PERCEPTION OF ANIME CARTOON CHARACTERS DEPENDING ON THEIR VISUAL TRAITS AND FACIAL FEATURES

Even though the usage of computer-animated figures in anime with their visual traits and facial features has been a research topic, there is no research on how these characters' appearances affect their general perception. This study aims to investigate how these characters' visual appearances affect and how their acts are perceived by people who don’t have anime literacy but have visual graphic design knowledge. If these visual texts are to justify their status as stories, readers have to look for and construct such ‘actants’ and ‘existents’ from the resources generic comics provide. A qualitative approach based on an interpretive paradigm with inductive reasoning has been used as the major methodology for obtaining information to understand how these visual texts justify their status. To reach this aim perception analysis has been used as a method, four images of cartoon characters have been shown to one hundred and fifty-six participants and open-ended short answer questions have been asked about them. This study was applied to people who were unfamiliar with selected Japanese anime characters, had a visual design background, and could not easily read coded expressions. Additionally, two separate focus group studies were conducted on twenty-four Digital Game Design students to obtain additional opinions from Digital Game Design students. It has been found that people's perceptions are shaped by their personal experiences. It was concluded that even if they know the basic visual design elements, they may misinterpret the visual features and facial features of anime characters if they do not have anime literacy in their perception.