ANIME ICONOGRAPHY

ANIME ICONOGRAPHY

Anime and manga utilize a very unique visual language which is used for conveying the emotions and thoughts of the characters. Frequent anime viewers/manga readers are so familiar with this language which exist in a form of symbols or actions that we don't have a second thought about it. However, viewers who are new to anime and manga would sometimes find these symbols confusing and almost jarring due to the over exaggerated nature of them, in which some are harder to understand than the others. Thus, for better understanding, a few of them are being broken down into three categories, ranging from easy to hard.

Basic:

- Speed lines

- Eye symbols

Intermediate:

- Popping vein

- Ghost coming out of mouth

Advanced:

- Bleeding nose

- Colored lines

BASIC

Speed lines

Speed lines are usually effective frames which is used to denote speed and motion. These usually appear in the background or over a character who is in action. These are more common with older anime’s however is one of the most famous symbols. These are used both in manga’s and in anime. As a former to keep the feel of reading the manga while in the later to keep the animation budget low. However, the use of speed lines in modern anime has slightly changed, this is because newer anime are expected to his crispy movement unlike the ones that are older and did not have as good techniques in animation so the purpose of these now is more to act as an accent to an action sequence or even just as a comedic effect. These speed lines are every powerful in representing motion in a rather motionless media say for example manga.

Eye symbols

Eye symbols are used both in manga and anime but are more frequent in the former. These are used as a means to convey range of different emotions. These however are easy to understand because in our culture today we are exposed to such kind of language through emojis and these tend to be very obvious from the reality for example the act of act of lifting eyes when you are happy or frowning when you are sad. However in anime such reality which is often subtle is over exaggerated. However some of them are harder to grasp because they are more unique to anime. Following are a few symbols which are used.

^_^ joyful and very happy 

O.o confused or disturbed by something

O.O bring afraid, surprised or awake

X_X literally being dead

INTERMEDIATE

Popping veins

Like any other symbols that I have already mentioned, popping veins is an other with is overly exaggerated. This is the concept of when people are angry, their veins start to pop out due to the increased blood pressure. This is mostly seen on one’s hands and face. So, in anime you can see that as more and more veins are popping out of a character, the more angry or irritated he/she is. This is usually seen in bright red on ones forehead (even possibly over the hair). When it comes to the size of it there is no regulations meaning sometimes is quite over-sized while other times it isn't.

Ghost coming out

This is a particularly interesting type of symbol that is quite jarring and can completely change the mood of an anime (that is if you are new to anime). This is an action that is a play on saying “scared to death”.  This often looks like a ghost soul coming out the the body and appears when one is usually horrified or shocked. But to add on to the comedy, you can see some other character trying to put the soul back into the body it belongs to but at other times it is made even more disturbing with the facial expressions that exist during this process. This symbol is involved with drastic changes to the feel of the anime and often lead to a lost of viewers due to its abruptness but these have different purposes in serving different situations and emotions.

ADVANCE

Bleeding nose

In many anime’s, you can see characters randomly bleed from their noses. This is another symbol which is over exaggerated to the point that the amount of blood that comes out of the nose could be enough to kill a person but then the character just wipes the blood out without any traces of this happening. If a viewer is not a frequency anime viewer he/she wouldn't know what this symbol stands for because it is a one in the list that is more obscure. This represents a symbol of perverseness. This similar to the popping veins symbol is linked with the level of nose blood. This ranges from little visible blood linking to mild arousals or gushing blood almost spraying out of the nose linking to extreme arousal to both the sexes. It could also be interpreted as an ejaculation when the blood shoots from the nose explosively due to the censorships in anime.

Coloured lines

Similar to the many symbols that i have mentioned before these colored lines dropping over a characters face represents the emotions the character is feeling. In this, there are different types of colors which are typically linked with different emotions. The red vertical lines mean embarrassment or anger depending on the situation. The blue wavy lines mean depression, awkwardness to sadness while the purple represents shock or the act of feeling sick. These are usually accompanied by previous mentioned symbols like popping veins or even sweat drops which is similar to popping veins but instead when the character is feeling confused or anxious. The colored lines symbol is rarely a one used alone without any other symbols.

These are just a few symbols from the many that anime utilizes to portray motion, emotion feelings etc. Anime’s visual language is one of the thing that separates it from other animation styles. The symbols give anime its own uniqueness and feel. At first glance they might just seem weird to a viewer but over time these symbols become natural. Something visual is better than a verbal explanation.