[hyl]

Originally Posted by C.A.

You sound like you are making things personal and attacking me instead of the argument. For one, I can gladly boast that I have watched thousands of films, mostly being an international selection of animation as I'm an animator. But I've also watched Enthiran, seen trailers of King Khan's super hero movie, as well as videos of the tokusatsu Spider-Man.

I'm not going to argue with you much, nor do I have the time to do so, which is why I've been keeping my posts as general as I can.

The fact that you think completely different from what I do about the characters proves my point that appearance is a very significant factor.

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Uta Hagen's Nine Questions
12 principles of animation

I'm an animator, we have to learn acting in order to create realistic characters, we need to know how the physical architecture of a character affects the spatial relationship between him and other characters and objects. We need to know what kind of gesture a character of certain physique and personality has. What kind of topology in his walk, whats the differences in the stride of a man, a woman, tall, short, fat, skinny, or when he's angry, sad, happy?

How would a happy fat man walk down a rocky path while carrying a crate of beer and listening to his ipod look like? What's the tempo of his walk? What's the shape he creates and how would he affect other people when he is walking pass them, what kind of kinesthetic response would he have if he bumps into someone else? Replace the character with others and they will all act differently, no 2 people in the world will have the same behaviour, I haven't even touched on the character's personality. Just a character's appearance and physique can determine how he will act and how others will respond to him.

I can go on elaborating more, in fact it will take several months of classes of talking, but I simply have no time nowadays. You can think I'm shallow or anything, but I'd rather put more of my effort into my work.

Your original point was that even a single difference can effect alot.

Originally Posted by C.A.

But even so, just a single difference or change in appearance can affect alot. If Haruhi had thick eyebrows, Kyon has long hair, Mikuru is taller than Kyon, Yuki has pink hair and Itsuki is bald, the dynamics of the entire story would change.

I on the other hand disagreed, unless the change is extreme. Your example of a fat guy or a skinny guy walking is probably very nice animation wise, but would that make characters behave differently for the plot of a story?
Ikari Shinji still wouldn't be less of a whiner if he had blond hair or Asuka would still be cocky, rash etc. if she would had short Hair.

Originally Posted by hyl

Sorry, but can you explain why changing the appearance of some characters would have changed the dynamics of a story? Personally i think changing the personality traits of characters would have a bigger impact on the story rather than the appearance though, unless the change is extreme (like a gender change, but that would probably also effect the personality a little)

So far none of your points have persuaded me that a single change would effect the dynamics of a story. I had made some counter arguments against your examples of Mikuru, Itsuki and Yuki.