If you watched anime for a great enough time and had a larger knowledge of a lot of the best titles (which I don't myself but I've seen it) yes you could distinguish between them. There's a great deal of individuality to anime character designs.
I put it to you a Japanese person could identify 80% of the anime characters in a silhouette chart such as that. However if you showed that chart you posted to most of the young teens in America, due to not growing up with a lot of these characters, they would go blank. Hey, maybe I'm wrong though. I just think it's possible.
If you watched anime for a great enough time and had a larger knowledge of a lot of the best titles (which I don't myself but I've seen it) yes you could distinguish between them. There's a great deal of individuality to anime character designs.
I grew up on anime. My mother was a Taiwanese weeaboo (And she still avidly watches anime and reads manga). My mom read black jack and doraemon to me instead of typical children's storybooks to go to sleep. I regularly go to anime cons along with most of my friends around me. I'm pretty familiar with the japanese cartooning culture. I can definitely tell the difference between different characters, but I still know that the overall design of the character is more often than not all that original.
I put it to you a Japanese person could identify 80% of the anime characters in a silhouette chart such as that. However if you showed that chart you posted to most of the young teens in America, due to not growing up with a lot of these characters, they would go blank.
This isn't about cultural identification but rather design diversity. Japanese cartoon designs aren't all that diverse nowadays. Back in the early days, they tended to be, but now they're all pretty similar to each other.
And to be clear once again, I'm not trying to side with a specific side, I'm just pointing out an observation.
Hmm, all right, I think you do have a point. I agree that American cartoon designs are more diverse then. I also realized I completely used a crap argument in my last post, specifically on American kids going blank. That's an issue of knowledge diversity, not design diversity, so I was wrong.
I can identify about half.
I'd be curious about one done with anime/manga characters. It's my belief that they can be extremely different in build and stuff. Plus a lot of the ones in the American one are not human, if you include non-human anime/manga characters, too...
I mean Doraemon and Astroboy look totally different for instance. Sure they're kinda old but not as old as Mickey Mouse, that you included.
EDIT: for fun, here are my guesses:
First row:
Mickey Mouse, Daffy Duck, one of the flintstones guys maybe?, don't know, Bart Simpson, I guess Spongebob, Felix?, Beep-beep
Second row:
Marge Simpson, don't know, Stewie Griffin, Popeye, don't know, I think a snoopy character, Bugs Bunny, Tinkerbell, don't know
What I find interesting is that if the guesses are true, there are some I do know among those I didn't recognise. So they're not that recognisable. At least to me.
I do agree the styles vary a lot (look at Mickey vs Pinky & The Brain, they're mice but look different), so your point is still proven. The individual characters aren't necessarily completely unique though. Actually, I think it's possible that if you take one specific show and put all the characters in silhouette, the anime ones would be more differentiated from one another than the cartoon ones.
I realise that has little to do with the original point. Just something that came to mind.
My friend once showed me this thing where someone edited out the characters' hairs on Inuyasha and made them all bald and I couldn't tell anyone apart except for the little kid and critter. I had no idea what was going on in the episode. Granted, maybe if I liked Inuyasha it would be easier, but that was some mighty confusion. "Hey wasn't this character over there?"
I missed three of these. Casper just threw me off, I thought that Bugs was Wile E. Coyote, and Mojo Jojo's cape complicated the silhouette enough to make it too difficult for me to tell.
Whereas if you used anime characters, you would have a much harder time trying to figure out who's who and most often than not, the deciding factor of the character's individuality is the shape of their hair. That said, different artists DO have differing art styles, and I don't deny that. However, American cartoons generally have a greater amount of variety in design.
There's a large bit of variety of design in anime.
Here's an example of 5 popular anime characters that can easily be identified by silhouette:
I'm not trying to say there's only 5 examples, as there's tons more. It's just that I don't have Photoshop. I had to black it all out pixel by pixel and it was becoming tedious. :eek:
Try Paint.Net or GIMP instead. They're legally free and far more powerful than Paint. They don't replace Photoshop in professional applications, but they're perfectly fine for personal use.
I think we would need to use human characters in modern(currently running) american and Japanese animation for the most equal comparison.
Wow, those character silhouettes are pretty cool. I got almost all the ones I'd seen or heard of before, even if I've never actually watched the show. Shows how iconic a good character design can be.
