[LWC 61] Visual Study in Feminine Finger Positions
↩[LWC 60]
Something about this quintessential fingering in anime has somewhat “pestered me”. It’s an extremely common device to indicate femininity, perhaps mindlessly abused? - but, more specifically, to help signify distinct types of femininity that anime is nearly contingent upon. Its nuanced function depends on the character at hand (no pun intended), so its effect ranges from a typical elicitation of righteous GAR mamoru-ism to a mysterious, exotic, long-legged, clad in revealing Chinese dress, one hand under the wine glass, mole and reddened lips close at hand, exquisiteness.
1. Nagisa (Clannad): Nagisa, perhaps being the epitomic manifestation of the Helpless Key Girl (as coined by Baka-Raptor), or the Perfect Key Heroine, it let alone suffices that she’s the only girl out of five in the OP to display so blatantly this digit posture. She’s doing it in both hands, to boot, and as you can see in the animation her arms are whimsically fluttering around, she being the very Helpless Key Girl that she is. This specific motion and position in the OP also is important, since the OP - perhaps a determining factor in its marketability - must metonymically represent each of its characters, or so I’m inclined to say. Nagisa waves her arms around; Kyou dribbles a basketball with one hand on her hip while a superimposed image displays her hands pointed together - a rather modest image juxtaposed with a more flamboyant one merely indicates the resident tsundere; and so forth and so on.
2. Sora (Natsu no Sora): Again with the mirroring of each hand, maybe it’s just an aesthetic thing to complement the two cups? I think Sora is girly enough to Assume The Position whilst conducting her magic; the ritual of magic performance is probably a representation or sorts of the mage’s self. Thus little cultural artifacts and traditions that accompany greater rituals do a good job of further “customizing” the seemingly monolithic task of magic since in the anime it is an objective job wherein emotions, seemingly, should have little place; Sora gets “scolded” for bringing her personal ethics into everything she does, and if not “scolded” then reprimanded for “taking it too seriously” or “overlooking the priority” – however you wish to articulate.
3. Taiga & Ryuuji (Toradora!): This one is good because it shows The Position as assumed by Taiga yet contrasted by Ryuuji’s rather masculine “Wtf Edward Scissor Hands?” finger arrangement – not dissimilar to flower arrangement, probably. ccI’ve yet to see a boy’s fingers so bluntly set forth in this fashion – it’s reserved for the more formalized conduit of femininity.
4. Sanae (Clannad): This one’s important because she loosens her fingers into a more “normal” (heteogenized gender?) position. While it’s hard to talk about this with the video, spread fingers seems to indicate urgency or desperation as all fingers attempt to grasp and clutch something as an anchor – or, it’s groped at because it isn’t desired to disappear. That’s obvious from the case of Fuko but “the silent plea” via outstretched hand is all too genderless a notion (perhaps); basic human struggle can be evident throughout any sapient character – usually, I guess – and so the spreading of the fingers from the feminine position to the “relaxed” position would indicate such.
5. Reinhard (LoGH): I’d say that this one may barely count – I also wanted some pre-millennial anime in there for heterogeneity (gender and era). I would append a few more words here as an anime such as this merits it, but I haven’t started watching this yet, as weird as it sounds.
6. Ogasawara (MSgM): A rather monolithic representation of femininity, hell it’s a yuri Catholic school. I apologize for the crude photoshopping; it was a panning shot. Sachiko also has some crazy witch finger thing going for her here; the two center fingers are bent towards each other in a seemingly unnatural position. It seems painful, but it’s elegant (lest Key further caters to the foot fetish/eccentric genius niche)! Perhaps beautiful, but definitely not ergonomic: I hadn’t known two fingers were needed for one key.
7. Yoshika (Strike Witches): Just moe.
On other hand (no pun intended), observable are the different positions of the two hands. One spread, one “feminized” (or what verb have you). During this particular scene, I think that Yoshika was experiencing her first (or 2nd) real battle, so shock and lack of water legs are inevitable obstacles. But using both hands against a wall is just a brace, probably (is it really that effective?)
8. Alicia (Aria): Alicia can be viewed in interesting ways…she’s kind of perfect. You know, just extremely “pure” and heightened, glorified yet modest. While her left hand seems to be in a painful contortion (does your thumb really bend that way?), the right one exudes slenderness. I guess the manicured nails help. Of course, she has to be performing some perfunctory feminine task like hair arranging to present an appropriate time to assume The Position since I haven’t seen their hands like this when rowing gondolas.
9. Nayuki (Kanon 2006): Ok, last Key picture, I swear – but this one is much too hyperbolic to be neglected here (who does this in real life?).
10. Sanada (Kimikiss): Women in control, patriarch down for the count, he assumes The Position.
11. Lancelot (Code Geass): Oddly enough, this picture does resemble the previous one. You’ve got the dominant female (Guren) grabbing hold of the less-than-alpha male. I mean, look how huge Guren’s hand is!
12: Yamie (Kure-nai): I take back what I said about crazy witch fingers.
