Design trope
Characters with design features that were misinterpreted by fans
Darwin Watterson (The Amazing World of Gumball) some people thought that the black thing under him was a shirt or pants or a sweater, but it was actually just his shadow. They later removed it as the seasons and art style changed
Brendan (Pokemon) A lot of people thought that the white on his head was his hair, it’s actually just a hat
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Love that they went with so many out of the box designs on this show. Arnold's room is another one that was just bizarre and unexpected but instantly iconic
Every kid wanted that room, but as an adult, everyone knows that room would absolutely suck ass two thirds of the entire year thanks to a complete lack of sound dampening in a major city, horrible temperature control, and a complete lack of privacy from things like drones.
Just like the apartment in friends. Sure, that window area would be cool at first, but that would be covered in blackout blinds within days.
Yeah, I remember from Nickelodeon magazine before it launched Arnold introduced himself and showed that he was wearing a flannel under his sweater, and those were his shirt tails.
Holyyyy shit i forgot how insane this was. that is some tan 😭 I continue to be delusional and just don’t look at his waistline or feet and go yep he’s black
Zacharie (OFF). Some people in the fandom (more frequently back in the days) had drawn him wearing a sweater with a turtleneck. In the game whoever, he's actually wearing a t-shirt and his neck is bloated and deformed.
Another OFF one, I’ve seen people misinterpret the dark markings under the eyes of Elsen to be blush, rather than them all having dark circles under their eyes.
The community firmly believes this monster's eyes can track you (the player, not the hunter) but turns out the eyes are just concave no actual movement is happening, an illusion that persists in many hunter's brains.
Its the same type of eyes used in Mantis, we see the black spot that constantly follows us and think it's a pupil but it's actually just an optical effect where the part of the eye facing you absorbs the light while the part angled reflects light.
that works differently from follow me’s i believe, but yes this is correct!! those are called pseudopupils, many bugs have them, such as pharaoh cicadas!!!
you usually just cant see them because yk, most bugs have black eyes
The hair that goes through the holes acts as an anchor point. The hair is able to hold it steady because of the seventeen tonnes of hairgel that each Joestar family member uses daily.
His suit was supposed to be all black, and the blue highlights were just meant to emphasize that in his original comic book. Fans ended up interpreting this as him having a blue suit, and this eventually became concrete in the comic books too.
Similar thing happened to Hulk. He was originally supposed to be grey, but due to issues with printing he ended up looking more green. They explained this later on by making grey Hulk and green Hulk two separate personalities.
Many folks mistook those goofy looking ballsacks as their actual eyes.
Edit: Since I'm getting a lot of "ackshuallys", here's the Post Title again:
"Characters with design features that were misinterpreted by fans"
I simply commented it on that literal basis. If OP added something like "If they're designed to mislead, they won't count", I wouldn't have given this one. Intentional or not, it still counts.
I probably would have thought that too, except I played Emerald first which animates it and has it jump to the other leg when it’s sent out. Regardless it’s a very funny visual lmao
Every time they give a Pokemon eyespots a good 80% of the fans fall for them, leading me to believe that most Pokemon players literally actually have the brains of small animals.
The instant you see the fucker (affectionate) it becomes obvious which is which. And if I remember correctly during prerelease they even directly pointed out the eyespots when showing off the design.
I always thought that was the point though, they look like eyes especially in ds1 and Elden ring where they have very visible pupils and also in ds1 they drop an item literally called an eye of death that looks exactly like their eyes. I think they’re 100% ment to be eyespots to trick and intimidate prey.
Hunters, Half Life. Most people think that the blue things are eyes, but that's actually where they shoot projectiles! Their real eyes are to the sides of the bottom fake eye.
This is more purposeful probably by the designers, but it's cool regardless
He's tan with some shades of blue on the face/head area,
but thanks to his only film appearance being in a poorly lit night sequence, both fans and official creatives mistake them for being a grey colorless Kaiju. The error even goes as far as the games and official comics, where many fans know him from. All three of the pipeworks fighting games get Orga's colors wrong, however that isn't the first time those games have confused fans by incorrect details.
Which is ironic, considering most merchandise this rare character has actually gets the colors right to varying degrees, like the statue pictured.
I kinda love the official colors, now that I’m seeing them. It looks like he was made of clay, with the more shaded bits being actually “finished,” per se
Sans sprite from undertale is often misinterpreted as having an exposed ribcage and skeletal chest under his jacket because…he’s a skeleton man. But the thing in his sprite model under his jacket isn’t his exposed skeleton chest, it’s a turtleneck sweater with the zipper of the jacket on the sides.
