Discussion Main / NotAllowedToGrowUp

I think Spiderman deserves a mention here. Depending on the storyline, he is forever a teenager that never left high school, or he has a Doctorate in Biochemistry.

And the MCU doesn't help the issue at all.

Time to update the Trope Image with Gen 8.

• Ace Attorney:
  • While the first three Ace Attorney games take place over three years, all (except a few who change outfits, and only outfits) of the characters keep the same sprites throughout every game. Wright handwaves this, thinking that "maybe it's 'cause we're always together, but she looks pretty much the same to me".
  • The official Manga even lampshades the fact that Maya is 19, but looks (and acts) like she was still in her early-to-mid teens. Averted with Trucy and Ema, who grew realistically in the 7 years gap between game 3 and 4.
  • Even worse is Pearl. She starts out as 8, in her last appearance she's 10. She should have had a couple of major growth spurts by now, but they still use the same sprite, and her reading comprehension hasn't improved much. However, for the fifth game, Pearl returns and has a noticeably more mature sprite, even if her emotes are near identical to the ones she had in earlier games.

Ok, first of all none of the recurring characters are children except Pearl, games take place over 32 months, less than 3 years, which quite honestly isn't enough for adults to significanlty change in terms of looks. Pearl is not 10 in her final appearance, she's 9. her lack of reading skills isn't sign of her not aging, it's leftover from japaneese version where she has trouble with kanji which are really f-ing hard, and they couldn't change it since it's a plot point in two cases. And most importantly people DO grow up. Ages can be checked at any point of time, and between the games they change. So no, Not That Trope.

Do you guys think it's worth mentioning that it was subverted in Full House?

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Okay, so the edit reasons still doesn't appear to be working properly so I'm reiterating this point.

• One Piece kind of follows this, maybe. No one in the series has aged since the story began ten years ago; Word of God says that Luffy celebrates his birthday every year, but it's always his seventeenth. Of course, Oda is known for joking around in his letter columns so this is (probably) a gag.
  • This might be moot anyway, since depending on how you interpret events, as little as two months may have passed in in-universe time since the series began, so it's possible no one has had a birthday yet, anyway. On the other hand, it's also possible that years have passed. It's impossible to tell for sure because we're never told how long the crew spends sailing from place to place.
    • The Roger Pirates took three years to sail around the Grand Line, and the Straw Hats are around halfway though, although considering it can take up to a year for the Log Pose to reset, they may have taken longer routes than the Straw Hats did.
  • Luffy is so stupid he may very well celebrate his seventeenth birthday every year.
    • Considering the series, you'd expect Luffy saying that he celebrates his 17th birthday every year is what keeps time standing still.
  • Word of God has also said that the current storyline will be "Luffy's last adventure as a 17 year old" though it's currently up in the air whether he means this literally or figuratively.
    • And now he's 19.

According to comments I've heard, a decade really hasn't passed, nor presumably has evidence of that amount of time. Also, who of this manga's cast are children?

I think this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVi3vflC54g&feature=player_profilepage) lampshades the "Not Allowed To Grow Up" trope at the very end.