Why Animated Characters Always Have Four Fingers-Except In Japan, The Gruesome Tin Noses Shop Of WWI, And The Origin Of 'Baker's Dozen': Why Empathetic Decision-Making Matters

The 3-Word Quote: “Empathy Is Essential”

1.

Pay attention the next time you watch an animated show or movie.

Not to the plot or the characterization.

But pay attention to the animated characters' hands, and note how many fingers are on each of their hands.

You'll notice that most characters have only four fingers on each hand, especially in older movies and shows. Usually, it is three fingers and a thumb.

SpongeBob SquarePants? Four fingers.

The Simpsons characters? Four fingers (one notable exception was when animators gave God five fingers).

And Mickey Mouse? Also, four fingers.

So why four-fingered hands in animation?

The missing digit dates back to early animation, when all scenes were hand-drawn, long before the advent of Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI).

Drawing a four-fingered hand was much easier than drawing one with five.

It was not just a tiny time-saver - hands are apparently tricky and time-consuming to animate, so eliminating a single finger was beneficial.

And four fingers are so close to five that our brains often don't register a difference between a five-fingered hand and one with only four.

And three fingers were too few. According to one article, humans view a three-fingered hand and associate it with non-human life forms.

So four it was.

Disney princesses, however, always have all ten fingers. Look at Snow White - all ten fingers intact, but the seven dwarves all have four.

And when Walt Disney had Mickey Mouse appear in Steamboat Willie, the trend of four fingers per hand continued. For that eight-minute film, over 11,000 drawings were created.

Most animated shows require twenty-four drawings per second of film.

So, while Disney took great pride in his work, eliminating the fifth finger did save time.

Eliminating that digit also improved Mickey's looks.

When asked about Mickey's four-fingered hand, Walt Disney replied, "Using five fingers would have made Mickey's hands look like a bunch of bananas."

So, four-fingered hands became the norm in the majority of the animated world.

Except in one country - Japan.

Japan's animated characters almost always have all five fingers.

And the reason for this likely involves death, empathy, and the Japanese Mafia.

2.

During World War I, soldiers on the front line were worried about their hands and all parts of their bodies.

But one part of soldiers' bodies was being destroyed at an alarming rate, not seen in previous wars.

It was the face.

The war brought in a new wave of weapons that caused carnage on all sides.

Nine million were killed, and approximately twenty-one million were wounded.

And many of these wounds were to the head and face, and those wounds were devastating and gruesome.

Much of the devastation was coming from the fully automatic machine gun. This new weapon resulted in a massive number of gunshots to the face.

One surgeon said of the wounded soldiers, “They seemed to think they could pop their heads up over a trench and move quickly enough to dodge the hail of machine-gun bullets.”

The surgeon said the soldiers, "...failed to understand the menace of the machine gun."

The machine gun was a monster, not just a menace to these men.

The new automatic weapon fired 450-600 bullets a minute.

A Smithsonian article said the men "had half their faces blown to pieces with skin left hanging in shreds and jawbones crushed to a pulp that felt like sand under your fingers."

It was said during the war that "mankind's military technology wildly outpaced its medical technology."

However, one surgeon, Sir Harold Giles, dedicated his skill to helping these soldiers suffering from those devastating facial injuries.

Sir Giles is known as the father of modern plastic surgery, primarily for his work with veterans of World War I.

So common were these facial injuries that Giles worked at a hospital whose primary focus was to treat these injuries.

On a single day in July 1916, 2,000 patients arrived at the hospital, most of whom were missing "half their face."

2,000 in a single day.

The men came "without chins, noses, cheekbones, and eyes." Many were unable to move their tongues, speak, or eat.

Giles did pioneering work for these men, completing bone and skin grafts.

Mirrors were banned in this hospital as many wounds left victims so disfigured that some collapsed in shock after seeing their own faces.

Medical historian Lindsey Fitzharris noted that these men were often shunned in social life because of their disfigurement.

Fitzharris said, "This was a time when losing a limb made you a hero, but losing a face made you a monster."

But what happened to the men whom Giles couldn't successfully help?

This was where a few artists arrived to assist, and a particular studio called 'The Tin Noses Shop' was born.

3.

You may not be familiar with any laws from England a thousand years ago.

But you might have appreciated this one if you were living in 1266.

It was known as the Assizes of Bread and Ale Law.

And despite being a thousand-year-old British law, it probably impacts you today.

Put simply, this law is why the phrase 'baker's dozen' means 13 of something instead of 12.

Ask for a baker's dozen donuts, and you'll get thirteen of them instead of twelve today.

But getting an extra donut in a baker's dozen isn't because bakers are incredibly generous or because they aren't good at math.

It goes back to the Bread and Ale Law.

And this law was taken very seriously a thousand years ago.

If you were a baker and were caught breaking this law, you could have been beaten, imprisoned, or perhaps both.

This 1,000-year-old law was significant at the time - and it continues to impact us today.

The Takeaway:

So what do animated cartoon characters' fingers, World War I soldiers with facial injuries, and the phrase 'baker's dozen' all have in common?

They are all examples of how making decisions with empathy first is crucial.

Information often guides our actions - facts, figures, and data help us make the best choices.

But empathy should infuse every decision we make.

Because empathy often causes us to make different decisions based on others.

So, as four-fingered hands became the norm in animation, why did Japan not follow suit?

The possible answer has a lot to do with empathy-led decision-making.

