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Regarding MC's Age..

HarmonyChains

Hex Code 013
  • 9
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    12
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    This is incredibly random, but does anybody actually see the MC, or characters in the anime for that matter, actually being ten? In my opinion, they act way to mature for today's standards of a ten year old. Especially the newer ones like Cheren, and Bianca. I've probably thought way to much about something that doesn't even really matter, I just wanted to share ^_^"
     
    The ones in the latest games are meant to be older than 10. Plus I just can't reconcile much unless I insist that Dawn is older than 10 with that skirt.

    I don't want the anime though so I can't speak much on that. I don't think the manga MCs are 10 either, considering there's one arc with romance. Maybe Yellow is though.
     
    Well, they don't say that "IT'S YOUR TENTH BIRTHDAY NOW GO GET A POKEMANZ", more rather it's like "Today, Im'ma get me a Pokémon!"

    So maybe they're a couple years older, unless they've been confirmed to be 10 (I know Ash is).
     
    Well, they don't say that "IT'S YOUR TENTH BIRTHDAY NOW GO GET A POKEMANZ", more rather it's like "Today, Im'ma get me a Pokémon!"

    So maybe they're a couple years older, unless they've been confirmed to be 10 (I know Ash is).

    In R/B/Y, when you talk to your mom just before leaving, she says, "Right. Every boy leaves home at 10. It said so on TV." or something alone those lines. And because if it says so on TV, it must be true. So this means that Red is 10 as well.
     
    Yes but it might have been a few years since they first left. Take Ash for an example. If you do the math, Ash would have been 12 on the 600th episode, which explains why he hasn't aged a whole lot.
     
    Yes but it might have been a few years since they first left. Take Ash for an example. If you do the math, Ash would have been 12 on the 600th episode, which explains why he hasn't aged a whole lot.

    Really? In season one, just a few episodes before he hits the League, he says, "It's been a year since I set out..." So it took around 70 some episodes to age a year, but then 530 to age another?
     
    Nope. When I'm playing the games, I try to visualize the characters as, well, me. So, 18, not 10, and with different hair and fashion sense lol


    As far as the Anime goes, I've never seen him as a 10 year old. Earlier on in the year, we had to head over to the elementary school to work with some 5th and 6th graders, and I gotta say, as mature as I thought I was back then, these kinds are not as mature or intelligent as Ash, believe it or not.

    I mean, Ash is kinda comically stupid at times, by design, but 5th graders are beyond that lol Children are stupid. No offence to any 5th graders who might be reading
     
    This is incredibly random, but does anybody actually see the MC, or characters in the anime for that matter, actually being ten? In my opinion, they act way to mature for today's standards of a ten year old. Especially the newer ones like Cheren, and Bianca. I've probably thought way to much about something that doesn't even really matter, I just wanted to share ^_^"


    Agreed.

    Even though I entirely quit watching the anime after Charizard got dumped, I remember looking at various side characters like Misty and Dawn only to find it hysterical that they weren't even 18 yet.
     
    If I'm not mistaken it's been confirmed by the creators that Ash is still... ten. Which doesn't make any logical sense since there've been mentions of years passing once or twice in the anime, but I guess since he's a fictional character it can kind of work that way. Bulbapedia lists ages for the anime main cast (most of them are listed as being ten). But to be honest I don't think the ages really matter or apply much. They aren't mentioned often if ever, except in Ash's case, and they don't seem very accurate.

    In the games, your age is never given or confirmed. In RBY your mother simply says "Right. All boys leave home some day. It said so on TV." She doesn't specify an age. I mean I guess since the anime is all there is to go by you could assume ten but the games and anime are generally accepted as separate continuities. The only real mention of ages in the games that I can recall was when it was stated that the BW player characters and rivals are apparently supposed to be older than the previous player characters.
     
    Good lord, I thought this post was about me for a second...LOL.

    But, yes, Ash & company from gen 1 are supposed to be 10. But over the years I've mentally aged everyone anyway, so to me, they're more like 14. I think that's why they've stopped mentioning age in general.

    True. Cheren & Bianca totes seem older. Especially if....uh...
    Spoiler:
     
    I always saw Red as being 10. Same with Gold in Gen II. By the time Gen III rolled around, May and Brendan didn't seem 10, maybe 12 or 13. Gen IV, the hero and heroine looked about 13 once more. Then in Gen V, they're not supposed to be 10, which explains why they look older.
     
    The only ones who've ever looked 10 to me are Red and Gold's original sprites (before the remakes), and Lyra. Other than that, they all look a lot older. And I don't mean to be offensive or anything, but I don't think girls usually have boobs that large at 10 years old, so they're definitely older. In a FireRed hack I played (I think it was RijonAdventures), an NPC says the characters are 14, which seems a lot more accurate.

    However, I can totally see Ash being 10. He looks like a kid, and has way too many moments of jaw-dropping stupidity, and never seems to shut up.

    And as for the Manga, don't the characters' ages get mentioned in the books? They used to start out at 10, but would age 3 years per generation. They changed it up a bit after the Emerald chapter, though.
     
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    Ash/Red, the main character in Silver/Gold/SoulSilver/HeartGold and maybe the guy in gen 3 looked ten and in the anime, Ash seems to act like a 10 year old(even though he seems a fair bit ignorant for most 10 year olds but that's probably because Kanto doesn't have schools). I'd like to think of the gen IV guy as a 10 year old(because his best friend acts really, really immature, I can barely see him as a ten year old...) but his female counterpart, Dawn, seems more like 12-13 to me. Gen 5 seem to be mid-teens, I'd say they were around 15.
     
