Ages of the Shinkengers?

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Ages of the Shinkengers?

Post by silentstar01 »

Hello, this is my first time posting in the Samurai Sentai Shinkenger forum, pleased to meet you~!

So, it's been bothering me a while, but it just occurred to me while I was watching the Shinkenger series (for at least the fifteenth time...) that the ages of the Shinkengers were never really revealed...and I was wondering if any other viewers/fans also worried about this.

What we know...(please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong at anything!)
Spoiler
1. Kotoha is the youngest.
2. Chiaki, at the end of the Shinkenger series, plans to take his college entrance exams.
3. Mako is already working at a preschool at the start of the Shinkenger series.
4. Ryunosuke is already a kabuki actor; however, he hasn't really debuted as an independent kabuki actor.
5. Genta manages his own sushi cart. However, in Japan, a lot of high school graduates start working in lieu of going to university.
6. Takeru...there aren't a lot of hints. There aren't any indications that he went to school....


This is what I'm thinking....
1. Takeru -- early 20s? Mid 20s? Nearly thirty??????
2. Ryunosuke -- early to mid-twenties?
3. Mako -- early to mid-20s?
4. Chiaki -- maybe still under twenty?
5. Kotoha -- maybe under twenty? Younger than Chiaki, at least.
6. Genta -- same age as Takeru?

What does everyone think?

EDIT: Thanks, takenoko, for Genta! Wrote about him in the spoiler, but completely forgot him afterwards (how in the world did I do that?)!
Last edited by silentstar01 on Fri Aug 31, 2012 2:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ages of the Shinkengers?

Post by takenoko »

I feel like Ryuunosuke is the oldest. Then Mako / Takeru, Chiaki, and Kotoha. Since Genta is a childhood friend, let's assume he's the same age as Takeru. I'm guessing they're no older than mid 20s, and go as young as high school age. I'd go as far as to say that I think maybe they're no older than 20? Part of the tragedy of Shinkenger is that these youths have been given this hereditary burden, which they've grown up preparing for since children.

This is just my intuition, of course. I checked the Japanese wiki and didn't see any age info.
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Re: Ages of the Shinkengers?

Post by TheLastTatlFan »

Well there was that episode where Kotoha passed as a high school student while Ryuunosuke made a convincing student-teacher, for what that's worth about their age gap.
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Re: Ages of the Shinkengers?

Post by silentstar01 »

takenoko wrote:I feel like Ryuunosuke is the oldest. Then Mako / Takeru, Chiaki, and Kotoha. Since Genta is a childhood friend, let's assume he's the same age as Takeru. I'm guessing they're no older than mid 20s, and go as young as high school age. I'd go as far as to say that I think maybe they're no older than 20? Part of the tragedy of Shinkenger is that these youths have been given this hereditary burden, which they've grown up preparing for since children.

This is just my intuition, of course. I checked the Japanese wiki and didn't see any age info.
Hmm....I feel that you're right. They don't seem old enough to be more than in their mid-twenties....and I think that Chiaki was
Spoiler
wearing a school uniform in the first episode?
Maybe I'm wrong?

Ryunosuke...as the oldest? I feel that behavior-wise, either Mako or Takeru, given the many hilarious moments that Ryunosuke was prostrating in front of Takeru and his outlandish antics....but then, there were many an episode in which Ryunosuke showed his maturity....

TheLastTatlFan wrote:Well there was that episode where Kotoha passed as a high school student while Ryuunosuke made a convincing student-teacher, for what that's worth about their age gap.
Yeah, there's that, too....

Thanks, takenoko-san and TheLastTatlFan-san! You both were of much help.
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Re: Ages of the Shinkengers?

Post by takenoko »

I think we all agree on where Kotoha and Chiaki fit on the list. The big question is ordering the oldest three members.

I definitely get the impression that Ryuu is the oldest. He's a professional kabuki dancer, you never get the impression that he's in school, and everyone refers to him by name or with a -san, I think. You see him with his dad, but they're also together as professionals on stage.

Mako is sort of similar. She's working, living on her own. No parent in sight. Would she be as concerned with Takeru if he were older than her? I'm not so sure. You never see her baby Ryuunosuke though. So I think Mako and Ryuu are either the same age or one is slightly older than the other.

I really don't think Takeru is really that old. We've seen that Mako tends to show motherlike tendencies towards people younger than herself. Plus there's Jii. If Takeru were a grown man, would he keep his guardian around? Because of this, I think Takeru is probably exactly 19. Out of high school and older than Chiaki, but not quite 20 and a legal adult in Japan. Plus you get the impression that Takeru would probably just be a normal kid if not for his fate. He plays with his Origami and something about him reminds you of Kaoru. Also, could Kaoru adopt Takeru if here were a legal adult? It's a weird situation, but it doesn't come off as any laws being broken.
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Re: Ages of the Shinkengers?

Post by DekaBreak »

This was a question I tried answering myself while I first watched the series, using cross-episodic evidence. It's interesting to see a thread pop up about it.

One thing I'm sure of is this -
Mako's exact age: 22 or 23.

