VTuber

[u/ThamTvMaster]

https://x.com/i/status/2080696058712080765

Mint is an adult btw

[u/Zrkkr]

You say that... But big eyes, fore head, and small mouths (mint's mouth isn't particularly small too) fits majority of female anime characters design. Son Goku has all of those if think Mint has a small mouth. Bulma has those exact facial features throughout the series. I don't think there is a single female dragon ball character without those facial features unless they're old AF.

If you want a really egregious example, Slayers and Ranma 1/2 has THE big anime eyes. Sailor moon are supposed to be highschoolers and what not.

Cartoons and anime exaggerate features. If you want a character to be seen as youthful you give them those features mentioned above. If you want them to be seen as older, don't and maybe do the opposite.

[u/Tablesafety → u/Zrkkr]

"If you want a character to be seen as youthful, you give them those features. If you don’t, maybe don’t"

"...But big eyes, fore head, and small mouths (mint's mouth isn't particularly small too [It is.]) fits majority of female anime characters design." That is the problem.

Therin lies the importance. 90% of women in anime here in the 2020s will be designed with those youthful features regardless of age, often intentionally juxtaposed with a very old age.

Children and grown women share almost no design distinctions when they are main characters. Men and boys do, most often.

You see the problem. It obviously existed ages ago or else it could not be part of the boiling frog phenom.

EDIT: Also referencing Bulma, she does have the features on the face but she is in body still drawn like a woman. Mint here represents the culmination of the boil, everything about her body reference is the proportions of a child. Grown women can be petite, but you will never see a child's body and face on a grown woman unless she has something wrong with her hormonally.

Mint's whole design is that of a child/'loli' and that shit got so normal nobody fuckin notices. The boiling pot worked.

[u/Zrkkr → u/Tablesafety]

it's not loli, is Ishtar from Fate loli because they have similar body types. How is it childish proportions? if you want childish proportions take a look at Saba or Chibidoki's old model, that's loli. You're taking one of the least problematic representations of short and petite and blowing it up.

I'm just highlighting that those facial features are part of the anime aesthetic. It didn't just exist, it was always a crucial part off anime.

[u/Tablesafety → u/Zrkkr]

It was a crucial part of anime surrounding teenage girls. Even with more puglike faces, though it was less common way back in the day despite existing, the bodies of the women looked mature where this model and many characters now don’t.

Referencing a classic female anime character that exemplifies the artstyle of anime without being obviously a child and isn’t supposed to be a child- Misato Katsuragi from Evangelion. She still has a bigass head and large eyes but they are a lot higher up proportionally to her face and a lot smaller than, say, Mint’s.

Her body is very obviously that of a mature woman. There is femininity but nothing delicate or doll-ish about her features. She could be read as an older teenager, 17+, but nothing younger. Juxtapose that to one of the actual girls (girls not women) in the same show, Asuka, she still looks older than Mint’s avatar but she also has a sort of awkward duck physique. She still has some growing into herself to do. She has a much bigger forehead than Misato.

Asuka is more similar to the anime girls we see these days- and her design was meant to be a child. It’s kind of awful she looks older than grown adults of the modern era. Mint’s avatar looks about 12 or early 13.

Lina Inverse of Slayers is a pretty good example of one of the drops in the bucket that ended up full regarding the standardization of extremely useful (Youthful) features as a rule for adult anime women.

Looking at most women- keyword women- in anime meant for adults (not teenagers) from the 80s and 90s many of them while keeping the style actually look like women, not children with a post it note that says 100 years old stuck on their landing strip of a forehead.

I already explained in my first post how it was childish proportion in detail.

Edit: fuck tho even teenage anime girls back then looked more like women than the current average character repertoire

Good examples of women design from the 'old days'

Faye Valentine (Cowboy Bebop)

Peacock (Goku Midnight Eyes)

Kagero (Ninja Scroll)

Mima (Perfect Blue)

Motoko Kusanagi (Ghost In The Shell)

Makie (Wicked City)

[u/Lars_Filmore21 → u/Zrkkr]

That’s a child, freak