[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

That's the art style: Many manga and anime characters have big dewy eyes, dual-gender faces and childlike Caucasian features even though they supposed to be Japanese adults.

They look "like children" to most Americans and Europeans because Western art reserves a lot of those cartoon features for children; Japanese animation doesn't limit the drawing style the same way.

In some cases it is just that, but in other cases the 'virtual' children depicted are 'actually' underage, and stated to be so in the manga.