Costume Design of Japanese Anime Characters

On the Japanese anime character costume design

Japanese anime works, basically are mainly hand-drawn, and pay great attention to the aesthetics of the picture. Especially in the character modeling of anime works, customized costume design for each character has become an important factor that is indispensable for the success of anime works. Most of the costumes designed for different characters in Japanese anime works are more successful. Every year, parodies of Japanese anime characters can be seen in cosplay events held around the world. Exploring the costume designs of Japanese anime characters will help us better understand the characteristics and success of Japanese anime works.

Every successful anime work is, first of all, a good script, and secondly, a good character design and character modeling. Character design in anime works, in the process of anime production belongs to the pre-setting of a work. Character modeling design in anime works is to synthesize the background environment, time environment and other factors in the works, and express the attributes of the characters through visual elements. The character attributes mentioned here refer to the natural and social attributes of the character in the work. Specifically, it is the character's gender, age, personality, appearance, social status, value orientation, behavioral habits, clothing preferences, life style and so on. Based on the full consideration of the above factors, animation designers can design distinctive clothing models for different characters according to the storyline of the work.

In animation works, different characters have different positions. The costumes worn by each character need to be rigorously conceived and designed in terms of style, color, and collocation. Once the costume design is completed, both the original cartoonist and the staff involved in animation production must carefully refer to the costume specification charts to portray the character image when they draw the sub-shot characters. Props design is also the same reason. Taking the anime work Attack on Titan as an example (Figure 1), the character in Attack on Titan? Leavell, a cold-eyed, small young officer, specializes in hunting giants and is skilled, quick-thinking and fast-moving. The clothing style set for this character is mainly composed of white shirts and jackets, with handsome capes and high boots, as well as three-dimensional motorized devices; the overall appearance of this character is dry and dynamic, which well expresses the character's personality traits and operational requirements. The delicate props design adds more charm to the character's costume.

Character costume modeling in anime works is an important component of characterization in animation, comics, and games adapted from anime. It is also an important factor that constitutes the picture style of the anime work. At present, anime writers in various countries are exploring or have already created their own distinctive anime styles, and are gradually forming an anime discourse rich in personality. A good anime work, first of all, has to have a good script, that is, it has to have a good narrative topic. The choice of topic is decisive for the artistic expression of anime works and the artistic style of the character image. If an animation work lacks a clear subject matter, then the work is tantamount to having no foundation, and also lacks a foothold.

At present, the animation works that have been released all over the world, if categorized according to the type of story, can be divided into fairy tale, reasoning, science fiction, education, teenage girls (campus, inspirational, adventure), history, romance, and so on, and even can be subdivided into more types. The types of character costumes in different themes are also very varied. From the point of view of Japanese anime works in recent years, the character costume modeling in the works can be roughly divided into the following six types:

(a) Retro luxury type

Anime works depicting the court story, the court of women's clothing is often designed to be more affluent, and clothing styles are also retro type. This type of anime works, in order to show the character's social status or own wealth and so on, usually will be designed for the characters in the works of luxury style attire. For example, richly colored patterns or patterns are depicted on the clothing, and the material of the clothing is also drawn with a shiny silk fabric texture. At the same time, we also need to design a good match with the clothing of various decorations, such as hair decorations, hat decorations, dress decorations, and a variety of glittering gemstones, gold and silver jewelry, and so on, to form a gorgeous dazzling, luxurious dress image. In the clothing color, the use of royalty or nobility of the special color? Yellow and red, orange, peacock blue, violet and other bright, gorgeous sense of color combinations.

In the anime works based on the theme of court royalty, it is more common to see this type of costume design. From recent years, Japan's best-selling anime works can be seen, where the court involved in the works of the character's clothing often have the shadow of the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe. The Rose of Versailles, for example, takes place in France at the end of the 18th century, and the main character, Marie Antoinette, is dressed in the costume of the Princess of Versailles. The costume of Princess Marie-Antoine (Fig. 2) is designed as a typical Rococo ornate style dress, and it also uses a lot of lace, bows, and lace decorations, which are distributed in layers on the cuffs, the waist, and the hem of the dress, which makes the character's picture very gorgeous. In addition, in this type of clothing, there will be a variety of fine decorations and jewelry, such as beautiful feathers, peacock plumes and flowers made of headdresses, jewelry in different colors of gemstones and so on.

