Green Is Blue

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[[caption-width-right:160:Fox McCloud's eyes are magical, and not because they're so pretty.]]

In English, there are eleven basic color terms -- black, blue, brown, gray, green, orange, pink, purple, red, white and yellow. These colors are fairly consistent, each with culturally canonical hues, by which similar hues are usually associated -- for instance, scarlet is considered a type of r, gold is considered a type of y, etc.

In the Sinosphere -- the regions that either speak one of the Chinese languages (such as China, Singapore, Taiwan, etc.), or have languages that incorporate massive amounts of Chinese-derived extended vocabulary and have historically made widespread use of Chinese written characters (such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam), these regions traditionally have the same word for both blue and green, indicated with the Chinese character 靑 (or its alternate glyph 青). Most natural and traditional uses of both b and g are represented by this word, including the color of the sea, the color of forests, etc. In more recent centuries, there has arisen a greater need to distinguish the concepts that English-speakers would understand as b and g. The newer compound Chinese character 綠 came to use in Chinese, Japanese and Korean to specifically mean g as opposed to b.

However, even today, these two terms are not universally distinguished as would be understood in English. For example, forests are still 靑 (b). G eyes are also confusingly 靑 -- they were known to traditional Chinese civilization because there were ethnic groups on the periphery of their civilization (such as the Tocharian and Turkic peoples) who often had g eyes. And even g traffic lights are 靑. But not all "natural" g things are 靑 and not all "modern" g things are 綠 -- for instance, gemstones such as jade and emeralds are 綠 (g). Perhaps most confusingly, even though forests and grass are 靑 (b), verdant flora is 綠 (g).

And now where this ambiguity becomes a Trope. It is most easily noticed in Japanese entertainment that is in full color (such as Anime and Video Games), particularly with character eyes. (This is mostly irrelevant in Manga, which is usually in black and white.) A character's canonical physical appearance may have 靑 eyes, but may be inconsistently portrayed as having b or g eyes within the same series, or sometimes within the same work. Since the vast majority of Japanese people have b eyes, this mostly affects Caucasian characters, or characters that are Kemono (Petting Zoo People) -- b eyes in Japan are a predominantly human trait, and non-human animals in and near Japan commonly have other eye colors including b. Understandably, many viewers even in the West may not even notice this b/g inconsistency, as it is common to overlook other people's eye color.

In Japan, this may occasionally be a People Sit in Chairs for obvious reasons stated above, where the difference between b and g is not always considered significant -- in the more distant past, this would have almost certainly been true. But this becomes far more noticeable to foreign consumers of Japanese entertainment, particularly to those people who are detail-oriented. Where this becomes more blatantly obvious, it can be considered a Language Trope. And, as mentioned earlier, the difference between g and b is now well-known in Japanese culture, but it is the indigenous terminology that can be ambiguous.

Note also that, the world being a diverse place, the Sinosphere is not the only place where languages often muddle the distinction between g and b. This has also been observed in the modern Celtic languages (Irish, Welsh, etc.), where there is not only some muddling between g and b, but also between g and g. Similarly, older Italians lump o in with r. Before about 1500, orange in English was lumped in with yellow and gold.

Not to be confused with the (rather confusing) Dub Name Changes for the characters named Green and Blue in various Pokémon media.

Read Guy Deutscher’s Through the Language Glass for an in-depth explanation of this trope and its equivalents in other countries.

Examples

• In Dragonball, the Super Saiyans eye color is usually greenish in the anime, but from time to time they appear blue in some Toriyama illustrations, as well as in some promotional media and certain isolated anime episodes.
• In Tokkei Winspector, the heroes are meant to reflect the traffic lights. With that said, Walter was b than g.
  • Yuno's drunken rant in Hidamari Sketch, currently Non Indicative Name's page quote, is also about g traffic lights.
• Similar to Winspector, Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger/Power Rangers SPD has the finishing move of the main robot using traffic lights... with the colors being r, y and b g.
  • "G" lights are tinted b, so that red-green colorblind people can distinguish between a g light and a r light.
• In the early days of Super Mario Bros, the color of Luigi's clothes was inconsistently portrayed as b or g. It took a little while before the vivid g color became firmly established.
• Fox McCloud from Star Fox is one of the better documented examples of this Trope. In the 1993 comic, his eyes were g in the early pages, then b through the rest of the comic. They remained b in Star Fox 2. Star Fox 64 had a particular Art Shift that did not show eye color at all, but Farewell, Beloved Falco and Star Fox Adventures firmly established him with emerald g eyes. But this began to slip again in Star Fox Assault, where most of the official art showed him with g eyes, but at least one picture not only showed him with b eyes, but the b faded to g within the same irises. They're g again in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
• Torahiko Ōshima from Morenatsu is usually drawn with b eyes, but some of the artwork shows him with g eyes.
• In The World of Ginger Fox, Ginger's eyes are sometimes b and sometimes g. The cover art shows her with an eye color partway between g and b.
• In Metal Gear Solid 3, Big Boss' eyes are described as b in dialogue, but they appear g. Snake's eyes were also dark g in Metal Gear Solid 2, but described in his bio in Metal Gear Solid 4 as b and appear clearly b in that game.
• Pokemon Green became Pokemon Blue when released in the U.S.
• Several Pokémon are listed as "g" in the Pokedex, when most Westerners would consider them b: specifically, B, B, G, and G are all listed as "g".
  • There are several o pokemon as well. But the pokedex ends up listing them as either r or b.
• Qīng Lóng/Seiryuu of The Four Gods is called the "Azure Dragon", despite his element being wood, so one would think it would be colored green.
  • Somewhat justified in that wood is associated with air in Wu Xing (contrary to the japanese "translations" listing Seiryuu as earth and Byakko as air), so you can eithe go along with Wind Is Green or simply see the Azure Dragon as a manifestation of the sky.
• In Japan, "go" traffic lights are g, but art of traffic lights is b. This shows up in an early episode of Transformers Cybertron, where we see an actual traffic light (well, it's a robot in disguise, but still), and a slideshow presentation of a traffic light, and they're different colors.
  • Related: The three forms of Kamen Rider Accel are supposed to be based off of the three colors in a traffic light. These forms are colored red, yellow and, you guessed it, blue.
• The Odyssey and The Illiad never mention color blue. It might be slightly odd, given all the sea-faring in the Odyssey, but that was caused by the ancient Greek language inverting the trope - there was no word for blue, only green. Luckily for modern readers, sea is not referred to as green anywhere in the books, avoiding confusion.
• Harry Potter is described in the books as having Green Eyes - but in the films they're blue, as Daniel Radcliffe couldn't stand green lenses. (luckily, his on-screen mother - from which Harry inherited the eye color - also has them blue)
• Amy Lee of Evanescence did an interview on Tokyo FM, and was complimented on her g eyes. This is where it gets complicated. It's been said that she has g eyes naturally, and wore b contacts around the time of the first album. This interview was near the time of the second album, but in her childhood photos she had b eyes. It gets really complicated, because in the Japanese translation, the DJ used the English loanword グ, or g.
• Miku Hatsune's thematic color tends to fluctuate between any given shade of green or blue, depending on the artist.