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Draft: The Symbolism in Anime Tropes

Anime or Japanese animation, is an immensely popular form of media in today’s world; reaching up to 87.2 percent of the world’s population says Nagata (2010), citing the Association of Japanese Animations. The global presence of anime came into view with the debut of Osamu Tezuka’s “Astro Boy” in 1963 according to Nagata (2010). Another factor of anime’s success is due to Japanese anime targeting primarily an adult audience, in contrast to foreign animation usually being catered towards a younger audience. This allowed anime to have “more elaborate storylines and character evolvement” (Nagata, 2010). Aggressive marketing along with the Internet has allowed for the widespread of anime globally, as the ancient dilemma of a language barrier is eliminated with the help of subtitles in many different languages.

Over several decades, anime has developed many tropes and clichés. Some common clichés include the harem genre or the more recent isekai genre. According to Anime Amino (2015), the origin of harem anime dates back to 1981; with the genre gaining popularity in the last two decades. The isekai genre or “other world” is a genre that has gained traction in recent years. Notable examples of this genre in 2016 include series like “Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!” and “Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu,” with both being very popular. The vast popularity of these genres have resulted in them being heavily overused in both manga and anime.

In this essay, I will be taking a look at tropes and clichés in anime from many angles and analysing them using the methodology semiotics. Clichés in anime are often overused tropes; as such I shall be referring to them all simply as tropes in this paper. I will be examining the meanings, the roles and the aesthetics of tropes with a focus on a few tropes; namely the “ahoge” and the “tsundere.” I will also study the iconography used in anime and provide contextualization for these tropes. I believe that these tropes add to anime by giving things a deeper meaning along with a more artistic approach by using symbolism. The use of these tropes allow for more a unique and creative freedom of expression; letting creators convey what normally may be expressed using more conventional methods such as facial expressions.

The meaning of the tropes I am looking at hold a great deal in understanding and analysing them. Focusing on the ahoge and the tsundere, first “ahoge” is translated from Japanese as foolish hair or idiot hair. It is a visual aspect of a character’s design found fairly commonly in Japanese anime and manga. According to the Animanga wiki, an ahoge is usually a large single lock of hair sticking out from a character’s head varying in size, shape and thickness. Earlier on the term was used by hairdressers to describe the hair’s inability to be combed flat like regular hair despite being unaided by hairsprays or hair gels, hence them being “idiot” hairs. However, this term also began to be used later on to identify stupid, naïve or carefree characters representing “a literal reflection of a person's intelligence” (TV Tropes wiki, n.d.). In semiotics, you could say that the presence of an ahoge on a character often signifies their traits and intelligence. This is not always the case though, as there have been many exceptions to this with an intelligent serious character having an ahoge; one such example being Douma Taihei from the anime series “Himouto! Umaru-chan” where he does not possess any of the mentioned traits. Ahoge tend to appear more often on female characters, however there are also many male characters with them.

Tsundere is a Japanese term derived from combining the terms “tsun tsun” and “dere dere”. Tsun tsun means to turn away in disgust or to be high and mighty while dere dere means to become lovey dovey according to Galbraith (2009, p. 226). Originally, this term was used to describe a character who started off with a harsh outer personality, but gradually showed warmer side to it. Over time, this character archetype has changed to be associated with characters who switch between the two emotional states of being tsun tsun or dere dere when they are provoked cites the TV Tropes wiki (n.d.). Galbraith (2009, p. 227) states the term of tsundere was made popular by a visual novel released in 2001 called “Kimi ga Nozomu Eien”.

Tsunderes are a popular character archetype found in Japanese works of fiction. Aannestad (2015, p. 7) describes a tsundere to be a character who can not properly express their affection. Rather, the character will use their harsh nature to put up a front and hide their emotions. The role of the tsundere is most often found in a female character trying to hide romantic feelings. However, this term can also be used for males and non-romantic relationships according to Aannestad (2015, p. 7). Eisenbeis (2013) explain that the reasoning behind many characters acting this way is due to a struggle between their pride and love as shown in the quote “Often, tsunderes are embarrassed by or don't know what to do with their romantic feelings and become even more belligerent and egotistical than normal—especially in proximity to the objects of their affections.” (Eisenbeis, 2013). Some stereotypical speech characteristics of female tsunderes as cited by Togashi (2009, p. 4) are that they hesitate or stutter in their speech, as well as frequently saying things like “because”, “only”, or “don’t get the wrong idea”.

