Task 5

  Take the text about your hero and do some kind of a picture with the help of this site:

http://www.wordle.net/

 You should receive something like that:

Task 4

 You have seen two movies. One of them was about drawing an anime character, the other - about several heroes. Write out the words you don't know and translate them. Imagine your own hero in anime style. Think about your ways of describing him or her. Try to write a small text about your hero.

Good luck! 

How to draw anime

Several anime heros

Gestures and Body Language

When Americans are indicating themselves, they generally gesture towards their chest. Japanese point at their noses instead. Here, Egawa is trying to get his old friend Aoki to recognize him. (Aquarium #4, Tomoko Taniguchi, pg 105)

To signify embarassment, people will put one hand to their head; scratching is optional. Here Koko has made an error while playing snow soccer, causing her teammates to be irritated. (Aquarium #6, Tomoko Taniguchi, pg. 166)

The "OK" gesture, the thumb and first finger touched together with the other three fingers spread out, has come to mean the same thing in Japan. Here, Sakura indicates to her friend Tomoyo that everything's going well. (Card Captor Sakura #3, CLAMP, pg. 24) However, the same gesture has traditionally referred to money and has only recently been associated with "good."

Quickly waving one's hand is a gesture used to mean "no," with connotations of embarassment. In this case, Sakura is trying to deflect attention from her unladylike behavior two panels back. (Card Captor Sakura #14, CLAMP, pg. 8)

Having one's mouth open is considered rude, so women especially will cover their mouths while laughing. Here Hazel is shown being overly protective of Almond, on whom she has a crush. (Magical Pokemon Journey vol. 3 num. 3, Yumi Tsukirino, pg 8)

People bow when they meet each other. Here, Sakura is meeting a friend of her mother's. (Card Captor Sakura#6, CLAMP, pg 16) In many anime and manga scenes, bowing is part of a very heartfelt apology. Here, the author of Magical Pokemon Journey apologizes for not getting to her fanmail quickly enough. (Magical Pokemon Journey vol. 2 num. 4, Yumi Tsukirino, pg 35)

  

The V sign Americans asssociate with "victory" is widely used in manga, generally associated with success or good fortune. Here Haruki is happy because he's run into Maoka again (Aquarium #1, Tomoko Taniguchi, pg. 29). It's also used just to strike a cool pose, as Brock does in this sequence (Magical Pokemon Journeyvol. 2 num. 4, Yumi Tsukirino, pg 36.)

   

Task 3

  Today your homework is really easy and interesting. I give you the pictires - you give me all character traits of the man in the picture. Please, use all the ajectives you can remember and find. 

man of decision — решительный человек

kind-hearted — добросердечный

self-seeking — действующий из соображений своей выгоды 

open-handed — щедрый, великодушный

weak-willed — бесхарактерный

absent-minded — рассеянный

hot-tempered — вспыльчивый

Anime hair color

Hair color in anime is a different beast altogether. Even traditionally Japanese anime characters can have hair of any color, even colors that don't traditionally appear on any real human! Like with manga, assigning different hair colors to different characters allows the viewer to recognize which character is which. Hair color has also traditionally been used to indicate some part of the character's personality. A character who is feisty and hotheaded may be given red hair to emphasize these aspects of his or her personality; red hair can also indicate spirit possession, as it does with Ranma's female form. Many male main-characters will have black hair to emphasize their traditional nature, distinguishing them from their friends who have many colors of hair; Tenchi, Ranma and Ash are good examples of this. Many blondes are either vain and conniving or completely airheaded. Serena from Sailor Moon would reflect the air-headed part of this, while Nanami from Revolutionary Girl Utena is completely spoiled and whiny. Characters with special powers or origins may have the oddest hair colors of all to reflect their extraordinary nature. Many of the women in Tenchi Muyo are powerful aliens; it would be odd for Ryoko, a bizarre and powerful character, to have hair like that of any real woman on Earth!

Ranma is normally a black-haired male; in his enchanted female form, his hair is bright red.		Thousands of young Pokemon trainers can identify with Ash.		Serena shows off her playful and ditzy side.		Nanami is a very scheming, controlling character.		Ryoko's oddly colored hair reflects her supernatural nature.