Figure 2, "The Rose of Versailles" in Marie Antoinette. There is also an ancient Chinese court as the background of the Japanese anime works "color cloud country story" (Figure 3), each character's costume styling to show the? Chinese style? s sense of splendor and dignity.

(2) Campus sports

Most of the campus sports apparel appears in the campus theme of the anime works. According to the survey, the main consumer groups of animation peripheral products are concentrated in the thirteen to thirty years old crowd, and this age group happens to be in the different levels of schooling stage. Therefore, campus culture is an important and indispensable theme for the modern animation industry. In recent years, school-themed anime works with a large number of fans have basically portrayed their own idolized characters. Sugina Makino from "Man of Style" by Yoko Kamio, Naoki Irie and Kinko Hara from "Love at First Kiss" by Kaoru Tada, and Ruiqi Ashiya from "Secretly in Love" by Hizaya Nakajo, to name just a few. The characters in these anime works are basically portrayed in the uniforms of junior high or high school students. The uniforms of the girls and boys in these school-themed anime works are very beautiful and reflect the school uniform culture in Japanese school culture. The Japanese school uniform is not only a symbol of the school, but also a fashion element.

School uniforms reflected in early anime works are very similar. Such as "American Girl Warrior" (Figure 4) in the girls' school uniform modeling, most of the navy-style lapel shirt, bow tie or neckerchief, mini pleated skirt, stockings and shallow shoes; boys' school uniform is a suit, plus a white shirt with a tie of the same color as the suit plus black shoes. Nowadays, however, Japanese school uniforms have become very fashionable, and as a result, the school uniforms in anime have changed a lot. For example, the girls' school uniforms include a suit and skirt set, and the shirts worn underneath the suits have ruffles, lace, and ribbons added to the chest and cuffs. The chest of the suit will have the school's embroidered logo, and the skirt will be a one-step skirt, a tutu skirt, an A-line skirt, a small hemmed skirt, and so on, such as the costume of "Vampire Knight" (Figure 5). In addition, anime works such as "Delusional Student Council", "Neighbor's Strange Classmate", "Magical Card Girl Sakura", "The Melancholy of Ryouga Haruhi", and "K?ON Komusubi", in which school uniforms are designed for the characters, have become very popular among anime fans, and even developed spin-off peripheral products.

Figure 4: Sailor-type school uniforms from "Mermaid Warriors"

Figure 5: School uniforms from "Vampire Knight"

There is also an essential element of clothing in school-themed anime works, and that is sportswear. Sportswear. Sportswear is usually faithful to the real-life style of sportswear, with simple styles and smooth lines, highlighting the youthful vigor of the characters. The popular Japanese anime "Dunker" is a masterpiece of this category. But unfortunately, this anime does not highlight the clothing, clothing modeling is relatively simple, focusing on the storyline of the narrative. The representative works of beautifully designed sportswear for the characters are "FREE", "Kuroko's Basketball", "Prince of Tennis" and so on. What is driven by this is that anime fans will enthusiastically consume a certain series of derivative products, including clothing, hats, sports equipment and so on. Moreover, the ratings of live-action TV dramas based on these anime works are generally higher than those of other movies and TV shows. This shows the great influence of clothing styling.

(C) romantic and lovely type

romantic and lovely type of character costume design, generally appear in the girl theme of the anime works. Specifically expressed, is the picture on the clothing lines soft and smooth, beautiful and elegant colors, fabrics painted a soft texture, and the character's clothing style more layers, embellished with delicate sweet accessories, most of the clothing will be attached to the lovely lace, lace or ruffles, lined with fluttering ribbons, a variety of bows will be interspersed with it, there will be a number of small bells, feathers, flowers, and so on, and so on. This type of character costume has become one of the most highly prized by female anime fans. There are many anime masterpieces of this genre as well as representative character looks. For example, in "Guardian Sweetheart"? Hinamori Amu? in "Guardian of the Sweethearts", "GOSICK" in "Vittoria" in "GOSICK". Vittoria? in "Guardian Sweetheart", "Vittorica" in "GOSICK", "Seto no Hana Marriage" in "Seto no Hana Marriage". Seto Chan? in "The Princess Lover"? Charlotte? etc. Each of these outfits perfectly accentuates the cuteness of the character's girlhood. Coupled with the sweet makeup, delicate expression, etc. constitute a stunning sense of the picture.

