As the doctor prescribes: BLEACH IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH!!! (But no, seriously, the last couple of chapters, ever since the start of the mini-flashback a few issues back, have really started to pick up. If you aren’t caught up on Bleach manga yet, I’d recommend doing that asap before the next stage begins.)
Well, I’ve got to be honest with you all. I’m super busy this month. I’ve been studying for a test I have at the end of July here, been working a lot, been working on articles a lot, and basically having a helter-skelter time of it all. In other words, I’m surprised I decided to write this at all. But you know, tradition and the “show must go on” and all that, even if no one reads these things...
Ah, summers. Anyway...
Colors are important. And we here on BFF know that better than most. Why? Well, because of Reiatsu of course. The color you pick for your character actually says a lot about the character. As such, colors should not be picked randomly and slapped pell-mell onto a character just because that’s your favorite color or “red/black is BA” etc. Colors actually create subconscious associations and psychological connections. In other words, we see a certain color, and it makes us experience a particular thought or emotion. The tricky part is thus connecting the subconscious associations of Japanese (and Chinese) color culture with our own, “Western” notions. But fear not, they’re not as distant as you might think. For example, green as representing both life and permanence. On the other hand, some things are different, such as red being “the color of love,” whereas in China and Japan red typically represents fortune and the repelling of evil. But more on that later.
Now, N did a blog a LOOONG time ago on Reiatsu colors, so kudos to him and give that page a look, but I’m going to do something a little less Bleach-specific here. Basically I’ll describe the colors meaning according to Japanese color culture and leave it at that. It’s up to you to decide which one best suits your character and why, but hopefully this list will be somewhat enlightening. But first:
The Crayola Syndrome[]
The human eye possesses the ability to identify nearly 7 million unique colors. 7 MILLION. If that doesn’t get you excited well... anyway just be excited. The tie-dye decked Mantis Shrimp has nine more photoreceptors than we do, but can’t differentiate between shades of color nearly as well. (Still, when you can see far into the UV spectrum, not sure if being a few nanometers off of “dusk sparrow blue” bothers you that much.)
The color spectrum is limitless, however. We can’t see them all. But with all the colors that we CAN see in the natural world around us, it isn’t surprising that different perceptions of color have developed differently between cultures. Well, sort of. Every culture has its own sense of color, that is true, but in the end they are still the same colors. So where do the variations come from? There are several possible answers, and one of the most important is geography.
Geography is one of the most important factors in how we interact and perceive the world around us. When we’re talking about color, a group of people who live in the desert or say ice-locked Canada are going to perceive color much differently than people who live in lush forested lands. (ie., Japan). Plus, what grew in the area largely determined for hundreds of years what dyes and paints you could use. But even beyond that, native plants and animals determined the names of the colors chiefly associated with those plants and animals. For example, the Japanese color name akane iro (茜色) was originally produced as a dye from the root of a plant called akane, which is of course a rather logical (if rather specific) thing to call a color. Then there is the rat problem. Nezumi, which is used to express gray tones. And there’s a bunch. “Grape mouse,” or budou nezumi (ぶどうネズミ), fuji nezumi (藤ネズミ, "light purple gray mouse"), yanagi nezumi (柳鼠, “willow mouse”), and cha nezumi (茶鼠, “tea mouse”, or light brown grey). As one blogger pointed out, Japan must have a REALLY big rat problem.
Once geography has set the stage, other factors for determining colors come into play, such as the direction in which a particular culture evolves. Another factor is external cultural influence, or the “ebb and flow of history,” such as Japan adopting many of the cultural ideas from China and Korea. And this is a particularly interesting point, as eventually the discussion will turn to linguistics. This is where we get to the “Crayola syndrome,” because, as it turns out, language largely determines color.
What really is a color, after all? To call something “red” or “green” is to take something that has no natural boundaries—the frequencies of the visible light spectrum, and assign a name, rank, and category to it. Just like a box of crayons, in other words. So when we see a rainbow, we see “Roy G. Biv,” (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet), when in reality it’s actually a lot more complex than that.
As it turns out, cultures first start assigning colors by differentiating light from dark. So we get black and white first, basically. After that red is added into the mix. And this is interesting to note, because while there are cultural differences in the labeling of colors, these three colors exist across the world almost universally. That is not to say that people can’t SEE these colors, but rather that there is no distinct NAME for them yet. In a “two-tone” culture, for instance, yellow, orange and red are all part of the “light” range, whereas blue, green, and purple are “dark.” But as language becomes more complex so too does the perception of color. Yellow comes next, then green. By then the “color maps” between cultures start to look very similar. There is a great uniformity for how things are categorized, in other words.
No. I said dogs that look AT rainbows not... nevermind.