One of the more unusual traits of Anime and Manga is the varied and often unnatural hair colors. While the trend was probably introduced one day by a bored colorist, it's taken on an casual symbolism in its own right, informed by the culture it developed in. While I think the symbolism is still fairly consistent, there are certainly no hard and fast rules. Take my interpretations with grain of salt.

Here is a summary of what I've gleaned from browsing the web, extensive conversations with other fans, and by own brief career in fandom:

color		notes
"naturalistic" colors	black	neutral. generally positive connotations -- keep in mind that this is the normal hair color in Japan; all other hair colors are "unnatural" in that culture, and consequently somewhat suspicious.
	blonde	this hair color has two diametrically opposite interpreations, although which one applies in a particular case should be relatively clear. obvious power and intelligence. often calculating and self-serving. ditzy and immature. accident-prone. in either case, blonde-haired characters usually mean trouble.
	brown	nothing screams "I'm a stock character" like having brown hair. there are of course exceptions.
	red	in women, red hair generally connotes a brazen, confident character -- often having special abilities. male characters with red hair tend to be quiet and humble, but skilled fighters.
	grey	grey hair usually connotes a character with a hidden power that will be revealed later in the series. these characters are usually very intelligent and often (although not always) evil.
	white	on younger characters, full, white hair gives a sense of dignity and style. on older characters, it may just mean they're ... well, old.
"exotic" colors	blue	likable characters. shy, sweet, smart, funny. one notable exception is the Kento of Samurai Troopers (sometimes translated Ronin Warriors), who is the exact opposite. Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelion might be another example. She's shy, but at least outwardly doesn't display most of the other characteristics.
	green	these characters are usually good at heart, but misguided. Seen in an antagonist, it often means the character will defect to the side of the "good guys" by the end of the series. Sympathetic characters (good guys) tend to be rogueish but good-hearted. Mononoke Hime didn't really divide most of the characters into a "good guys" and "bad guys" (with some exceptions), but I think this interpretation can still be applied to San in an oblique sense.
	pink	generally only seen in female characters, girls with pink hair are cheerfully cute, often to the point of being downright obnoxious (as if you needed hair color to pick up on that).
	purple	your guess is as good as mine; there just aren't that many examples to work from. characters tend to be upbeat, but other than that, it's hard to generalize.

It must be emphasized that the color of a character's hair doesn't necessarily mean that they will always behave like other characters with the same color of hair, or that they won't have completely contradictory aspects of their personality. Assigning Touga fromRevolutionary Girl Utena the same personality as Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion would be a very simplistic mistake, even though they both have long, bright red hair. Hair color is not an accurate reflection of the person - it just indicates what color the creator thought best suited the character. Also, as the general cliches regarding hair color have settled and become more common, many anime creators have played with the sterotypes, using them to confuse and surprise viewers. For example, Tomoyo from Card Captor Sakurawould seem to be a very traditional character; her hair is long and black, and she is unfailingly proper and polite. It would seem that there is nothing about her that would keep her from being a model young Japanese lady. However, she is in love with her friend Sakura - a very non-traditional feeling!

Touga from Utenais a very cold, calculating character...		...while Askua from Neon Genesis Evangelion is a very emotional, outgoing character.		Tomoyo fromCard Captor Sakura seems very traditional, but has a few very unexpected qualities.

There is no one set of rules for each color of hair, despite the valiant efforts of many fans to categorize them. Yet though there are no set meanings for each color of hair, it does have symbolic value and should be recognized as such.

Task 2

  Now you know a lot about anime emotions and expressions. As you see, it's very convenient - all emotions in anime can be expressed by definite symbols. If you know this sybols, you can easily understand the emotional state of the hero. Now I'll give you a picture. You should look at it carefully and try to understand all the emotions expressed on the faces. Write your variants with your own explanation.

If you want to have some play or to revise, please, use it before you start your homework:

http://www.umich.edu/~anime/fun_emotional-yukino.html

Emotional Iconography

What does it mean when an anime or manga character gets a bloody nose, or grows a giant sweatdrop next to her face? All these are uniquely Japanese symbols used in anime and manga, intended to communicate a particular emotion.

