>>54049485Mallow (in the anime at least) always seemed like they aged down her appearance to look around the same as Ash or at least to not look significantly older than him, Lana and Lillie. In the games Mallow has dialogue that strongly hints that she's in her late teens because she states that her time as a trial captain is ending soon and that trial captains are supposed to retire once they're 20.
As far as I know, hebe characters are supposed to be/look like preteens which I think Anime Mallow fits under. I think Lana and Acerola are ambiguous on the line between loli and hebe but that may be because they could be petite rather than being "true lolis" as there aren't any hints to how old they are other than the blanket trial captain 11-19 age requirement. I think it's stated in the games that Lillie and Selene are both 10 or 11 which is right on the borderline as I know it. Ultimately I don't really care though, I like them all and a fuckton of other characters the same regardless of whether they're hebes, lolis, milfs, hags or something else in between. People tend to use loli as a catch all term for younger looking characters even if it's technically incorrect in some circumstances.
