Chibi (term)

Chibi (Japaneseちび, dt " small, tiny, dwarf-like " ) is an idiom of the anime fandom, which describes a typical manga style characters to represent characters in a childish form. The style is regularly used to represent strong emotional actions such as anger, fear or love fainting. While the shape and color of the hair and clothing is largely maintained, to allow for recognition of the figure, the entire body shrinks to a starfish -like shape. Distinctive features such as eyes and mouth are sometimes drastically simplified.

Along with Speed ​​Lines arise wildly gesticulating figures, which represent the strongest form of expression of the manga despite less character strokes. Many authors use this form also to leave a caricature of itself in or on the cover of their works. Colloquially, the term is often equated with super deformed.

To distinguish super deformed

While Chibi relates more to a reduction of a figure, Super Deformed is a more general term for characters with unrealistically distorted proportions.

Linguistic context

The word has chibi in the original linguistic context has the same meaning as " Small / -r " for children in German.

In fandom especially fanarts with a Chibi are provided in the name to make it clear that the figure otherwise shown only as an adult is to be seen in a child version.

The origin of language use can be mainly attributed to the anime Sailor Moon, in which the local character Chibiusa occurs, whose name is composed of the word Chibi Usagi and her mother's first name.