did this when he transformed an enemy into a tree). While the tree-turned-human is magically given knowledge of the human world by the sorcerer to help him get along in the world, he himself has virtually no firsthand experience and finds himself depending on a "young man" he meets.
• TimeRiders: Becks and Bob, as support units were both born as adults being eighteen and twenty five respectively at birth.
• In Wicked, Yackle turns out to have been born well past full-grown from the Grimmerie.
• In the Xanth novel "Two to The Fifth", Cyrus Cyborg reveals his being assembled from a kit.

Live-Action TV

• In Angel, Jasmine is born as a full-grown woman. She's of the "born with world survival skills" variety (or in this case, world-destroyer skills).
• Battlestar Galactica (2003): The humanoid members of the robotic Cylon race are all born as adults, and upon death of their physical body can regenerate into new ones, effectively making them immortal. There are also many copies. Their emotional maturity can range, though. Cavil in particular is more like a sadistic, petulant teenager who happens to have been born in the body of an old man, which he is particularely cranky about.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Sontarans, a race of cloned soldiers, are implied to be this — they're born in "muster parades" and skip anything we'd call childhood, deeming twelve an impressive age to live to.
  • The cloned soldiers in "The Doctor's Daughter" begin life with an adult body and full military training.
• Invoked in Glee when Sue and Roz are vying for the cheerleading coach position and Roz repeatedly uses Sue's desire to get pregnant despite her age as a dig against her:
  "You're gonna get in those stirrups and push and push, and a full-grown adult is gonna pop out with a briefcase and a job, talking on a cell phone!"
• Kamen Rider Amazons: Some Amazonz are born with an adult body, and it also includes Mizusawa Haruka / Kamen Rider Amazon Omega, the *main* main character of the series, who is 2 years old in season 1, while being portrayed by a 24 year old (Fujita Tomu).
• Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: Parado comes into existence as an adult with the intelligence and (mostly) knowledge to match, but his cunning mind initially has the emotional maturity of a six years old that has created him. It's unsurprising he goes about his plans in a manner similar to a kid setting fire to anthill with a magnifying glass.

• Lexx season 3 might count: nobody on the planets Fire or Water recalls being a child; they just woke up one day and there they were. (This might be explained by the implication that the two planets are actually Hell and Heaven).
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Played With. The Stranger is an Istar who was sent to Middle-earth by the Valar and was embodied directly as an adult man. He doesn't remember from where he comes or what is his purpose and even less his identity.
• On Mork & Mindy, Orkans age backwards, thus they are born as adults and become children as they get older. In the final season, Mork and Mindy had a son who hatched from an egg as a full grown man (played by Jonathan Winters).
• In Once Upon a Time, dwarves are hatched from eggs as fully clothed adults.
• The Outer Limits (1995): In the episode "Resurrection", two androids breed a human male in some sort of giant embryonal sac. He comes out as a fully matured adult.

• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Original Series:
    • In the episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", Dr. McCoy states that tribbles are "born pregnant", which implies an adult reproductive system.
    • In "I, Mudd", the androids are apparently "born" as fully functional adults.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
    • Mr. Data's "species", the "Soongian androids", are apparently born with adult bodies, but rather robotic personalities. As their positronic neuroprocessors age, they develop childlike personalities before becoming fully adult.
    • There is one alien species in which people are born adult. When they make contact and try to establish a diplomatic relationship with the Federation, they become fascinated with human children.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
    • When clones of various Vorta are activated they apparently do so in adult bodies, with all the knowledge and experience necessary to take over for their predecessors.
    • On the other hand, the Jem'Hadar are initially created as infants but grow to adulthood in just a few days.
• Supernatural: Jack Kline, the Nephilim sired by Lucifer is born fully grown in both body and mind. An interesting case, as he is seen displaying vast levels of intelligence (and great power) while still in the womb.

