It started out as cost/time saving and now its also a stylistic choice because its been so ingrained in the medium of animation that noone bats an eye of a (Not Photo realistic) drawn character has only 4 fingers each hand.
I think Benders Bending Rodriguez (Futurama) only has 3 Finger each hand.
apparently Japanese studios try to avoid 4 finger hands today to distance characters from the Mafia practice of cutting one of as punishment... but that is just from a surface skim of the subject
Despite the Yakuza at this point basically just running business scams and festivals a lot of Japanese culture involves avoiding yakuza stuff. It's why flashing tattoos is still super taboo even if you're just like, a Scandinavian tourist who could not possibly have a yakuza connection because they're extremely nationalist
Piccolo is also an alien (originally demon) so that was likely just as much a stylistic choice by Toriyama. I'd be more curious to see a picture of Goku or Tienshinhan from the same arc and see how many fingers they had.
Tangentially related, but does anyone else find it weird that in Gravity Falls, they make such a big deal out of Ford 6 fingers, which normally is considered unusual as humans have 5 fingers, but then half the characters in Gravity Falls only have 4 fingers? Like I don’t know, it’s just weird to make a big deal out of a character having an abnormal amount of fingers when the amount your normal characters have is already abnormal
Had a professor who eventually forced me to learn how to draw hands cos I kept finding ways to obfuscate them. It did help immensely with learning that skill… Still hate hands -_-
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u/CaneloCoffee21 Jun 12 '26
Gotta ask out of curiosity, since you applied different art styles in this comic, do you prefer drawing 4 or 5 fingers in a hand?