Scary Characters made cute?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and wondering to myself why people try to make horror characters ‘Chibi’. The conclusion that I came to is actually pretty simple. We, as humans, have a tendency to try to make things that scare us less scary.
It starts when you’re just a kid and you fear deep water. Parents teach you to not be frightened by the things that MIGHT be there by telling us to imagine things like mermaids and pretty fishes. Deep water is a scary thing! Especially for a little kid who is relying on arm floaties and an innertube to stay above water. Not seeing the bottom it’s easy to imagine a scary lake monster or a fresh water snapping turtle is down there. But we, as children are taught to imagine cute or pretty fish down there instead.
This explains why, as teenagers and young adults we decide to draw classic horror monsters in a ‘chibi’ format. We seek to lessen the scare factor by making the things we were once scared by cute. Or, I could just be reading into this too much.