Myths & Religion

• Aztec Mythology: When Coyolxāuhqui and her 400 brothers were attacking her own pregnant mother Cōātlīcue, Huītzilōpōchtli came out of the womb as an adult and killed all the attackers, saving their mother. Some versions of the myth add that he threw Coyolxāuhqui's head into the sky, becoming the moon.
• The Bible: Adam was created from dirt and God's breath, and Eve was created from Adam's rib. They are the only humans in the Bible to do so.
• Chinese Mythology:
  • Nezha, Marshal of the Central Altar, the Third Lotus Prince, leapt out of a ball of flesh as a boy instead of an infant after his father attacked the ball, thinking his wife had given birth to a demon. Nezha could walk and talk immediately.
  • Wukong of Journey to the West was born full-grown from a stone egg cut out of a mountain. Not much explanation is given for this.
• Classical Mythology:
  • The goddess Athena was "born" out of her father Zeus' head fully grown and armored! Some versions state that she was actually born and nurtured by her mother in Zeus' stomach (Zeus had swallowed Metis to keep her from having children who would overthrow him) and only emerged later once fully grown.
  • Aphrodite is another Greek goddess who was born an adult: she was created when Kronos severed Ouranos' genitals and threw them into the sea, and Aphrodite sprouted full-formed from the sea foam.
  • Artemis is a rather entertaining example, as right after being born she proceeded to midwife her mother in giving birth to her twin Apollo.
• In The Kalevala, Väinämöinen is born at the age of 700. The pregnancy took that long too.
• In the Mahabharata, Draupadi is born from a sacrificial fire.
• In Pacific Mythology, Hi'iaka hatches fully-formed (although very much a Naïve Everygirl) from an egg that was carried to the islands by her big sister Pele.

Roleplay

• We Are Our Avatars: Luca, the Lucario gijinka has the body of a teenager when she first showed up, but since she was artificially made by Dr. Araragi, this is justified.

Tabletop Games

• In Crimestrikers, the dragon species (which was hunted to extinction in the distant past) is revived when Arcana, an adult female, is genetically engineered from ancient dragon DNA.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • If the Clone and Stasis Clone spells were used on adults, the clones they created would be adults too.
  • In the Forgotten Realms setting, Living Constructs (Alias and her "sisters") were based on one of their creators' modified clone and thus created in adult form. The first has escaped after receiving Fake Memories, but the second generation was released as is and thought they had an incurable amnesia. Their built-in protection from divination magic prevented anyone from discovering the truth.
• Gamma World adventure GW1 The Legion of Gold. The cyborgs in the SAMURAI underwater laboratory are created full-grown and then have their brains programmed.
• Paranoia features an extra life system where each PC has five clone backups. Earlier games used clone brothers who were raised alongside you, while later games instead had forced-growth clones that your memories were downloaded into before activation.
• Promethean: The Created: The vast majority of Prometheans come into the world as adults. It's a necessity for the creation process that the body used has to have undergone puberty. When they're born, all they have is a rudimentary understanding of the old body's main language and a set of autonomic functions. It's possible to use a child's body (Reuben Trimble, mentioned in Strange Alchemies, is one example), but the Divine Fire doesn't take as well to a body that hasn't reached adulthood, so the odds of creating Pandorans shoots up. Even if it works, it's considered monstrous to create a being cursed with all a Promethean's Blessed with Suck that's also trapped in the body of a child.
• Warhammer 40,000: Orks are born from spores shed by other Orks in combat. They emerge from the ground as full adults, with a Genetic Memory teaching them to speak, fight, and determine friend from foe. This makes them incredibly dangerous threats - even if you wipe out an Ork platoon, a few months later a horde of Orks may charge out from where you slew them.

Toys

• BIONICLE plays with this in the form of the Matoran species. Matoran are created in a short, hobbit-like form, but most Matoran don't grow any further, which means they're effectively built in adult form. However, a small percentage of Matoran have the potential to become Toa, powerful warriors at least twice the height of the average Matoran, if they receive an influx of "Toa Power" from another Toa. Later material reveals that the first batches of Toa (including but not limited to the Toa Mata) were created in their Toa forms and were never Matoran. Finally, Immortal Immaturity is in effect, as Toa and Turaga^note the elderly form a Toa takes if they surrender their Toa Power willingly are generally wiser than other Matoran, even those who are older than them.
• In Monster High, this is suggested to be the case with Frankie Stein, who starts attending high school at the tender age of 15. Days old, that is.

