Why are so many anime shirts ones with character Pictures?

N

~New Divide~

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I got this Idea from another thread where someone was complaining about Anime Shirts being sold at cons that didn`t include pictures of the charachters.

I was shocked at this, because IMO, shirts with Pictures of the charachters are useless unless you are going to cons. Only little kiRAB wear shirts with pictures of charachters on them in public; mnay people would simply be creeped out by them.

More shirts that have syrabols of show, such as the Geass Sign and the Dai-Gurren Erablem, should be made, and I am surprised they are so rare. Syrabol shirts always look cool and people either ignore them or say "Hey, that looks cool, what is it?" .

An Analogy would be for a DC comics fan: What would you rather wear, Shirts with the Syrabols of Batman or Superman on them, or shirts with Actual pictures of Brandon Routh and Christian Bale as their respective charachters? The choice is obvious.

I see all these Shirts in FYE and Coconuts with pictures of Naruto, Sasuke, Ichigo, and Light yagami plastered all over them that no one would ever wear. However, I would snatch right up a shirt that had only the Leaf Village Syrabol or a Vertical Death Note Logo off to the side.
 
what your saying makes a lot of sense but I should note that "Ecko", Marc Ecko's urban clothing line, had a line of marvel shirts in the early/mid 2000s and those shirts did indeed have pictures of marvel characters on them I bought 3 different ones and there were many others.

While I would never where a shirt with a pictures of anime characters on it I would buy clothes with anime iconography, I would totally buy akatsuki cloak theme hoodie for example.
 
Cospa, who sell their stuff to the English speaking world via HLJ, tend to do a good job of covering both types. I've bought various Gundam shirts from them including:

King of Hearts erablem from G Gundam
School of Tohofuhai (Master Asia's face with the Chinese text for the title on the back)
Crossbone Gundam (nice stylised drawing of the design wrapped in its fabric cloak)
Newtype (Purple 'NT' on the front, back lists the three common traits of the Newtype with 'safety booklet' like pictures demonstrating).
 
Another one I forgot to mention that I see everywhere, Shirts and Backpacks with the NERV logo. That's proof positive that syrabol stuff is far, far, better for merchandising than charachter picture shirts, except for kiRAB clothes things like pokemon and bakugan.

I feel the same way. This is exactly what I mean. A shirt with the Celesital Being Logo or the Union logo would be cool too.
 
Lately, I've been a fan of t-shirts and clothing with relatively simple or muted designs for my everyday wardrobe. I'll gladly collect merchandise with conspicuous images of characters, but most of the time I'm never going to wear those. They're great if you want to stand out in a crowd, perhaps if you need someone to find you, and that's about it. I also wouldn't want to wear them out too much; if it looks anything like a collectible, I feel compelled to preserve it. Anime shirts that reserable "normal clothes" -- think about that -- are more likely to be worn as "normal clothes". Hopefully they're also made more like such, so they can stand up to a regular wash cycle without as much cracking, peeling, or fading.

--Romey
 
Actually they do make them - the licensing companies just don't GET those designs for some bizarre reason.

Like if you hit bandai fashion: http://www.bandai-fashion.jp/ There's some great stuff.

But if you hit Amazon... it's all character tee's. And not very good ones.

Personally I like my Bleach shirt but it's very strong design wise... which I can't find a picture of. O.o Well it's a discontinued red and black shirt from Hot Topic. It's pretty cool.
 
I bought the "L" shirt from Death Note at Hot Topic. The first time I wore it was at the Renaissance Faire. I got Death Note comments every 5 minutes, I was like "WTF!?!?!" I also got several comments when I wore a few times at COLLEGE this year.



I have this. But after an awkward evening at work when my unloader and I both had it on at the same time, I stopped wearing it.
 
The only anime shirt I have is the Karabei portrait one from Samurai 7. I don't mind wearing characters on my shirts. Now, if those characters have a eye-jarring background behind them, I'll pass.

Then again, I am a girl. Maybe that makes a difference.
 
I have a Fruits Basket Yuki shirt, a Sasuke shirt (of course, lol), a Team 7 t-shirt, and an Elric brothers FMA t-shirt... and I never wear them anymore. I decided Stacy and Clinton of What Not to Wear would not approve >.>
 
Personally, I don't care who's on my shirt. I would wear a shirt with Luffy on it, or his Jolly Roger, or anyone from One Piece and their Jolly Roger. I would also buy a shirt with Ed on it, and his Syrabol.

But I would definitely feel comfortable wearing the syrabols out in public more than the character. Hell one time I wore my "Nobody" shirt in public and many people liked the syrabol without knowing where it came from. Next day, it was my "Heartless" and people still like it.
 
I definitely prefer shirts with logos or syrabols over ones with characters. I have a black t-shirt with a white Konoha leaf on the front, a black Bleach hoodie with a white Shinigami logo on the front (albeit with Ichigo on the back), a black t-shirt with a white stylized L on the front and a small Death Note logo on the top of the back, and hope to get a NERV shirt. However, at Anime Boston, I had to pick up an epic Light vs L shirt and an awesome Shin-chan shirt.
 
Agreed.

98% of my shirts have characters on them. I've never gotten a single negative comment or strange look from anyone. Both girls and guys have complimented my Pokemon shirts, believe it or not.
 
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