#same face syndrome kinda kicking my butt however

[mikachusblog]

Rei Hattori for @neishroom •⩊•

she/her lesbian music lover | jealous | extreme sports enthusiast

Get to know her under the cut! ( ≧ᗜ≦)

Rei Hattori is a 17-year-old girl navigating life far from the shadowed peaks of her homeland, Mt. Komorebi. An immigrant with a sharp edge to her gaze and a quiet depth to her soul, Rei’s appearance often misleads those around her. Strangers see her as a rebel—a so-called troublemaker—but beneath the surface is a sensitive young woman, fiercely protective of the few she holds dear. Rei’s relationship with her parents is a labyrinth of unspoken words and unmet expectations. She’s always carried the weight of feeling like a disappointment, a burden she keeps locked away behind a stoic exterior. Now, she lives with her older brother Haru, whose calm presence is a rare anchor in her life. Rei’s world is colored by her love for music, a passion she clings to as both a refuge and a way to express what she struggles to say aloud. Her dream of one day climbing a mountain back in Mt. Komorebi is a secret promise to herself—a connection to her roots and a symbol of overcoming the heights she’s yet to conquer in her own life. Though her emotions run deep, they often surface in unexpected ways. Her jealousy, born from fear of losing the few people she trusts, is as fierce as her loyalty to them. Rei Hattori may look like she’s ready to fight the world, but at heart, she’s a girl longing for understanding, love, and a sense of belonging.

[pedrobrvs]

Wreck-it Ralph 2 Analysis

  With almost all the Disney princesses (that belong in the "Disney Princess" line) appearing in Disney's newest movie, many people went crazy, many more went "oh. that's neat i guess", but it caused some discussion. The changes done to all the characters to fit with the Wreck-it Ralph universe were disappointing to those who were looking forward to see a more faithful recreation (like me), and some people even brought up the argument of "Same face syndrome" again. 

 Since I absolutely adore Disney animation (It being the job of my dreams and all), I'm making this post in hopes of shining light on the resemblances and differences and arguing that maybe these adaptions are more respectful to the originals than people give them credit for. 

For that I'm comparing most of them with the originals, for obvious reasons, and when applicable I'll also compare with the gaming franchise Kingdom Hearts, since rather than adapting the models to fit an uniform style, Square-Enix decided to recreate them as closely as they could. Head under the cut to see all of them!

SNOW WHITE (1937)

 Before I explain the similarities, I want to point out something about the first 3 princesses. Snow White, Cinderella and to a lesser extent Aurora were all animated with heavy help of a method called rotoscoping (where you draw on top of live-action footage) and consequentially have more realistic proportions than almost every other princess.  Sleeping Beauty would be one of the first movies where they'd start experimenting more their human characters, but it is still restrained. 

 Anyway. Snow White has chubby cheeks, very round eyes with softer corners and 3 larger eyelashes that are very characteristic of her.  Her lower lip is large and round, and her eyebrows are simple curves. She has a button nose. She is animated as a comedic, exaggerated version of her original self, mainly symbolized by the way she holds her hands (pictured) and the little head shakes she does when singing.

CINDERELLA (1950) 

Personally out of the 3 original princesses I find Cinderella to be the most different from the cartoon. Not just because, well, she has ears now but because I don't seem to get any cues of her original version from the animation. Then again the original Cinderella is animated with gentle, delicate slower movements movements while this one is making a shiv out of her shoe. However, she does keep some of the original design in the model itself. Her eyes are a bit round, with the upper eyelid being rounder than the lower, but the corners of her eyes are evident without causing the eye to look almond-shaped. I'd pull her outer corner a little bit more outwards or at least add an eyeliner but nobody is perfect. Her nose is slightly pointy but mostly round. I'm hoping that when we get to see more of her she'll demonstrate more of her slower, graceful nature. I don't mind that all those characters are more energetic and cartoony in this movie, but in Cinderella's case it seems to go against her very personality.

AURORA - SLEEPING BEAUTY (1959)

Aurora has a very diamond-shaped jaw, and while she appears to have a rounder one in this movie screencap, she demonstrates this diamond-shaped jaw whenever she's not facing straight forward.  Her lower eyelid has a very prominent "corner" to it like the original, making it kinda look like she has two outer eye corners. Her nose is pointy and thin. Her inner eyebrows could go lower and be closer together but the general thickness is very close. Her mouth isn't as wide as the others and her smile is V-shaped.  My gripe with her design is her hair, because IT SHOULD CURL THE OTHER WAY.  Her body language captures a lot of the gracious, romantic behavior she exhibits while awake in the movie. It differs from Cinderella's posture because Cinderella behaves more in a motherly, warm and kind fashion while Aurora behaves more "professionally" and in a more reserved way. 

ARIEL - THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989) 

 Ariel is one of the closest to the original IMO, but she has subtle differences. Her eyes keep the same general curves, with the upper eyelids being more curved and bending more towards the inner face. However, in the new version they are less vertical. Her nose is small, pointy and turned a little bit upwards, her lips are thin and don't have a cupid's bow. She has big cheeks but they are not as round as Snow White's, and her forehead is more forward, giving her the curve seen in the 2D version. For her the biggest difference is the eyelashes, that are way less uniform and are way thinner in the 2D version.  She still keeps the bright-eyed, curious expression, being very similar to Rapunzel in behavior.

In a side topic, I'm extremely glad to see her hair being done properly in 3D, by comparison with Kingdom Hearts 3. Her hair is a huge part of her animation and what made it impressive (as important to her body language as Rapunzel's hair is. Strange how much the two of them have in common) I was disappointed that in Kingdom Hearts 3 she kept the stiff hair she had in the first games even with the advance in technology. Her eyes are also closer in shape to the original than the Kingdom Hearts edition even if that one got the general face proportions right.  KH is closer in proportion while Wreck-it Ralph is closer in specific shapes. 

