Recently, there was an online poll in Japan that asked folks which anime featured characters that all looked too similar.
[Image via Naver]
According to Goo Research (via Excite News), over five thousand votes were cast. Here are the top 10 choices of anime with a spitting-image cast:
10. Sword Art Online – 119 votes
[Image via Buzz]
9. Clannad – 124 votes
[Image via pezzou]
8. Love Live! – 139 votes
[Image via Fovj]
7. Attack on Titan – 187 votes
[Image via Nijimen]
6. Sazae-san – 279 votes
[Image via Academic Box]
5. Touch – 378 votes
[Image via sky_redstear]
4. Captain Tsubasa – 381 votes
[Image: TV Yokohama]
3. YuruYuri – 403 votes
[Image via Naver]
2. Mr. Osomatsu – 542 votes
[Image via Naver]
1. K-On! – 564 votes
[Image via Ushikun]
The reason many of these characters look the same (save for their hairdos and hair colour) is because certain studios like Kyoto Animation have house styles.
Sometimes, there are different reasons for the similarities. Mr Osomatsu, for example, isn’t only a gag animation (and the similarity is part of the gag!), but these characters are sextuplets.
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10 responses to “Anime With Characters That Look The Same ”
Ok.
This actually happened to me as I started off drawing in an anime style. I’ve since tried to get better at faces, because if you take away their eye colours and give them all the same hair style, they look exactly the same.
My sister draws anime characters sometimes, but she keeps accidentally making them look the same without the clothes and whatnot.
Not just anime. The amount of western live action movies and tv shows I’ve seen recently with similar looking actors. how does nobody catch that in casting?
Right. Character designs shouldn’t have a consistent style. Ok.
(Mr Osomatsu, really? They’re supposed to be quintuplets)
I don’t think they’re arguing against consistent style. You can’t really say that these character designs, for example, aren’t consistent in their style. I think what they’re arguing is that it’s pretty uninspired character design if the only differences are hair-style, eye colour and wardrobe.
That said, some of the examples really do puzzle me. I mean, I was pretty sure many of the characters in Attack on Titan all had pretty distinctive facial structures and body shapes.
I mean, to be fair, a lot of them look real similar, but they’re military. Uniforms, dude. It took me multiple watches of Blackhawk Down to know which US Army dudes weren’t clones of each other.
Your example though, the characters are all different ages and genders. I’m a massive fan of Range Murata but even with him, if you take his character designs and select only the ones that are the same gender and age group, they look pretty similar.
Man I have trouble enough when casts of anime move past five or so characters let alone when they look similar. Clannad would wreck me :p
Clannad will 100% for sure wreck you, it’s just that it will be emotionally.
Saves money and time. It’s like stock footage.