13: Yamada’s Aunt(?) (Honey & Clover): I don’t really know who this is; it’s the lady that helped Hagu and Yamada try on yukatas. Anyway, this lady seems like a sarcastic-HaHaHa lady, so the ring and the position just accentuate that personality, so it’s tremendously surprising when you see Yamada strike a pose without those split fingers.
Most of these pictures exhibit little sense of subtlety, except for perhaps LoGH, and that’s an iffy one at that. I was thinking that in many of these pictures, could they be displayed any other way with as much ease? Probably not, since semiotically rearranging signs would then change the meaning, but maybe anime has come to “abuse” (perhaps mindlessly? [refer to beginning]) this simple “W” in order to get some message across that would be harder to convey through dialogue or some non-visual medium. Not to say that “abusing” this sign is a bad thing – it can be a convenient thing, a funny thing, an over-excessively moe thing (refer to Nayuki), but deciding whether or not falling back on steadfast signs is “bad” or “good” doesn’t say much.
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This little hand gesture you’re talking about goes far beyond anime. I learned the hand position in the late 1960s when it was taught to me in ballet class. When the fingers are held in that position, the hand looks less stiff, more slender, and is believed to be more appealing looking from a distance. (In other words, from the audience.) Check out pictures from classical ballets and look at the hand positions. You’ll see how remarkably similar they are to the pictures you’re showing here.
Wow that’s pretty crazy, I never knew that. Then would you consider Lancelot getting raped as “ballet”?
It could also be just a case of lazy animators: hands with four fingers are much easier to draw, so sometimes two fingers are drawn together to make one, in order to save effort. It’s probably a trick that anime picked up from Disney.
I’ve never noticed this. It reminds me of that story about Nick Park of Wallace and Gromit fame - that without realising it he was subconsciously adjusting the movements of the eyes in his characters in a way that realistically mirrored the way eyes reflect people’s thoughts. A lot of these look like deliberate hand fetishery, but to some extent this artifice must sneak into our heads with horrible repercussions.
Yamie’s absurd fingerwork seems somehow mocking, suggesting that behind the painstaking feminine artifice and melodramatic love stories lies a cynical faker. By which I mean A Trap.
It’s an ultimate moe factor to have the third and fourth finger together. It looks awkward in real life (case in point, this photo of the cast from live action Negima!)
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1330/1337900544_57c5f91dd1.jpg
But somehow it looks elegant and girly in anime and manga. CLAMP is notorious for drawing nearly every manga panel with a girl’s hands looking like that.
I don’t quite understand…but there’s definately a connection
But now that I think about it, my Moe sense does tingle
You should watch Legend of Galactic Heroes quickly, you will not regret it. This show is one of the best ever made.
I played the flute for about 13 years. The way the keys are positioned trained my fingers to rest that way. The ballet probably didn’t help either. I never really noticed it in anime until now though.
When I saw the title of this post in WordPress’ manage tab, I thought it was definitely about something other than what it really was about. Then again, I’m a pervert.
Heh. Moe senses… tingling!
Anyways, wow. Never even registered to me that anime females (and Nukezaku) were doing that two fingers together thing. I wonder if there’s a TVTropes article on this…
@Calawain : It had me too even during the first sentence :p.
I have to admit. I’m as guilty as Calawain and Zentari are when I fell for the title. (lol)
I just figured it was a way to make hands easy to draw and yet interesting to look at.
I never noticed before, but it was interesting to find that there is at least one shared trait that spans all genres in anime. Great post comrade.
Sir, you have my utmost respect for penning such an article. I never saw any of this. And I am not being sarcastic.
Fascinating. Is 11 from the recent battle, when the Guren was almost Rocket Punching?
I think (as you admit yourself) you’re pushing it a bit with Reinhard, though: I’m more struck by how both he and his companion are holding social objects in front of them, very properly. This certainly fits the topic under discussion, their ability to perceive the real agendas behind the (usually-)polite masks of the Imperial nobility.
Perhaps you could also right an article the atypical running style that I see from females as well in anime. Or maybe I should, since it’s one of the things that makes me gripe in anime, like silly keyboard typing or characters playing music that doesn’t match the music you hear.
What I’m trying to say is good job.
If it’s a bad finger position for fighting, it’s feminine. What’s manlier than a fist? A ‘V’ position with your middle and index fingers is manly enough to poke someone’s eyes out. You could extend that principle to the single thumb, middle, or index finger, or any other finger position capable of efficiently inflicting damage. You wouldn’t fight anyone with your middle and ring fingers together. Therefore, it’s feminine.
Gurren’s arm is a literal nuclear wave projector, so…I try not to think too much into that.