(D) fashion avant-garde type

Avant-garde style to deny tradition, new and different, create a previous art form is not the main feature. Fashion avant-garde character costumes mainly appear in the background of modern social life in the animation works. As the characters' costumes are not restricted by geographical space and climatic environment, they will involve professional clothes, casual clothes, dresses, sportswear and so on in modern life; they use exaggerated techniques, or are new and different, or are weirdly shaped, showing the mockery of modern civilization and the challenge to traditional culture. Street, punk, hippie, yuppie and so on are typical elements of the avant-garde style of clothing, original design, making the virtual character image close to the fashion, rich in change, showing personality, while the design of such clothing also meets the modern people in the dress of young, stylized, personalized aesthetic needs.

To cartoonist Yazawa love "NANA" as an example, the work of the characters have a model body and extraordinary aesthetic ability, all the characters are personality fashion, clothing is not a mini-mini skirt, or ultra-low-chested evening gowns, etc., fashionable and avant-garde modeling by the teenage readers love.

(E) Sci-fi Battle Type

In the future world as the background of the anime works, usually create a past, present, future integration of science fiction world. Anime creation has always been inseparable from fantasy, in the works of science fiction series, the character's clothing is mostly in the shape of straight lines, angular geometric patterns, reflecting a neat, strict sense of hierarchy and uprightness, with simple and hard design patterns and in cold tones, to represent the technology of the blue, silver and the mysterious purple, grey, silver, gold, and other colors, through the metal texture material or transparent material, to shape the future and the universe The imaginative space, from prehistory to modern times, and then never come to the other dimension, or directly virtual world. From the early days of Iron Arm Astro Boy and Mobile Suit Gundam to the later Seven Dragon Balls and Saint Seiya, the themes tend to focus on combat and adventure, and most of these characters are based on close-quarters combat, proficient in a variety of weapons and tactical techniques, with a high level of defense for self-protection, and thus ? Transformation? appeared. For example, the bronze warrior in "Saint Seiya" can be upgraded to a golden warrior (Figure 6).

Figure 6, the star from the bronze warrior rose to the gold warrior

(F) traditional national type

to the ancient, national history as the blueprint for the narration has always been the cartoon industry, the game industry is the usual approach, no matter in which country there will be such themes of the cartoon, because the national is the world. Ethnic culture is the source of accumulation of human culture, which is reflected in housing, food and living habits, and in the clothing that represents the characteristics of the ethnic group. The diverse dress cultures of various nationalities make people feel the profound cultural conveyance and artistic characteristics, and also provide a lot of materials and themes that can be quoted for the costume art of modern animation characters. Chinese cheongsam, traditional Greek robe, Indian sari, Japanese kimono, Korean long coat and so on, these rich national costumes show the ancient, mysterious, strange and beautiful qualities, which become one of the sources of inspiration for animation designers.

Figure 7 Character costume modeling of "Wave Guest Kenshin"

In Japanese manga, reflecting the end of the Shogunate and the early years of the Meiji period of social change, "Wave Guest Kenshin", the character's costume design can be said to be a representative of the national costume, the protagonist? The main character, Kenshin Triumura, wears a crimson kimono with a red kimono. The crimson kimono with white pants and skirt, or the navy blue kimono with white pants and skirt worn by the kendo character is a typical Japanese wabi-sabi (Fig. 7) embellished version. Of course this type of costume industry is not limited to the expression of the ? The past is not the only time for this type of clothing. , some works reflecting modern urban themes also appear in the shape of national costumes. For example, "Shinigami" and "Silver Soul" show many traditional Japanese samurai costumes. From these character costumes, we can also experience the perfect fusion of Japanese traditional culture and modern elements, thanks to the people's deep sense of identity and sense of mission for their own culture. Character costumes in anime and manga works are popular among anime and manga fans because of their unique design and characterization. The peripheral products derived from them also have a large market. Costumes that are unique to each show and that show the character and features of the characters have always attracted the attention of consumers and are highly sought after for cosplay activities. At the same time, those with their own national characteristics, with their own social and cultural characteristics of the character costume modeling, but also through the animation works, through the derivatives, through the COSPLAY, expanding the national culture of the foreign dissemination.

References

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[5]Jun Anato. The Tale of the Land of Colorful Clouds DVD, 売元: Frontier Works Inc.(PLC)(D) August 2006-August 2007.

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[7]Hino Matsuri. ヴァンパイア Knight [M], Hakusensha, July 2008-December 2012.

[8]Masami Kurata. Saint Seiya DVD, 販売元: バンダイビジュアル,2012年11月.

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