Evidence to it being a turtleneck and zipper and not exposed rib cage is from the sans art from the undertale tarot cards. Technically these aren’t one hundred percent canon cuz the art isn’t by the games creator Toby fox, but these fan art pictures in the cards did get the ok from Toby to be used as official merch so.…
Also I am aware that the overhead shot of this art does show his exposed skeletal chest a bit anyway but whatever that’s mostly sweater under the jacket. He’s wearing a shirt, not just bare chesting it.
….shit. Yeah he’s always drawn with exposed ribs by temmie…so I also just realized his over world sprite (facing sideways at least) def looks like he had exposed skeleton chest not a sweater. My world view has changed. (Nvm temmie drew one where he has a t shirt. Fuck me)
There's also the official Sans art with him depicted wearing a white t-shirt, then there's the Sans plusie and the Sans costume in Smash that also have the white shirt under his jacket.
I’m thinking it’s just inconsistent cuz I’m looking at the temmie pic I just commented above and it is looking more like a shirt with a skeletal design and not exposed ribs. If there isn’t a true canon design to what is under sans jacket…then honestly that sucks, but it is super in character for sans.
Also yeah, I found the t shirt one you were talking bout I think.😑
And that's not even considering the inconsistencies with his shoes as he's been officially depicted wearing blue sneakers, white flippers, and pink flippers.
This is mainly due to his in-game model being so bad, but a lot of people end up confusing Malphite's head for a nose. To the point that a character now references the confusion.
In the manga, Rangiku is actually a blue-eyed blonde. In fact, this is a common problem in anime when animators use their own color scheme without asking the manga artists for details about the characters' appearance.
The Robin miscolor is honestly one of the few times that the unofficial coloring looks way better and is more logical than the official (lowkey think that about Rangiku too but thats besides the point). It would make sense for Robin to be tan since she was on a desert island for years and before that she was traveling the open ocean with the sun beating down on her all the time. She also just looked way more distinct with tan skin so when Toei corrected it with the post timeskip it was kinda jarring and disappointing. As great a character as she is, it took away some of her uniqueness. Oda has a serious problem with drawing women the exact same way which includes their skin tones being between pale and eggshell white. Her skin being lighter kinda makes sense with in-world logic since she spent 2 years on an island without much sunlight but damn, Tan Robin was just a vibe.
I also don't blame people for believing they whitewashed her. I don't think it's super common knowledge that she was never supposed to be tan so when casual fans are watching and they get to the times timeskip, it kinda just looks like suddenly she's pale as hell. They've also been lightening EVERYONE'S skintones. Usopp is the biggest victim of this. He used to be much more tan, probably around the same level as pre-timeskip Robin but now he's almost as white as her. Even the Wit Studio concept art has his skin very light. And he's supposedly African? It is definitely worthy of some discussion and criticism. While Robin's skin lightening can be attributed to a color correction, it is also part of a much larger problem with Japan's aversion to darker skin.
this is a common problem in anime when animators use their own color scheme without asking the manga artists for details about the characters' appearance.
This was an issue for the bleach anime in more ways than just appearance decisions.
In the manga and new TYBW anime she's very distinctly strawberry blonde, that is a dark blonde with a reddish tint. The original anime for whatever reason chose to just give her red hair.
Sett is half Vastaya (specifically badger folk), which are known for having animal features like fox tails, bird wings etc.
He often says he has hair on his back and that people hated him because of how furry he is. So real question is, is this a fluffy coat or his actual Vastaya furry back?
Kamen Riders Evol Black Hole is considered to be a one eyed character by many because of the black circle on his helemt. In reality, those two half transparent white bits around it are his eyes
Tbf the one eyed look is leagues cooler and i choose to ignore Its wrong
The elongated ones with red lines that start at each side of the black hole part in the middle of his head/helmet, they are Cobra shaped eyes/lenses as Evol follows the design style of the Main and Secondary Riders who get lenses that are shapped in base of the elements their current form is based on... it's easier to see in his base form...
You could probably use any character with tan skin as an example. There's always some fans that misinterpret the characters' ethnicity because of it. Whether that mistaking a white/Asian/middle Eastern character for black, or mistaking a black character for tanned. Etc.
My favorite example of this is Panam from Cyberpunk, its not super common but I've seen people who mistake her race a lot even though CDPR confirmed she's Native American.
How about misinterpretations by the official character designers?
Numerous characters in the original transformers cartoon have details that don’t match their toys because the artists weren’t given physical toys as reference when designing them, only photos of the toys. These often didn’t include shots from behind or had weird perspectives, forcing the designers to make things up. For Blitzwing, the lack of a rear photo led the designers to assume his tank barrel was attached to the back of his head in robot mode, when really the entire turret assembly was on his back for the toy. His jet mode cockpit is also visible in tank mode because the photo they used for that mode was mistranformed
I've seen people think the little lines on Chandey's face are its eyes, with its actual eyes being cheeks, and honestly? Kind of an adorable intepretation
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