My favorite aspect of anime is the way characters communicate emotion to viewers in ways that go beyond what’s possible in the real world, aka “meatspace.” Character designers are excellent at making use of subtle visual cues to really make their characters come alive, for example using blue hair on a female character to create the image of purity or mystery or communion with nature, or giving characters like Asuka from Eva and Yoko from Gurren Lagann red hair to reinforce their fiery personalities, and of course who can say no to a really cute eye patch? I love to observe the various facial expressions animators create, like the odd “blue forehead lines” that indicate frustration, or the “so embarrassed my soul is about to come out of my body” face. Of course, anime characters wouldn’t be nearly as memorable without the highly trained voice actors that bring them alive. The other day I was at the gym working on my “Toradora diet” (I’m re-watching the entire series on my iPhone while running on a treadmill). When the highly emotional Christmas party episode played, with its amazing performance by voice actress Rie Kugimiya, it was hard to keep from choking up.
Anime is good at communicating emotions.