If someone is making a complete anime silhouette thing make sure to also include Radical Edward, Doraemon, some Digimon characters, Shin-chan, Luffy, Super Milk Chan, and maybe Kimba or something. Hell maybe even Naruto is distinguishable by silhouette because of his baggy outfit.
Oh, so he IS the nosehair guy!
I thought that might be him but I couldn't see flowing nosehair and I wasn't sure what the bump was. Only saw his picture once before though so I'm not too surprised.
EDIT: or is the nosehair guy someone else? It's hard to tell since as I said I only saw him once.
Either way, yeah, not familiar with the character or series.
Comments
I put it to you a Japanese person could identify 80% of the anime characters in a silhouette chart such as that. However if you showed that chart you posted to most of the young teens in America, due to not growing up with a lot of these characters, they would go blank. Hey, maybe I'm wrong though. I just think it's possible.
I grew up on anime. My mother was a Taiwanese weeaboo (And she still avidly watches anime and reads manga). My mom read black jack and doraemon to me instead of typical children's storybooks to go to sleep. I regularly go to anime cons along with most of my friends around me. I'm pretty familiar with the japanese cartooning culture. I can definitely tell the difference between different characters, but I still know that the overall design of the character is more often than not all that original.
This isn't about cultural identification but rather design diversity. Japanese cartoon designs aren't all that diverse nowadays. Back in the early days, they tended to be, but now they're all pretty similar to each other.
And to be clear once again, I'm not trying to side with a specific side, I'm just pointing out an observation.
That depresses me.
I'd be curious about one done with anime/manga characters. It's my belief that they can be extremely different in build and stuff. Plus a lot of the ones in the American one are not human, if you include non-human anime/manga characters, too...
I mean Doraemon and Astroboy look totally different for instance. Sure they're kinda old but not as old as Mickey Mouse, that you included.
EDIT: for fun, here are my guesses:
First row:
That's quite neat how you identify the roadrunner with Beep-Beep.
My best guesses:
Mickey, Daffy, Fred, Ren & Sitmpy, Bart Simpson, Spongebob, Felix, Roadrunner
Marge, Bobo, Stewie, Popeye, Mr Crabs, Charlie Brown, Early Bugs Bunny, Wilma, Mighty Mouse
Bullwinkle , Odie, Goofy, Squidworth, Dexter, Snoopy, (this one's tough), Olive Oil, Pink Panther
Betty Boop, Arnlod, (um?), (Don't know the names, but they're educational characters), Tazmanian Devil, Bobby, Pinky & the Brain, Marvin the martian
Mickey Mouse, Daffy Duck, Fred Flintstone, Ren and Stimpy, Bart Simpson, Spongebob, Felix, Roadrunner
Marge Simpson, Yogi Bear, Stewie Griffin, Popeye, Mr. Krabs, Charlie Brown, Bugs Bunny, Wilma Flintstone, Mighty Mouse
Bullwinkle, Odie, Goofy, Squidward, Dexter, Snoopy, Mojo Jojo, Olive Oyl, Pink Panther
Betty Boop, Arnold, (don't know), Sherman and Peabody, Taz, Bobby, Pinky and the Brain, Marvin the Martian
I do agree the styles vary a lot (look at Mickey vs Pinky & The Brain, they're mice but look different), so your point is still proven. The individual characters aren't necessarily completely unique though. Actually, I think it's possible that if you take one specific show and put all the characters in silhouette, the anime ones would be more differentiated from one another than the cartoon ones.
I realise that has little to do with the original point. Just something that came to mind.
Also, even in many individual shows, the characters still stand out in the silhouettes. Chowder is a great example of this.
I should've known that. :mad:
Here's an example of 5 popular anime characters that can easily be identified by silhouette:
I'm not trying to say there's only 5 examples, as there's tons more.
I think we would need to use human characters in modern(currently running) american and Japanese animation for the most equal comparison.
PS. who's the dude before Sailor Moon?
Yeah, he's the one I'm not recognising either, although I suspect I'm just not familiar with him.
I thought that might be him but I couldn't see flowing nosehair and I wasn't sure what the bump was. Only saw his picture once before though so I'm not too surprised.
EDIT: or is the nosehair guy someone else?
Either way, yeah, not familiar with the character or series.