What
makes subcontinental fictional female character design so effective and
visually appealing not just in Japan, but across Asia and even the globe?
For the last couple of decades, Japanese
culture has seen a significant rise in influence across the globe, most notable
of which is media such as video games, anime and manga. With these new
platforms and genres came a whole new set of aesthetic for design that has
categorically defined these media, as well as inspiring millions of adoring
fans, artists and designers, among which, the most passionate stills lies
within the border of the nation of the rising sun itself, and with it, set up
new social/cultural understanding, interaction and relationships.
This essay will be diving deep in to that
new relationship, in particular, the near-obsession of the Japanese male
audience with fictional female character design and in it, seek to answer the
question, what makes these designs so effective and visually appealing not just
in Japan, but across Asia and even the globe. To do this, we will tackle
abstract concepts such as:
“bishoujo” – The traits of beautiful girls,
“Moe”- the burning passion for a particular
character/ aspect of media
and how these two concepts intertwine with
each other to create appealing characters.
With theoretical examples from works like
miss Masami Toku’s International perspective
on shojo and shojo manga, Patrick Galbrait’s Moe manifesto, or Sabine Fruhstuck and
Anne Wathall’s Recreating Japanese men, where
we can see how “moe” is both considered “pure and innocent” yet centered around
“the inappropriate desire by relatively grown men for immature girls”- a
controversial paradox, as well as looking at real case study for this obsession
such as the Vocaloids – digital divas.
Finally, understanding these theories would
then contribute to our answer for the question stated above, through a
practical of attempt of designing the most mass-appealing female character
possible, supported by practical knowledge from Laura Miller’s Beauty Up: Exploring contemporary Japanese
body aesthetics.
Whether our not
the outcome is considered “successful” is up to your judgement.
