Nothing bugs me more than the claim that Aiko looks to young, because it just shows a viewer who has a very distorted perception of women.

I personally consider the claim one step shy of a racial slant, because Aiko looks so much like someone I used to date when we were in our mid-20s living in Korea, heck there's one morph out there of her that looks like my wife did when she was 28.

If a viewers experience with women is so limited that they don't know what Asian women of varying ages look like, I find that troubling.

Aiko is toonish, so I'm not speaking to that, but to the age she seems to show. It is -very- adult.

Aiko is just a 3D model by herself, usable in nearly any manner. And her appearance is easily adult by Asian standards, and even some caucasian, ameri-indiginous, and african women age slow enough to have that few 'facial lines' in their 20s. Aiko characters such as 'Angelica' over at Poser pros are clearly adult and caucasian (a number of women at my graduate school look younger than her).

When this perception that she is a child occurs, it is truly troubling. When it occurs in a moderator it is seriously problematic and casts doubt on their credibility.

Her structure is 'less lined' than figures like V3 and Miki (who doesn't really even look Asian...), and this is not so much a sign of underaged as it is of a well established principle in toon-art.

Read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics.

In that book he notes how the simplification of the human is a common thing in art across cultures which works to increase identification. The simpler the face, the more it evokes the commonality of human experience. Cartoons (to include anime) use simplified and over-the-top forms intentionally in order to draw in the viewer and cause him/her to place themselves into the position of the protagonist.

It is a very well established principle of art to do this, and it takes a lot of work and skill to know how to do it right. It's seen not just in cartoons, anime, and comics, but also everytime you open a newspaper and flip to the editorial section - the poltical cartoons. these simplify the faces of political personas such as a president not because the paper can't afford to hire a photographer or a classical painter, but because that simplification draws out the 'Character' behind the character.

Aiko's popularity is probably largely driven by her ability to really capture the same part of the eye that is drawn in by 'cartooning'. She has a very emotional face - you see a character in her when you look at her, and she can force 'identification' much better than the more 'liney' faces of other 3D models can.

This is not for age, but for effect of drawing a viewer in.

Even Aiko realistic, even when she actually does look realistic, still retains this. In the same way that when people look at such beautiful women with smooth faces like hers they identify and feel for them by instinct...

And this does not make these women, nor Aiko, underaged. Nor should there be a default assumption that she is such. Such an assumption shows a culturally myopic perspective in the viewer.

Truth has no value without backing by unfounded belief.
Renderosity Gallery