What is the age gap of the main romance? Does anyone know?

I have been wondering the same thing.

I haven't watched any other magical girl shows because I prefer adult MCs and those shows are usually school, and I also don't like "old being in young form" when romance is involved. Spice and Wolf is the only exception I have made on this.

I estimate Mimori is 20-22. The show tells us that aside from being a magical girl she has part time jobs, and in one of them we see her asking if a guy is old enough to purchase alcohol. In most countries someone who serves alcohol must be old enough to consume it. School is also not mentioned as something part of her current lifestyle. Having multiple jobs is also more typically an adult situation - people at high school would at most have 1 part time job - typically.

I had the same concerns as you regarding the height - but I put it down to the art style, it is possible that the author could be short and likes very tall men, sadly said author is deceased :(

It will be interesting to see how other male character heights will compare to Shun's, and also how Mimori's compares to other characters.

Ultimately my hope is that this show does not do anything really creepy with the girls that would make me want to drop it regardless of age, I prefer not to have much sexualisation in general.

@Yorda_trico Oh I see!! That does make sense. You’re right, she sells to a customer who was buying some alcohol.
Also I did not know this about the author being passed away. I suppose we have a Getter Robo Arc situation, where this anime will have to make up an ending?
I also have seen on the author’s Wikipedia that they are well known for a series called Inu X Boku Ss. Which also seems to have a similiar, short girl X talk guy couple.
I will check what the ages are of this couple in Inu X Boku Ss. Since it is by the same author it may possibly help me contextualize things :o

I don't really care, but it's interesting they're marketing this shoujo as a shounen.

How is this not a shounen when these are?
A shounen and even a seinen can have romance.

THANK YOU LMAO

I never mentioned romance.

@EcchiGodMamster personally I don’t mind at all regardless of the age gap cause I don’t mind stories exploring concepts that wouldn’t work irl.
I was just asking purely for my own comfort. I knew this was a place where people were experienced with the series (it’s by a beloved author as I have now learned so likely most people here know a lot more then me),
So, basically I figured I’d ask the informed people to help me prepare for what I was getting into here,

Also nice pfp.

Does it matter? It's fictional. 😂

I have been wondering the same thing.

I haven't watched any other magical girl shows because I prefer adult MCs and those shows are usually school, and I also don't like "old being in young form" when romance is involved. Spice and Wolf is the only exception I have made on this.

I estimate Mimori is 20-22. The show tells us that aside from being a magical girl she has part time jobs, and in one of them we see her asking if a guy is old enough to purchase alcohol. In most countries someone who serves alcohol must be old enough to consume it. School is also not mentioned as something part of her current lifestyle. Having multiple jobs is also more typically an adult situation - people at high school would at most have 1 part time job - typically.

I had the same concerns as you regarding the height - but I put it down to the art style, it is possible that the author could be short and likes very tall men, sadly said author is deceased :(

It will be interesting to see how other male character heights will compare to Shun's, and also how Mimori's compares to other characters.

Ultimately my hope is that this show does not do anything really creepy with the girls that would make me want to drop it regardless of age, I prefer not to have much sexualisation in general.

@LostSpectre at risk of upsetting you, what element exactly is making you call this a shojo? It’s based on a seinen manga from a seinen magazine.
I don’t understand why you would possible think this series is shojo, unless you think that all magical girl shows are shojo by default. But that would be easily disproven by magical girl series like Magical Girl Site, which feature discussions and outright depictions of incest, p*dophilia, and graphic violence all performed on its middle school protags.
tl;dr Magical Girl Site is in a Shōnen magazine. So it’s Shōnen (made for little boys). This series is in a seinen magazine. So it’s seinen (made for slightly older boys). It does not have anything to do with content. If it did, then those ratings would’ve been flipped cause Site is for a younger audience then this, but it has all that aforementioned graphic content.

@Yorda_trico "Ultimately my hope is that this show does not do anything really creepy with the girls that would make me want to drop it regardless of age, I prefer not to have much sexualisation in general."

