Why do characters in Japanese anime have ridiculously BIG EYES ?

@shogunly (1397)
Libya
March 19, 2007 8:29pm CST
Japanese and other East-asians almost ALWAYS have narrow , slanted eyes . One would expect that beauty standards would be more compatible with real appearance of people . Is there a folklore or fantastic value to wide eyes in Japanese and Chinese cultures ? Did the fascination with wide eyes begin with encounters with Western people or was it there even before they ever saw someone who was not either Japanese , Chinese , or Korean ? Does it reveal self-image issues among modern Japanese ( I heard some clinics make a lot of money doing eye-widening surgeries ) ?
1 response
vesuvius
@vesuvius (1677)
• Philippines
20 Mar 07
Well I don't really know the exact reason for this, in fact I too am puzzled to this feature of Asian anime, well Japanese in particular.. My 'theory' is, that Japanese animators tend to create these images to display what they actually want (rounder eyes) - maybe just a littele too exagerrated.. Right??? This 'wanting' for wider eyes came when the world started to get all Westernized.. Before, this never was an issue.. In fact, according a book written by Sonia Zaide eastern people think Western people are ugly, and this is the reason why the Easterns called the Westerns the 'The White Demons..' But as time went, the newer generation of Easterns thought of it the other way around especially when the Westerns are already winning the wars.. Inferiority came, that is... It is also true that there are clinics in Asia that earn lots for making eyed round.. Well, anyway, as far as the cartoons are concerned, I dont see any major problem, I actually think it's cute.. Just hope I wont see anybody with such enormous eye size in real life...LOL B-)
shogunly
@shogunly (1397)
• Libya
20 Mar 07
I used to think that too , I read some novel about feudal Japan (it's called Shogun and it inspired my username) in which they referred to European individuals as " ugly , smelly , unclean barbaric people " (the author did not make it very clear whether the sailors were actually ugly and smelly as they might well have been or if it was just the biased opinions of the Japanese ). So one would think that the golden standard for how the eyes of a beautiful Japanese person would look , would not be like a Western person .