Genshin Impact: Japanese users react to people’s confusion at the size of characters’ heads

A tweet mentioning a Reddit user’s confused thread about the size of characters’ heads in Genshin Impact has recently gone viral among Japanese users, reaching over 15 thousand likes. Users were amused by the drastically different understanding of how heads work that western fans have, offering explanations. 

Genshin Impact is an action RPG published by the Chinese developer miHoYo, distinguished by its anime-styled open world and characters. The character designs are of a “typical” cute anime style, with a low average head count. 

The quoted Reddit user questions the sizes of the character’s foreheads, attaching official character art to prove their point, one of which is a screenshot of the character Diluc with his hair edited out to expose the presumed magnitude of his head. Undoubtedly thanks to the smooth and shiny bald Diluc edit, the post was quick to attract the attention of the Japanese side of the fandom, with the earless egg-shaped Diluc becoming a boundless source of amusement. 

More serious fans offered critique on the way the character’s head size was assessed, claiming that the volume of Diluc’s hair was not taken into account at all, making the top of his head appear much taller than it really is. Though an exaggerated head-to-body proportion is one of the characteristics of anime-style character design, the bald edit went too far by assuming that the top of the head lies at the same height as the top of the hair. The lack of eyebrows also contributes to the impression of a giant forehead.

Western styled art typically does not express hair volume at the top of the head to such a degree, so many just assume that what lies under that hair is all the head. The following user offered a correction on what should be considered the character’s head. 

That solves the issue of big heads, but why are the character’s foreheads so tall? The answer may lie in Asian beauty standards. In Asia and Japan especially, having a kogao (eng: small face) is considered beautiful. The average European or American would probably scratch their head in confusion at being told their face is small, but in Japan it’s considered a compliment, as having a face that appears small with facial features concentrated close together is an ideal for both men and women. This has naturally been translated into anime as well, so it’s actually not about giving the character a big forehead, but about making the rest of the face appear more compact and smaller by pushing the features together. This effect is further created with the previously mentioned voluminous depictions of hair and long bangs. 

On the other hand, there was also a portion of Japanese users who did find the character’s heads slightly large once it was pointed out but had previously never thought to question the fact. It’s interesting to see how what a deliberate stylistic choice made by one can seem like a mistake to another simply due to cultural discrepancies as to what is deemed appealing.