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I know this is an old argument, but I'm going to toss in my two cents:

The main answer given for this one is that Hiei could be anything under 100 years old, since koorime breed once every 100 years and Yukina, his twin, has no children. That didn't ever really make much sense to me, though, because of a couple of things -- for one, that the koorime are an insular society and aren't allowed to leave their island. Can anyone say overpopulation?

Especially if the island is only as big as it shows in the anime (which is the only place I can think of to give us a rough scale), and given that they reproduce asexually, there'd be overflow in an incredibly short time. There are no wars. They have no (or extremely few) predators because they live in the freaking sky, and are, according to Hiei's backstory, incredibly hard to find. There's no sign in the series that they suffer from excessive disease, that they have a horrendous accident rate, that they rampantly abort fetuses, or that they kill and eat each other. Forget insufficient resources; unless they don't unerringly breed every 100 years each -- and unless the failure rate is absolutely appalling -- they just plain wouldn't have enough space.

I figure there has to be a cap on both ends -- that the koorime have an age of adulthood (breeding age) above 100, and an age where they cease breeding altogether. I also figure they probably don't live as long as most demons -- not much over 1000, perhaps. My theory goes that they don't begin breeding until 300, they stop at 600, and they die of old age at around 900-1000. My amateur mental mathematics says this might actually keep their population stable, but I'm open to adjustments to make it more plausible.

This speculation could make Hiei anywhere under 300 years old -- and if he's in the 100-200 range, that would explain why he looks so physically young. I've always thought he appeared ten or twelve minus the muscled physique, although I could be wrong about that.

Thoughts?

Sixteen? confused Can you give me links to confirm this?

Yes, people can be banished, but it's a big deal. As far as I understand, normally it's the other way around -- they aren't allowed to leave, so it doesn't make too much sense to assume they throw people out to keep their numbers down. And doing something bad enough to get banished is probably uncommon; Hina committed the ultimate no-no by running off and dallying with a fire demon, and then had a freaking son, and then begged to be banished, and even all of that didn't get her thrown out. Falling off of the island probably happens, but you'd think they'd have safeguards against it, or at least that it would be the first thing they'd teach young koorime to avoid.

As for infant mortality rate and the koorime having only one child apiece -- I'd want sources for that too. It doesn't make sense to just assume that.

To sum, I'm not convinced.

Yes, but you realize all demons look younger than they really are. For instance, Inuyasha (foreigner! Get out of the Yu Yu FORUM!!!) is 200, but he appears 16-18. Or even Kurama, in both forms, he looks no older than 20, but from my sources, he's about 800 years old. Maybe we should use Hiei's personality to determine how old he is with Chinese astrology and horoscopes!! (i'm a new-age freak... sweatdrop )

Right. But even Yoko looks like a teenager! Once again... 800 years old! HOLY CRAP!!! KURAMA FANGIRLS GO FOR PEDIPHILES!!!!! O.O!!!

why would they be pediphiles? They don't go for kids YOUNGER than them, unless they're middle-aged. I'm talking about the teenage fangirls, and Youko/Kurama in general is hundreds of years older than them. Therefore, HE is the pediphile.

Isn't Suichi's body 15 when the show begins? I don't have any proof, I seem to remember that random fact from the show/anime, however Yoko looks much older, maybe 20, though I've heard he's over 300 years old, not 800. But I don't have any evidence for that either. sweatdrop I figure Hiei's age is one of those demon-age mysteries that we'll NEVER figure out--like how old is Sesshomaru? We can guess, but only Yoshihiro Togashi can confirm, in my opinion.

Going on his personality, I'd say (in human years) AT LEAST 19. But now that I think about it, you guys are right that he and Yukina seem to be young. I mean, look at the other Koorime, they're TALL, and they just look older. True, we don't have any Koorime men to reference Hiei to, but still, Yukina looks like a child compared to her mother. (Though if you remember Yukina when she WAS a child, she looks a lot older now.)

*shakes fist* Stupid dub, they always get their information wrong. Your theory makes a lot more sense than anything else I've heard, especially considering Koorime can only breed every 100 years.

^^ I never thought about how little they looked, especially with Hiei's attitude, but the more I think about it, the more I can see what you mean. They look young even when not compared to the older Koorime. ^^

Well, you'd have to know how many Koorime there are, and how long they live.
Because if there are 500 of them and each lives 1000 years and has ten kids over that span, and none or few of them die from unnatural causes, then they would be overgrown with demons. Each Koorime has 10 kids, and each of those kids has a kid, who has a kid...counting over a span of 1000 years...That's about 88,000 children in 1000 years...which is quite a bit for that small little island.
I got that figure by counting one family of Koorime, ten kids for one Koorime, and each of those kids could have as many kids as 100s of years they were alive in the 1000 year span. So, the kid born fifth could only have five kids herself in 1000 years, you follow? Then I multiplied that by 500. I think that's right....

But if they only have 50 or so people and live only 500 years...that's only 5 children each, which would be 4,375 kids in 500 years, assuming each Koorime would have her fifth child before/upon death. (But that's including the children's children's children...same logic as the problem above.)
Also we'd have to know at what age Koorime begin to spawn...whether it's at the end of their first hundred years of life, or what.

Basically, without all those really important factors, we can't really say if they would be able to survive. Ironically, if the species keeps growing and the Koorime only die from old age, there would come a point where they could no longer fit on the island.

Even if there were 5 Koorime on the island that lived for 200 years, that would be ten kids in 200 years. Then take into account that half of those kids would have one kid each in the 100 years left of the allotted time...That's 15 kids in 200 years, which equals 20 total Koorime, but then 5 of them would die at the end of 200 years, which means 15 Koorime left, and that's basically a growth of 75% every 200 years, and the death rate is only 25% every 200 years, which equals out to 50% increase every 200 years. Which is quite a bit of an increase for that little island, especially considering there are most certainly more than 10 Koorime on the island and they definitely don't die after only 200 years.

But that's only if my math is correct, and it probably isn't. ^^