Cameron: Well, if it’s not ‘recapturing the glory days’ it’s ‘living the days you never had’. You may have a point in saying that it could just be a fact of the genre or the medium; maybe it’s part of the reality escape for people.

FF: Gah, Clannad. Who at KyoAni do I have to sleep with to get more? I have been hearing a lot of good things about After Story and I’m only hoping that the lack of wrapping things up in the penultimate episode of the anime is because of the rumored second season. But then again, that would be loading KyoAni up with sequel or sequel-types, considering Haruhi S2 is already in the works.

Neko: Yeah, to be honest I don’t know of a lot of anime with adults starring, although that might just be because I’m a teenager myself and gravitate towards works that sooth the darnkess in my soul, or something. XD I’m sure there’s quite a few out there, though; I wonder if a reverse phenomenom is true in anime starring adults, in that youths are relegated to a token role there. (Kaiji comes to mind, for one.)

Quite simply, there aren’t a lot of people who wouldn’t watch people of teenage age in a show, in one way or another. Little children aspire to be like the cool kids, teenagers want to see people just like themselves (that understand them, natch), and adults want to relieve their glory days. Not to mention the creepy old men.

You’ve probably hit the nail on that. That’s probably why most anime with adults as the main characters doesn’t really click unless it’s really good, even though there are many mediocre series thats becoming popular.

Adding to Cameron’s list of anime with older characters, there’s also Eureka 7, where the majority are actually adults.

Of course, there’s also the very popular Himura Kenshin who is 28years old in the main storyline, although granted he doesn’t look that old either.

I understand that teenagers are rebellious and like to think different but so many of the family conflicts, such as the Wakatsukis in Myself;Yourself, Tomoya’s in Clannad, and Hiromi / Shinichiro’s in True Tears, just rub too much of “GOD I HATE YOU GUYS” to be taken seriously, or, at least without a facepalm.

But then again, this is anime, after all. It’s only natural for anything and everything to be exaggerated in anime and manga :D

And you make a great point about the disappearing parent. I just finished watching Beck, and that had probably the worst case of invisible parent that I’ve seen. (Quite literally invisible) Although as far as rebellion, I’d probably reccomend Paradise Kiss.

Although I wonder if for us older viewers if it’s really trying to recapture our glory days. I mean my teenage years sucked. And my early twenties sucked even more. For me it’s more that it’s just a convention of the medium that I accept because I enjoy the medium. Much like I accept that most hardboiled detectives are war veterans. Or that most fantasy worlds have magic. But that’s just a thought.