Left Handedness in anime?

[Melty Snow]

Never thought about it till now, but are there left handed people in anime or even manga? It'd be interesting to see a left handed samurai or something. I bet there is doujinshi out there of Link from Legend of Zelda (left handed hose wearing male elf!!) but hes a video game character.

[Kyuven]

well, technically Seiji from Midori no Hibi is left handed (not by choice mind you)
and if you've ever read flipped manga, all the characters are left handed

[FLiP]

Prince of tennis playes left handed a good bit though he'll switch to right handed when s@#$ goes ill

Hajime no ippo many left handed boxers
ect...

[a_nevels666]

Originally Posted by Melty Snow

Never thought about it till now, but are there left handed people in anime or even manga? It'd be interesting to see a left handed samurai or something. I bet there is doujinshi out there of Link from Legend of Zelda (left handed hose wearing male elf!!) but hes a video game character.

In general left-handedness is frowned upon in Japan. It's a cultural thing.

[ZhanDVG]

It was frowned upon here in America (and I assume in England as well, if not all across Europe) up until recently as well...

[Fronzel]

Frowned upon? Really?

[NoSanninWa]

Originally Posted by Fronzel

Frowned upon? Really?

Yes. Really. Everytime someone used their left hand people would frown at them. Left-handed people were causing a lot of unhappy faces.



j/k. The frowning was only figurative. The truth is that it was considered unlucky. Really.

[a_nevels666]

Originally Posted by Fronzel

Frowned upon? Really?

Yes, really.

Japan is really big on conformity.

And it's true left-handedness used to be frowned upon in most of the rest of the world as well. It's because left is/was generally associated with evil things and right with good stuff. Take a look at this site: http://www.sinistershop.com/language.htm

[Melty Snow]

Didn't think left handedness was still negative in Japan. Well every nation/culture/etc has its quirks. Even without it being frowned on, I guess its such a minor thing that would only serve as a gimmick of sorts. Like in a fighting anime, or possibly an erogame turned anime (the main character should go out with the left handed girl!!! not the kawaii loli girl!!!). Anyways... might try to watch Hajime no Ippo and Prince of Tennis, heard they were good anyways .

found one..
Ryo Hayakawa of Princess Nine
1
2
contradictory right handed victory sign?
holding a frame
tennis racket
thats it for that....

[Yogo_Pogo]

Left handed seems to have been persecute because it was a sign of the devil or something. When my mother was at school, about 35 years ago, her teacher , a nun, forced her to write with her right hand when she discovered my mother was left handed. Now my mom is still a little confused at times. It's realy hard even at an early age to change the hand you are writting with.

About the subject of this thread, did Kenshin used is left hand? i think a remember a time when he did.

[bohemian]

Originally Posted by Yogo_Pogo

About the subject of this thread, did Kenshin used is left hand? i think a remember a time when he did.

As a matter of fact, Hajime Saito was left-handed. You can see him using left hand to hold sword in RK and also in Peacemaker Kurogane.

[Melty Snow]

Didn't Saito only use his sword left handed for his Gotatsu special attack?

[maxthelostboy]

Originally Posted by Fronzel

Frowned upon? Really?

My mom is left handed and back in the 60's when she went to school her teachers forced her to write with the right but the teachers were old hags. Just like the other guys story:*(

[Kyuven]

Originally Posted by maxthelostboy

My mom is left handed and back in the 60's when she went to school her teachers forced her to write with the right but the teachers were old hags. Just like the other guys story:*(

i think they tried to do that (before they realized that what orientation you are is decided by a weird quirk in the way your brain works...like when i'm given two different directions for some weird reason i pick left...even tho i'm right handed ^_^) they thought it could be changed
it was similar logic to the logic behind lobotomies and foot binding, oh and corsets too

[kj1980]

Conformity in Japan is an invisible but it exists plainly by society.

Being a left-handed as a child will scar you as you will be taunted by the rest of the children with the derogatory term "giccho." Parents who fear their child being taunted and being a victim of ijime (excessive bullying) will force their children to write in the "correct" right-handed form - for the sake of their children...so to speak.

Of course, many activists and child researchers proclaim that this is not a good thing to do even in Japan. But in an overly image-conscious society, if you are "not normal" you are not "among us" with the rest of the "normal people."