This so much, I hope this has the same vibes as An Archdemon's Dilemma

The exact answer is that we don't know. The most information we have is from this panel, where mc assumes she is a minor. It doesn't get confirmed, but also not disputed

I don't really care, but it's interesting they're marketing this shoujo as a shounen.

I don't really care, but it's interesting they're marketing this shoujo as a shounen.

I know I'm about to open the flood gates for this, but she is indeed a minor. She's about 15. The other magical girl, Hibana announces her own age as 15 in chapter 8 of the manga. The following chapter, Byakuya says that they were in the same class as children.





The late Cocoa Fujiwara-sensei was not a person to shy away from fictional age gaps, considering her previous work, Inu x Boku SS featured a similar age gap (characters within the work would call out the male MC Soushi for being a "lolicon", and he'd fallen in love with Ririchiyo - female MC - when she was visibly a smaller girl around twelve or so).

@Candids

I am kind of heart broken if this is true, may have to drop this show, and I am saying this just after really enjoying the second episode :(

I still can't make sense of it because of all the things I posted about before in this thread, but maybe those details are just plot holes.

Are you sure that first picture with the other character holding teddies is not some flashback to when she was 15 or something? I checked some of the manga and that illustration looks different than how that character is drawn during main scenes.

Edit: I am hard coping saying that age 15 is a flashback, I think she looks different in the actual story, hair ribbon and just slightly more mature (by anime standards lol) I reminds me of the difference between Byakuya in her flashback and now, both look young - but different shades of young.



Second Edit (E2 spoiler): more hard cope....no way Byakuya is 15 based on this job history, never mind the serving alcohol job -

who the hell employs a 15 year old to work in construction lol

(scene from E2)

She can't be 15 unless she's born in late december or sth...
She said "my former uniform from middle school" so she's a high schooler at the very least.
1st years of high school in japan are 16.
So she's between 16 and 18.


As for him, he can be anywhere from 19-20 to a couple years older, that's my estimate. He's for sure very young.
There's even the chance of him being the same age of her and just being tall.

@YordaTrico

I think in a realistic world, there's no way Byakuya would be working all this jobs in high school. The fact remains that this is an anime and anime is known for giving their main characters the most outrageous, veteran backstories and then they turn out to be like 14, 15. I believe according to the Twitter user who included the mangacaps and does speak Japanese, Mira constantly tries to stop her from taking these jobs because they are illegal.

Also, sorry, I'm dropping another bomb here:



This is in chapter 16. There's not meant to be a huge difference between how she looks in her introduction and present day, physically. I believe the joke here is that Hibana genuinely looks like a young child and he's being a hypocrite since Byakuya is also heavily implied to be underaged. Not to mention, the only other non-work clothes Byakuya has is a literal school gym uniform and her old middle school uniform. I think it's meant to invoke the imagery that she's underaged.

@Candids Yeh I have since admitted defeat on this lol (you may have missed my comment above your latest reply)

I was really hoping MC wasn't underage as I love everything else about this anime, I don't mind a bit of dark/lewd stuff with adult characters, but not with 15 year olds, I will pretend to be shocked at realising YET ANOTHER grooming story in manga. So I am likely done with this show now unless we got some revelation from the anime creators saying anime is aged up, but I doubt it.

It frustrates me so much because if MC was 18+ the good aspects of this story would still be there, there is no need for this underage nonsense.

@YordaTrico

I think in a realistic world, there's no way Byakuya would be working all this jobs in high school. The fact remains that this is an anime and anime is known for giving their main characters the most outrageous, veteran backstories and then they turn out to be like 14, 15. I believe according to the Twitter user who included the mangacaps and does speak Japanese, Mira constantly tries to stop her from taking these jobs because they are illegal.

Also, sorry, I'm dropping another bomb here:



This is in chapter 16. There's not meant to be a huge difference between how she looks in her introduction and present day, physically. I believe the joke here is that Hibana genuinely looks like a young child and he's being a hypocrite since Byakuya is also heavily implied to be underaged. Not to mention, the only other non-work clothes Byakuya has is a literal school gym uniform and her old middle school uniform. I think it's meant to invoke the imagery that she's underaged.

