All I can see is…

Go watch "Now and Then, Here and There", then just try and come back here with that "Oh, no story that contains Kid Heroes could ever possibly be grimdark and hardcore" pretension.

There are only three people in the group younger than mid-adolescence (and on that not, how is that a "so many" warranting number?) and they are put through the wringer just as much as the adults.

I'm talking full-frontal and uncensored nudity, homelessness and social ostracizing, being forced to murder in cold blood, suffering disfiguring or crippling injury and explicit PTSD, and being on the receiving end of serious threats of torture and rape.

Honestly the fact that children are active members of this crew, and thus subject to the same dangers, makes the story far more grizzly, not less.