Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again - TV Tropes (2025)

Old

Rejuvenated

The titular grandparents of the series.

• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Both Shouzou and Ine's parents weren't good people to emulate, leading to them becoming the Good Parents to their own children and in-laws.
• Brought Down to Badass: Both Shouzou and Ine can choose to temporarily revert back to their elderly appearance, but still possess some of their youthful vigor as seen with Shouzou's beating his son in arm wrestling match and Ine riding a bike fast enough to catch up to a moving train to bring Mino her lunch.
• Chick Magnet: In his youth, Shouzou was a very handsome man with no shortage of women flocking to him, forcing Ine to scare them off. Even Shouzou's daughter-in-law and granddaughter are smitten by his looks after he regained his youth, along with his female elderly peers swooning.
• Died Happily Ever After: They happily passed away in their sleep in the Series Finale, after being satisfied by living their life to the fullest and the hourglass running out of sand.
• Dude Magnet: Like her husband, Ine has her own number of male admirers and suitors in her youth, with Heisuke being one such example. After regaining her youth, plenty of her male elderly peers are greatly enchanted to the point where their blood pressure rises.
• Fountain of Youth: As a result of a strange dream about a giant hourglass, especially after eating a golden apple in the anime, both Shouzou and Ine regress from elderly to youthful adults. Though Shouzou later finds out that the hourglass is not infinite, meaning that they'll still die naturally in a couple of years.
• Good Parents: They're both kind and supportive parents to their children, Yoshiaki, Takahiro, and Akemi. Even after their children are grown up and become parents of their own children, along with the Saitou couple regaining their youth, this doesn't stop the Shouzou and Ine from doting and looking out for them even if Akemi lives in Tokyo. Also said children adore them.
• Happily Married: They are greatly in love and held a stable and loving marriage up to their twilight years. What makes it more impressive is that they were ahead of their time compared to how marriages were usually conducted in Japan.
• Karmic Jackpot: Both of them are known for their great love for each other and go above and beyond to support their loved ones in place of their own happiness. Then, one day, a golden apple sprouted from a tree that they tried to nurse back to health. After eating the golden apple, both Shouzou and Ine find themselves with an opportunity to enjoy their restored youth.
• Marry for Love: They love each other so much that they were willing to defy their own families to be together, even if it meant being disowned. Despite that, they were willing to defy their own families just so they can be together, and thus their life-long happy marriage.
• Mundane Utility: After learning to switch between their youthful and elderly forms with ease, the Saitou couple would sometimes switch to their elderly forms to get senior discounts on items and fares, and then switch back to youthful to enjoy themselves.
• Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Once they figure out how to switch between their young and old forms with ease, the Saitou couple takes advantage of this by taking a quick nap and moving the hourglass in their dreams. Shouta lampshades this "weirdness" to Mino during their trip, with her rhetorically asking him if he finds it weird now.
• Their First Time: It's heavily implied that they made love during heavy rain while stranded in a jinja, with Ine who acted on it first.
• Together in Death: The Saitou couple happily passed away in their sleep together in the Series Finale.

Shouzou Saitou

Voiced by: Shin-ichiro Miki

Shouzou wondered about his life with Ine, having been together for fifty years already. Given their busy life and general lack of excess finances, many things couldn't be done.
A sudden dream about an hourglass that was turned around led to him turning young again, albeit with his hair remaining as gray as ever.

