#and then he'd react the same way his 16-year-old self does

[ranshoku]

Let's talk about age in Survive, particularly in relation to Shuuji's characterization.

Perhaps my unpopular opinion on the whole hate directed at Shuuji (as a huge Shuuji enjoyer myself) is that I think people not tolerating Shuuji for making believable mistakes as a teenager can be valid(? not sure of the word choice here) as well, considering that the suspension of disbelief regarding age in Survive messes up people's perception and expectation of Shuuji, especially when the other characters are relatively more "put together" (cue me whispering "age is relative in fiction", again and again).

To demonstrate what I mean, let's take an example: Saki is supposedly 12 years old, but I don't think the game is trying to convince the audience to believe that she's literally 12-year-old, nor does it demand us to expect her to act like how a 12-year-old girl would. At the end of the day, these are just arbitrary numbers decided by the creator(s). Heck, they could just make Saki the same age as Mimi without changing anything about her character and still expect us to believe that's how girls her age act.

When it comes to these age numbers, I personally feel that the game wants you think of them in terms of relative numbers than absolute numbers (for example, Shuuji being 16 is a fact that holds much, much less weight than Shuuji being older than the other kids). In other words, you can say that a character's age only matters when it's used to compare to what age another character is, because the game needs it to establish a social hierarchy among the kids (which, anyway, is an important narrative device to Survive's core themes).

So, what I'm saying is that Shuuji's age still matters to his characterization, but not really in the sense that most people think it does (a.k.a "he's just a teenager acting like a teenager"). If anything, I feel like the game wants to highlight the contrast of his social dynamics at home (as the youngest of his family) vs. at the camp (as the oldest among the kids), and him being a 16-year-old kid has little bearing to that. To add to this, I think Lopmon being the most (for the lack of a better word) "baby-like" of the partnermons can also symbolize Shuuji being unprepared to handle the social expectations that are burdened on him just because he's the oldest in the group, when at home he's never treated as such exactly because he's the youngest. It's much to think about.

That's not to say that the fact Shuuji is practically still a kid doesn't matter, though. However, "(character) is just a kid who's unequipped to deal with the situation they're thrown into" is a fact that applies to all characters, not just to Shuuji specifically, if you get what I mean.