Ask John: Why Do Juvenile Delinquents in Anime Look Like Ugly Adults?

Question:
How come high school delinquents in anime look like ugly adults?

Answer:
In countless anime, delinquent students frequently have a stylized appearance that makes them look ugly, scarred, deformed, and adult. I think that there are a number of reasons for this visual trope, some of them relatively obvious and simple, and others more subtle and more significant. The obvious physical design is an easily identifiable contrast. The contrast is also symbolic of the thematic antipathy toward adults and adulthood that’s characteristic of anime.

In a comic anime like Cromartie High School, violence prone school delinquents are depicted like adults in order to convey a sense of their hard lives and their loss of childlike innocence. The Dai Mahou Touge anime takes the visual que one step farther by making the juvenile delinquents look literally deformed and ugly. The contrast highlights the difference between the attractive, respectable young protagonists and the reprehensible delinquents. Furthermore, the association of adults and ugliness opposed to youth and beauty is a traditional philosophical conflict within anime.

Megazone 23 parts 1 & 2 offer possibly the most obvious and fully developed example of anime’s thematic opposition to adulthood, but other examples come in Evangelion, RahXephon, Akira, and countless other shows. Adults in anime are often betrayers; those who have lost their idealism; supplanted morality with practicality; people who sacrifice children for their own ends. Adults are inflexible and ruthless; they are the status quo and the purveyors of an oppressive society. In Megazone 23, adults hide the truth and engage in endless, selfish war. In Evangelion, adults manipulate the end of the world as we know it. In Elfen Lied, adults are devious, unforgiving, selfish forces that break down relationships instead of creating and strengthening them. It comes as little surprise that even in magical girl anime such as Pelsia, Creamy Mami, and Fancy Lala, the girls may transform into adults, but their minds retain the innocence of children.

Of course, not all adults in anime are malicious, objectionable characters. But the presence of the young versus old theme in anime is undeniable. Violent, irresponsible, reprehensible school age delinquents may be illustrated as ugly adults in order to create a comical visual contrast. Especially from the perspective of school children, if adults are threatening, frightening people, making bullies and juvenile delinquents also look like ugly adults symbolically makes them threatening and frightening.