JAPANESE ANIME ART

Anime wigs give that defining look to an anime character, browse further for more info!

One very interesting aspect of anime is the hair styles of the characters. Actually, this is another major defining factor in anime. So for the sake of cosplaying, such have been used.

Just as in any movie or cartoon, the hair styles of the characters can be either very "normal", conventional styles or they can be a completely off the wall, impossible to do arrangement. In many ways and in many different anime, the hairstyle of the character is used to define what type of person that character is and so there are various anime artificial hair for various anime characters.




By no means are all anime charactes bound by these observations. There are plenty of manga and OAV characters who don't fit these molds, but I am talking in general about character hairstyles.

Sometimes, the different style of anime wigs say something about the character of a cosplayer he's portraying. Here are some examples:

Short = Conservative or military.
Bald = Aged or religious.
Spiky = Engergetic or youthful.
Long Bangs = Something to hide.
Trimmed wedge = Cool or futuristic.
Long, straight = Down-to-earth.
Large Spikes = Powerful and maybe supernatural.
Pony tails = Cute and ditzy.
Short and slick = Professional, may also show pride.

So, if you want to choose some wig, you might want to consider reading it so you may have an idea what sort of emotion you will be showing while costume role playing.

Here's also an additional fact in choosing a particular color for anime wigs. General colors and what they may say about the character.

Red = Goodfighter,outspoken,energetic,stubborn.
Blonde = Youthful, somewhat ditzy.
White or Silver = Magical or very powerful. Dignified.
Violet = Smart and/or secretive.
Green = Outsider, good-natured.
Brown or Black = Traditional and normal.
Pink = Naive,innocent,sickeningly cute and bubbly
Blue = Energetic, introverted.

Anime contact lens gives that realistic portrayal of anime characters and here's why..

In every anime and manga characters, large eyes are often featured. Actually, Osamu Tezuka pioneered this idea because he was inspired by the exaggerated features of American cartoon characters such as Betty Boop, Mickey Mouse, and Disney's Bambi.




This is often a prominent feature in every anime character because eyes allow the characters to show particular and specific emotions. To add for aesthetics, coloring has been added particularly to the cornea to add some depth to the eyes. The depth is accomplished by applying variable color shading. Generally, a mixture of a light shade, the tone color, and a dark shade is used.

Thus, cosplayers deem the idea of changing their eyes for the sake of cosplaying necessary for that believable effect. That is why, they use a particular contact for a particular anime character they want to portray.

These type of lenses are one of the latest trends among Japanese anime lovers.Contact lens manufacturers have developed several colors and types of contacts similar to different Anime characters.

The colors vary greatly, from deep dark green, violet to light blue and black. They increase the size of the iris because of their extra width. The majority of these contact lenses are for daily use only and they can only be worn 30 different times.

These lenses look absolutely adorable and by making the iris appear larger, they create a cute and innocent look. Since there are several types of extra wide contact lenses, you can choose one similar to your favorite Anime character or you can choose one which has the color you always wanted your eyes to have and you can have one while doing cosplay.

If you love Anime and want to look like them especially during anime cosplay conventions, these Anime contacts will offer you the occasion to look Anime, even if temporarily.Since there is no other way you can change the width of your iris, Anime contact lenses are the only available solution for you.

Costume role play facts for cosplayers are things that we want to over deliver just for you.




For starters, Naruto Cosplay would probably make the crowd notice you more because of its popularity.



I bet if you’re a fan of it, or worse, if you’re an otaku then you might have had dreams about being your favorite character. A typical fan would dig for any of those things. Just I have mentioned earlier.

But for some die-hard fans, it’s a normal fantasy that they find themselves realize that – the anime world’s always better than the real world, right? But unfortunately, you’re there stuck with that Algebra homework and living high school life still without a girlfriend. Okay, let’s not make recluses out of you guys here, ha-ha. What I’m trying to get at here is the magic.

Sure, you can never be your favorite anime character, but nothing in the rule book says that you can’t look like them or wear what they’re wearing – it’s a free world after all! And so, costume role playing was born.



The term can be squashed up word forming C O S P L A Y. We had made some small research about this phenomenon in our thesis paper during our college days about the popularity of anime media and found out that fans do this as a form of escapism and identification, not to mention doing this for simple enjoyment and exercising fandom. It makes sense ‘cause anyone who dons the outfits of an idolized character would have that sense of being more than reality – a chance to stand out from the crowd.