Aside from just representing the intelligence of a character, the ahoge itself can play a big role in how a viewer perceives the character. The ahoge of a character may often be animated to move as if it had a life of its own. The movement and changing shape of an ahoge are often synchronized to represent the feelings and mood of the character. An example of a character exhibiting this behaviour is Araragi Koyomi from the Monogatari series. Rather than always showing his feelings through his voice, body language or face, his ahoge acts as an extension of his body. When surprised his ahoge would straighten, or when happy it could move side to side. According to Hirota, Yamazaki, and Dong (2012, p. 6), the motion of the ahoge is inspired by the tails of animals. A dog for example expresses its emotion through the motion of its tail, with it moving side to side when the dog is happy. Humans cannot express emotions through this method, but the movements of ahoge in anime are easily recognized intuitively (Hirota et al., 2012).

In semiotics, the ahoge would be a signifier that signifies the emotions of the character it is on. Ahoge are an artistic way for animators to use something as simple as a character’s hair to symbolize their feelings and their mood.

The Animanga wiki cites that the appearance of ahoge dates back decades as far as 1953 with characters created by Osamu Tezuka. However, Animanga wiki states that the first series to popularize the use of the term is called “Pani Poni Dash!” The show had a character named Himeko Katagiri with the first episode being dedicated to a story about the ahoge. This series aired between July 3 and December 25 2005.

While the ahoge can be used as a versatile tool for animators to both suggest a character’s traits as well has portray their emotion in a unique way, that is not the only reason for character designs to include an ahoge. The addition of an ahoge can also be a way to improve on the aesthetics of the character’s design. The ahoge has some pretty useful applications, but many people consider it as being cute or that it plays an important role in improving the appearance of an otherwise boring design. Ahoges come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. This video clip from “Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!” features Rikka Takanashi and Yuuta Togashi, both with pretty normal ahoges. Rikka has a longer thin ahoge, while Yuuta sports a much shorter ahoge.

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An ahoge can be incredibly short like in the case of Mirai Kuriyama from “Kyoukai no Kanata”. Her ahoge is barely noticeable at first glance.

It can also be really long like Nyaruko’s from “Haiyore! Nyaruko-san”. She can move hers and form a heart shape as shown in this image.

More extreme is Araragi Koyomi from the Monogatari Series. Shaft, the animation studio for this series makes great use of his ahoge, animating it in bizarre ways for a unique way to convey messages to the audience.

The personification of the ahoge allows for a deep connection of it to the character. Referring to Hirota et al. (2012) again, the viewer is able to closely relate to and understand the ahoge due to similarities to something like a dog’s tail. The unique shapes and nimble animations give it a very pleasing aesthetic look. Ahoge is a trope appearing very commonly in anime, but unfortunately it is often overlooked; many people are not aware of its existence or know what the term means according to HoneyFeed (2016).

In tsunderes, the trope does not change the physical appearance of a character’s design much. A big part of a tsundere’s aesthetics though, comes from their facial expressions and reactions. Characters with the tsundere personality show a wide range of expressions with their 2 sides being polar opposites. Tsunderes will treat someone harshly in the beginning, often getting angry and blushing a lot. After warming up to someone, their dere dere side can be like a complete transformation. Carter (2012) in his article cites a study done by Gerald Clore, of the University of Illinois in his explanation of the appeal of tsunderes. In Clore’s experiment, participants were shown four different videos of two people interacting with each other. The results found that the majority of participants chose an interaction where one person acts unpleasantly at first before warming up; similar to the nature of characters with the tsundere personality. It is explained that, “The process which causes this is called the gain-loss, effect. Essentially, when someone is consistently unpleasant towards you, it establishes a behavioral baseline that colors your expectations.” (Carter, 2012). A small improvement in the personality is interpreted as progress, thus it is stimulating psychologically according to Carter (2012).

An example of a tsundere is Chitoge Kirisaki from “Nisekoi”. She is originally portrayed as a harsh tomboy, but later on reveals more girly sides to her personality.

