I did a cheeky Ghibli marathon on Christmas day, and re-watched my favourite films from childhood such as Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away and Whisper of the Heart, which could be considered as a generic research because I never fails to learn something new whenever I watch Ghibli films.
Here are some of the characters that come across to me as cute:
Calcifer from Howl's Moving Castle
Calcifer is a sassy and chatty character. He complains a lot about others and always seems needy since he can't thrive without anything to burn. Despite of all the sass he gives, he has a lot of energy, and almost considerable hyperactive, which makes him adorable.
Aloof and unaware of his surrounding is what makes No-face cute. He does not speak, instead he grunts when he tried to communicate to other characters. This bizarre way of interacting makes him seems weak and harmless when being put together with his aloofness, and makes the audience think of him as cute, but when he is agitated he becomes a scary monster, and became not cute for the slightest.
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| No-face |
No-face reminded me of Iron Giant, although Iron Giant is not a big scary monster when he is mad. They are cute in an awkward way because they do not fit in to the premise of the story.
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| Iron Giant |
http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/ori-toor-looopism-171016
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I think what Ori Toor's animation is a definition of cute. His animation has a distinct personality due to the spontaneity of this ritual that Ori does every day to cheer himself up which in turn helps him fight against depression. Another thing that made Ori's animation cute is because he puts faces on abstract and/or inorganic shapes to make characters which move awkwardly. It enables me to sympathise with these moving shape-based characters and because they resembled human beings.
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