22 Occasionally, In Anime, Short, Round Versions Of Anime Characters Appear. What Are They And Why Are The Japanese Fond Of Using Them?

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This article is from the Anime FAQ, by Steve Pearl with numerous contributions by others.

22 Occasionally, In Anime, Short, Round Versions Of Anime Characters Appear. What Are They And Why Are The Japanese Fond Of Using Them?

That practice is known as "Super-Deforming" characters. It's a way of making even the most horrible monster into something small and cute. As far as I know, the first occurrance of this was in SD-Gundam. Nowadays, Super-Deformed characters are appearing *everywhere*. Here are a couple I can come up with, just off the top of my head. It seems to be appealing for some strange reason :-):

- Ranma 1/2 Nettouhen The 'eyecatch' sequences

- Video Girl Ai The postscript segments

- Dirty Pair The closing credits of the 10 episode OAV series

- Superdimensional Fortress Macross The opening credits (when the series was rerun recently)

- Gunbuster The science lessons

- Gall Force 10 Little Gall Force

- Patlabor on Television The first 'eyecatch' sequences

- SD Gundam OF COURSE!!

- From a post by Alan Takahashi

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