It has become popular not only in Japan but in other Asian countries like China and Taiwan – and even in Western countries. You would usually expect to see fans wearing anime outfits around gaming conventions, animation fairs – stuff like that.



In our place, there isn’t much of that scene here. I bet it’s because of the lack of events revolving around anime or gaming, maybe even a lack of interest. Fans here only focused on other fandom and even if there are a few here who are into such a thing, there isn’t any venue for them to get into. But I do remember some sort of cosplaying here in our place. During my grade school years, the predominant anime series was Sailormoon. As we all know, this anime features school girls that get into long, nicely animated transformation scenes and metamorphose into sexy warriors in sailor suits (I always wonder why the enemy doesn’t attack them during their ridiculously long transformation scene).

Anyways, during special events like parties, girls in Sailormoon suits suddenly pop out of nowhere – kinda’ like the way you make your kid wear a Spiderman suit during birthday parties. And that’s just about it. I’m a bit jealous of one of my friends who actually got into an otaku convention and he got to meet and take pictures with some pretty good Japanese looking movie anime characters.



I myself have no intentions of doing such. Not only do I not have the resources, I also am not a pretty boy bishounen. Yeah, I bet this art of costume role playing would only work if the person has “looks”. Curse you, gene pool! Anyway, you don’t have to listen more to my rants about it. You could always check Wikipedia. Heck, anyone can find anything in that site. I’m just here to give you some small info about the fun of cosplaying and let you know about the almost non existence of it here in our city.

It is, by the way, not only limited to the art of dress-up. By anime custome role playing, I mean "full" custom role playing so it encompasses even the dress up of the eyes, the hair, and other accessories. Anime eyes are very prominent in every cosplayers' portrayal of their anime character and so cosplayers go to the extent of "animating" their eyes for that extra effect and so they use

Here's an anime glossary and definition of terms for your use!

Anime Glossary/ Anime Definition of Terms



• Anime – Japanese made animated programs.

• Bishoujo – literally “beautiful girl”, the counter part of Bishounen and are present mainly in Shoujo anime.

• Bishounen – literally “beautiful boy”, term used to pertain to male anime characters with beautiful features usually found in Shounen anime.

• Censorship – the act of banning materials with questionable contents - primarily, the criteria used to judge such materials are based on deviance, violence, pornography and others.

• Chibis – a style in anime wherein an exaggerated likeness of a character is shown; usually with large heads and small bodies; also used to show “cuteness”.

• Constructs – according to Gerbner, ideas, concepts or assumptions or reality cultivated through long term exposure to media.

• Conventions – a gathering of anime or comic book fans; usually such events have programs or contests all linked to the passion of the fans; similar to a fair.

• Cosplay – short for “costume-play” – an activity of anime fans where they dress up as their favorite anime character.

• Cultivation – the process of taking in ideas from media through long term exposure of it.

• Diversion – emotional release according to Blumler and others.

• Face Faults – in Anime, characters exhibit distorted facial expressions used to exaggerate emotions and to add humor.

• Anime Fansubs – recording and sharing of anime titles to fans of such series; considered questionable because of issues in copyrights.

• Genre – a type of story

• Heavy Viewers – in Gerbner’s Cultivation theory, heavy viewers are people who watch television everyday, at 4 hours or more in a day.

• Inner Motivation – in Katz and Blumler’s U&G Theory, the gratifications sought by a person in his or her choice of media and messages.

• Light Viewers – according to Gerbner, these are individuals who watch television less than four hours a day.

• Manga – Japanese comic books.

• Mainstream – refers to something that has become part of society

• Mecha – a genre of Anime featuring giant machines or robots.

• Media – any electronic means through which messages are relayed to a broad audience.

• Needs - in Katz and Blumler’s U&G Theory, the uses a person derives from his or her choice of media and messages.

• Primetime –refers to the hours where audiences are most available for viewing television – “hot” times and better shows that cater to the most dominant audience at these times are shown.

• Shounen – an Anime genre geared towards a male audience featuring action, adventure and fantasy themes.

Wondering who creates those fabulous drawings of different character you know and love? Visit our Artists' Corner and get the inside scoop on your favorite idol. Or if you're not so famous yourself, have the privilege of being one of them kindly let me post your drawings here on this site....

To name a few, here are some of the best anime artists ever to grace the anime industry. And mind you, they the considered great thinkers to have even fathomed such a plot or a concept of a particular anime movie or episodes that has become a household name for most of us anime lovers:




1. Masashi Kishimoto = His name sounds so ordinary that you couldn't even guess that he is the anime artist of a very well known anime. Click to know more!