Video Games

• As seen in the intro of the fourth game with Ignacious Bleed II, the clones of the Amateur Surgeon universe are processed and created like adult humans. Although, they're able to age just as normally, making them Younger Than They Look.
• In Battleborn, this is the case for the Mike clones. As they were originally designed to be rapidly made and deployed onto the battlefield, Mikes come out of the vats they were grown in as fully adult clone soldiers. While it's efficient given what Mikes are, a slight consequence of this though is that clones such as General Mike have never even seen an actual baby before.
• The Murakumo units including Noel Vermillion of BlazBlue.
• In Devil May Cry 5 when V remarks that he is only 2 days old when he meets Dante, he was quoting William Blake poetry, and passes what he previously said as a joke. However, it's also true about himself; V is already in his adult form when he was split off from Vergil.
• In Digital Devil Saga, it is an in-universe Wham Line when it is brought to attention that there are no children in the Junkyard. It is revealed that the dead dissolve into Bio Data that takes the form of rain, which is then gathered at the bottom of the Karma Temple and are recreated as full adults.
• In Fate/stay night all of the Einzbern homunculi (with the exception of Illyasviel, who was conceived and born naturally) are this, being copies of the original homunculus, Justeaze, and as they're effectively her reincarnations she occasionally speaks through them.
  • Fate/Grand Order has Jeanne Alter, who came into being as a corrupted copy of regular Jeanne d'Arc. Given she's an Avenger, she doesn't really mind, but this facet of her origin plays an important role in Santa Lily Alter's existence. As the innocent form of an Avenger, she's a fictional version of what's already a fictionalized character, making her existence tenuous enough she can't sustain the existence of a Servant.
• Blood Falcon from F-Zero was cloned from Captain Falcon at the exact age he was during the "Big Accident". His profile in GX makes a point of how despite being technically only four, his official legal age is listed as 37, matching Captain Falcon's current age.
• Guild Wars 2 does this with the Sylvari, who all grow on the Pale Tree in the Grove, born from golden pods that sprout from its branches. Their minds spend some time in "the Dream" before their bodies are fully-grown, meaning they're born fully mature and with a portion of the knowledge drawn from their collective racial consciousness, but are often still quite naive. Their entire race is only about 25 years old as of the start of the game; they also don't appear to age, as the "Firstborn" (those born in the first generation of pods from the tree) look no older than a newborn player character at the start of the game. Sylvari also cannot reproduce on their own; only the Pale Tree can create more of them.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Nobodies are basically a continuation of humans' lives, so they are born the same age as when their humans lose their hearts. Since Ansem's youngest apprentice, Ienzo, lost his heart when he was a boy, Zexion was born as a boy as well, while Ansem's other apprentices were twenty-something when they lost their hearts and as a result were born as adults.
  • Riku Replica and Xion are Artificial Humans created in the image of a 15-year old boy and a 14-year old girl (or a 14-year old boy, or a 16-year old boy...), respectively.
• Mario Party 3: The Millennium Star, which is born once every 1,000 years, falls out of the sky because it's a newborn; the one that Mario and the gang find however, looks elderly and old. This is a clue that this is not the true star.
• Grunt in Mass Effect 2, grown in a lab tank and educated through neural downloading.
• It's never stated outright, but Joker from Mega Man Star Force 3 probably was, because he is a Wizard.
• In Neopets, Draiks can be hatched out of eggs but when they're hatched, it won't be a baby Draik, but an adult one.
• Klaymen himself in The Neverhood was created in his current form.
• While it was already implied to be the case with Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas, the prequel video game The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King explicitly confirms it, as the game takes place when Dr. Finklestein had just recently created Sally and Sally looks and behaves no different from how she did in the film.
• Exhibit animals in Planet Zoo are adults and able to breed as soon as they're born/hatched, even if they should have a larval stage (eg: most of the amphibians).
• In the Pokémon video games, evolutionary levels primariy denote Power Level, not age. Especially noticeable with baby forms introduced after Gen II that only happen during special circumstances, like Snorlax that are born as Snorlax instead of Munchlax (making the one or the other some type of birth defect?) and Kangaskhan that hatch from eggs with 'babies' in their pouches (maybe it's actually a baby-shaped external organ?). Also, most Pokemon that hatch from eggs can be bred as soon as they hatch.
• Kamiko of Shadow Warrior 2 has lived for only three years, but is a full adult and the genius behind Chi Technology. This state of affairs is due to being the daughter of Mezu, one of the Ancients, and a mother who both wasn't a willing partner in this conception, and who died soon after giving birth to her.
• In Shin Megami Tensei II, it is revealed that every main character except one is an Artificial Human that was developed to full grown adults in under a year.
• In Something, some of the Yoshi eggs in Kinder Surprise hatch into fully grown Pidgit Bills, Masked Koopas, and Caped Koopas.
• In the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, Shadow the Hedgehog was created to be the "Ultimate Life Form," and was created as a full-grown adult. Or possibly teenager...
• In Tales of the Abyss replicas are identical to their originals as they were at the moment of creation. However, their minds are complete blank slates, save for a limited capacity to be programmed with basic commands.
• The titular character of Thunder Hoop is born as a teenager in the opening prologue.
• In Torment: Tides of Numenera, castoffs' bodies seem to be almost grown or sculpted rather than born, going by some of the memories you recover.
• Chryssalids in X-COM hatch from their host bodies fully grown and already capable of implanting new victims.
• Blades in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 take their adult appearance as soon as they awaken from their core crystal, and while some Blades have the appearance of children (like Electra and Floren, to name a few), they don't visibly age after that, even if they've been active for decades or centuries in the case of an Aegis like Pyra, Mythra or Malos, or a Flesh Eater like Jin.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Downplayed; the soldiers for the Forever War are grown in tubes and come out with the physical and mental maturity of ten year-olds. After a few years of training, they are sent to the front lines. Most of the soldiers die there, but it's impossible for them to live past ten years, when they're physically and mentally twenty. If they do make it that long, they are given a send-off ceremony called a "Homecoming," where their Queen personally witnesses them dissipating into ether motes. This is the highest honor any of them aspire to. Before the send-off ceremony became what it is, "Homecoming" involved a Moebius personally executing the "lucky" survivors just before they would dissipate. This kept them trapped in the cycle of reincarnation, while the modern version allows them to escape it.

