Forum - View topicAre rainbow hair/eye colors ruining anime?
|
Goto page 1, 2 Next |
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
FLMikeATT
 Posts: 58 |
|
||
|
This is a semi serious parody thread of the "Are big breasts ruining anime?" thread.
The title says it all. This is somewhat a pet peeve of mine. I'm really finicky with certain things regarding anime, and little things can turn me off of an anime no matter how good it is overall. This is one such thing. It's usually anime that has tons of characters with radically different hairy and eye colors, which is sometimes the most glaring between them. Sometimes it's just like "oh sea green haired girl says this", and "bright pink haired girl does that", and I'm wondering why I should care about them while being distracted by the bright rainbow colors of their hair and eyes. I'll give an example of when it bothered me to the point of quitting and when I didn't really care about it. I didn't care about it when watching Tenchi, which depending on the OAV or TV series, features 4-5 of the main characters having blue/purple/green/pink etc hair. I tried to watch the first episode of Kaze no Stigma the other day, and ended up turning it off not even midway through because I was annoyed at the 3 girls in the beginning and their dumb bright pink and purple hair. Is this just me being finicky, or does this annoy other people as well? Can we attribute the rainbow hair to the fact that Japan is a homogeneous country, and they compensate for their sameness? |
|||
|
|||
DonQuigleone
 Posts: 154 Location: Dublin, Ireland |
|
||
|
I don't think it's necessarily compensating (though individuals with weird hair or eye colours would probably be considered "exotic"). I think it's more down to a show wanting to differentiate their characters more easily, maybe the character designs are very similiar (a problem in many harem shows and others with low budgets) or sometimes it's more cultural than that (I know there is something significant about white hair). Hair colours in anime are more mundane on average these days then they used to be(usually being reserved for alien characters and so forth), so I can't see it being too much of an issue
It's never turned me off, though I could see how newer fans could be |
|||
|
|||
Shadowrun20XX
 Posts: 1936 Location: Vegas |
|
||
|
It's part of their culture,that and having raven black hair.It also coincides with certain elements and feelings.Anime 101.It does get out of hand though.
|
|||
|
|||
|
FLMikeATT
Posts: 58 |
|
||
And it seems to me, contrary to your post, that the widly different hair colors seems to be on the incline rather than decline. And it certainly isn't just "alien characters and so forth". When I browse through titles in the encyclopedia and look at the one picture up which is usually of the main cast of characters, it seems like there's a staggering amount of the "rainbow haired syndrome" in slice of life, high school, and comedy anime. These seem to be the culprit most often although it's not just limited to that genre. Also, I'm definitely not what you would call a 'new' fan of anime. While I can't claim to have been watching anime 10+ years ago, I started around 8 or 9 years ago watching the afternoon block of Toonami. I would come home and watch Sailor Moon, Gundam, Ronin Warriors, and Dragonball every day after school. Those were the days. Now I have actual responsibilities lol. |
|||
|
|||
G.O.T.T. Eclair
 Posts: 18 Location: Einricht, Frankfurt |
|
||
|
IDK. Good question, my dad thought it was always weird seeing the characters not blink, nearly at all, unless their in Shock and Awe. But exotic hair? Anime hasn't seen anything till they've been to a rave... A big Rave
|
|||
|
|||
|
Monster in a box
Posts: 671 |
|
||
|
Rainbow colored hair and eyes are fantastic. They might seem out of place in certain shows, but overall I can't imagine why anyone would have an issue with the idea.
|
|||
|
|||
|
dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
|
||
|
I am of the opinion that it is strange that most Anime characters look like they are American or European. The skin colour is usually pale (but not too pale), the eyes often rounded instead of slanted (that is not a racial slur), the hair blonde. Or orange, Or worse. The eyes green, purple, pink, yellow, orange. Why do the Japanese have this style in their Anime, and Manga as well? Maybe you are right, and that the exotic appeals to them. Maybe someone started doing it, and everyone merely copied. Maybe it is easier to draw that way, though I don't see how.
It's not ruining Anime per se, but it is a symptom of a wider issue. Yes, I am linking Moe into this. Recently, Anime seems to be less about actual characters that people sympathise and emote with, and more about the drawing in viewers (I hesitate to call them fans) who want eye candy. As in, "let's depict a wide variety of girls, so that a potential viewer can find the girl of their dreams". Look at the cast of Negima. Thirty-one girls, was it? The only way (or at least the quickest) to differentiate between many of the girls is to look at the hair. All of them were there to attract viewers with their unique "style". You nuture a fetish for a girl with bells in her hair? Done. You find Aliens sexy? Done. You want a shy girl, so you can hold her hand? Done. Whether or not "rainbow" characters are becoming more prevalent, I don't know. But their raison d'etre nowadays is seemingly more to entice viewers with good looks and extreme shallowness, than to provide any depth (I am looking at Shuffle, which is unfair given its origins, but then why have those sorts of games in the first place? There you go). Hitomi from Escaflowne is often cited as an example of a girl who defies the stereotypes, who is more than just a one-theme girl. She is not there for guys to drool over, but instead is a well-developed mature young woman. Funnily enough, she has sensible brown hair and alluring (but not infeasible, if we ignore the fact that she is at least part-Japanese) green eyes*. I will admit that Boogiepop Phantom did the realism so well, it was to distinguish between some of the schoolgirls (especially the one shot girls). Oh dear, I went and got serious and "ranty" in a semi-parody thread. But honestly, I won't change my post. It took me too long to write it to change it now. [*This is a relief, since I have read that her character design initially specified a beautiful ditz with long hair. Luckily, someone had the nerve to change it, giving us the realistic girl we know and love. As a rare male who intensely dislikes any female characters which are there solely for the fanservice, I can only applaud.] |
|||
|
|||
|
arkady
Posts: 74 |
|
||
|
It certainly isn't "ruining anime," but it does look silly. You get used to it after a while, but it never makes sense.
