Although animated characters are based on human features, these features are exaggerated. These exaggerations greatly differ by country, gender, and the character’s role in the story. This study investigated the characteristics of US and Japanese character designs and the similarities and differences or even the differences in exaggerations between them. In particular, these similarities and differences can be used to formulate a shared set of principles for US and Japanese animated character designs; 90 Japanese and 90 US cartoon characters were analyzed. Lengths for 20 parts of the body were obtained for prototypical real human bodies and animated characters from Japan and the United States. The distributions of lengths were determined, for all characters and for characters as segmented by country, gender, and the character’s role in the story. We also compared the body part lengths of animated characters and prototypical real human bodies, noting whether exaggerations were towards augmentation or diminishment. In addition, a decision tree classification method was used to determine the required body length parameters for identifying the classification conditions of animated characters by country, gender, and character’s role in the story. The results indicated that both US and Japanese male animated characters tend to feature exaggerations in head and body sizes, with exaggerations for US characters being more obvious. The decision tree only required five length parameters of the head and chest to distinguish between US and Japanese animated characters (accuracy = 94.48% and 67.46% for the training and testing groups, respectively). Through a decision tree method, this study quantitatively revealed the exaggeration patterns in animated characters and their differences by country, gender, and character’s role in the story. The results serve as a reference for designers and researchers of animated character model designs with regards to quantifying and classifying character exaggerations.

中文翻译：

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使用决策树分类进行动画字符风格调查

动画人物虽然是根据人的特征制作的，但这些特征都被夸大了。这些夸张因国家、性别和角色在故事中的角色而异。本研究考察了美日字符设计的特点，以及它们之间的异同甚至夸张的差异。特别是，这些异同可用于为美国和日本的动画角色设计制定一套共享的原则；分析了 90 个日本和 90 个美国卡通人物。获得了来自日本和美国的原型真实人体和动画角色的 20 个身体部位的长度。确定了所有角色以及按国家、性别和角色在故事中的角色分割的角色的长度分布。我们还比较了动画角色和原型真实人体的身体部位长度，注意夸张是增加还是减少。此外，使用决策树分类方法确定所需的体长参数，用于按国家、性别和角色在故事中的角色识别动画角色的分类条件。结果表明，美国和日本男性动画角色的头部和身体尺寸都有夸张的特征，其中美国角色的夸张更为明显。决策树只需要头部和胸部的五个长度参数来区分美国和日本动画角色（训练组和测试组的准确率分别为 94.48% 和 67.46%）。通过决策树方法，这项研究定量地揭示了动画人物的夸张模式及其在国家、性别和角色在故事中的角色的差异。研究结果可为动画角色模型设计的设计人员和研究人员在量化和分类角色夸张方面提供参考。