Why do the human characters in Japanese anime have such huge eyes? If the animators are trying to make their characters’ eyes seem more… western, then this raises two disturbing questions:
What’s the deal?
This has been covered before, but, like yourself, I’m too lazy use the search engine.
Here’s a hint: Japanese dolls also have big eyes. Always have had them.
Never having seen what you are talking about I can only guess. Eyes are what most make something seem alive. Cover the eyes on any photo and you lose the entire sense of a mind or spirit being behind it.
I forget whose quote this is: “The eye you see is not an eye because you see it, it is an eye because it sees you”.
Another thing I can tell you from experience is that most Asians find larger western eyes very attractive and what you say may be an exageration of that. After all, cartoons are grossly distorted always.
I had a Chinese girlfriend and we would often stare into each other’s eyes and she would tell me she loved my eyes because they were so big and I couldn’t help thinking how beautiful her own eyes were. They were tiny compared to mine but it was the shape, the asian eyelids, that I loved. It seems many of us just like what we find exotic.
I’ve heard it said that the eyes are that way not to look western, but to make it easier to express emotion.
According to my former Japanese teacher, the Japanese tend to think that the big eyes are “cute”. Notice how much more exaggerated the eyes are on female characters.
If you think the eyes in anime are big, get a look at the eyes on the Powerpuff Girls.
There was once a children’s book titled Ookpik, about a penguin whose eyes were so big they’d make the anime eyes look like pinpoints. 
This has nothing to do with anime, but according to a guy who tried to pick me up at a bar, big eyes=likes to party.
:rolleyes:
Japanese or Westerners, we all find big eyes more attractive. Or big breasts. Or big …
Why are most black women in Africa have “natural” headhair and most black women in westernized world straighten out theirs?
Beauty standards, I guess. They change.
The reason that anime characters have such big 
eyes is all down to Betty Boop. Japanese animation started in the 30’s, and American cartoons were all they had to go by. American animation of the time had many of the same body features as does modern day anime/manga (big eyes, absurd expressions, ladies in short skirts, tears that go off like hosepipes). Just check out an old Hollywood cartoon and you’ll see what I mean
[rude tone]
Oh get a flaming clue!
Why do you think Micky Mouse has such big eyes grandma?
Why do you think that Main Street in Disneyland has 3/5 (or whatever downsized scale it is) architecture?
Why do you think that all of the costumed greeters at Disneyland have oversized heads and occular features?
Why the flock do you think babies, puppies, kittens and all other infant animals look so cute?
::droning on and on::
Any creature or image that depicts a specifically exaggerated head to body size and eye to head size triggers a very distinct neurological/biochemical response in most humans. This is why we go all sappy and gurgle over infants that we aren’t even related too.
It is a natural protective mechanism that we subconsciously respond to whether it manifests in Anime, Warner Brother cartoons or nature!
Please try to remember that most modern day producers are doing their best to manipulate you (and your emotions) like a pair of tweezers!
I implore you to merely take pleasure in what you are watching. Just like sausages, people who enjoy them should never watch them being made. So it is, as well, for Anime.
[/rude tone]
They aren’t, and, to the Japanese audience it’s intended for, they don’t appear so.
They don’t even look freekin’ HUMAN, let alone European.
They’re stylised to a ridiculous extent - this allows the viewers to fill the details in, to make them look like what they’re used to. Thus, to a western viewer, they’ll look western, to an Asian, they’ll look Asian.
To think, an anime thread, and I almost missed it.
Ok, to start with,
They’re not trying to make them have “western eyes.” The big eyes thing started off as Disney influence, and has kept up partially because that’s the way it’s always been done, (Why do all comic book artists draw just like Jack Kirby? Why do superheroes wear skintight costumes?) and partially because it’s fairly simple to draw, and partially because it’s a “good” style for conveing emotion.
Eyes, eybrows, and mouth are the “useful” parts of the face from a animation standpoint. (most anime characters eyes have a tiny “neutral” size, but gets bigger when emoting) The other facial features don’t move too much, so they’re tiny.
Amarican animators do the same thing by giving their cartoon characters hugely oversized heads.
Also, big eyes are considered attractive in Japan. (most other places, too) Japanese models and actors tend to have big eyes. And I’m not even going to point out that folds over eyes don’t make them smaller, they make them narrower. And big eyes give most people fluffy, protective urges, and a bunch of other reasons.
Though the doll thing is true, I’m don’t think it’s the major influence. If you look at classical Japanese paintings, silkscreens, and woodcarvings, most of them have pretty small eyes, though they tend to be very stylized.
That proabably should have tipped you off that they wern’t trying to draw caucasians. Caucasians usually don’t have huge spiky blue and purple hair, and shoulders 1.5 heads across, either. People in anime are very stylized, usually.