|
|||
|
|||
|
Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
|
||
|
I like it personally, I wish those were real hair colors if anything. Keep in mind anime is generally "fantasy" of a sort.
|
|||
|
|||
Ardlien
 Posts: 59 |
|
||
|
Unrealistic colours can be used for good or evil. The proper raisins of debt would be akin to the lighting choices in a film. For example a character's home is bright, neat, colourful and that helps reflect that character's personality visually rather than being shown explicitly. The use of rainbow colours could and, I believe, should be used for that type of characterisation, but admittedly a majority of the chaff seems to have adopted it as simply a requirement for being anime.
|
|||
|
|||
Asian Guy
 Posts: 118 Location: ASIA - Land Of Anime - |
|
||
|
Amime hair colours other than black are just less than 2% of all the Anime characters [ not just the main characters ], so I don't see it affects Anime at all other than to bring more colour into the Anime itself. And to make it more fun when cosplaying as Anime characters aswell, seeing how any of us will stare at someone who look deferent than us even just the colour of their hair. I can not comment about the eyes part.
|
|||
|
|||
|
Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6896 Location: Kazune City |
|
||
|
I don't know, I really think "rainbow hair" syndrome has been on the decline since the 1990s. Back then you had a lot more shows that featured outrageous hair colors. These days it still happens, but you see more and more series that go for realistic, even "might-actually-be-Japanese" looks, such as Death Note, Shinigami no Ballad, Hantsuki, and True Tears. Even the girls of Azumanga Daioh had relatively normal hair colors.
Like big breasts, I've always thought of colorful hair as just "part of the territory" when it comes to anime, so I've never felt a ruinous effect. Actually, the hair trait that's more likely to annoy me is hair style, such as Miu in Piano or some of the girls of Stellvia. |
|||
|
|||
|
DonQuigleone
Posts: 154 Location: Dublin, Ireland |
|
||
|
When I said decline I meant more main stream shows ( take naruto and compare it to dragon ball z, most colours in naruto are more realistic, though you occasionally have reds or blondes but mostly. It's mostly visual novel adaptations that you have high numbers of weird hair colours (which is often due to a number of low number of character designs on the part of the original h game).
Personally I like Sayonara Zetsubou sensei's approach, they all have black hair, but every one has a unique hair style |
|||
|
|||
|
Lee1981
Posts: 109 |
|
||
|
I haven't noticed this being insanely common in a lot of the animes I've seen, but then again if its more prevalent to slice-of-life, high school drama, comedy, or harems, then that might be why, since I generally don't want to watch those kinds of shows anyway. A lot of times in animes where a character does have a weird hair color, it is often justified by the character's origin and what that character is.
In Elfen Lied, all of the characters have normal hair colors except for the diclonius characters and all of the diclonius have pink hair; therefore, diclonius for whatever reason have pink hair. In Now and Then Here and There, all of the characters have black hair and look Asian except for Lala Ru, who has blue hair. But Lala Ru isn't human so that could make it plausible that she has blue hair. In the Crest/Banner of the stars series, the human characters have normal hair colors and the Abh have blue hair; again, like the diclonius with their pink hair in Elfen Lied, the Abh just have blue hair and that's how you tell that they're Abh. In animes where human characters have weird hair colors, such as Area 88, where for whatever reason Ryoko Tsugumo has pink hair, then if I were to give that any thought, I might come to the conclusion that she just likes to dye her hair pink, just like some people in reality like to dye their hair green, pink, or blue for whatever reason. I've also seen non-anime examples where characters just have weird hair colors and no one ever brings it up or thinks anything of it, such as Polaris from X-Factor (well, she was on X-Factor when I collected the comics in the early to mid 1990s anyway), so it does happen in other media as well, even if it does at times seem prevalent in anime. But it doesn't bother me or ruin the anime and I generally don't even think about it. |
|||
|
|||
Cow-Boy_Be-Bop
 Posts: 670 Location: In front of the computer |
|
||
I have a question for you: If you met someone in real life and they had artificially died their hair another color, would you stop talking to them because it was distracting you? Or do you just not enjoy seeing odd hair colors on TV because its unrealistic? -In my opinion, "unreal" hair and eye colors are not ruining anime. I think its just a style, and a unique way to show off all of the characters indivduality. Also some characters that are "unhuman" in anime, may have a different hair color because maybe they are an elf, or a demon, of some sort, and they can have different hair colors than humans because of their species. |
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group