For the past several decades, anime has become famous for its wide range of emotions featured in the most beloved characters. Anime fans have laughed, cried, and been in awe of how far the shows take diverse stories and themes. Much of this has to do with the impressive art in animation, but even before these images move, they are brought to life with the addition of brilliant color.

Whether a series is originally animated or based on a comic, the use of colors is more important than the community realizes. While the writing behind a character is important, the color choices of their design are just as significant. Take the Dragon Ball franchise as an example. Goku's boldly colored clothes add to the excitement of the series and color theory answers why this is, and then some.

Goku's Design And The Significance of The Color Orange

Akira Toriyama Picked an Excellent Color for The Most Famous Anime Hero

Regardless of how divided the anime community may be today on the Dragon Ball franchise, there's no denying the impact of the series' protagonist and his character design. The choice to give Goku's clothes a pop of orange has meaning. More than being a color that stands out, color theory proves that the choice of orange adds to Goku's development as a character and has left a critical impact on the anime industry.

Goku's Upbeat Personality Is Captured In His Base Color

Among all the colors in the light spectrum, plenty stand out — several articles across the internet describe the colors that psychologically convince customers to buy because of how much they attract attention. The color that stands out most to designers is red, not orange. Thus, the color orange's bright hue is not the only reason why it was chosen to match Goku's powerful presence. In color theory, orange is typically used to "channel the optimism and youthful energy," according to Adobe.

Because of how immature and inexperienced Goku can be, the orange color of his clothes is perfect for his character. Goku is the figurehead of the Z fighters, so side characters wearing the orange Gi can represent how they are following in his heroic footsteps. The addition of blue adds a complimentary aesthetic and also represents trust and builds a positive image.

Before The 1980s, Secondary Colors Were Rarely Used

• Primary Colors: known as basic colors; they can’t be recreated by color mixing. (e.g. red, yellow, blue)
• Secondary Colors: color combinations created by the equal mixture of two primary colors. (e.g. red + blue = purple; red + yellow = orange; blue + yellow = green)

The initial Japanese debut of the Dragon Ball anime happened in February 1986. Goku's orange Gi wasn't the first pop of color or design to happen in the industry, and it wasn't the first time secondary colors were used. The earliest anime to feature bright hues of various colors is Speed Racer. The 1967 anime used primary to design its protagonist. The one secondary color used was pink, which was explicitly used on female character designs.

The Dragon Ball franchise was one of the first to break away from primary colors for the entire cast in their design. The traditional use of pink to define female characters was still carried over into the early parts of the franchise, but over time, the anime broke that color tradition as well. Among anime through the 80s and 90s, the Dragon Ball franchise had the most diverse use of colors, showing a new way to design anime characters as well as settings.

A Brief Intro To Color Theory, In And Out Of Anime

An Explanation of Color Meanings

• Humankind has been experimenting with color since the age of the caveman.
• Color Theory: the study of how colors work together and how they affect our emotions and perceptions.
• Color theory today is used for anything that relates to design. (e.g. interior and exterior design, marketing and advertising, product design, character design, etc)
• Every color known to humankind essentially comes from light reflection, which is why designers and color theorists often use the term "light spectrum."

Through the example of Dragon Ball and Goku's orange Gi, it's clear that color theory is a huge part of design. Studies throughout the decades have proven that certain colors have specific emotional and mental impacts on people. For visual storytelling, the focus is more on the emotional impact of color. However, most recently, the effects of color lighting and animation strobe effects on the mind are also considered by animators.

Color can change how a character's personality and message are received by the audience. One trusty tool designers can use when picking out color designs is the color wheel, a rainbow-like circle of color that visually shows how each color transitions to the next in a light spectrum. Designers can decide which color they want based on the meaning behind each color. Picking one color is not enough to complete a design, so a careful choice of balanced colors needs to be thought through. Any designer can see how colors complement or clash through the color wheel. The impact of color also depends on saturation and temperature.

In short, a brighter color will represent more vitality while a more dull color is received as a lack of energy. There's also the difference between hot and cold colors along the color wheel — hot colors are closer to red and stir erratic emotions, while cold colors are closer to blue and give off a calming effect. If Goku's base color was red instead of orange, he would be perceived as more aggressive. Not having the balance of blue in the design would also leave an impact on the design. The hot and cool colors reveal the duality of each character wearing the Gi.

Orange Marks A Legendary Era Of Anime

Many colors have been used as a base color for designing anime franchises, but among them, orange is the most intriguing. The color orange became so closely tied to mainstream series like DBZ, Naruto, and Bleach. The youthful and energetic nature of the color fits perfectly with the shonen demographic, which often features uplifting teenage characters involved in dangerous situations. After the early 2000s, the color was emphasized less often for two critical reasons.

Orange Remains Recognizable, But Can Be Repetitive

In recent years, the number of protagonists who stand out with the color orange is rare because of the legendary protagonists who have already left a huge mark on the color. An outfit that has orange as its base will always be compared to DBZ and Naruto by anime fans, which happened with Haikyuu (though the use of orange works with team Karasuno for distinct reasons). A character with spiky orange hair may be compared to Bleach's Ichigo Kurosaki, but orange hair is fairly common across anime characters, so the originality depends on other features of the character design and personality development.The Promised Neverland features the protagonist, Emma, who has orange hair — but because the rest of her design and personality are so different from Ichigo, the design is original and effective.

