Most cartoon characters have only 4 fingers (or 3 fingers and a thumb, to save Martin S correcting me 😃) because a four-fingered hand is easier to draw than a five-fingered hand. It also simplifies the design of the hand in the same way that the rest of the body is simplified. Hands with 5 fingers tend to look large and klunky.
Where the cartoons and animations depict people, the move is towards depicting the full set of 5 fingers on each hand, leaving the 4 fingers for the traditional cartoony depictions.
Interestingly, 4 finger depictions rarely appear in Japanese works. This is because:
- Yakuza members traditionally chop off fingers if they are unable to pay back a debt, or as punishment for other offences that don't warrant death.
- The four-fingered hand is taken as a derogatory reference to the burakumin social class (four fingers = four legs = animals).
- In Japan, four (四) can be read as "yon" (よん) or "shi" (し). The kanji for death is "shi" (死), which is why the number four is considered unlucky.
Bonus item:
Whilst talking of fingers . . .
cuh
ReplyDelete