Dream Tropes Wiki/Four-Fingered Hands

Template:TropeWhy do so many cartoon characters only have four fingers? Simple: a four-fingered hand is SO much easier to draw than a five-fingered hand. Plus, it simplifies the design of the hand in the same way the rest of the body is simplified.

Although this simplification has been on a recent decline in cartoons starring people, it has never completely gone away. This only appears in more "cartoony" styles; action or dramatic series won't usually use this, and it rarely shows up in Japanese works for several reasons:

* Yakuza members traditionally chop off fingers if they are unable to pay back a debt, or as punishment for other offences that don't warrant death.
* The four-fingered hand is taken as a derogatory reference to the "untouchable" burakumin caste (four fingers = four legs = animals; also, it's easy to lose a finger through the sort of dangerous labour to which burakumin are often relegated).
* The number four in Japanese also means death and is seen as highly unlucky.

(This only really applies to human characters: there are still plenty of animal or monster characters with eight fingers, most likely due to some form of What Measure Is a Non-Human?)

Quite often, Western four-fingered characters have to be edited to have a fifth finger. Interestingly, this does not include Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse, despite Disney's popularity in Japan—see Kingdom Hearts. Not a fan of their works being edited in any way, Disney is said to have paid USD 5 million a year to Japanese pressure groups to avoid being sued for Mickey's "insulting" four-fingered hands.note

This trope is not limited to depiction of humanlike characters: Animal characters (from any point along the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism) can also be depicted with a reduced number of digits on each paw when compared to its real-life equivalent — typically three visible toes on a given foot rather than four (although some of the earliest cartoons simplified it even further, depicting only two digits on a given foot). Actually, sometimes, the fact that the characters are not humans provides an excuse.

Funny Animals in particular often combine four-fingered hands with three-toed feet. This is excusable when human characters in the same context also exhibit four-fingered hands, but it can be jarring if the humans have five-fingered hands, or if other animals in the same context are depicted with the correct number of digits.

Those with four-fingered hands are often seen wearing White Gloves.

Compare Fingerless Hands, when a character has completely no fingers. Contrast Extra Digits when a character has more than 5 fingers and/or toes.

## Reduced number of fingers

### Anime and Manga

* The original 1960s incarnation of Mr. Driller was drawn with four fingers at times. When he made his debut in *Space Ninja Team Star Trigon*, he somehow grew another finger on both hands and has stuck with him ever since.

### Western Animation

* Many Kantasy shows have this for human characters.
* During El TV Kadsre Animation's early years back when they were called Islands Animation, many of the characters, including humans in their theatrical shorts, always had four fingers. Ever since El TV Kadsre acquired them in the late 1950s, humanoid characters apparently grew another finger on each hand, resulting in five, while all the anthropomorphic animals would keep the same amount of fingers as they had earlier.
* In the first of seven films for a popular Ektæó film series, *Gævichónaž,* the main protagonist had four fingers due to an animation error. This was fixed during the production of the second film.
* Aria has 3 fingers.

## Reduced number of toes

### Anime and Manga

* Bare-foot characters in *The Drillimation Series* are never usually drawn with toes, as they usually wear shoes most of the time. To quote Hiroshi Takajima:
	+ *Since most of the characters in the series are depicted wearing shoes most of the time, We decided to go toeless for characters walking on their bare feet. For drawing toes, we have unfortunately not done that often.*