Web Animation

• The Most Epic Story Ever Told in All of Human History: Ridiculously Epic Fail is born as an adult during the events of “The Most Epic Supervillain Origin Story”, due to being a clone of both Ridiculously Epic and Epic Fail.
• In The Stories of Sodor, non-faceless vehicles awaken with knowledge of how to speak, their purpose, and (mysteriously) their names.

Webcomics

• Aurora (2019): Kendal came into being when the god Vash's incarnation developed consciousness after Vash's soul was stolen, so he was never a child.
• Ayuri: Kay is constructed full-grown.
• Ellen from El Goonish Shive was created, magically, as a 17-year-old due to being a clone of Elliot. She inherited all of Elliot's skills and life experience as a teenage boy but not those of a teenage girl. Fortunately, she acquired that skill set and life experience a few months later.
• Everyone in Erfworld "pops" full-grown - one of the first things to really bend Parson Gotti's mind - he asks a sorceress what she was like as a child, and gets a blank look. (This fact, by extension, also means that Erfworld has a much more casual attitude towards sexuality than a medieval society normally would, as well as general equality of the sexes since women aren't held back by pregnancy.) Regardless, this is of the "it's just how it works" variety - presumably because their entire world is designed around warfare, so there's no room for kids (or civilians, for that matter).
• In The Handbook of Heroes, Warrior appears to be an adult man, but actually came into existence that way; he spontaneously appeared out of nothing as a result of Fighter drawing the Knight card from a Deck of Many Things.
• Level 30 Psychiatry has Gardevoir, who came to be in her evolved form, and thus has no memory of ever being a Ralts or a Kirlia. An accident drains her of one level, turning her into a Kirlia and giving her the opportunity to experience childhood.
• Questionable Content treats the A.I.s like this, although individual cases vary considerably.
• In Schlock Mercenary, there is a very interesting case. The titular Sergeant Schlock is an example. His species, the amorphs, reproduce asexually, and normally bud off little amorphs with pre-made personalities based off of friends or lovers of the parent. Schlock was born when two powerful amorphs battled by trying to assimilate the other. The resulting draw wiped the personalities of both parents, leaving a fully-grown, newborn amorph with the knowledge of an adult, but with the innocence, complete lack of life experience, and morality (or lack of...) befitting a child.
• All of The Senkari were created full-grown.
• Many people in Serix are created this way, being rapidly grown to adulthood while mentally hooked up to learning programs. The main character Rees, for example, is technically not even four years old at the beginning of the story.

Web Original

• Chuck Norris In Oblivion: Apparently, this is why there are no children in Oblivion.
  Chuck: ... Ouch. Fucking ouch.