Embarassment Blushing is a common way of showing embarassment or romantic feelings in any culture. In anime and manga, however, various forms of blushes are used liberally to signify almost every grade of feeling. A slight embarassment might be indicated by tiny red lines across the cheeks, a more deeply felt embarassment might provoke a thick red line across the nose and cheeks, and something really embarassing might cause one's whole face to go red!

Yukino blushes just a little bit.		Yukino blushes a lot.

"Blushing" in blue still carries the connotation of embarassment; however, this usually indicates embarassment mixed with anger. It seems to indicate that the person is almost frozen with embarassment! This is frequently accompanied by evil-looking eyes, and perhaps a sweatdrop or an anger vein.

Yukino is angry and mortified.

In other situations, sweatdrops might form beside a character's head. These sweatdrops also indicate embarassment, the severity of which is determined by the size of the sweatdrop and, sometimes, the number of sweatdrops. This generally indicates a less severe sort of embarassment than the blue blush and a less romantic type of embarassment than the red blush.

Misty is extremely embarassed.

Emotions

When a character gets extremely mad at something, a stylized vein might appear on their forehead or fist. These "anger veins" can be used liberally, though not necessarily realistically. Curtis Hoffman writes that "...this gets carried to extremes, as in the manga where an identical vein pops up three different places on the back of a guy's hand."

Yukino looks very scary.

A bloody nose doesn't mean that a character is actually injured - rather, it means that he (the afflicted character is seldom a she) is thinking lustful thoughts and/or looking at a beautiful woman. But what does the bloody nose have to do with lust? Gilles Portras, author of The Anime Companion, wondered the same thing: "So I asked a few Japanese and got a variety of pseudoscientific, and occasionally embarassed, explanations about humidity and blood pressure. But the best response I got was from one fellow who simply recounted that when he was a child he was told by his mother that if he stared at a pretty woman he would get a bloody nose."

Takeo envisions two of his friends doing whatever he wishes.

When anime and manga characters cry, they -cry- . One form of crying comes in "tear lines," where two wavy lines are drawn from each eye to the bottom of the face and filled with white to indicate that the character is crying. A more exaggerated form of crying takes the tear lines off the two-dimensional space of the face and arcs it out into the sky, making it seem as if the character is crying whole waterfalls. These forms of crying are not generally serious; in serious, dramatic situations, the crying is much more subdued.

Tear lines are used frequently...		...and tear waterfalls show even more misery...		...but extremely emotional moments don't need waterfalls.

Eyes

Tezuka Osamu, the father of anime and manga, drew the eyes of his characters large so that they could express more emotion; to this day, the eyes are the most expressive parts of an anime character. The eyes of someone good and innocent are large and childlike, while someone who is more conniving and sneaky will have smaller eyes. Evil characters have the smallest eyes of all. When an anime character is expressing emotion, the eyes can do several different things to reflect their mood.

Nuriko is quite innocent...		Yui is less innocent...		...and Soi is not very innocent at all.

A normal anime character can get "evil eyes" when thinking evil thoughts or reacting angrily to a situation. The evil eyes are often accompanied by a blue blush, an anger vein or a sweatdrop, depending more specifically on the case. Happy eyes, however, are much more common. The anime character's eyes turn into two thick half-circles, giving him or her an extremely cute, delighted look. Both male and female characters can have that form of "happy eyes"; peculiar to females are the starry-eyes. Females with otherwise normal eyes will suddenly have their pupils grow to huge sizes, and stars and dozens of little white spots will appear. This signifies extreme happiness, and is also a parody of eyes in some shoujo manga and anime, where the eyes of all the girls are drawn like that, all the time!

Ash's mother is very proud of him!		Misty looks very happy and cute.

Super-deformation

Super-deformation, when a character is drawn "deformed," with much less detail and much more cuteness, has no real catch-all meaning. It might be done to make the characters seem cute, or to indicate that they're not being serious. It might be used when they're embarassed, or when they're happy. If one had to assign a specific meaning to super-deformation, one could say that it means the characters are being playful and not all that serious, but it is impossible to pin it down completely.

Super-deformed Yukino enjoys herself.

Task 1

So, you have read about the history of Japanese standards of art in anime and manga and now you know some more interesting facts about that. Please, try to write a small essay in which you'll realise all feelings and emotions you have when seeing anime. Is it differs from our technique of drawing cartoons? Is it good or bad for children? For you? For people in your country?

