#i get soooooooooooo excited about characters. (froths at the mouth)

[mango-dolphin]

Big question: do the heroes parties know how old they are? specifically Ren and Itsuki cause they aren't even 18 yet. I don't remember Naofumi telling Raphtalia or Filo his age either, and the story isn't focused on the others enough.

I can imagine Itsuki telling his party he's 17 so he can get "wow you're so mature and heroic for your age :))))" type compliments, Motoyasu will tell any woman trying to hook up, and Ren might purposefully avoid it so he's not treated like a kid(he is).

I can imaging his party asking Nao how old he is, and them just freaking out when they learn he's 16!!! after they freak out to Ren about "why didn't you tell you you are only a CHILD". since i think they are all like complete adults(youngest being 18).

canonically: no clue </3 i DO remember Naofumi mentioning offhandedly in the anime (s2 i believe) that he was 20? but i don't remember the context (let alone which episode; was probably before the Spirit Tortoise arc tho?). and like you said, the story (especially in the anime) isn't focused on the others enough to really give us any ideas? you could make inferences based on the passing glances of their parties, but they'd be a lot of conjecture.

i DO get the impression raphtalia and filo are aware of his age to some extent—raphtalia in particular i feel would be the best bet out of his current (anime s2) party to know his age. that said, it's wholly possible that raphtalia doesn't actually know the exact age either: naofumi seems like the type of person to just not mention much about himself (even before getting betrayed by Myne!)

not that he'd go out of his way to hide stuff about his character (in fact he seems pretty unapologetic about himself mostly within reason), but rather he just wouldn't think to say anything. i am very much the same way where i just won't mention shit about myself, even if it's relevant. i tend to hide my birthday from people for instance because i don't want it to be a big deal—i don't have any birthday traumas, i'm just a tad private like that.

(imagining one day naofumi mentions offhandedly somewhere casual in luroluna that he's 20 while everyone starts losing it to some degree. rishia and eclair thought he was in his 30s. melty thought he was 16, for some reason. filo was actually exactly on the mark, strangely enough—no one expected her to have that good a grasp on the passage of time, let alone its relativity to others. raphtalia, having a skewed perception of human ages, assumed naofumi was either in his late teens or mid-20s], and got cllllose enough frankly)

headcanon-wise: god. GODDDD i can't agree more with the assessments on itsuki and motoyasu it's absurd.

itsuki would definitely think being 17 would simultaneously be a badge of maturity (he's so close to being 18! plenty grown and so close to graduating high school! practically an adult!!) as well as a bragging right (he's doing such heroic and marvelous things at such a young age. he's not even 18 yet! what a brilliant mind with such a bright future!!!). unfortunately for him, announcing this fact just makes his gullibility that much more obvious

from what i've read on the wiki and inferred from the anime, it seems that this would've definitely been something that itsuki's party capitalized on. he was practically announcing to the world that he was a young, impressionable mind that could be influenced and controlled. (and this is why we practice internet safety, folks!)

he'd probably really hate to be reminded that he's 17 in those ways (e.g. that he's young, naive, inexperienced, etc), even if it's not outright said. probably reads into things a LOT so sometimes he might snap about it in a situation where the other party wasn't actually trying to belittle/demean him at all. it can make it a little more difficult to talk itsuki down, because he seems like the type of person who'd hate to be told that he can't do something. especially because of something he can't necessarily control, like his age.

probably felt even more insecure about his age when rishia, also 17, joined the party. just another reminder of who he used to be: some pathetic, easy-to-bully weakling struggling to keep up with the rest of the pack.

(but also, wouldn't it have been so comforting? so relieving? to finally have someone your age by your side again?)

(someone who might not necessarily understand everything you say, but gets so naturally in-tuned to it just by virtue of being in a generation similar to yours? even though you're from two completely different worlds?)

(someone who gets overwhelmed by all the demands that the world puts on them, and the demands they put on themself, just like you?)

(someone who is struggling just as much as you are?)

