Dunan said:
That's one thing I never get; when I myself was a child or teenager, I didn't want to play games or read books where the protagonist was also a child or teenager. There were often kid sidekicks in the stories, but the main character was an adult. When I watched the Indiana Jones movies as a kid, for example, I might relate to the 13-year-old Short Round because he's also a kid, but I don't want him to be the star of the movie!
I feel the same way sometimes. It kind of feels like the Star Wars prequel films where child Anakin was the star (I know it makes sense in the movie's context, but it's an example I can think of off the top of my head) but no one I knew (I was around 11 when that movie was released, I think) cared about him--they cared more about Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan because they were the ones getting stuff done without much extra bs.
I get that it's easier to evolve a teenage/child's character, but adults themselves can change too. It's just far less melodramatic. Or perhaps this is a sign of me getting old and realizing that I preferred the older characters in various media. The Persona, SMT, Fire Emblem and Suikoden games are the exception to the rule because, to put it bluntly, they're written better, imo.
While Nier remained somewhat static, adult characters like P4's Dojima or Genso Suikoden's Flik and Georg evolve (and even Chris Lightfellow, if age 21 qualifies as being an adult) somewhat, having some sort of (well-written) revelation to change their behaviour. I haven't played Catherine yet, but I'm curious to see if this trend continues with Vincent and his friends. While Radiant Historia's Stocke's age hasn't been confirmed to me (I probably missed it somewhere; Edit: I did--he's 19, apparently. He doesn't act like it, lol!), I feel like despite having a steady characterization throughout the game... rather than evolving his character or changing his character for the better, more facets of his character are revealed to the player throughout the game (rather than a serious spy at first, you realize that he's compassionate, considerate, and dedicated to his job, yet conflicted about it as well). That approach to characterization was quite interesting to see.
But like another poster said, coming-of-age stories are pretty popular in Japanese storytelling, are they not?