BELLE - BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991)

Belle is also one who I didn't see a lot of her original personality, though she was very gentle and gracious in the original as well, which contrasts with her more cartoony animation here.

She has a larger nose than most princesses and it's also one of the most round, and her lips, while they have a cupid's bow, are less defined.

Her eyes are more almond-shaped, having the outer corner being higher up than the lower. Her eyebrows are pretty close in shape, thickness and distance to the original (considering the change of art style).

One thing that could be done was to make her laugh lines more prominent in the 3D model, since they tend to appear when she's grinning in the original. Going back to Kingdom Hearts, i must say that Belle's appearance there is not very accurate. I think that something is off with her face in Kingdom Hearts 2, like her face looks squashed, longer and different from the original.

JASMINE - ALADDIN (1992) 

Jasmine for me is one of the most accurate to the originals, with her almond shaped eyes, characteristic nose, sculpted lips and more oval shaped face. Her eyebrows also look slightly more accurate to the original than the KH counterpart, with the inner edge not being round (though they should be thicker). She shares a lot of the posture of the original, specially with the tendency of stopping with one leg in front of the other and bending her torso in a way that kinda highlights her butt (but you do you Jasmine) 

POCAHONTAS (1995)

So, Pocahontas is one of the most unique-looking movies in the Disney canon, having the most realistic body proportions of Disney canon in decades.

Her movie is also characterized by having stronger edges and a more angular shape. That entire proportional yet angular look is mostly out of the window, but her face still has the most geometric features of them all. 

A strong chin, a big triangular upper lip, a nose with up-turned nostrils that has a kind of v-shaped outline... Also even with the change of art style she has a slightly stronger build than the rest of the princesses. 

In terms of animation she has that classic impossible hair, and keeps the dignified and mysterious attitude she has most of the time when she's not trying to see what's just around the riverbend. 

MULAN (1998)

She is definitely really close to the original, though the proportions got shifted around for the art style. 

Her round face, almond shaped eyes with a single eyelash going outwards in the corrner, and her very caracteristic lips are there (her lips are one thing they did more accurately than Kingdom Hearts as well). Though I think her nose should be slightly flatter to be closer to the Original and the Kingdom Hearts rendition. 

 I haven't seen enough of her facial animation to form an opinion on expressions, but she does enter the scene with that jump kick she does in the end of "Be a Man" so there's that.

TIANA - THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG (2009)

Same case with Mulan, the biggest differences are just to accommodate for the art style. Her characteristic smile looks pretty great in 3D, dimples and all (though I think Coco did a better looking dimple for Miguel, those look a bit fake) 

Since the movies are so close together, being technically released in the same "Disney era" with way more artist overlap than previously (as in, more people who worked in the two movies), the animators already have a lot of practice animating her so I expect that she'll be pretty accurate.

RAPUNZEL - TANGLED (2010)

Speaking of accuracy, we're finally on the realm of 3D disney princesses. I like this comparison that @constable-frozen made (I apologize for not asking first/Lo siento no haber pedido antes/Desculpa por não ter perguntado primeiro). It shows that even the 3D princess got changed to fit the movie so it's not the 3D that is to blame for this change and that it was very much intentional rather than just lack of skill from the artists. But back to the comparison, I find it amazing how apparent the improvement in technology is, with Rapunzel having more natural skin and more strands in her hair (as well as the hair also looking more natural). Like i mentioned before, Rapunzel's hair was ground-breaking for Disney, since they spent years perfecting the technology for it. 8 years later and it looks greater than ever.  The whole lighting in the scene looks more natural as well, taking away the slight "PS3 game cutscene" feel the original gives me. Speaking of her hair, Kingdom Hearts 3 still didn't give us a look at her face, but the developers keep telling us of how much work they put into making her hair and turning it into a gameplay element as well. Seems fitting that a story about a girl with long hair would cause innovation in hair simulation for both animation and games.

MERIDA - BRAVE (2012)

Ok so this will definitely take some using to. In this pic specially she looks a bit like a baby. Though from other pics I think they at least nailed the facial expressions. Still, seeing her with those big bright eyes makes her almost look like Jessie from Toy Story, both having red hair and a very round face.

MOANA (2016)

To finish, here's Moana, from their last movie, to exemplify again that the change in art style is pretty much intentional. Larger eyes and eyebrows, smaller nose and mouth. Thin neck. Pretty much what happened to everyone else. Wreck-it Ralph stylized them to make them fit with each other and with the place they appear in. Otherwise they keep the basic shapes and ideas of the originals, only following the general style of the current artists. I hoped they'd keep the proportions and styles as close to the original as possible, but I won't pretend they didn't put any effort. All characters presented in those images belong to Walt Disney Animation Studio and Pixar Animation Studio.

PS: ANNA AND ELSA - FROZEN (2013)

I couldn’t get decent enough pictures for the both of them for me to make a comparison while I was writing. Might edit the post with the pic tomorrow.

In the original, their eyes are larger than most princesses and their noses are pointier. The two of them look really alike because they're sisters but there's differences:

Anna has chubbier cheeks and curved eyebrows while Elsa's eyes have a drooping lower eyelid common in smug/sexy characters, as well as L-shaped eyebrows.

The changes from the movie to the Wreck-it Ralph 2 version are essentially the same as Moana's (larger upper face, smaller lower face), plus an extra difference of them having bigger, more voluminous hairdos than what they had. 

PS: PS: On the off chance Tumblr messes up the images, I posted this entire thing on Imgur