Why do characters in Japanese animation always have huge eyes? What's the meaning of this?

It is cute. That is all there is to it. Much cuter than anything western animation has ever produced. So kawaii!

I never understood it myself, but I will tell you that I think that the particular drawing style is getting old.

As @ragingloli said, it’s kawaii.

It’s how their eyes used to be. The way it is now is the result of radioactivity after we bombed Hiroshima.
message to self. buy more beer

If you watch closely, the bad guys often have smaller eyes. It’s just their style.

@majorrich Yeah I noticed, usually, the younger the person, the bigger the eyes. I still don’t know why though.

It’s just done for cuteness. That would explain why the younger the person, the bigger the eyes. My boyfriend has big eyes. It’s what makes him so cute. :)

filmfann is doing the Fluther equivalent of drunken dialing…

I’ve read that the huge eyes thing was originally influenced by Betty Boop. I don’t know if there’s any truth to that, but I could see it being true.
Also, I’ve seen anime where people have huge eyes, but skulls look normal. Don’t know how that works.

@Talimze I find it all slightly bakka, despite that most of the video games I play include anime.

I don’t know if it could be just an idealized look . . .an over exageration of a trait (“larger” eyes) that is not as common in asain countries where anime is most prominent. A lot of characters also have odd color hair, androgynous characteristics and disproportional body parts I think it’s just taking a “kawaii” trait and amping it up to over exaggerated levels. Im not basing this on fact just speculation

Non Japanophile lexicon-kawai=cute.

@SirGoofy -I couldn’t agree with you more :)

I remember reading that the Disney characters were made with very large heads and eyes because those are a child’s or baby’s proportions. This makes them more appealing and nonthreatening. Note this comment from a page about how to draw babies:

The eyes seem so large because they are very close to the same size they will be when the baby is an adult. [ Source ]

Perhaps there is a similar reason in anime.

@Jeruba That sounds right. Doesn’t Japan idealize youth? So it would make sense for their animation to have very young-looking characters.

I also thought it was to emulate the look of Euro-centric character types, as I remember seeing these same shaped eyes in other pre-anime characters, i.e. Speed Racer, G-Force, etc. which were in the 60s and 70s…thought it was an aesthetic thing that related to wanting to emulate western (pop) culture, making the characters look American/European

@Haleth This makes sense; however, after watching as much anime as I have, at least, real anime-not Pokemon or Naruto or other assorted garbage-it’s so much more complex than that, so I totally don’t get it. :/

@SirGoofy: I should say so, since Japanese animation has been around for nearly a century now.

It’s because it’s what they find cute and attractive. Same with the small noses.

Remember though, in the hey day of Twiggy I think it was, waif looking characters with huge eyes were all the rage. Twiggy herself had huge eyes and such a scrawny little body. So the concept is not really new.

Evolution and genetics. Large eye to head ratios makes us want to care. Unlike many other mammals, human babies are helpless creatures for a very long time. They are better off when everybody (not only mother and father) thinks they are cute. Japanese animation is a huge business. They exploit human psychology.

As others have mentioned, neotenous (or baby-like) traits are endearing, and so we’re drawn to the animal or human that exhibits that trait. People will want to watch the cartoons and sympathize with the good characters, who usually have large eyes.

@lonelydragon: “Neotenous” is a fabulous word. Lurve for using it!

@rooeytoo, are you talking about the paintings of Margaret Keane ? They were popular in the 1960s. A girl in my college dorm doted on this one. I thought they were uniformly awful.

@Jeruba – those plus all the ones done on black velvet that could be purchased in the parking lot of every gas station up and down the road.

The whole idea of big eyes, cute little baby is lost on me, I don’t seem to make the conncection in my brain. (except the baby pic that @DominicX is using at the moment, is he not adorable!!!)

The reason is like this.
Americans and europian people speaks much. And Claiming themselves or expessing their thoughts is necessary or preferable. But in Japan it’s the opposit. Speaking much or expressing their opinion is disliked.
So I think The former use much part of their brain to recognize moves of their mouth. Everytime I see western cartoons I feel western people prefer strong makeup and thick lips and mouth that moves well. But Japanese use nonverbal communication through eyes and pay much attention to moves of the eyes. Japanese prefer natural makeup and modest lips. Maybe we use much part of our brain to watch eyes.

In the japanese art style they exaggerate the most noticable features on a person to make that character stand out and i like to think that when we all notice someone we really notice their eyes…i mean honestly how many times has looking into another persons eyes come up when describing someone or what they notice first in a person?

I like to think it’s just an art style. Although not every anime has characters with large eyes. Quite frankly, I’ve watched many animes that have main characters with normal sized eyes.