Humans from completely different cultures gravitate towards the same distinctions, which has to do with the biology of how we see the world. So rainbows have seams, which we can distill into basic visual elements. But if you asked a dog to describe the colors of a rainbow, you’d end up with much fewer ingredients, which is a lot more boring. The visual spectacle we experience is rich and marvelous, and by adding “words to pictures,” so to speak, the experience becomes even deeper.
To sum things up, this is a theory known as Linguistic Relativity, where having a specific word for a color makes that color “pop” a little more in our brains. This helps us to indentify the subtle differences between two shades of green, for example, and more quickly pick out a color from another. The science behind this is somewhat complex, so if you want to read more I highly, HIGHLY recommend these two articles here. The point is, as language in a culture changes and expands, so too does the perception of color. That’s not to say that a culture who hasn’t distinguished yellow from yellow-green yet is say, more primitive, just that they aren’t as specified. And as specifications arise, there are slight variations between them, which again relates back to culture. To figure out where some of the variations come from, you have to do a little digging. Historically speaking that is.
Mini-History[]
Twelve Level Cap and Rank System of colors, inspired by the Chinese court.
The collection of traditional colors in Japanese culture is known as dentouiro (伝統色), which is still recognized and used today. Due to its long history, variations between color and name do exist, but the basic outline of the system still remains intact. In fact, nearly five hundred individual colors are listed, which you can see here. These traditional colors largely gained the significance that they did waaaay back when around 600 A.D., when a hierarchal social system of rank and corresponding colors was borrowed from the Sui dynasty in China and adopted into the Japanese court. (As per usual for that era, it seems). There were certain “forbidden colors,” which were reserved only for the highest ranking officials (orange being one of them) and other colors known as “permissible colors” which the common people could use. You know, sort of like how only the Chinese Emperor could wear yellow and such. As for how the colors got their names, most came from the plants, flowers, and animals that were associated with said colors, (as already mentioned) although a few exceptions of course exist. And of course, with time variations began to emerge. Many of the color’s names originated from Chinese, where the hierarchal color system was more complex. (Again, the Emperor’s New Robes). And the Chinese color system was based in part off of the Five Elements, which granted the colors a more spiritual significance.
After the era of “Chinese influence,” another important period in the contribution to Japanese color sense was the Heian era, considered to be the peak of the Japanese imperial court. Art, especially poetry and literature soared during this time, and it was during this era that many famous works such as The Tale of Genji were written. Heian era artwork is notably expressive, and many color names and descriptions came about from the pages of these traditional pieces.
Finally, by the time they got to the Meiji era, colors which had gained a national significance of their own were incorporated with more western ideas, such as the adoption of chemical dyes through trade with Europe. For example, around 1860 Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugenie wore a pair of flaming red military boots and so made popular a new dye called aniline, which a group of entrepreneurial Germans brought to Japan. The difference between aniline red dye from more traditional Japanese reds is visible from first glance. Traditional Japanese reds were made from natural substances and had the tendency to fade quickly, while aniline reds stay bright for much longer.
Speaking of natural dyes, let us not forget that nature itself was a huge influence in the nurturing of color perception. This is especially noticeable in the artistic fields, and most notable is the art of the kimono. The colors displayed on kimono are not random, and were chosen to mimic or evoke the changing seasons, and there was a different, specific color set for each month. A piece of clothing so expressive it is considered an art must be thought out very cautiously. In fact, the color combinations used on kimono over the centuries have become part of Japanese color sense. But not everyone could afford a closet of various colored kimono, as the layering of colors and ceremonial surface decoration was expensive, not to mention the serious tailoring effort. As a result, only a few wealthy individuals could afford to change colors with every month, and was thus typically only followed by the geisha. But here’s the list anyway (for your next geisha cosplay, of course):
- January: Pine, sprout green and deep purple
- February: Red Plum Blossom, crimson and purple
- March: Peach, peach and khaki
- April: Cherry, white and burgundy
- May: Orange Flower, dead-leaf yellow and purple
- June: Artemesia, sprout green and yellow
- July: Lily, red and dead-leaf yellow
- August: Cicada wing, cedar bark and sky blue
- September: Aster, lavender and burgundy
- October: Bush Clover, rose and slate blue
- November: Maple, vermilion and grey-green
- December: Chrysanthemum, lavender and deep blue
The Qing Thing[]
50 Shades of Qing
Perhaps the most notable, and perhaps most important color in understanding Japanese color culture is the color of “qing.” Or 青, qīng (pronounced “ching”). At least that’s its Chinese name. In Japanese it is called “ao,” which some of you may recognize as meaning “blue.” But qīng isn’t blue per-say, it’s an interesting color that doesn’t appear in the standard, “Crayola primary” set commonly identified in western cultures, lying somewhere in between blue and green. There seems to be an enormous flexibility within this term, as it can be called green, blue, green-ish blue or blue-ish green. In the Chinese color sense, qīng can also include some gray, which makes things even more, well, gray. But qīng, historically anyway, was actually used to describe quite a few things, such as 青天 (qīngtiān) for the sky, 青山 (qīngshān) for the mountains, 青丝 (qīngsī) for hair , and 青眼 (qīngyǎn) for eyes. It’s thus somewhat tricky to put an actual definition on qīng. When used with different nouns to form fixed words and phrases, qīng refers to green, such as 青草 (qīngcǎo, green grass), 青山 (qīngshān, green mountains), 青菜 (qīngcài, green vegetables), and 青椒 (qīngjiāo, green pepper). According to the ancient Shiming dictionary, it is defined as:
- "Qīng, is birth, like the color of things born. Thus, 青春 (qīngchūn), literally “green spring”, means youth."