But this was quite intriguing. Hand gestures have always been good conveyors of emotion or position. Well done~
yeah… what’s funny is that the famous Barbie’s, err, “daughter” Kelly also has that finger position. When I first saw it, I thought it was just a common finger position when relaxed. Man, was I wrong. It’s actually very hard to adjust your finger like that for a long time, or doing just about anything else. The world is so freaken sexist - I want to see some men drawn doing that… stupid propriety
psgels: Could be.
coburn: I think it is “deliberate” because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a “normal” guy use it - wherein you speak of Yamie as a potential trap (I wouldn’t care; Tamaki, on the other hand, and I would become enraged), I think that because things gendered do or do not fall nicely within one side of the binary - male versus female - and labeled taboo, then by necessity it will have to be something. Maybe animators are copying this off those twentieth century ballet postures, and if so, would they then too be carrying over similar genderisms? Ballet was copied for reasons X, Y and Z, thus Japanese animators hinted as the resonation between Western themes and themes that were desired in their own animation - there’s the influence, I think.
Atashi: This may be the penultimate moe factor. I think the ultimate one is when the girl is sitting and they have their legs bent 90 degrees outward and have their knees touching one another. That probably warrants its own visual study, too. That is strange, as you point out, how it seems normal in anime yet unearthly in reality. I guess that’s anime for you.
vin-nii: I thought the Kimikiss and Geass connection was kind of funny. Kind of.
Moya: I will.
melissa: I played clarinet for like, five minutes, and thought my cheeks were going to die; though I’ve never really seen guitar playing done well in anime, all organic robot witches aside.
Calawain/Zentari/13sugars: I wasn’t thinking anything dirty, then again it could be subconscious…
Zan: Hmmm, it seems odd to me that people haven’t noticed this. That’s not a bad thing, it just seemed to blatant to me for quite a while. Though the Geass picture is probably the most interesting…the characters in question not even being human, and that the one with the feminine finger position could be lightly taken as a male, perhaps a masochistic artifact or representation of Suzaku’s GAR (or lack thereof?)
Kabitzin: I don’t think some of these positions would be easier to draw than a “regular” hand - what about Alicia’s? Then again, I have no idea how to draw. Situations involving males using this hand gesture seem pretty rare, so I can’t say, in that respect, that it’s “easier” or for “convenience”; “convenience” for me was never a frugal thing more of a way to denote gender.
Crusader: Thanks.
hyzen: Thanks.
IKnight: Mmhm, Turn 18. I didn’t notice that, mostly because I wasn’t really paying attention to that LogH screencap, per se, just Reinhard’s fingers. Similarly, I was trying to find an Irako Seigen finger pose but turned up nothing but a few effeminate snickers of his. But concerning what you said, it is significant, both of those social artifacts they hold as if they present status through another conduit. That was a nice observation.
BigN: Haha, I know what you mean. The flailing arms thing annoys me as well. I even see guys running that way occasionally.
BK: It is feminine.
C.I.: Thanks.
Olivia: This posture does feel pretty unnatural. It’s hard to keep it up (oddly I can’t do it in my left hand at all…lack of interdependence?). I don’t know if I’d necessarily call it sexist…it’s not quite demeaning, though you could make an argument though the lack of males performing this gesture - and when we did see males doing it, it was when they weren’t in a position of dominance. Gendered, yes, sexist, perhaps.
I realized this “moe” finger position when I saw Elfen Lied.
Watch it closely. The whole OP and series is full with this pose.
Personally, I think it looks very cute ^^b
Manuerukun: Yeah, now that you mention it, I do clearly remember it in that OP.
Wow never notice, but now that you pointed it out, it’s freaking hilarious
What does this say about spider-man?
His fingers do the same thing when he’s swinging around.
Square: Lancelot’s fingers were pretty amusing, yeah.
xilex: Apparently Spider Man has his fingers in a different way, but I can sort of see what you mean. Actually, I think that’s the METAL position and thus makes it more masculine than feminine.
My mother once related to me that back in high school in the 1940s, she was taught the Seven (I think) Feminine Hand Positions, and that they were taught this so that they might look graceful and sophisticated. Apparently, this was part of the normal school curriculum for girls back then, but I haven’t been able to convince google to puke them up.
What you’ve noticed in Anime are the same thing - I’ve seen the hand/finger positions that Mom demonstrated for us over and over again. Are these now only taught as part of an arts curriculum - ie, drawing, dance, etc? Or how is this tradition being kept alive?
Dinadan: I’m a guy, so I was never taught this. No girls my age (19) have ever mentioned this to me, and I don’t see it in real life. Given, I live in America, so maybe it depends where you live. In any case, both these things you mentioned bring up how it transverses both generations and cultures.
I don’t necessarily think - given my American position - this is a “tradition” as it’s used here in anime. I don’t think the animators are saying “they should hold their fingers like this to keep up the tradition of graceful finger positions” - the thing isn’t an end in itself. I wouldn’t say there is any real intent behind this; it’s just a device to illustrate femininity, but where intent ends, subconscious takes over and then you’d have to view the transnational, transgenerational aspects of femininity.
[...] and Ono with his usual fear of women and male/female related things. AND LOOK AT THOSE FINGERS! It’s funny how I notice the position ever since I read the post. It’s really [...]
Hmm… but could it be just a biological thing? I looked at my own fingers when my hand is in a relaxed state and they are naturally placed in that position you highlighted. I’m a girl btw.
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I’m seconding the biological idea. My hand is naturally like that, and I’m a girl. It’s a pain in the ass when I want to tell folks to live long and prosper.