Semiotics in anime and manga can be found largely in the iconography. The iconography of anime and manga is the visual language of the media. According to Kincaid (2011), anime as a medium has a unique visual language to convey character thoughts and feelings. He states that regular watchers of anime of anime are so familiar with the symbols that we do not think twice about it. Viewers new to anime however, may find some of these symbols confusing. Kincaid (2011) organizes some common symbols into three sections; separating them into iconography that is intuitive and ranging it up to symbols that could leave most new viewers lost. Something like speed lines to show movement and speed, or eye symbols like spirals to signify confusion is generally easily understood by everyone because such iconography is present in other forms of media outside of Japan. A little bit of confusion arises when we get to symbols like popping veins when a character is angry, or a nose bubble for a sleeping character. Rather than a nose bubble to represent sleeping characters, some places around the world use the letter “Z”. In this same category include things like a ghost coming out of a character’s mouth. Kincaid (2011) explains that this signifies being scared to death. This symbol can be used in comedies with the character being shocked to death and have scenes after with someone trying to get the ghost back into the body. Lastly we get to the more obscure iconography. Anime characters are often seen getting random nosebleeds then returning to normal as if nothing happened in the following scene. In Japanese media, nosebleeds are used to signify sexual arousal in characters. This symbol is extremely abstracted from what it signifies, so it is not a big surprise that new viewers will be left confused. Other items in Kincaid’s (2011) list of obscure symbols include characters falling flat onto their face, lines and colours dropping over or covering characters’ faces and chibi deformation. When characters fall flat, otherwise know as a face fault according to the TV Tropes wiki (n.d.), is when characters are depicted falling flat on their face to represent their reaction to a bad joke. Colouring and lines on a character’s face can mean a variety of different things. When a character’s face has red vertical lines, it can be showing anger or embarrassment. Blue lines signify “awkwardness, depression, or sadness” (Kincaid, 2011). Chibi or super deformed characters may be one of the most difficult for new viewers. When this happens, the art style is completely changed for an often more simplistic and less realistic style. Kincaid (2011) cites this as a comedy break in serious stories, or just a light hearted scene. Brenner (2007) on the other hand, describes super deformed characters as signifying an extreme emotional state of the characters. All these symbols are an important part of the story telling in anime. Using semiotics, complex feelings and emotions of characters are able to be conveyed to the viewer. If you are a new watcher of anime, you may find all this iconography to be strange at first, but over time they feel very natural to this form of media.

Anime is a global phenomenon reaching the lives of people all around the world. Since the release of “Astro Boy” by Osamu Tezuka in 1963 that sparked anime’s global presence, the medium has been spreading; creating large communities of fans across the globe. Together with Tezuka, the founder of Studio Ghibli Hayao Miyazaki is also well known for having a hand in giving anime its global presence according to Nagata (2010). Citing “Power of Japanese Animation” written by Nobuyuki Tsugata in 2004, the film “Nausicaa of the Wind” by Miyazaki in 1984 made an impact in changing how anime was viewed. Japanese animation unlike western animation is created for an older adult oriented audience. It has allowed for more complex and interesting stories that bigger audiences can relate to and enjoy.

Through several decades, anime developed many tropes with many having a strong sense of symbolism. Using semiotics, I analyzed some common tropes found in anime today with a focus on the ahoge and the tsundere tropes. Ahoge is a term composed of the words “aho” meaning idiot and “ge” meaning hair to create the term idiot hair. It refers to the strand of hair sticking up from the middle of the character's head can appear in a variety of different shapes and sizes.. In anime it is a popular trope that can be used to signify a character’s traits and intelligence. Additionally, the animation of ahoge on characters can be used as a symbol for animators to express emotions without the conventional facial expressions. Ahoge make for a unique alternative as they are also intuitive and easily understood due to their resemblance to gestures of animals; more specifically a dog’s tail as stated by Hirota et al. (2012).

