Forum - View topicWhy do only the bad guys smile in anime?
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ChibiKangaroo
 Posts: 2941 |
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I was watching the OP of Bleach on Toonami, and recognized something that I've seen many times in many different anime. You can often tell whether or not a character is evil in anime based on whether they show their teeth when they smile, and depending on how big their smile is, you can tell how evil they are.
Granted, this is not always the case. For example, in One Piece, the good guys smile a lot, but that might be the exception to the rule since that show is so goofy. It seems that often, goofy characters can get away with smiling without being evil. An example of the teeth+smile = evil would be Mad Pierrot from Cowboy Beebop. He has by far the biggest smile showing the most teeth in the show, and he's the most evil villain in my opinion. In most shounen shows, this dynamic seems to apply. Usually, the bad guy looks like just a normal character who's friendly or polite, then they show him/her with an enormous smile showing their teeth, and you know they are evil. Anyone have any thoughts as to why this is? Do you think it has something to do with Japanese culture frowning upon ostentatious or overly emotive behavior, or is this something that you see in western shows as well? |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7985 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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Because bad guys have more fun. Proven fact.
Last edited by Kruszer on Sun Oct 21, 2012 7:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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EricJ
 Posts: 876 |
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And there are other varieties of smiles, too: I like the way Chris Sarandon described Kushana's henchman Kurotawa in the Disney Nausicaa dub: "For the whole movie, he's got this expression like this: (pulls mouth diagonally with fingers into Ghibli-villain Wry Smirk  )...because he's a guy who's in this terrible situation, but always sees the irony in it."
Think that's true of most anime villains as well-- The villains are always smugly on top, and the heroes are always struggling nobodies, how can they NOT enjoy it? |
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dragoneyes001
 Posts: 873 |
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fairy tail would be an exception.
Naruto would be an exception many others are as well. depends on the author. some prefer the lead to look serious to add weight to the story.look at trigun most of the good guys smile unless they are panicking at the time. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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I recall Shinji from Evangelion smiling on occasions. Such incidents, passing though they were, didn't fail to arouse the attentions of the show's fervent analysts.
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Gon*Gon
 Posts: 679 |
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It's safe to say that this isn't exclusive to anime, in fact this is present in pretty much all mediums.
For example, look at Batman. Have you ever seen Batman smile before? Now compare how often his mouth curves upwards to how often Joker smiles(all the time). |
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ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
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Batman aside, I have noticed many superheroes in American shows and movies who smile quite a lot. Superman/Kent Clark, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Beast (and many other X-Men). Looking at some animated shows, in Teen Titans everyone smiles except Raven (Beast Boy almost ALL the time), in Avatar the Last Airbender, Aang, Katara and Sokka smile constantly. In fact, in Avatar the people smiling are usually the good guys and the people with the grim features/scowls are usually the bad guys (Zuko probably the best example of this). Ben Ten and his friends smile all the time. In Star Wars Clone Wars, Ahsoka and Anakin smile a ton. These are just a bunch of examples I could think of off the top of my head.
Sure, you can find some examples of dark, brooding heroes in western media who never smile, but that doesn't seem to be a dominant theme there. I just seem to constantly see anime where the bad guy isn't truly evil until the camera zooms in and shows their face kind of obscured by darkness or turned to the side so no one can see and they have this HUGE smile. Then the audience is supposed to gasp and say "Oh, he's/she's the villain!!" |
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Gon*Gon
Posts: 679 |
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Ah, but in your examples, the villains smiles too.
Like in Avatar, there are quite a few scenes where Azula does smile. |
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ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
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Yea Azula does smile quite a lot but she's totally insane, so she's more like the Joker in that vein. A lot of the smiley bad guys in anime aren't totally insane, although they are often depicted as a little unbalanced. Like, just for some more examples if you watch Bakugan, Dragon Ball, Digimon, or any other simple shounen series, the smilin' evil characters are usually not of the criminally insane variety. I don't know, it could be something that is in western animated shows just as much as Anime, but maybe in Anime it just gets emphasized a ton more. Seriously, it is just like a mega trope that the evil villain in Anime is going to have some scene where they secretly have an enormous smile while no one is looking or able to see their face. |
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Beltane70
 Posts: 3891 |
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Here's a pretty good article which may actually help explain the differences in how Westerners and Japanese perceive smiling.
http://www.livescience.com/1498-americans-japanese-read-faces-differently.html |
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ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
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That is actually a very insightful article. The whole thing with the different way American vs Japanese people use emoticons was very intriguing. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16935 |
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I could list many examples of "good guys" smiling but I'll forgo that for now. As for the actual question......well the fun answer is, as Kruszer said, they have more fun. I think another way to look at it is most times the bad guy is the confidant one. Think about it, the bad guy is the one with the "full proof" plans and ideas. They're the ones normally dictating the pace and story. They are the ones that majority of the time cause the initial action. The good guys then react and play catch up to stop the bad guy. So while they're the ones reacting the bad guy(s) feel they are in control with their master plan. Easier to smile when you feel you're the one in charge wearing the pants as opposed to the ones playing catch up with their pants around their ankles. Plus bad guys are normally the psychotic and deranged ones and people like that love to smile lol.
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Rhyono
Posts: 1039 |
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As ChibiKangaroo already mentioned: it was intriguing. I had never really thought about the origins of different emoticons. Despite being American, I've always found ^ _ ^ to look happier than:); I've never really noticed the neutrality of the mouth. |
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