- —Shiming
Which is interesting, because in Japanese to call someone “green” or inexperienced they say “ao-kusai,” or “green-smelling.” But then it can also mean blue, as the Confucian philosopher Xunzi stated:
- "Qīng comes from blue, yet excels blue."
- —Xunzi Kuang
Although Chinese now has a separate word for "blue", qīng still corresponds to idea of sprouting plant life as well as the element of wood, or nature, renewal, vigor and vitality. In fact, the Flag of the Republic of China is still referred to today as 青天，白日，滿地紅 (qīng tiān, bái rì, mǎn dì hóng, "Blue' Sky, White Sun, Whole Ground Red"); where “blue” is called “qīng” as opposed to 蓝色, “Lán sè,” which also means “blue.”
Viola. A billboard depicting traffic lights with a blue, rather than green, 'go' signal. I can’t imagine trying to read that if you’re color blind, let alone non-Japanese.
The Japanese word ao, which uses the same kanji for qīng (青) just like qīing, can refer to either blue or green depending on the situation. Of course we have the “modern” (meaning post 1,000 years ago or more definitely, post 1917 when Crayola was first introduced to Japan... I shit you not) definition for green, which is midori (緑), but for a long time, and I mean a LOOONG time, midori was still considered to be a shade of ao. (Which is still “blue” in Japanese, in case you’re wondering.) In fact, to this day a green traffic light is still called “aoshingou”, (青信号) which might cause some confusion to us gaijin since the light is clearly midori and not ao. But ao in this case is midori. Hah. But midori was only distinguished from ao educationally speaking after WWII, so while midori is used to describe most things that are “green” in the “greenest” sense of the word, there are some things such as vegetables, fruits, Reiatsu (!) and traffic signals that are described using “ao.”
Anyway, if that didn't confuse you too badly, by now I hope you are starting to get the picture, because there’s more! In Korean the same color known as qīng or ao exists as pureu-da (푸르다), or cheong (청, obviously adapted from the Chinese 靑, qīing). In Tibetan it’s sngon po (don’t even think about asking me to pronounce that). In Vietnamese the distinction between green and blue hasn’t really caught on yet, and both colors are xanh (青, or more correctly, “thanh”). And the cool thing is that it all relates back to qīng. This same phenomenon can exist for other colors as well, such as the Korean distinction between yellow and green or yellow and yellow-green, but that’s a bit far off the topic and not nearly as obvious as the qīng thing. So there. Now you can impress all of your friends in Trivial Pursuit. (Actually I don’t know what that is even so...)
The List[]
Well, I’m not going to list every color that’s out there because that would be the definition of masochism. Instead what I would do, if I were you, is find the general color that suits your character and then narrow it down to a more specific shade. It will keep things interesting at least. Wikipedia has an article on historical Japanese colors, which is worth a look-see because it lists the handy-dandy hex codes right there, ready and waiting to be used on articles. So here we go:
Five Elements Colors[]
- Black: Black corresponds to the element of water, and is a neutral color. According to the I Ching, “Book of Changes,” black is “heaven’s color,” as “heaven and earth of mysterious black” was rooted in the observation that the northern sky was black for a long time. Black is also a part of the yin and yang, and the ancient Chinese regarded black as the king of colors. Black also means depression, sadness, and (possibly) death.
- White: White, corresponding with metal, represents gold and symbolizes brightness, purity, and fulfillment. White is also the color of mourning. It is associated with death.
- Red: Red is an auspicious color and corresponds with fire, symbolizing good fortune and joy.
- Yellow: Yellow, associated with the element of earth, is considered a beautiful and prestigious color. It signifies neutrality and good luck, heroism, and royalty (as in the Emperor of China), as well as freedom from worldly cares.
- Qing: Generally green is associated with health, prosperity, and harmony, deriving from the idea of sprouting plant life. This color corresponds to the Chinese element of wood (i.e., vegetative life), representing nature and renewal, implying vigor and vitality.