    I'm fairly certain that all the protagonists are meant to be 10 in the games you can play them as, with the exception of Hilda, Hilbert, and maybe even the B2W2 protagonists.
    I've always believed that the non-gen 5 protagonists were around the age of 10 (maybe 11 or even 12 in some cases) but still fairly young, especially since Dawn is 4'11" (I know this height is normal for people of any age, but it is typical for younger people).
    Granted, while I'm playing, I don't really tend to notice their "age" because Pokemon applies the "silent protagonist" so well that I find it's very easy to "place myself in their position" regardless of how young they may be or look.
     
    Ash/Red, the main character in Silver/Gold/SoulSilver/HeartGold and maybe the guy in gen 3 looked ten and in the anime, Ash seems to act like a 10 year old(even though he seems a fair bit ignorant for most 10 year olds but that's probably because Kanto doesn't have schools). I'd like to think of the gen IV guy as a 10 year old(because his best friend acts really, really immature, I can barely see him as a ten year old...) but his female counterpart, Dawn, seems more like 12-13 to me. Gen 5 seem to be mid-teens, I'd say they were around 15.

    Actually they had 2 schools in the Anime that were shown. First shown in Episode 9 School of hard Knocks where Ash used Pikachu to beat a Cubone. The second was after Todd's introduction on episode 56 The Ultimate Test, where Ash attends the academy to bypass the need for 8 badges to get into the Pokemon League....Ash fails hard in that episode. XD


    As for age, Ash, May, and Dawn were all said to be 10 in the Anime and I believe their game counterparts were said to be 10 as well by general reference to the "You start training Pokemon at the age of ten" thing Pokemon had going.

    Black and White were different with their game characters as Gamefreak came out and said the characters were older than in previous games, but how much older they do not say.

    Comparing Japanese and American culture since Japanese children are usually given more responsibility and generally are rated on a different level than american's you could say that the MC's for Japan are 10 while the American counterparts (B/W) are 15ish cause that's when general responsibilities for young adults in America are give. (Driving, some jobs, more focus on school/higher education)
     
    Actually they had 2 schools in the Anime that were shown. First shown in Episode 9 School of hard Knocks where Ash used Pikachu to beat a Cubone. The second was after Todd's introduction on episode 56 The Ultimate Test, where Ash attends the academy to bypass the need for 8 badges to get into the Pokemon League....Ash fails hard in that episode. XD


    As for age, Ash, May, and Dawn were all said to be 10 in the Anime and I believe their game counterparts were said to be 10 as well by general reference to the "You start training Pokemon at the age of ten" thing Pokemon had going.

    Black and White were different with their game characters as Gamefreak came out and said the characters were older than in previous games, but how much older they do not say.

    Comparing Japanese and American culture since Japanese children are usually given more responsibility and generally are rated on a different level than american's you could say that the MC's for Japan are 10 while the American counterparts (B/W) are 15ish cause that's when general responsibilities for young adults in America are give. (Driving, some jobs, more focus on school/higher education)

    This. All of this.

    I'd like to add that I believe GameFreak made the age as much of a mystery as possible, so people exactly like us would make threads and ask questions exactly like this. Also, look at the fact that there are Pokemon in the Pokemon world. That is evidence enough to me that their years and ageing is probably different from ours. I mean, what are the odds that their planet is in the exact same orbit around their sun as ours?
     
    With a different world comes a different set of standards, so in the Pokemon world, ten might be more mature. Who knows? I mean they allow ten-year olds to go around and travel without too much concern, it seems. I do see most of them as ten, especially in the anime. I'm sure it's stated multiple times that the characters are ten, and by the way they act, I can believe that.

    The manga is different because it is far more mature and has shown blood and violence, so that leads me to believe some of the characters are older than ten. In fact, the characters age so I don't even think most of them are ten at the moment.
     
    The manga is different because it is far more mature and has shown blood and violence, so that leads me to believe some of the characters are older than ten. In fact, the characters age so I don't even think most of them are ten at the moment.

    I believe Red, and I'm assuming this goes for Green and Blue as well, is 16 as of the FR/LG arc. It states that Crystal is 11 in the G/S/C arc, but I'm not sure how much time has passed from that point to FR/LG as I haven't gotten that far yet. It also says that Gold and Silver are around 10, but as Crystal is 11 at the time it's possible that they're both 11 at the time as well.

    I've pretty much always gone with these ages. Looking at the characters in the remakes, it does almost seem as though they're redesigned to be older than they were originally. But then, GameFreak probably leaves their ages as ambiguous as possible, especially since they're well aware that there are older people playing the games.
     
    I believe Red, and I'm assuming this goes for Green and Blue as well, is 16 as of the FR/LG arc. It states that Crystal is 11 in the G/S/C arc, but I'm not sure how much time has passed from that point to FR/LG as I haven't gotten that far yet. It also says that Gold and Silver are around 10, but as Crystal is 11 at the time it's possible that they're both 11 at the time as well.

    I've pretty much always gone with these ages. Looking at the characters in the remakes, it does almost seem as though they're redesigned to be older than they were originally. But then, GameFreak probably leaves their ages as ambiguous as possible, especially since they're well aware that there are older people playing the games.
    FR/LG is based at the exact same time as R/B/Y. Red would still be ten.
     
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