Find out what are the real reasons that led some famous animated characters to have this amount of fingers
The animations, whether in series or movies, have already scored and still continuing to mark people’s lives. There are several styles, but some things end up being the same in animated productions, regardless of the studio that creates them. And one of them, which eventually became a kind of tradition, is the fact that the animated characters have only four fingers in hand. But do you know why this happens?
This absence of a finger in the character’s hand has been present for decades in animations and there are some reasons behind this specific design. The most popular explanation, highlighted by Portal Screenrant, is related to the process of creating the animation.
When it comes to making the cartoons, it is easier to draw only four fingers, which saves animators’ time as well as money, becoming less an item to cheer up in production. It is noteworthy that this reason was stronger when all the animation was handmade.
The second reason behind the four fingers in hand is related, according to Screenrant, with the beginning of the animations, especially with the characters Mickey Mouse and Felix the cat. The mouse and the feline have rounded designs, composed mainly of circles, and by adding five fingers to a rounded hand would not be good aesthetically.
Walt DisneyMickey’s father had already said that if the character had five fingers, his hands would “look like banana curls” (via Screerant). The filmmaker also pointed out that four was the right number, since alien characters have three fingers, while humans five.
This Disney logic is due to the fact that animations can create stories and characters that would be impossible or unlikely in the real world. This allows these productions to maintain fantasy, maintaining a distance from reality. That is, animation allows its creators to explore different worlds, create surreal adventures and even go against laws of physics.
But even if this design has become a kind of tradition among studios, it does not apply to all the animations in the world. Japanese productions have five -finger characters in their hands and there are some reasons behind it, and actually represent a hand.
One of the reasons is the aversion of the Japanese people to number 4, which arose due to their pronunciation, as it refers the word “death” in their language. Another point is that having only four fingers in hand can be an offensive reference to BURAKUMIN castewhich was the lowest social class during feudalism in Japan. And finally, this animated character design could refer to a tradition of the Yakuza mafia, which as a form of punishment, cuts one of the person’s fingers.
Because of these reasons, some animations that want to be displayed on Japanese lands need to be edited and ensure that their characters have five fingers. However, this does not apply to Mickey.
New Technologies
Old animations had plausible reasons for producing characters with four fingers, but why did the new productions continue to choose this design even with the advancement of technology used in creations?
It’s simple: the four fingers have become one of the most defining characteristics of the animations characters, actually becoming a tradition. Nowadays you can find characters with 4 or 5 fingers in the cartoons.
Source: Recreio
