Character Features

1.) Hairs – Anime hairs come in many styles, shades and colors. A good amount of anime characters have pointy hair styles which looks kinda cool. Hair can go from normal to far extreme, either way it’s always fun. Sub note: You will see some characters where the hair disappears behind the characters eyes or just goes way and reappears under the eye. This is used to make it easier not to redraw the face when the character blinks etc.

2.) Waist – The waist is always very slim, small and tiny – For female characters. Male characters will vary but also are in some, slim, small and tiny as well.

3.) Legs – Legs as the waist is very hmm nice slim and take up, on some characters, 3/4’s of the body.

Eyes – There are two main type of eyes in anime. Anime characters with small eyes are usually serious, pretty or good looking. Large eyes can usually be found on a cute, childish or playful anime character. Big eyes, even large, giant eyes are characteristic features of anime characters that is very frequent. The general reason for this is that eyes are seen as a window into the soul and the larger eyes are meant to give the viewer greater access to the character. Besides, those big eyes make many characters cuter.

Mouth – Characters’ mouth gets bigger when they are expressing something big or just shouting and gets smaller when they are talking softly about something or someone (probably bad things).

Bouncy, Bouncy – It’s not too hard to figure out what this is going to be about but for newbies let me some it up for you, the female breast in anime can defy the laws of gravity. Gainax I believe was the first to use this technique. This doesn’t mean all female characters display this characteristic just that they have this power if they feel it is needed, I guess you could say.

Super Deformed – If you either are new or old school fan of anime you will at some point run across a character that either is or changes to a super deformed character. A super deformed character is just a small version of the original character, sometimes child-like or silly, wacky. This normally occurs because of some emotional responds or meant to be funny. A good example would be Ah! my goddess series. You have the original series then you have the Adventures of Mini-goddess, which are meant to be funny.

Lots of Nudity – Anime can contain lots of nudity, the reason being is that to the Japaneses Culture nudity is no big deal. As it is over in Europe, Nudity is something common and nothing out of the ordinary.

Next would be more expressions than appearances but they work together because sometimes the expressions will change the appearance of the character’s physical appearance.

Giant Tear Drops – The tear drops can be small and multiply, as well as being, giant. They appear on the side or back of the heads of the character. Reasons vary why they show up it can be from embarrassed, pissed off, fear, nervous, or them being stupid. Sometimes they will grow bigger or smaller and run down the face or back of the head, but when the next shot and/or camera angle hits it will be gone.

Nose Bleeds – Nose bleeds happen to both female and male characters. I will go as far as to say it is more 99% male than female. Characters get nose bleeds when the site of the member of opposite sex shows too much skin and/or are seen naked. This happens to all characters but mostly are either complete perverts or virgins. Sub note: Sometimes the character faints due to the shock and/or loss of blood but recovers quickly.

The Blushing – When characters blush could be from many varied reasons such as: embarrassed, happy in love, and being drunk. Blushing sometimes will fill the whole face when embarrassed and most of the drunk and happy in love you’ll see little light blush marks under the eyes on the cheeks.

Crying Rivers – You will many different varies of crying. It will depend on the situation, some will do the few tear drops which are easily wiped away and thrown, then you’ll see some big long streams of tears down the face about an inch thick – the path sometimes is straight or can do a zigzag pattern. Then you will see characters cry so big where is is like a hose is put under the eye then turned on and the water flys out of the eyes and disappears before it hits the ground in most cases.

Pulsating, Bulging, Blood Vessels – This is common when the character is stressed out, angry, frustrated, or over exertion. You will see blood vessels appear either big or small depending on the character’s mood and can grow in size if the cause continues. They do not always appear on the head, you sometimes will see it happen on the hand or other body parts but either hand or head is the most common.

Mouth Expansion – Characters mouths can easily grow bigger or wider than the face itself. Most of the time this happens when shouting and/or mischievous smile.

Nose Bubbles – The nose bubbles will indicate that the character is sleeping and will always pop when they become awake.

Peace Sign – The peace sign, doesn’t really mean peace in the anime world it is for “I did it” or “I made it” every once in a while it will mean peace.

Sneezing – When a character sneezes it means someone is talking about them behind their back.

Here is just a small Misc list of information.

Cute – If it’s cute, Its Deadly! Many creatures and people in Japanese Animation that are cute are almost among the most powerful in the story. Take for example Ryo-ohki, a creature that looks like a rabbit and meows like a cat. She may look harmlessly cute, but don’t let that fool you. Ryo-ohki has the capability to transform into a spaceship with enough firepower to level mountains. I shudder to think what a Care Bear would do in a Japanese Animation world.

Skirt – Skirt peeks a plenty. If there is a girl wearing a skirt, we will see her panties, and if she is in battle, her shirt will rip off, wearing a bra only if show is aimed at those under the age of 20. If the girl transforms her outfit, such as when they go into battle, what she was wearing rips off leaving the her temporally nude and is then clothed into a new outfit.

Face Fall – Face fault is a term used when a character is so shocked by a comment or action they fall down, usually face first. Face faults are normally reserved for the humorous Anime shows like Ranma 1/2.

Dimensional Objects – In many comedies, especially romantic ones, when a female gets upset at a guy, normally ones they are in love with, she pulls a large hammer or mallet out of nowhere and hits him with it.