成田亨がキャラクターデザインにもたらしたもの <査読論文>

Currently, we are surrounded by numerous manga, anime and television game characters. This paper explicates the influence of character design development on character properties by focusing on a character created by Narita Tohl (1929- 2002), Kaiju.
In ancient times, the kaiju symbolized a creature that transcended all human knowledge because it was a combination of animal parts; the ancient people believed animals were formidable. However, the current combinations used to depict the kaiju do not represent the supernatural abilities of the creature because people today do not believe in the power of animals. Designers before Narita had defined kaiju as a living creature and created using those combinations because they believed a realistic kaiju should have a body comprising known animal parts. By contrast, Narita defined kaiju as an unknown animal, and therefore his kaiju design incorporated inanimate and abstract forms.
Thus, Narita freed the kaiju design from the restriction of using known animal parts. By means of this liberation, the symbolic form of kaiju, prevalent during the ancient times, was restored. Thus, the character design development by Narita changed the property of the character.