Have a good luck!

Understanding Cultural References In Japanese Anime And Manga.

Ever wondered why anime characters have big eyes or wear beads? This article gives you an insight into Japanese culture, as seen in anime and manga!

Most Japanese anime is, obviously, made for a Japanese market, meaning American viewers will be unfamiliar with much of what they see. While some of this unfamiliarity adds to the pleasure of watching, some facets of Japanese culture could stand to be explained.

The Eyes:

The large, shiny eyes that have become a staple of anime style are actually more a product of history than of culture. In the past, characters in American and European cartoons, such as Betty Boop and Felix the Cat, had disproportionately large eyes. This style was emulated by Tezuka Osamu, one of the most influential founding fathers of anime. Today, this distinctive eye style has become a matter of the animators' preference. Large eyes often appear on women and young children to make them appear more innocent. Although most American viewers are familiar only with this particular eye style, many of the characters in cartoons shown in Japan possess much more normal eyes.

Various Prefixes and Suffixes:

Although an anime may be dubbed in English, many Japanese "add-ons" are left attached to characters' names. These prefixes and suffixes do not have direct English translations, but their meaning is easily understood.

The suffix -sama is a term of the utmost respect, such as one would use when talking about the Emperor or God.

The suffix -san is used for general politeness.

The suffix -chan is a term of endearment, used only between family members, close friends, or romantically involved couples. The suffix -kun is often added to the end of a young man's name. The honorific o- added at the beginning of names and some common nouns has a duel purpose. It is used as both a term of respect and as a means to "soften" statements and requests that would otherwise sound too sharp.

Strange Hair Colors:

Outrageous hair colors are common in anime, despite the fact that no culture, anywhere, considers them the norm. The reason for this is surprisingly simple. When a manga series (Japanese comic book) or anime has been selected for U.S. release, the characters' hair color is often changed so that viewers will be able to tell the difference between very similar-looking characters.

Cherry Blossoms:

Cherry Blossoms ("sakura" in Japanese) are evident in many anime, including Peacock King and X 1999. In Japan, blossom-viewing parties and picnics are standard fare during the springtime, when the flowers fall as thick as snow. Cherry blossoms are also considered to be a symbol of a life cut tragically short and, for this reason, they are often added during a death scene to give the anime that extra dramatic flair. Sakura is also a very common girls' name.

Money-hungry Women:

In Japan, women are responsible for managing the household budget. Men bring home wages and women dole out allowances to their husbands. For this reason, women are often teased for being either overly interested, or completely uninterested, in cash flow. Nanami in El-Hazard, Lina Inverse in Slayers, and Sakura in Key the Metal Idol were all women out to make a buck"¦many bucks, in fact.

Women with Guns:

Stereotypically, Japanese women are seen as soft-spoken and shy by the outside world. Therefore, many viewers are amazed at the number of gun-toting women characters in anime and manga. Even though Japan is still highly gender-role oriented, what most people fail to realize is that women have a very large, very important position in Japanese culture. Throughout the country's history, many women have been featured prominently for their courage and compassion. By including strong female characters, anime and manga are helping to destroy the misconception that Japanese women are weak, meek, and mild.

Left-handedness:

Although this is relevant only to manga, it is very interesting and has been included (since most anime fans also read, or at least look at, Japanese manga). It may seem that characters in Japanese comic books are all left-handed, which has led many to think that left-handedness is either an extremely common or highly respected trait. It's neither. Just as in America, most people are right handed. And that's the way they are drawn in the comic books. The switch comes when these books are marketed for the United States. Because the Japanese read from right to left, their books open opposite of the way ours do. To put them into a format more comfortable for Americans, the images are switched to their mirror-image so that the book can be read. This means that someone driving on the left side of the road in a Japanese comic book will appear as if he is driving down the right side in the American version. The same is true for any character writing with his or her right hand.

While these cultural references may shed some light on particular anime quirks, some things still can't be explained. For instance, why are women characters so often obsessed with food, and why do so many (seriously, TOO many) men dress in drag?

Hello, my readers! I want to tell you something new about anime and Japan. What can I talk about? Oh, I have a lot of interesting information for you. Let's go?