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Going as far back as _Astroboy_ , anime and manga characters have had big
eyes.

What is basis of this trend? How and where did this originate?

![Go Go Atom!](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fYMCd.jpg)


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tropes
Why do anime/manga characters have big eyes?


Anime characters having large eyes is generally attributed to [Osamu
Tezuka](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osamu_Tezuka){1}, an artist prolific
enough to be called the "father of manga", and the creator of _Astro Boy_ ,
the source of the image you shared in your question (among other manga).

At the time of _Astro Boy_ (1952), Tezuka was inspired by precursors in
animation, largely those of Walt Disney, but including others as well, before
adapting them to a more Japanese stylization. Two such characters who served
as inspiration were Mickey Mouse and Betty Boop:

![Mickey!](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2xExNm.jpg)
![Betty!](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kn0kYm.jpg)

It is from _Astro Boy_ and Tezuka's other works that a lot of modern manga and
anime style evolved, and the big eyes are one of the things that stuck around.
Fred Ladd, the man responsible for bringing _Astro Boy_ to the United States,
corroborates this, saying that Betty Boop was indeed one of Tezuka's favorite
characters. The "runaway" success of _Astro Boy_ was what led other studios to
imitate Tezuka's style.{2}

It is also the case that the large eyes tend to look "cuter", much like they
were intended to on characters like Mickey Mouse and Bambi. This continues in
anime and manga; younger characters tend to have the largest, "cutest" eyes,
while older characters generally have smaller (and often sharper) eyes, which
can be seen in this image containing _Hunter x Hunter_ characters:

[![Hunter x
Hunter](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mQIAP.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mQIAP.png)

So, while the style Tezuka used—which has carried on in new anime and manga
media ever since—was largely based on Western animation style, the eyes can
still serve as a good way to indicate personality or the feel of the character
that the viewer is supposed to have.

**Sources and other Links**

  1. [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osamu_Tezuka#Works) sources this to " _Watching Anime, Reading Manga: 25 Years of Essays and Reviews_ ".
  2. [MIT Anime Resources: Big Eyes (2008-07-23)](http://web.archive.org/web/20080723120859/http://web.mit.edu/anime/www/culture-notes.html#big_eyes)
  3. [TVTropes on Anime](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Anime) (a very brief mention)
  4. [Wikipedia on anime eye styles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime#Eye_styles)


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answer


There's plenty that doesn't.

The facial features and eye shapes are what makes anime its distinct style.
Look at Osamu's art style then contrast it with _Gundam_ , most Jump Comics
franchises, Studio Ghibli style, and another early anime, _Lupin the 3rd_ and
then try to make the case that Disney/Tezuka had any influence on anime's
visual style.

Especially different from Tezuka and Disney's style are other relatively small
eyed anime like _Hokuto no Ken_ , _JoJo_ , _Berserk_ , and lots of other
adult-targeted anime.

And I forget what book it is, but there is one where the introduction on the
first page is a summary by Katsuhiro Otomo explicitly stating, among other
things, that the anime style is not the same thing as the kind Osamu Tezuka
drew. He just innovated storytelling and animation techniques within anime and
the idea of using big eyes to more clearly express emotions.

Big eyes themselves were an idea Japan was already very familiar with anyway.
Here are some direct contrast just to further cement the point

[![Astro Boy
comparison](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GKDbm.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GKDbm.jpg)

_Pluto_ (Naoki Urasawa) vs _Astro Boy_ (Osamu Tezuka)

[![Kingdom
Hearts](https://i.stack.imgur.com/D0kcx.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/D0kcx.jpg)

Kingdom Hearts

There are at least as many animes without big eyes as there are with big eyes.
Anime is not by default the "big eyes" look that a surprising number of people
ignorantly believe it to be, and obviously, has absolutely no resemblance to
any Tezuka/Disney style.


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