The anime Darling in the Franxx includes several flashback scenes to the pilot's early childhood. The flashbacks imply that they occur sequentially, and are over a short period, but the children seem to age significantly between them (Episode 11, I think).
It seemed as if they went from kindergarten age to older pre-teens almost mid scene. Later on, one of the pilots ages rapidly due to battle stress. They are shown to be visibly aged, including having gray hair, and it was remarked upon by other characters that they had aged.
My interpretation of this was that the pilots did not live normal human lifespans, and that part of the process that was used to turn them into pilots included artificially aging them. Or possibly that they designed\engineered to age rapidly.
Is there anything in canon to support this, or am I just misinterpreting what I've seen?