Western Animation

• Earl of Lemongrab of Adventure Time was made in a laboratory, and he appears to be in his late teens or early twenties, at least eighteen years of age. (However, he acts like a very stupid seven year old most of the time.)
• Because the show's premise is about imaginary friends becoming real and sentient beings the instant children create them, many of the imaginary friends in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends are this by default.
• Bender (and probably all the other robots) in Futurama. The series kind of ping-pongs on this; sometimes it depicts him as being "born" as an adult, but having a baby-like mentality until he received his bending programming, while other times it depicts him as an actual baby robot, of baby scale (once it showed his "fetal" form as a disc containing bending unit software).
  • Made even more complicated in "The Bots and the Bees" in which it is revealed that robots have the ability to sexually reproduce, creating robot babies.
• Double Subverted in Gargoyles by Thailog. When first created, he was just a hatchling. However, he was placed in a nutrient bath which sped up his aging for as long as he stayed in it.
• Serpentor from G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, being created by Dr. Mindbender to be a less inept replacement for Cobra Commander, was born in an adult body and with the combined intelligence of all the historical figures he was cloned from.
• John Henry and the Inky-Poo: The story opens with John Henry's mother apparently in labor, but after a clap of thunder and lightning, John Henry appears full-sized (all twelve feet of him), and greets his mother with "My name's John Henry, woman!"
• This issue is addressed in the My Life as a Teenage Robot episode "I Was a Preschool Drop-out" when XJ-9 is forced to attend preschool after the authorities find out she has only been active for five years. The later episode "Humiliation 101" had Nora reveal to Jenny's classmates that, while she came online with an adolescent body, she still had an infantile mind and had to be raised like a kid.
• As shown in the movie, The Powerpuff Girls, in virtue of being Artificial Humans, were already kindergarten-aged, fully-dressed, self-aware, and able to properly speak English when they were born.
• Samurai Jack: It's revealed in the Origins Episode that Aku emerged fully grown from the fragment of an Eldritch Abomination that had laid dormant on Earth for millions of years, when the Emperor tried to destroy it with a magic poison.
• In She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Hordak's flashback shows adult Horde Prime clones gestating in vitrines, suggesting that he and his clone brethren emerged when they were physically mature.
• Smurfette of The Smurfs (1981), created by Gargamel and changed into a real Smurf by Papa Smurf as an adult female Smurf.
• In one episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, Sandy brings home a flea. After she, SpongeBob, and Patrick fight over Sandy's flea collar, the flea lays eggs on her head. Two fully-grown fleas come out - and then the fleas continue to multiply.
• Steven Universe: Gems are grown in the ground rather than birthed, and they are "born" with their adult bodies and do not physically age. Peridot describes the process of her creation as "I didn't exist. Then I did." They're usually born with innate knowledge of themselves, their species, and their specific purpose of creation. Amethyst is an exception, as a flaw in her creation led to her emerging as a Blank Slate that more or less acted like a newborn in a fully grown body.
• Across various series, Transformers are almost always shown to be "born" in adult bodies. Of course, that's probably a result of them being Mechanical Lifeforms.
• Superboy in Young Justice (2010) looks to be in his late teens, but he was essentially 'born' in the first episode. In his case, because he's a clone of Superman, grown in a pod.

Real Life

• There is one species of frog that remains in their egg for the entire tadpole period and only emerge once they reach adulthood.
• There's a type of mite that has a reproductive cycle in which every female is born pregnant; males aren't born at all, because they impregnated their sisters before any of them were born, and once he's mated his usefulness is over, so he just kind of dies inside his mother.
• Under some conditions aphids are born pregnant, but such offspring are clones of their mothers.
• Baby kiwi birds hatch from eggs that are nearly a fifth the size of their parents. The baby kiwi is, as a result, pretty much fully grown and ready to leave the nest the minute it hatches. The parents will often follow it around for the first year of its life, presumably to give it some beginning pointers, but afterward, it's pretty much on its own.
• A more downplayed bird example would be the megapodes, ground-dwelling birds with superprecocial offspring—baby megapodes are basically just Fun Size versions of the adults, with some even being capable of flying immediately after they're born, and all having no need for parental supervision.
• The chambered nautilus spends its entire larval stage and a good portion of its early adulthood inside its egg. They emerge as miniature versions of the adults.
• In a very technical sense, Dolly the sheep. That's because to make her, the nucleus was taken from a mammary cell of an adult sheep and fused into the emptied egg cell of another sheep. So while she looked like a little lamb, at the cellular level, she was as old as the sheep she was cloned from.
• Blood-sucking flies of superfamily Hippoboscoidea have a type of reproduction known as adenotrophic viviparity. Instead of laying eggs like most flies, these lay fully-developed larvae that immediately turn into pupae and later emerge as adults.

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