• Abusive Parents: He didn't get along with his father when he was younger. He even got into fights with his father, who even forbade him from marrying Ine. The reason why he took up house chores with her is that his father was a very demanding person who always ordered everyone around like they were his servants, and took it upon himself to not Turn Out Like His Father.
• Actor Allusion: The scene where he used his white kei truck to race and drift against a yellow car comes into mind an anime that involves one of his voice actor's star-making roles.
• Arranged Marriage: Was forced into one. When he tells Ine about it, she aggressively acts on it just so he wouldn't end up with someone he didn't love.
• Book Dumb: He never received a formal education due to his standing as the second son.
• Butter Face: While Shouzou gained his original bald, elderly appearance upon his age temporarily reverted back to normal, he still has his somewhat youthful muscular build.
• Cast from Lifespan: He would give half his lifespan to Ine after finding out she would die in a week.
• G-Rated Sex: Implied to leave to masturbate several times. He still frequently requires the bathroom at night because their bodies are 'young' again, and one time, he disappears to the toilet when he gets visibly aroused at the thought of a young-again Ine in a swimsuit.
• Insecure Love Interest: Shouzou has deep feelings of inferiority regarding his worth as a spouse to Ine due to his humble background and being unable to provide his wife with the luxuries she deserves.
• Mundane Luxury: Regaining a full set of teeth alongside his youth made him happy because he could chew all sorts of foods easily again.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Some of his actions get treated this way, like trimming the hedge with a chainsaw◊. Usually when some teenagers complain about tedious tasks and decide that it's pretty cool, after all.
• Shipper on Deck: Ready and willing to lend Shouta a hand in getting closer to his granddaughter Mino. He even took Ine out of the room and gave Shouta a thumbs up, so he'd have the chance to ask Mino to the bonfire dance.
• The Power of Lust: Pretty much mentioned in-universe as to be what gave him the strength to beat his oldest son in an arm-wrestling match because a win meant they'd get a room with an open-air bath for a trip to Atami.
• Unwanted Harem: Played for laughs, he gains quite a following of women — old friends and even his own granddaughters — who are clearly infatuated with his younger looks. Though everyone knows they can't get between him and his wife.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Played with. Shouzou is the jovial and now youthful parent compared to his son, Yoshiaki, a middle-aged man with the expected stern demeanor.

Ine Saitou (née Sasaki)

Voiced by: Mamiko Noto

Ine was overall happy with her life and only hoped to continue to be able to spend time with Shouzou. A sudden dream about an hourglass that was turned around led to her turning young again, albeit with still-gray hair.

• Broken Bird: She was this in the past. Following a complicated family situation, Ine became emotionally distant and introverted.
• Cuteness Overload: When Ine loses her memory and meets Mino for the first time, she gushes over how cute her granddaughter is and hugs her.
• Dark and Troubled Past: While she initially had a very privileged life, being the daughter of wealthy parents and going to an all-girls school in Tokyo, that all changed on the day of The Great Tokyo Fire Raid, which left her homeless and an orphan. In desperation, she moved in with her mother's relatives, but due to her father's arrogance against his wife's rural and poorer in-laws, she was shunned and due to her Tokyo dialect, was ridiculed for it. She ended up a Broken Bird on the verge of a total mental breakdown until she met Shouzo.
• Delicate and Sickly: Ine tends to be ill at certain points in her childrens' childhood. Then, when Takahiro was an adult studying for his medical exams, Ine developed liver cancer that slowed down due to taking medication. After her youth is restored, the liver cancer has regressed to the point of non-existent.
• Ear Cleaning: Shown to do this to several people. First to her granddaughter Mino, and Shouzou later, noting that it was a common thing when they were newlyweds. Even Shiori gets an ear-cleaning, albeit in secret.
• Easy Amnesia: She hits her head in Chapter 83, resulting in her reverting to her younger self, including regaining her black hair, and not remembering anything about Shouzou or her life with him.
• I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: Her life went upside-down during the B-29 Firebombing of Tokyo where her parents were killed, and she had to live in the countryside with living relatives who didn't bother. Then Shouzou comes around and meets her, and has a genuine interest in her so they begin to fall in love, even if it means defying their families in the process.
• Mundane Luxury: She mentions being able to eat a full bowl of rice or having water coming out of the tap to be a luxury she took for granted when industrialization caused her family to lose its standing.
• Parental Substitute: As demonstrated in the Series Finale, Ine proves to be a nurturing motherly figure to her three daughters-in-law as they confide in her of their troubles.
• Silk Hiding Steel: She's got quite a tough streak behind her laidback smile, showing that she never quite lost the toughness from her old rebellious youth.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: At the start of their relationship, Ine was closed off and distant from Shouzou. Over time, as he proves his kindness is genuine, she opens up to him.
• Super-Reflexes: In the manga, when Ine and Kaede make dinner, she is quick enough to murder a cockroach (along with its pixilated remains) with a newspaper.
• Uptown Girl: She came from a rich and influential family, way too out of Shouzou's league as the son of a farmer family.

Yoshiaki Saitou

Voiced by: Kazuyuki Okitsu

The firstborn son of Shouzou and Ine Saitou. He's also the husband of Kaede and the father of Mino.

• Former Teen Rebel: When he worries that Mino might become a delinquent, Ine points out that he was worse when he was younger (being in a street gang and having a pompadour). When it dawns on him, he apologizes to his parents.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Unlike his parents and wife, he doesn't know that his daughter has a crush on a boy.
• Parental Hypocrisy: Yoshiaki vents to his parents about the possibility of Mino becoming a delinquent and agonizing about it, only for Ine to point out his own worse delinquent past.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Subverted with Shouzou, but he seems to get his looks from his paternal grandfather.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Played with. Yoshiaki is a middle-aged man with the expected stern demeanor compared to his now youthful and more jovial father, Shouzou.