There are also a lot of different sub-styles of anime, not all of them have huge eyes. In the more realistic ones, (Santuary, GiTS) race is usually distingishable.
Who, BTW, look exactly like Junko Mizuno characters, who draws very cutsy shogo (girls) characters doing very disturbing things . . . That kind of blobish, absurdly cute design is pretty common in shogo comics.
By the way, this is one of the three questions that is pretty much garenteed to irritate an anime fan. It’s basically the eqivelent of asking “Why do american animators think animals can talk, live in houses, and have hands?”
(The other two are “Why are you still watching cartoons?” and “Anime? You mean that porn/pokemon stuff?”)
I think I preferred it back when the default reaction was porn . . .
–
“Ah, something else created by Satan, Japanimation!”
I'm with you, Sailor. My kids are Korean-born. I adore their eyes, find them lovely. Apparently getting one's eyes "done" is very popular in the Asian community. My son needed eye surgery when he was about 5. The Dr. asked if we wanted to " round his eyes" while he was operating. We were horrified, and both said, " NO " loudly. So, he did the surgery but didn't alter his eyes any in shape.
Equally sad are white or african people who are having their eyes " done " so that they have upswept eyes.
Cartooniverse
[Hi Jack]
Hey, anime maniacs:
Need your expertise here. What are the differences, if any, between anime, hentai ( sp?) and manga?
Also, what’s so cool about it? I have seen a few episodes of Dragon Ball Z and 1 or 2 movies and I think its O.K. I just don’t consider it good enough to justify its popularity. Or maybe I am just watching the wrong anime shows. :rolleyes:
[Bye Jack]
If we’re going to discuss “big-eyed” influences, how come nobody has mentioned Margaret Keane?
Margaret Keane was the artist who did those big-eyed waifs in the 60’s. They were very popular then, whatever you might think of them, and bear more than a passing resemblance to the style we are discussing. She’s still around painting sad, ridiculously saucer-eyed kids, too:
http://www.laeyeworks.com/noshock/news/keane_e.html
I don’t know the vintage of that image, but it would be typical of her whole career.
Whether intententional or not, note that the name of the teacher in “The Powerpuff Girls” is “Miss Keane”.
Anime is short for animation, and refers to animated TV, movies or videos. Manga usually refers to comic books. Hentai means “pervert.”
Well, I personally think that that kind of anime has pretty immature humor. And most anime is aimed at children. But there are plenty of anime which grownups can appreciate. Most movies by Hayao Miyazaki are great. I understand Princess Mononoke was released in the U.S. I personally preferred Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Kiki’s Delivery Service. Other than Miyazaki, if you want inane humor you might try the Ranma 1/2 series. For romantic comedy, possibly the Maison Ikkoku series. For science fiction, Akira is popular, though I personally don’t like it - too much blood and gore. Shin-seiki Evangelion series was insanely popular a couple of years ago too.
Yes, I realize this is an old thread. Came across it while looking for info on something else.
quote:
Also, what’s so cool about it? I have seen a few episodes of Dragon Ball Z and 1 or 2 movies and I think its O.K. I just don’t consider it good enough to justify its popularity.
DBZ is hardly a fair representation of the variety of anime out there. It’s repetitive and flat, and the battles get extended to absurdly long proportions. I watched part of the arc where Goku was fighting Freeza, who just destroyed the core of the planet (don’t remember which one). The planet was supposed to explode in five minutes b/c of that. The fight lasted for over a week of episodes, if I remember correctly. I got so sick of it I never watched any of the DB series again, and I had been watching it from the original Dragon Ball (where Goku was the little kid).
Saying you don’t see the appeal of anime because you’ve seen a few episodes of one show and maybe a movie or something is like saying you don’t understand why American animation is so popular because you’ve seen a few Mickey Mouse shorts and one of the Batman movies. They might not appeal to you even though a lot of people like them, but that’s hardly even a fraction of the material actually available for viewing (or even just the popular stuff). It really just depends on the types of entertainment you prefer in general, and it sounds like you haven’t watched any that’d actually be in your favored genre of entertainment.
That’s one theory. Another theory is that it’s because Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astro Boy drew all his characters that way. Mr. Tezuka is generally considered the father of modern anime.
BTW: I don’t care what anyone says. The only really Japanese looking characters in anime look like escapees from American WWII propoganda posters. I’d really like to know why this is.
This would seem to indicate that you think Japanese people actually look like WWII propaganda posters, if characters resembling such posters are the only ones you think look “really Japanese”.
I think it is worth noting that many anime characters shouldn’t look Japanese because they aren’t Japanese, they are aliens, inhabitants of fantasy worlds, or are members of various real-world non-Japanese ethnic groups. The ones who are meant to be real-world Japanese generally have light skin, dark hair, and dark eyes, just like real Japanese people. I don’t know what more you could expect from a highly stylized art form.