@Candids Ok what’s up, I’m OP of this thread and I’m back now after having vannished from my own thread, cause I now am really curious.
Don’t worry, I’m not here to start saying tourists jokes, I promise I’m not like that. Instead I actually wanted to ask some questions from you both because you both seem more familiar with this author than I am.
Ok so as a start, this panel here, while clearly revealing a lot of things, the one thing that stuck out to me most about it, is that it seemed to be presenting Byakuya’s Angel / Mascot in a favorable light.
I’m one of those weirdos who really gets invested in the lore of the mascots in these kind of shows and so, part of my prepping for this show was to ask a few people about what the mascot in this one was like (not referring to the ugly kappa man thing here, just the little cat).
However when I asked people about this mascot I mostly got hit with waves of “he is disgusting and I don’t feel comfortable talking about him.” So I assumed that he was actually like, really really gross and was like, making not good advances, onto to Byakuya. O_O
That’s why, I’m really caught off guard to see this panel, where it seems like he is protecting

I mean at the end of the day Byakuya’s mascot / angel is still a bad person, because he manipulated her when she was an orphan, and seemingly is tied to this whole system which is exploiting her. So it’s not like he’s redeemable or anything, I’m just curious if he’s like, not actually a creep.

But I’m just trying to figure out if this cat is just like Kyubey level bad (a level of bad I am able to be comfortable with seeing), or if he’s like, creepy bad.
Cause if it’s the latter that would bum me out… I have come to accept that we hardly ever get any mascots in magical girl anime that are nice anymore. I’m fine with them being evil, as long as they’re not creepy.
If this cat is just an evil jerk but not actually creepy disgusting, that would be less bad. Thats why I figured I’d ask you who seem more experienced with the manga. How bad is this cat?

In the mangá it is mentioned, Mira is 27 years old. As for Mimori I pictured her as a 15 max 16 years old but I will double check if there is any mention to in the mangá.
** Edit: sorry i dont know how to add pics to the thread xD but Mira's age is on chapter 15

The amount of care you give to the age of pixels is insane...it's just a fictional story. I swear these supposed "moralists" are the reason why we never get interesting or controversial topics explored in fiction since at any bit of imperfection, they start to bitch about morals. Drop the show and go if it makes you that uncomfortable.

Nah.

This is basically just the "Rescue Romance" trope, which features pretty prominently in female-targeted fantasy. The whole "kind older guy who values you and helps you when you're in a difficult situation" thing is prevalent across all types of media, not just stuff "from the East." If it was grooming, you'd be able argue about negative influence or controlling nature or something; basically, the cat's behavior, which is explicitly rejected by both MCs. This is more of a "knight in shining armor" kinda thing.

If you wanted to argue that it supports "problematic gender stereotypes" I can see that. Dropping it because the unstated age of the female MC might be below an arbitrary threshold is just you robbing yourself of a good show; it's your decision to do so, but all you're doing is trying to rationalize that decision by demonizing the show.

@MiaAyende

well of course we can both give our rationales but I think it seems to come down to this:

• I am not accepting of a 15f vs 27m romance that is painted in a positive light regardless of the parameters and regardless of it being fiction
  
• you are - at least in a fictional setting
  

I believe these kinds of stories try to normalise these age gaps therefore possibly warping the minds of impressionable young men preventing them from understanding that the innocence of young girls should be protected.

And I don't need to try to demonize the show, the author did that themselves when they wrote a grooming story set in 21st century. If you think this isn't considered grooming then why don't you test the theory by ringing the authorities anonymously and saying "I am 27 and in a romantic relationship with a 15 year old but it is ok because it is a rescue romance" .....let's see the outcome.

You're the one who has decided she's 15; there's no proof of that. There's better proof that she's at least slightly older. She could even be 18; you don't know, because it's not stated.

I'm not quite as well acquainted with this, but at least in Inu x Boku we're sure that the main couple is a 15f x 23m so I guess you could travel to Fujiwara sensei's grave and yell at her for writing gross grooming stories and you wouldn't be wrong