so why do anime elf ears look like that?

[ru]

Now I know there's no right or wrong about how to depict non-existent species, and it's probably just path dependence at some ;point, but I'm curious to know where it originated. The earliest example I know of personally was Deedlit from Record of Lodoss War, but was it already an established trope at that point?



Was there a Japanese adaptation of Lord of the Rings or something that established the trope? (I have googled but, well, google is terrible now)

Curious is anyone has any insights.

 

[deflagratio]

My 100% uneducated guess is that it's easier to draw since the ears get to exist on a much more 2-dimensional plane and it makes it more obvious to readers/viewers.

 

[Grumpygoat]

My 100% uneducated guess is that it's easier to draw since the ears get to exist on a much more 2-dimensional plane and it makes it more obvious to readers/viewers.

This is what I thought as well (with similar levels of education). They're more visually obvious than if they were Spock ears - they create a distinct silhouette and can be seen even when the character's a smaller figure in a shot.

 

[Bookwrack]

Lodoss War was a major well known influence and the 'knifey' ear design is visually distinctive. Along with all the other anime character tropes, more subtle western elf ears would kind of get lost in the shuffle

 

[Mejiro]

yeah, I think they're just regular "pointed elf ears" but exaggerated, and then that became the "standard" look over time. There's probably a few examples of smaller elf-ears around (I think some iterations of Link and Zelda have smaller versions?) but "very big and pointy" has become the standard anime look - like how "anime orcs" are generally the "pig-faced" type, rather than the (western) "big burly green guy".

 

[Kreuzritter]

addded benefit top manga-ka is they can add to an elf's expressions

 

[DariusSolluman]

Hm. Is there an earlier example of anime elf than Elrond from the Rankin-Bass Hobbit?

 

[Aegypto]

Traditional faeries have been also depicted with elongated ears before.

 

[Kurotowa]

Record of Lodoss War may have indeed set the trend. What little I could find of 80s anime elves had slightly exaggerated ears; bigger than a Spock ear, but still well short of the full knife. But then Lodoss War came out in 1991 and was incredibly popular and influential. So much so that when the Japanese D&D Rules Cyclopedia was rereleased in 1995 it was using the knife ear elf as an official model. (Article with some illustrations from that book.)

 

[DariusSolluman]

Hm. Was Record of Lodoss War based on a Sword World game, or was Sword World inspired by Record of Lodoss War (which was a D&D game)? I can't recall the order of inspiration that went there.