Kaede Saitou

Voiced by: Tomo Sakurai

The wife of Yoshiaki and mother of Mino. She works as a nurse.

• Eyes Always Shut: She's rarely seen with her eyes open.
• Rescue Romance: Played for Laughs. Her husband is a Former Teen Rebel, and they both met when she help patches him up after a bad fight.
• Shared Family Quirks: She and Mino really like handsome idol types.

Mino Saitou

Voiced by: Shiori Mikami

The daughter of the Saitou couple's first son, Yoshiaki. Mino is a happy-go-lucky girl.

• Cannot Spit It Out: She clearly has an interest in Shouta, but has difficulty making a move on him.
• Generation Xerox: To her grandmother, Ine, regarding her mutual crush with Shouta. She's later shown to be Happily Married to him in the Distant Finale, and like her grandparents, she and Shouta would also gain the Fountain of Youth upon seeing a golden apple sprouted by the tree they planted in their school years.
• Genki Girl: Always a bundle of energy and adores her grandparents.
• Happily Married: In the Distant Finale of the series, she and Shouta are married well up to their elderly age.
• Hidden Buxom: She's quite busty underneath her clothing, as seen during the Beach Episode. This is offhandedly remarked by Ine when seeing this.
• Highschool Sweethearts: Implied Given their mutual crush and they're were on First-Name Basis with at the finale. Also getting married in the Distant Finale.
• School Idol: She's regarded as a trendy girl at her school.
• Shared Family Quirks: Like her grandmother, Mino fell for a Nice Guy who is similar to her grandfather.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: With her cousin, Shiori.

Takahiro Saitou

Voiced by: Masahiro Yamanaka

The secondborn son of Shouzou and Ine Saitou. He's a doctor and the father of Shiori.

• Karmic Jackpot: Despite knowing he really hasn't done anything to deserve it, he feels his parent's turning young is this for his entering the medical field, especially as it eliminated his mother's liver cancer.
• Momma's Boy: He's very close to his mother, and the knowledge of her having cancer is what drove him to go into the medical field in the first place.

Shiori Saitou

Voiced by: Nao Tōyama

The daughter of the Saitou couple's second son, Takahiro. Shiori is an introverted and socially inept girl.

• Birds of a Feather: She feels attracted to Satoshi mainly for their goal of becoming doctors to repay their grandparents' kindness.
• Freudian Slip: When seeing how well their respective grandparents bond when meeting for the first time, Shiori asks Satoshi if they'll act the same way as an old married couple. Cue both of them having a Delayed Reaction regarding the implications, with Shiori quickly stating that she didn't mean it like that.
• Generation Xerox:
  • To her grandmother, Ine, regarding her growing crush on Satoshi.
  • To her father, she decided to become a doctor because of her grandparents' kindness.
• That Came Out Wrong: When Shiori realizes the implications of telling Satoshi about them becoming a Happily Married couple like their respective grandparents, she flusters by stating that she meant as an "example".
• Tsundere:
  • Non-romantically, she blurts out her true feelings about caring for her grandparents but quickly tells them to forget she said anything. Shouzou even overhears how much she cares about them, and starts bawling his eyes out.
  • The story has her being attracted to Satoshi, whose grandparents also suddenly turned young, and he wanted to discover how it's possible. She even asks Ine how to cook so that she can cook for him, but denies that happening. Episode 9 has her being visibly annoyed by him talking about the town's local legend, and she begins to notice.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: With her cousin, Mino.
• Shared Family Quirks: She seems to have some of Ine's old personality traits. Also, like her grandmother and cousin, she developed a crush on a Nice Guy who is similar to her grandfather.
• Ship Tease: The story teases the idea that she has an attraction to Satoshi.

Akemi Nakata

Voiced by: Masumi Asano

The only daughter of the Satiou couple who lives in Tokyo. She has three children and is a grandmother herself.

• My Greatest Failure: Downplayed. She feels some regret living so far away in Tokyo and constantly wonders about Ine's health and wonders if she hates her.

Shōta Igarashi

Voiced by: Junta Terashima

The second grandson of Heisuke, and a classmate of Mino.