Traditional Japanese Colors[]
Sorry that this list is vague on meaning. You can look most of these up if something catches your eye for a character or something. Also, this little wheel is insanely useful, but not entirely accurate and somewhat difficult to read. It’s been a huge help to me, anyway, and was originally linked to me by Z. Credit to him for finding this to begin with and sending me on an almost year long journey of color culture. (That’s right, I’ve been interested in this stuff since last September about).
- Akane: (red) Named for the dye of the root of akane grass, this color was originally made during the Heian period. It is also the name for the color of a red sunset.
- Ao: (blue-green) – Well you already know about this.
- Asagi: (“raddish”) Raddish is used for many color names, apparently, and the most popular is the "color of young raddish." For example, sabiasagi is a deeper green that was popular in the edo period. Moegiiro is an even darker green, while mizu-asagi is close to blue. Asagi also appeared in Heian-era Literature.
- Azuki: (red) The color named after red azuki beans, produced in the Edo period.
- Ki: (yellow) - the purest yellow
- Kobai: (plum-pink) a light red with a purple cast.
- Kuchiba: (old-leaf tan) described as dead-leaf yellow. (lit. rotted leaves). If it were a bit brighter it would approach mustard.
- Kurenai: (scarlet-pink) A bright, slightly yellow-toned pink produced from the benihana, safflower, an herbal dye source.
- Moegi: (sprout-green) could also be called grass-green or apple-green
- Murasaki: (purple) from the root of the gromwell. A range of purples included shades called fuji (wisteria), keshi murasaki (a grayed mauve), ebi (red-violet), koki (deep violet) and usuki (pale violet).
- Rikyu-cha: (brown) Made in the Edo period. Named after Senno Rikyu of the Azuchi-Momoyama period.
- Shikoku: Japanese lacquer.
- Shoujo-hi: (blood color) Named after a legendary animal.
- Shojo: (orange) This color was made in Muromachi Period.
- Suo: (maroon) Another red, wandering in tone from purple to brown to orange. It is the name of the tree (sappanwood) from which the dye comes.
- Terugaki: (“shining kaki”). Associated with sunshine.
- Uraba Yanagi: Named for the bark of a willow. Made in Edo period.
- Yamabuki: (golden yellow) A tree-shrub, the Kerria japonica with a roseate yellow blossom. A golden yellow like that of the common freesia.
Generalized Color Meanings[]
- Yellow - In the Far East, a sacred color; but it the West it can mean treachery.
- Red - Passion; gets the blood flowing more intensely.
- Orange - Represents knowledge and civilization.
- Violet - Stately and royal
- Blue - Cool, passive, and also symbolizes fidelity (as in true blue)
- Green - Restful and fresh
- White - Purity and truth
- Black - Gloom, sorrow and depresssion.
Some Handy Phrases[]
- Iro: The word "color" is "iro" in Japanese, and "iro" can be used to imply the meaning of attractiveness, beauty, visual appeal or “sexiness.” , sexy, sexual feeling, attractive, becautiful. “Iroppoi” is literally “sexy.” "Iro me wo tsukau” (using the color-eye) means to flirt, basically. “Iro otoko” (color guy) is an attractive guy. "Ganshoku nashi” (colorless face) means to succumb to the enemy of the other side and turn pale.
- Hakubi: (white brow), outstanding person or goods.
- Aonisai: (blue young), “beardless youth”
- Seishun: (blue spring), young days.
- Akappaji: (red shame), “crying shame”
- Akaku naru: Embarrassment, to blush
- Makka ni natte okoru: Grow red with anger
- Akaji: Red ink, deficit spending, loss (conversely, kuroji: black ink, profits)
- Aka no tanin: A complete or perfect stranger
- Hakushi ni modosu ( lit., "go back to the blank page" ): Means going back to the begining, starting at "square one," etc.
- Shiroi me de miru (lit., "look with the whites of one's eyes" ): To scorn, treat coldly
- Shirokuro o tsukeru (lit., "draw the line between black and white" ): Clarify whether right or wrong, good or bad
- Me o shirokuro saseru: To roll one's eyes in fright, surprise, or anguish
- Haraguroi (lit., "black belly" ): Ill-intentioned, evilhearted
- Kuchibashi ga kiiroi ( lit,. "beak is yellow" ): Refers to someone who is inexperienced or young
- Kiiroi koe ( lit., "yellow voice" ): The shrill voice of women and children
- Aoku naru ( to grow pale ): To pale when ill or stricken by fear or worry
To Sum Up[]
(Because it’s always nice to sum up).
Colors are important. I hope this has given you a bit of an introduction into the fascinating world that is Color Culture. Not just Japanese Color Culture, but the fact that it also exists in our own. Or any culture for that. Colors have meanings, and, if you’re Sir Robin of Camelot, can also be a matter of life and death:
That’s all folks.