The math is simple. Kaoru is 17. Let's assume that the previous battle with Doukoku at the mansion happens in the year before Kaoru was born, that makes it 18 years before the 18th/19th generation of Shinkengers reassemble. In Act 34, Ryuunosuke notes that Mako was only five after that battle. So that makes her 18 + 5 = 23. If it happened in the same year as Kaoru's birth, Mako is one year younger 22.

Ok I MUST make this clear. Takeru is no teenager. He's not 19, an idea that was raised earlier. Given this same 17 or 18 year gap, in order for Takeru to be 19, he had to be just a one year old toddler when his father gave him the Shishi Origami. That's not what happens on the show. To decide if Takeru is older than Mako or not, we'll have to ask this: Is the young Takeru from Act 46 older or is the young Mako from Act 34 older? I think they're the same age, or maybe she's younger than him.

Comparing Mako with Ryuunosuke - I don't know why, but he just doesn't seem as much as an adult as she does. She's already thinking of Mr Right and he can't even get over giving up Kabuki temporarily. And here's the more crude point. He is revealed to have both a mother and father complex after all...

Read this section only if you want the explanation for why Mako has to treat Takeru like a kid more than anyone else, and why she doesn't really get involved in Ryuunosuke's life. I've left it concealed as a "spoiler" for Literature lovers (like me).

Spoiler
Mako talks about marriage, about settling down in life but rejects Ryuunosuke at the end of Act 4. She's steady, and is prepared to move into the next part of life (once her cooking improves haha) and all. Her care for people doesn't really seem like something to do with age. It's more likely that she can relate to people who still have a childlike side to themselves. Takeru really is a grown up kid - he spent his life on swordsmanship. He's not actually grown up as Takeru. He's still the boy from 18 years ago, now with an adult body and improved sword skills, and he's had a tougher life than the previous ShinkenRed's as he actually has the responsibility of being a Kagemusha, something not even the other Shiba Lords had to handle. Jii knows this very well. Ryuunosuke reveals his kid side whenever he hides in Takeru's shadow and when he talks about his past with Kabuki theatre. Chiaki and Kotoha ARE technically the kids in the Shiba household. Genta is a Shinkenger because he clung onto the childhood promise - and that clown from Takeru's childhood still remains by the end of the show. All of them had their "distractions", Takeru has a responsibility, Ryuunosuke has Kabuki, Chiaki and Kotoha have the father and sister respectively and Genta has sushi. Only Mako had nothing. No adults, (except her grandmother for a while) and no distraction from the bad past. So she kind of makes herself her own adult guardian after the grandmother leaves and that's why she bothers about the other five, because she feels she has to be the adult guardian of these people because she never had one after her Samurai training was done. This is also a reason why she works at the childcare centre. Of these five other Shinkengers, Ryuunosuke hides that child side very well, much better than Takeru himself. He even resolves everything by promising to return to Kabuki after sealing Doukoku in Act 35. He doesn't need to be watched over like a kid as much. Takeru's child within is too obvious to hide. So she has to watch out for him first.


Genta as a boy appears to be older than Takeru and the young Ryuunosuke who appears in his flashback in Act 4 if you ask me. So if you ask me it's like this:

From oldest to youngest,
1) Genta
2) Takeru
3) Mako
4) Ryuunosuke
5) Chiaki
6) Kotoha

I think I've been able to substantiate my ideas to some small extent, and of course I might be partially wrong, but this is the best possible age analysis I could do for Shinkenger as a Literature student.
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Re: Ages of the Shinkengers?

Post by takenoko »

That's pretty fascinating. Sounds reasonable enough to me. This is at best a thought experiment, seeing as how none of their ages are disclosed.

This wiki says that Kaoru is 16 though:
http://www47.atwiki.jp/sentai-chara/pages/52.html
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Re: Ages of the Shinkengers?

Post by DekaBreak »

In that case Mako would either be 21 or 22 using the same logic. Did you bother reading the "spoiler", takenoko? It's something I came up with while answering this question myself. And I got stuck at the Mako or Ryuunosuke being older part as well. The whole age thing cropped up after you guys released Act 34, and when 44-47 came out there was more evidence to consider, but I only was able to reason out the "spoiler" after you guys released Act 47 where Mako's empathy towards Takeru really culminates and then when the series ended. Just saying, I did use Shinkenger as one of my assignment materials here at University because I really liked the story and so I kept looking for other things like what I would've wanted the writers to answer on the show. The shipping got really popular among other fans around me and I was always asked to comment on that. Maybe it was too early to say so while Shinkenger was going on but if Mako could wait for some time then I think Takeru could have grown on her but she's much more ready to move on while Takeru needs some time for himself with peace and quiet, so it's unlikely to happen. But talking about compatibility, it's always Takeru/Mako and Chiaki/Kotoha.
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Re: Ages of the Shinkengers?

Post by takenoko »

>Did you bother reading the "spoiler", takenoko?

Sorry, I kind of glossed over it before because long paragraphs make me lose focus. I read it now. So basically Mako treats a person based on their emotional age. I think that makes sense.
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Re: Ages of the Shinkengers?

Post by DekaBreak »

Yeah basically that's it. I just get long winded as a bad habit from my Literature education. :D
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