The tsundere on the other hand, is a character archetype commonly found in the recent decades of anime. The term derived from “tsun tsun” and “dere dere” signifies the personality of a character who on the surface has a harsh personality, but eventually warm up or switch between the two emotional states. In the case of tsunderes, their outer expressions may not accurately signify what they are truly feeling. Tsunderes are not to be confused with the other “dere” archetypes. Eisenbeis (2013) writes about the four dere archetypes commonly found in anime; the tsundere, kuudere, dandere and yandere. Eisenbeis (2013) cites the Japanese word dere dere to be an onomatopoeia for being lovestruck. This term combined with others is what brought forth the four archetypes being presented here. Firstly, tsunderes as we know are harsh on the outside, but loving in the inside. Kuuderes are calm and serious characters on the outside with the “kuu” in the term coming from the English word “cool” explains Eisenbeis (2013). However on the inside, they are emotional. Danderes are quiet anti social characters who want to be social but lack the courage to. The final of the deres, the yandere, is more extreme than the previous three according to Eisenbeis (2013). Yanderes appear to be normal on the outside, but are crazy on the inside. Their love for someone often causes them to commit violent deeds in fear of their loved in being stolen.

Hitagi Senjougahara from the Monogatari series is a self proclaimed tsundere. However in actuality, she resembles more a kuudere; with a few traits of tsundere and yandere.

Aside from the ahoge and the tsundere, anime has many tropes that contain symbolism. Iconography in anime is the visual language. They are the symbols that show up frequently in all anime to represent feelings and emotions in an artistic way. The iconography of anime includes something as simple as speed lines drawing to show speed or motion, to something as abstract as nosebleeds to signify arousal. I believe that these tropes allow creators to incorporate deeper and more creative ideas into anime. Animators make use of all these story telling tools to make anime the unique medium that has captured the hearts of people all around the world.

References

Aannestad, A. (2015). Hiding your emotions in plain sight. Retrieved March 4, 2017, from http://arts-sciences.und.edu/summer-institute-of-linguistics/work-papers/_files/docs/2015-aannestad.pdf

Ahoge. (n.d.). Retrieved March 5, 2017, from http://animanga.wikia.com/wiki/Ahoge

Amit, R. (2012). On the Structure of Contemporary Japanese Aesthetics. Philosophy East and West, 62(2), 174–185. https://doi.org/10.1353/pew.2012.0016

Brenner, R. E. (2007). Understanding Manga and Anime. Greenwood Publishing Group. Retrieved from https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=uY8700WJy_gC&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=anime+symbols&ots=4hGDc2TN72&sig=Gda0dZLjJ8EV8w9NkWRxrn2-uqs#v=onepage&q=anime%20symbols&f=false

Carter, G. (2012). Science Explains Tsundere Appeal. Retrieved March 5, 2017, from http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116164-Science-Explains-Tsundere-Appeal

Eisenbeis, R. (2013). How to Identify Popular Japanese Character Types. Retrieved March 5, 2017, from http://kotaku.com/how-to-identify-popular-japanese-character-types-1169085239

Galbraith, P. W. (2009). The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider’s Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan. Kodansha International.

Hirota, K., Yamazaki, Y., & Dong, F. (2012). Mascot Robot System Based on Fuzzy Control Technology. In E. Trillas, P. P. Bonissone, L. Magdalena, & J. Kacprzyk (Eds.), Combining Experimentation and Theory (pp. 137–149). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-24666-1_10

HoneyFeed. (2016, January 8). What is Ahoge? [Definition, Meaning]. Retrieved from http://blog.honeyfeed.fm/what-is-ahoge-definition-meaning/

Idiot Hair. (n.d.). Retrieved March 5, 2017, from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotHair

Kincaid, C. (2011, February 13). Anime’s Visual Language. Retrieved from http://www.japanpowered.com/japan-culture/animes-visual-language

Nagata, K. (2010, September 7). “Anime” makes Japan superpower. The Japan Times Online. Retrieved from http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2010/09/07/reference/anime-makes-japan-superpower/

Origin and Evolution of the Harem Genre. (n.d.). Retrieved March 4, 2017, from http://aminoapps.com/page/anime/1315294/origin-and-evolution-of-the-harem-genre

Tanioka Yasuji 谷岡ヤスジ. (n.d.). Retrieved March 3, 2017, from http://users.skynet.be/mangaguide/au1907.html

Togashi, J. ’ichi. (2009). ツンデレ屜幠♡灯猻と言語表現の関係 - togashi2009a.pdf. Retrieved March 5, 2017, from http://www.ic.daito.ac.jp/~jtogashi/articles/togashi2009a.pdf

Tsundere. (n.d.). Retrieved March 5, 2017, from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Tsundere

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