Few things happen in a vacuum. Life loves aberrations, but it also loves repetition. If something happened somewhere, you can bet it happened elsewhere. In Grandpa & Grandma Turn Young Again episode 8, this is the episode’s focus.
Time’s a Flat Circle
As Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again episode 8 kicks off, Shiori stumbles into something peculiar. Someone else seems to be interested in age reversion. When she inquired about it, she’d been told that people in the region have been sporadically reverting to a younger age for centuries. Realizing that Satoshi’s interest in the topic might be due to more than just curiosity, she continues to chat with him until it’s revealed that his own grandparents have turned young again. And they did so by eating a golden apple.
While he initially believes that Shiori will just let the topic go, he’s got another thing coming. Fun fact: the people who actually cover up information on cryptids and UFOs use this exact same tactic. There’s no need to intimidate people into keeping quiet. Just let others ridicule them, and that in and of itself obscures information.
But tinfoil hat speculation aside. With this revelation, the story deepens. Until now, the speculation was that the Saitou’s bridal tree was responsible for their age regression. But if it’s a phenomenon happening elsewhere, that leads to the question, how?
An Apple A Day
Stories about revitalizing youth abound throughout history. Legends like the Fountain of Youth have long captured the hearts of explorers. Some stories even attribute the discovery of Florida to a misadventure by Juan Ponce de León while he was searching for the fountain of youth.
Unfortunately for Ponce de León, if he wanted to be forever 25, he was searching on the wrong side of the world. And he was looking for the wrong thing. But barring supernatural or paranormal explanations, can a golden apple in life keep old age away? Maybe. If somehow, an apple induces gene transfer and those genes somehow supercharge the body into repairing itself, it could work.
Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again Episode 8: Time Is Not An Assurance & Wrap-Up
As the rejuvenated couples fight about who’s the better couple (a pointless endeavor if there ever was one), a few things stand out. In both Ine and Shouzou’s cases, their hair stays silver when they are in their young form. Aging leads to grey hair because, as we age, the number of melanocytes in our hair decreases. The fewer melanocytes we have, the less pigment we have. This lack of pigment creates an optical illusion that makes hair appear grey. While, for the most part, this decrease is due to age, other factors can cause it. Because of this, we can conclude that Ine and Shouzou are just older than the other grandparents, as their hair color reverts to that of their youth.
As Grandpa & Grandma Turn Young Again episode 8 draws to a close, we’re shown another reminder of how fleeting your time seems to have been when you reach the end of it. With Shiori asking Ine to teach her how to cook (so she can impress Satoshi), Grandma realizes that she will most likely never see her granddaughter be a bride. Age is only important when dealing with dairy products, spirits, or ales. Anything outside of that, and the importance of age becomes moot. But, important or not, it does nothing to lessen the issue of longevity.
It’s the belief of society that we have to work hard while we’re young to enjoy our golden years. But an average lifespan of 70 means just that, “average.” A lot of people meet the reaper way before the golden years come. Yet, most people give little thought to how little life lasts. It’s not an endurance race to the end. If anything, life’s like a banana. You buy it while it’s still relatively green; you get home and set it down for 0.087 seconds; and then when you pick it up, it’s a brown and mushy mass.
Screenshots via Crunchyroll
©Kagiri Araido, KADOKAWA/ Grandma and Grandpa Rejuvenate Production Committee
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