Concepts That I've Noticed More Than Once In Japanese Fiction

Oh, yeah. I should have read that page a little more closely!

Well, I did notice that brown has been used as a hair colour for Japanese characters. I will admit that I look at that and I think something like, "I thought it was supposed to be black hair!" Maybe I need to look at pictures of Real Life Japanese people.

I came across this one old Japanese film titled Jigoku, which can be translated as "Hell", and believe me when I tell you that the title suits the film! In fact, one person asked about the significance of 9 PM (21 maybe?) in the film. The answer is interesting: apparently 9 PM is equated with "suffering", based off of reasoning similar to Four Is Death. Sometimes it really helps to know these things!

This only applies to action shonen manga if anything but friendship apears to be a theme in those series even in single player games.

How about this then: Snow.

I'm pretty sure both Code Geass and Haruhi Suzumiya specifically reference the fact that snow is white because it has lost (or forgotten it's colour. It is white by virtue of having no paradigm to give it colour.

Is this perhaps based on a phase? Because I'm pretty sure in the west we don't say anything like that about snow.

Are there any notable old folktales or stories about Snow in Japan?

edited 21st May '12 1:08:42 AM by UltimatelySubjective

I'd like to add a new concept to the conversation. I've noticed this in a couple anime series... when a classroom runs out of desks for all the students, there's always one or two kids sitting at orange crates. More often than not, the odd one(s) out have an air of poverty or depression about them. Is this something anyone else noticed?

Sources: Demon King Daimao (Korone, who specifically lampshades it as an ORANGE crate, not an apple crate) and A Bridge To The Starry Skies (Daigo, for like 1 scene)

@mermaid thing: Yeaaaaaaaaah, original "Japanese mermaid" isn't really mermaid, but human fish combination :p But since pop culture tends to combine things(Like eastern dragons aren't really dragons when you think about it)...

But yeah, what I've noticed? Well, rather large amount of 'nihilistic' villains and amount of characters who think in "Strong eat the weak" and "Survival of fittest" type stuff :p Dunno if japanese have pessimistic view on world because of pressure or something.

@US Ah, now that you mention it... it's also a theme in the remarkably mediocre Mashiro-Iro Symphony. There probably is a saying about snow losing its color.

@Wntermute Maybe orange crates are just that abundant. I think oranges are just very popular over there; in a lot of the anime I've watched, oranges and kotatsu apparently go together, i.e. it's a sort-of custom to eat oranges when lounging in the kotatsu.

@Spooky Is that really a trend only prominent in anime and manga? It's also seen a lot in Captain America, Babylon 5 and X-Men, off the top of my head. Oh, and that dude from Heroes.