The GOD of Manga

Osamu Tezuka is occasionally called the God of Manga. Why you ask? Well because he is I answer!! (^_^V) But more seriously, he was a manga creator during the early days of manga. It was in the early 60s and America's influence in Japan was increasing, what with the continued occupation and all. Tezuka-sama was heavily influenced by the Walt Disney cartoons, and was one of the leaders in the use of "big eyes" now a staple in anime and manga. While on that subject....

BIG EYES

Mkay, so large eyes are not always meant to make the characters look Caucasian, in fact it usually isn't for that reason at all. One big cause of that is because of Tezuka-sama's appreciation for Walt Disney's style. His works [i.e. Kimba the White Lion, Astro Boy] rather obviously reflect the Disney influence. This for one reason or another, caught on and became the trend in manga. As for why big eyes are still used today, it is much easier to express emotion through big eyes. ^^ Manga is often very "simplistic" in style, unlike American comics that spell almost everything out for the reader, manga has the Japanese style of perception, the reader has to pickup on what's going on by a character's expression, or "..."s. Large eyes are especially prevalent in the shoujo genre of manga, adding to the often "feminine" and pretty style. And really for anyone who might consider the large eyes to be an reproduction of Americans', when you see a cartoon dog with BIG shiny eyes, do you ask "Hey! Why does that dog have American eyes???" It's the same deal. To put as Gilles Poitras does in the Anime Companion "No race has eyes as big as those sported by many anime and manga characters!" (pg102'). Also, readers might often see that some characters have large eyes while other have slimmer eyes. The large eyes lend to making the character look more innocent. ^^ Villains often have smaller eyes than heroes. Basically, it's just a part of the style. Superman's chin is square and his abs are ripped for the same reason manga characters have big eyes, it works.

Alrighty.... back to what I was saying about Tezuka-sama. ^^ Not only was Tezuka-sama influenced by Disney, but by cinema as well. His love for movies brought cinematic affects into his work. This made his comics seem like still frames from an animated film rather than just flat, static pictures. He also helped pave the way for now solid genres such as ladies, girls', and hentai manga.