• Academic Athlete: According to Mino, he's great in academics and sports.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Shouta has difficulty expressing his interest in Mino.
• Generation Xerox: Despite being the grandson of Ine's previous suitors, Shouta is similar to Mino's grandfather, Shouzou. They're both second-born sons who yearn for a girl who's perceived to be above them in social status and holds deep feelings of inferiority as a worthy partner. They even share similar hairstyles whereas Shouta's older brother resembles their grandfather in his youth. He's later shown to be Happily Married to her in the Distant Finale, and like Mino's grandparents, he and Mino would also gain the Fountain of Youth upon seeing a golden apple sprouted by the tree they planted in their school years.
• Happily Married: In the Distant Finale of the series, he and Mino are married well up to their elderly age.
• Insecure Love Interest: He has a crush on Mino, but finds her way out of his league despite being just as popular in their school.
• Scary Teeth: His teeth are drawn to look razor sharp, but he's a good kid.
• Tragic Keepsake: Implied, as the blue and white cap that he wears in the Distant Finale might've belonged to the late Shouzou as a memento.
• Vicariously Ambitious: On the receiving end of this by his grandfather, Heisuke, who intends to set him up with Ine's granddaughter, Mino, as a way to make up for his own failure of winning Ine's heart in the past. Luckily, Shouta and Mino do have mutual feelings for each other, and the Saitou couple (mostly Shouzou) is also on board with them getting together.

Satoshi Takahashi

Voiced by: Shohei Kajikawa

A senior classmate of Shiori, who's also studying to get into the medical department.

• Generation Xerox: Similar to Shouta, Satoshi is one to Shiori's grandfather, Shouzou. They both share messy relationships with their parents and have easygoing and nice personalities, leading a girl with a Sugar-and-Ice Personality to fall for them.
• Raised by Grandparents: After a messy divorce between his parents, he was taken into custody by his grandparents. His grandparents restored youth to the point where they lack the white/gray coloring of their former age compared to the Saitou couple implying that Satoshi is much closer to them than his parents.
• Outside-Context Problem: His introduction to the series proves that whatever gave the Saitou couple their restored youth isn't unique to them.

Haijime and Setsu Takahashi

Voiced by: (Haijime) Nobuyuki Hiyama

Voiced by: (Setsu) Yuu Kobayashi

Satoshi's grandparents. Like Shiori's grandparents, they also mysteriously turned young.

• Antagonistic Offspring: Implied. They don't seem to be in contact with their child after their child's messy divorce and leaving Satoshi abandoned.
• Commonality Connection: They instantly hit it off with the Saitou couple and act as old friends for having similar personalities and shared status as an elderly couple mysteriously turning young. Shiori even lampshades how quickly they open up to each other.
• Happily Married: Just like the Saitou couple, both Haijime and Setsu have a strong love and marriage.
• Foil: To the Saitou couple. Both are elderly couples who are Happily Married and mysteriously became young again. While the Saitou's work as farmers in the countryside and still have their white hair from aging, the Takahashi's have a different occupation (Haijime as a police officer and Setsu as a former waitress) and have their original hair colors restored. Unlike the Saitou couple's close-knit family, the Takahashi's took it upon themselves to raise their only grandson after a messy divorce concerning their child and their ex-spouse, and don't seem to have any friends to talk to. Lastly, while the Saitou couple eventually passed away happily in their sleep, the Takahashi's are implied to be still living until they're eventually satisfied by their grandson being happy.
• Friendless Background: Implied. According to Satoshi, they don't have anyone to relate to regarding their recent Fountain of Youth status.
• Good Parents: To their only grandson, Satoshi.
• Outside-Context Problem: While not exactly a problem for the Saitou couple (barring the challenges between them regarding which of the husbands loves their wives the most), the fact that there's another elderly couple with a restored youth shows that whatever happened to the Saitou's isn't unique to them.
• Promoted to Parent: Or "Promoted Back To Parent" in their case, as they raised Satoshi after the messy divorce between their child and their child's ex-spouse. For Satoshi's part, he clearly sees his grandparents as his parents in place of his original parents. It's heavily implied that the Takahashi couple's rejuvenated forms (where they also regained their original hair color) reflect that.
• Too Much Alike: While Ine and Setsu got along great at first, their similar personalities and love for their husbands soon devolve into a contest that causes a conflict. It took Matsunosuke to call them out on it, as their love for their husbands and vice versa shouldn't be compared.
• Shipper on Deck: They clearly approve of Shiori dating their grandson, much to the embarrassment of both teens.