[restraining myself to go further...]

[takes a deep breath]

As I say again, welcome to Japan.

[Kyuven]

Originally Posted by kj1980

Conformity in Japan is an invisible but it exists plainly by society.

Being a left-handed as a child will scar you as you will be taunted by the rest of the children with the derogatory term "giccho." Parents who fear their child being taunted and being a victim of ijime (excessive bullying) will force their children to write in the "correct" right-handed form - for the sake of their children...so to speak.

Of course, many activists and child researchers proclaim that this is not a good thing to do even in Japan. But in an overly image-conscious society, if you are "not normal" you are not "among us" with the rest of the "normal people."

[restraining myself to go further...]

[takes a deep breath]

As I say again, welcome to Japan.

like i've said before...this isn't much different from America
over here a good majority of kids are on some kind of medication (i had to take dexedrine, my kid brother takes some kind of blue pill...an anti-depressant)
and, like Japan, (or anywhere for that matter) there's the constant strive by teenagers/people in general to be "normal" or "just like everyone else". And the ones that say they're "rebelling against conformists"...ironically hang out with other people who dress in the same kind of style that they do -_-. Dieting, bulemia, and anorexia are problems too. I can't count the times i've been told to "be normal"...ugh...
every society has problems...and a lot of them appear different on the surface, but deep down are exactly the same...like suicide may appear more prevalant in japan because there's a significant amount of people who choose to off themselves in the subway system...in most of the U.S., there are no subways...so you don't hear about it as often (it's treated more like "Mr. Smith just painted his house GREEN! Oh, and his daughter slit her wrists..." as opposed to "Sorry i was late, someone jumped in front of the train" no one likes to talk about it, because no one wants to face reality. Part of being human i guess)

[jennwenn]

Originally Posted by kj1980

Conformity in Japan is an invisible but it exists plainly by society.

Being a left-handed as a child will scar you as you will be taunted by the rest of the children with the derogatory term "giccho." Parents who fear their child being taunted and being a victim of ijime (excessive bullying) will force their children to write in the "correct" right-handed form - for the sake of their children...so to speak.

Of course, many activists and child researchers proclaim that this is not a good thing to do even in Japan. But in an overly image-conscious society, if you are "not normal" you are not "among us" with the rest of the "normal people."

[restraining myself to go further...]

[takes a deep breath]

As I say again, welcome to Japan.

Ack! So if a foreigner was using her lefthand to eat with chopsticks, would they think it really rude? Or would they excuse that behavior because the person is not Japanese? (Good thing I'm equally bad with chopsticks in both hands. )

I'm lefthanded, but in America no one cares about that anymore. If anything, people think its like a cool novelty. When I learned how to write, the teacher first wanted to be sure that I naturally chose to write with my left. She asked me to try my right hand, but I said it was too hard so she just encouraged me to continue with my left.

We may not care about handedness, but I think America is conformist about other things.

[Kyuven]

Originally Posted by jennwenn

Ack! So if a foreigner was using her lefthand to eat with chopsticks, would they think it really rude? Or would they excuse that behavior because the person is not Japanese? (Good thing I'm equally bad with chopsticks in both hands. )

I'm lefthanded, but in America no one cares about that anymore. If anything, people think its like a cool novelty. When I learned how to write, the teacher first wanted to be sure that I naturally chose to write with my left. She asked me to try my right hand, but I said it was too hard so she just encouraged me to continue with my left.

We may not care about handedness, but I think America is conformist about other things.

uniform unconformity i call it
people say "i'm trying to be different" while being the same as everyone else.
a line from a book i read when i was younger:
"Whenever you're thinking of doing something there's 1000 other people with the same idea"

[DukeGaladrien]

Originally Posted by Kyuven

'Whenever you're thinking of doing something there's 1000 other people with the same idea'

But of those 1000 who have the idea, how many of them actually do it? few-to-none in general.

[Kyuven]

Originally Posted by DukeGaladrien

But of those 1000 who have the idea, how many of them actually do it? few-to-none in general.

well it really has to do greatly with the idea.
traffic on holiday weekends is one part of it. killing someone is another part of it. Same idea, but 2 different means of it being executed