(someone who gets it?)

itsuki would prefer not to have any more teammates his age or younger. he doesn't need to babysit anybody.

motoyasu loudly announces his age, height, weight, blood type, and marital status to anyone displaying a mildly flirtatious manner in his direction.

ren doesnOkay i should probably elaborate more on motoyasu actually.

i think motoyasu's age is something that keeps in his mind a lot, funnily enough. he's 21, so he is (well, was) at that point of his life where he "had" to start figuring out his life direction. ESPECIALLY after learning that he was kinda modeled after (romantic?) VN protagonists, i got the vibe that motoyasu had kinda been... drifting? in terms of his self-identity, anyways.

he seems like the type to focus more on the moment of things, particularly at the expense of thinking out the consequences. honestly, w/the degree of delusion he tends to display whenever Enacting His Heroic Persona™, it's possible that this tunnel vision is something deliberate: so that he doesn't have to think much about his future, much less choose where he's going.

but once you hit that 21 mark, it's easy to fall into the trap of believing you're starting to run out of time (even though you Just finished being a teenager, still haven't gotten much life experience at ALL by virtue of being so young, and you could easily live quadruple the time you've already been alive—so you've got a LOT of time to use).

(i'm approaching this from an american perspective, so i don't know how applicable the 21 milestone is—HOWEVER, you're kind of considered an adult at age 20 (and are treated more or less as an adult in many legal things by 20, though the transition period starts at 18-ish).)

motoyasu's already 21. he could barely even choose a girl to love properly, and he didn't see the warning signs of the relationships he had haphazardly begun. maybe he should've done something about it. maybe he should have listened to those girls. he's just a body, after all—they probably know what's best for him anyways. otherwise he'd just be wasting his life away, right?

(foreshadowing my personal take on motoyasu's previous life. oops. i'm worried about him your honor)

all of motoyasu's party members know his age and would generally know his birthday month/season. he seems like he'd mention that kind of stuff offhandedly a lot: he gives me the impression he's typically an open book when it comes to his thoughts and his personal life. (that is, with some Exceptions. he's a bit of a master at dodging things he Does Not want to acknowledge to the point of essentially trashing them from his mind—raphtalia commenting that motoyasu's words were "empty" during the pope fight is something that echoes in my head a LOT.)

whenever he Does bring up these facts (like mentioning he's an april baby a lot—idk if he was born in april but motoyasu gives me april vibes), it doesn't seem like he's trying to nudge them towards doing something for him at all. he's a tad too oblivious/blunt for that. motoyasu is just a bit of a motor mouth who doesn't care for his own privacy. (not in the dangerous way that itsuki might, but rather just "oh, he's just easy to talk to")

I DIDN'T REALIZE I'D TYPE SO FUCKING MUCH. UHHHHH for ren my answer is actually incredibly simple:

Ren's party members wouldn't even know what he had for breakfast in the morning.

it's not that they don't pay attention to him or anything, because (especially in the beginning) they really really tried to. this bitch is just a puzzlebox of a person who adamantly refuses to talk about himself very much. he'll talk about necessary stuff and won't shoot down small talk by any means, but if naofumi is a passively private person, ren is an Actively Private Person.

it'd be hard not to suspect that ren was hiding Something acting like that, but it became pretty evident to the party (the longer they stayed) that ren just really sucked at divulging information about himself. which WOULD suggest traits of its own, hilariously enough

he's socialized and well-adjusted enough to hold thoughtful, in-depth conversations, but asking him about his favorite food is an exercise in confused futility. (he'd keep second guessing himself and forget the name of the food and then remember he hates x spice and so on and so forth and you wouldn't actually get much of value from the question you actually asked—)

i don't think ren's party ever got close enough to really see much of that kid's true self, outside of those fleeting awkward teen convo moments. not that he'd go out of his way to show it. but they probably got the sense (ESPECIALLY w/his loner behavior) that he was one of the younger Cardinal Heroes.

(i think it'd be a fair assumption to say that generally the people of melromarc would believe itsuki was the youngest cardinal hero, especially as he'd state outright that he was 17 commonly. no one really expected a 16-year old hero)

don't worry about ren's party asking naofumi how old ren is tho, because after the Spirit Tortoise arc ren doesn't have a party to worry about anymore :)

(i am so fucking sorry