“Button Girl is a quiet and imaginative 16-year-old girl who expresses her emotions through sewing.
Her doll, the Button Doll, is both her creation and her reflection: vivid, emotional, and innocent.
While the villagers are an unfeeling mass, they are uniform, mechanical, and numb, becoming the collective villains of the story.
In the character design, we deliberately contrasted softness with stiffness:
The dolls of the villagers are all composed of baby faces and animal bodies. Whether flying in the sky or swimming in the sea, they all have black antennae standing on the ground, and they cannot move or walk, but can only be dragged by the villagers.
Both the villagers’ dolls and Button Girl’s dolls symbolize their thoughts, so there will be significant differences in the settings.
The second character from the left is the protagonist – the Button Girl. To her right are the villagers. The villagers’ limbs are straight and sharp, like nails. This reflects their personalities. The villagers have long suppressed their emotions and have negative feelings pent up inside, hence they appear sharp. The Button Girl’s limbs are soft and round, although she also suppresses her emotions, she would play with dolls at home to release her emotions, which makes her become more gentle. Moreover, her introverted personality is also reflected in her slightly stooped posture and the posture of holding her arms across her chest, giving a sense of unease.
Next are the dolls of the protagonist (on the left) and the villagers (on the right). The design of these dolls reflects the inner state of the protagonist. Her doll features many curved designs, making it lively and adorable. In contrast, the villagers’ inner minds are occupied by negative emotions, and their dolls are ugly and strange.
The body of Button Girl’s hands has more curves, and her clothes are shorter compared to those of the other villagers.
The Button Doll is the only one in the story with fully movable complete facial features, and her hair is more flexible and springy.
The bodies of the villagers are more angular and sharp, and the parts of their clothes that cover their bodies are more prominent, representing more hidden personal thoughts.
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