Some believe animators draw five fingers on Japanese characters because of tetraphobia, the fear of the number four.

According to several articles, a fear or dislike of the number four is more prevalent in East Asian countries, particularly Japan.

One explanation for the dislike of the number four is that the Japanese word for the number four sounds much like a word for death.

Could animators have used this knowledge in deciding to draw an extra digit on cartoon characters? Perhaps.

Another more popular reason has to do with the Japanese mob.

The Yakazu, a criminal organization, has roots in 17th-century Japan.

Members are known to be involved in numerous illegal activities, and they are known for their strict code of conduct.

And members are often violent.

If a Yakuza member commits an offense against the organization, that member is often killed.

But suppose the offense didn't warrant death. In that case, the one who defies the Yakuza tradition will typically have one of their fingers cut off as a punishment.

This ritual, known as yubitsume, calls for the disgraced member to amputate one of their little fingers to pay for the misdeed against the organization.

Those with the missing pinky finger are easily identifiable as members of the Yakazu and are often judged and feared in society.

And this leads us back to Japanese animated characters.

Most American animated characters drawn with four fingers will be edited to have a fifth finger for the Japanese market.

So, Bob the Builder has five fingers in Japan.

Why?

Partly because four fingers could imply membership in the Japanese Mafia.

Perhaps few would make the connection or be scared by a character with four fingers (especially kids watching the animated shows).

Still, the thought and empathy toward viewers is the primary reason why many believe animated characters have all ten fingers in Japan.

Drawing and animating ten fingers is more difficult - and presumably more costly. But in Japan, the added cost and removing possible fear from viewers is worthwhile.

Having empathy for viewers and consumers is always a necessity.

***

It was something far more critical than animated fingers that Sir Giles was thinking of at his hospital during World War I.

It was soldiers' faces - and how to repair the horrifying injuries to them.

There were many soldiers whom Dr. Giles couldn't successfully operate on.

And this is where a few artists came into play and how the 'Tin Noses Shop' was born.

The official name was 'The Masks for Facial Disfigurement Department,' and it was where some soldiers would go after Sir Giles.

"My work begins where the work of the surgeon is completed," said Francis Derwent Wood, the department's founder.

Interestingly enough, Wood was an artist, not a doctor.

His main job was to recreate the look of a soldier's face as accurately as possible using his artistic ability.

Wood often had to create lightweight metallic masks that served as facial prosthetics.

These metallic masks were intended to cover the injury and hide the effects of the war's brutality.

The masks also tried to allow the soldiers to return to society.

Wood said, "I endeavor by means of the skill I happen to possess as a sculptor to make a man's face as near as possible to what it looked like before he was wounded."

The masks were painstakingly painted to match the soldiers' skin tone.

Great care was also used to ensure the masks fit correctly.

And details like eyebrows and mustaches were carefully painted to resemble reality. In some cases, real hair was used.

Wood took the job seriously.

He was an artist. And he had purpose.

He practiced radical empathy and did whatever he could to make the men look like they did prior to the war.

The injured soldiers needed this, and Wood aimed to deliver.

The masks didn't solve the problems when a soldier needed to eat or talk; they couldn't address these needs.

But the men who used them were eternally grateful.

In one letter to Anna Ladd, who Wood trained in a similar organization in Paris, a soldier wrote, "Thank you… I will have a home… the woman I love… will be my wife."

Few of the masks survive today, as many who wore them wished to be buried in them.

The masks were groundbreaking.

The empathy was life-changing.

***

And what of a 1,000-year-old law and a baker's dozen?

The Assize of Bread and Ale Law originated because many consumers were being taken advantage of in the markets a thousand years ago.

Baking bread is an art.

Loaves sometimes turn out differently - some rise more, some are smaller, and each loaf rarely weighs the same - especially 1,000 years ago.

But bakers back then had a terrible reputation for short-changing their customers. Many bakers charged more for more bread than what customers had received.

Some bakers began to partially hollow out loaves of bread to cheat customers.

Paying more and getting less was so common that the King stepped in.

King Henry III required that bread be sold at a specific weight for a fixed price - a set price for a set weight.

And the law had teeth.

Bakers caught cheating customers would endure beatings or could face imprisonment.

But baking wasn't an exact science, and bakers were now afraid of the punishment if they were found to have cheated their customers.

So, since no two loaves of bread weighed the same, bread makers began throwing in an extra loaf to ensure the bread weighed the required weight.

And this thousand-year-old law is why we get thirteen of something for the price of twelve; it is a baker's dozen.

The little extra ensured no one was being cheated.

Even a thousand years ago, thinking about customers was good for business - and good for your safety if you were a baker.

In different ways, these examples all demonstrate radical empathy -genuine care for customers.

Increasingly, it seems that empathy is seen as an add-on, an extra. When we encounter it, we seem surprised.

Making it your mission to understand what others want and then exceeding expectations is the foundation for successful businesses and services.

And no matter your business or creative field, providing empathy for people is everything.

Because empathy is essential.

3 things before you go:

1. watch (4 minutes) animals practice empathy too

2. watch (3 minutes) Brene Brown on her definition of empathy

3. watch/listen when your ‘boss’ shows up as you’re working (or ‘the boss’); The killers and Springsteen; entertaining to see Killers’ frontman playing with his idol - 16 minutes long…but absolutely worth it;

I appreciate you reading and sharing. See you in 10 days.

-Jeff