Yup, Sanzo's only 23 and your boy Hakkai is only 22. Sanosuke from RK is only 19. I'm totally discounting all the child prodigies that randomly show up in anime too. Anime just has no regard for age most of the time.

And I understand the falling fast and hard for an anime. Generally I have to warm up to one (and SC was actually one of those), but there are just some that have me from day one. Trigun was one of those. So was Witch Hunter Robin (seriously, if you love understated yet very obvious romantic tension, this series is for you). Another was GetBackers.