The Playful Color Is So Out Of Season

The lack of orange as a base color in recent series isn't only reflective of designers wanting to be seen as original, but also how the playful side of anime has gone dark. Due to the inspiration from the iconic series Attack On Titan and Tokyo Ghoul, the recent trend in anime is to feature darker themes and more tragic situations. Orange does not fit into this new era of anime. This is why darker colors like black, red, and purple have been featured more in recent years. Though white has always been used in anime, it takes on a new meaning in these darker anime times when it's contrasted against these emotionally heavier colors.

Adding Meaning And Aesthetics To Anime Design

Art and Animation Teams Are Going Even More In-Depth

Like with DBZ's Goku, choosing a color for character design means adding to the development of the character. Whether the audience realizes it or not, each color choice has a different meaning which can compliment a character's personality. Because each character in a story has their own unique personality, their color designs will differ as well.

Designing A Full Cast Of Characters

This is best represented in anime with large ensemble casts and a wide variety of colors, like Naruto, One Piece, My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, and many others. These are very colorful anime (with some exceptions in Demon Slayer), that represent a certain positive energy in the narrative. The colorful characters enhance those themes of uplifting energy.

Since not all anime are the most upbeat, certain series leave out color to a certain extent. Anime like Death Note or Jujutsu Kaisen may have diverse color bases for each character, but only in the smallest details. This upholds the heavy emotional tones that are showcased in the dark-toned colors of the series. Certain anime with the darkest tones, like Attack On Titan, choose to emphasize that lack of tone vitality through a lack of diverse colors.

Creating Aesthetics And Balance Through Color

In a series that has uplifting and colorful tones, choosing only the base color could be glaring for the viewers' eyes. This is why a balance of colors is important, which brings the artists back to the color wheel and color theory. The right balance of colors depends on where colors fit along the color wheel. Layers of meaning within individuals characters can also create the perfect design.

Focusing on color only, layering different colors can create the perfect effect in the design. Imagine if Goku only had orange in his clothes, or if The Promised Neverland's Emma had green hair instead of orange to match her green eyes. Without going into further complicated details, choosing layers of color that complement each other and represent the character's personality is critical in designing characters.

Using Color To Define Character Dynamics

The Color Interaction Between Two Characters is Essential As Well

The enthralling part of anime is how deeply layered the writing can be. This includes featuring complex dynamics between characters. These relationships are (for some series) at the core of the story and can be visually highlighted through color.

Analogous Colors Represent An Agreeing Relationship

• Analogous: colors that are beside each other along the color wheel.

In romantic relationships, anime sometimes takes the idea of "they look so good together" to another level through color theory. In series that feature color bases for character design, romantic couples or potential couples are given color bases that pair well together. In Fruits Basket, Tohru's pink base matches perfectly with Kyo's warm red color scheme. Yuki's pale blue base winds up pairing perfectly with Machi's pale green base. However, with how often the industry loves the "enemies to lovers" and "opposites attract" tropes, the couple's colors sometimes do clash, though that is still a meaningful choice with color.

Allies or friends can also be represented with color. Sometimes the color bases match and reflect how both characters pair well together, and other times the color just represents one character's intentions on the other. In The Apothecary Diaries, the audience feels like Maomao is safe with Lady Gyokuyo because of how warm and welcoming her base color of pink is. This may clash with Maomao's green base, but that represents their difference in personality. With other groups of women who have darker colors, the hint is that working with them will be far more difficult.

Complimentary Colors Aren't So Complimentary In Character Dynamics

• Complimentary: colors that are on complete opposite sides of the color wheel.

When character color bases are the complete opposite, that means that, to some degree, their personalities are clashing. This is often seen in rivals or arch-enemies. In both DBZ and Naruto, the protagonist wears orange, which is the complete opposite of their rival's base color, blue.My Hero Academia features a green-red clash between the characters Midoriya and Bakugo, but has that same color clash between Midoriya and his arch-enemy Tomura.

Through the science and art of color theory, designers in and out of the anime industry can control people's feelings and thoughts without them realizing it. In character design specifically, there are numerous ways that color choice changes the feel and meaning of an individual character. The balance of color in the setting around the protagonist and the color schemes of the protagonist's friends and foes creates the full package of an anime series. With so many variations of color meaning, saturation, and temperature, there's no simple way to describe anime design through color. Color in anime is more than about drawing the attention of the audience.

• Dragon Ball Z (1989)

  With the help of the powerful Dragonballs, a team of fighters led by the saiyan warrior Goku defend the planet earth from extraterrestrial enemies.

• Naruto

  Naruto Uzumaki, a mischievous adolescent ninja, struggles as he searches for recognition and dreams of becoming the Hokage, the village's leader and strongest ninja.

• Demon Slayer

  When Tanjiro Kamado returns home to find his family was attacked and killed by demons, he discovers his younger sister Nezuko was the only survivor. As Nezuko slowly becomes a demon, Tanjiro sets out to find a cure for her and become a demon slayer so he can avenge his family.