2. Nobuhiro Watsuki = sounds to geeky and nerdy for an anime artist's name huh?! But wait till you know what anime he has created and you wouldn't consider the name as too tacky anymore!

3. Tite Kubo = You will be amazed that a guy so ordinary looking will be able to create one of the sought after epic anime favorite of all time: BLEACH!! Bleach has had numerous episodes that one might wonder how vast his imaginations could fathom!

4. Tsugumi Ohba = Of all the great anime artists/ creators, he is the mysterious of them all as until now his real identity is still big question. Get to know the guy behind Death Note...

5. Kunihiko Ikuhara = has been one of the anime creators who have made a big hit out of Sailor Moon.. This guy is a force to reckon with...... You'll never know what his next big anime manga idea he'll make again. But we can't wait to see what's next in his sleeve!

Let's face it, either you're one of the naturals or has been trained to be one.. So I thought you just might want to know a thing or two about them...

I for one would want to be considered as one of the natural artists.. See, I learned to draw on my own especially while I was still very young.. So I started from the basic stick figure drawings then my skills developed to knowing more on shadowing and contouring until my drawings got, modesty aside, real awesome... So, kudos to me!

And if you're not one of the naturals, I bet you must be fortunate enough to have trained or have undergone schooling on anime drawings and manga art... That's very good! In fact, this is the most opportune time to learn digital drawing.

Digital drawing would give one a whole new lease on artistic endeavor. Computers would reawaken creative life after years of slump. I like the high tech of it, but unfortunately I still prefer the all conventional drawing using the all conventional art materials!

Although,some would definitely prefer digital drawing as it takes the work with them and they might particularly hate mess. Computers have all the elements right there in one little machine.It has a certain advantage to it though so I don't strictly limit myself to traditional drawing alone...

 Here's the anime anatomy a basic to drawing anime tutorial

Before I proceed, I would like to state a disclaimer that what I am about to show you is not really the REAL step by step guide an anime anatomy drawing guide. Of course, you can always bend the rule and make your own drawing style and personalize your own anime anatomy...



So, here are some guidelines about proportions in drawing any anime character:

First, when drawing an elbow of a particular anime character,see to it that the elbows are aligned at the waist of the person.. And by waist, it is the portion where the smallest curve of your body is located, just parallel to your belly button.







Second, the wrist should be aligned right around where your hips and leg meet. Next, the hand should also fall right at the top of your thigh... If you lengthen the hand which would fall down to the thigh, it might look like it has a very long hands, like that of a monkey.. Too short would be considered too awkward.




Anime anatomy conclusion

Here’s some proportion guidelines that you should take to heart when drawing the body:

• the elbows tend to align right at the waist of a person (the waist, for the record is where your belly button is situated and is generally the slimmest part)
• the wrist aligns right around where your hips and leg meet
• the hand falls right at the top of your thigh
• the top and bottom half of the leg (i.e. the parts above and below the knee) should be about the same length5) the shoulder width should be about half the size of the head on each side

What is Anime?! Here's where you'll know more about anime history.

Japanese animation, more popularly known as anime, first flourished after World War II. It features a variety of story themes, art styles and characters very distinct from Western cartoons, as popularized by Disney and Warner Brothers (Clements, 2006) if one might ask what is anime.

The word anime is an abbreviation coined from the Japanese word that is literally pronounced as “animēshon”. The Japanese style of drawing is evident in anime, particularly in the highly stylized facial features, large eyes, chibis, sweat drops, nose bleeds and face faults


Another quality that distinguishes anime from cartoons are its themes and symbolisms, which are deeply rooted in Japanese culture—mono no aware, the concept of life, and beauty, as being fleeting and sad—and bushido, the samurai code of ethics that places value on virtues such as honor, endurance, courage and, especially, loyalty to master and country, even unto death (hara-kiri). Such concepts add to anime’s realism (Ping, 1999), as opposed to cartoon’s more familiar themes of fairy tales, magic and fantasy.

The more recent success of anime films such as Hayao Miyazaki’s Sen To Chihiro Kamikakushi (Spirited Away), which won an Oscar for best animated feature in 2001, and Cowboy Bebop (1998) by Shinichiro Watanabe, has earned anime an international following.Anime’s popularity worldwide has even spawned a sub-culture in many countries in North America and Europe (Napier, 2001). Popular web engines give out over 116,000,000 results for “Anime”—including fan sites, fan fiction, mailing lists and chat rooms and role-playing games—showing its popularity even in the World Wide Web.