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Do japanese like big eyes?

GoldCoinLover

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24 May 2004
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I never really gave it much thought before. I thought anime with big eyes was just their style. However, I was reading "I am a english teacher" by Azrael, who is a very tall american sensei living in japan. He teaches english.

One day, he said his boss complicated his eyes and said he has "big eyes". He told me japaanese find big eyes are attractive, and this is why anime has such big eyes. Is this true ? Fasinating.
 
GoldCoinLover said:
I never really gave it much thought before. I thought anime with big eyes was just their style. However, I was reading "I am a english teacher" by Azrael, who is a very tall american sensei living in japan. He teaches english.
One day, he said his boss complicated his eyes and said he has "big eyes". He told me japaanese find big eyes are attractive, and this is why anime has such big eyes. Is this true ? Fasinating.
Fascinating by and large to a big degree.
I've never given the whole anime eye's a lot of thought, i always thought the anime big eyes were because it emphasised youth in the character, in real life i've not really met anyone with big eye's has anyone else?
 
That's the first thing I hear from any Japanese person. They always compliment my "big" eyes. Then, they say something about my "high" nose. :p
 
big eyes sure are very interesting and beautiful. of course nearly all americans already have beautiful eyes/ deep structure so maybe they don't place as much importance?(sorry, don't flame if i'm wrong) but for asians, most eyes are different or smaller, so we care and notice about the eyes alot.it's so common for many teens/girls(not only japanese but many other parts of asia as well) to have eye-lid surgery done or some even to extremes such as widening the corners of the eye and then there are contact lenses to make the black part bigger(what's the term for it?) .friends and people will compliment the eyes too if they are big and pretty.
 
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The word for the "black part" of the eye is "pupil". Yes, the same word that can also mean "student". I guess the two "pupil"s have two different etymologies?
 
As for why a lot of anime characters have big eyes, yes, I suppose they have big eyes because not only are they more expressive but they look cute as well. Most anime characters that have really big eyes are young characters or characters that are intended to be cute. Older characters, or more serious characters, will have smaller-looking eyes.
However keep in mind that the big eyes look in anime actually came from old American animated movies, particularly, the Betty Boop cartoons and from old Disney movies (look at the size of Bambi's eyes, for one thing XD).
Probably the biggest eyes that I've ever seen are those of Arina Tanemura's characters (she is a shoujo mangaka who does manga for 窶堙ィ窶堙壺?堙ア). But man, her art is pretty. :)
 
doinkies said:
As for why a lot of anime characters have big eyes, yes, I suppose they have big eyes because not only are they more expressive but they look cute as well. Most anime characters that have really big eyes are young characters or characters that are intended to be cute. Older characters, or more serious characters, will have smaller-looking eyes.
However keep in mind that the big eyes look in anime actually came from old American animated movies, particularly, the Betty Boop cartoons and from old Disney movies (look at the size of Bambi's eyes, for one thing XD).
Probably the biggest eyes that I've ever seen are those of Arina Tanemura's characters (she is a shoujo mangaka who does manga for 窶堙ィ窶堙壺?堙ア). But man, her art is pretty. :)


Yeah I Understand the cutness factor. But, do you also suppose they also do it because japanese like big eyes?
 
]Yeah I Understand the cutness factor. But, do you also suppose they also do it because japanese like big eyes?
I know of some Japanese men that are very attracted to 'big eyed' (and long legged) Japanese woman, I'm just wondering if that wouldn't be the same everywhere. On second thought, considering the hordes of Westerners that find Asian women very sexy, maybe it is just a fascination with whatever is missing in your own culture.☝
 
Big eyes are naturally attractive to all humans. When someone is looking at a person they find attractive, the pupil dilates a bit (presumably to let in more light so they can see better). This makes the eyes look bigger. So there's a kind of subconscious signal 'big eyes' = 'this person finds me attractive', which is in itself an attraction signal.

And, maybe as someone has already said, because east Asians tend to have smaller eyes (or perhaps the single eyelid makes them look smaller?), their attraction to bigger eyes might be stronger because it's rarer in their home country.

Certainly it seems a lot of east Asian girls (and men) get eyelid surgery.

[I can't speak much from my own experience but I had a Japanese boyfriend once, who was fascinated by my eyes....... :mad: ......... I don't know if that was exacerbated by their Westernness. )
 
doinkies said:
The word for the "black part" of the eye is "pupil". Yes, the same word that can also mean "student". I guess the two "pupil"s have two different etymologies?
Apparently they have related etymologies - both derive from pupus/pupa, Latin boy/girl. It's obvious how that's related to student. For the pupil of the eye it derives from the tiny reflection of yourself you can see in someone's pupil.

Bet you wish you never asked!
 
doinkies said:
The word for the "black part" of the eye is "pupil". Yes, the same word that can also mean "student". I guess the two "pupil"s have two different etymologies?
oh what i meant was the iris(got the word now), not pupil. because i was referring to asians which have black/dark brown iris so i said black. sorry :sorry: and yes, i know 'pupil' can mean 'student' too
 
Last I read anime characters are drawn with big eyes and larger mouths b/c it is an attractive feature. My gf says the same thing as kirei, she always says I have big beautiful eyes. o_O So I guess in short Yes Japanese people are fascinated with larger eye structures.

Reminds me of the Teacher editorial "Azreal"(sp?) about when he was in the teachers lounge the principle would make fun of him and say "how many fingers am I holding up behind you. I know you can see with those big *** eyes of yours"
 
I thought it was cuz big eyes and noses and mouths like that were easier to draw than u know makin everything precise, i mean we can't really say sm anime charcaters look western cuz no one really looks like that....
 
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