Approximately 10% of people are left-handed. That’s 1 in 10 people! But does this 10% translate over into anime?
Well, it certainly is easier to stick to characters being right-handed to streamline the production process where possible. Because of this it’s likely that characters that we know are left-handed, are left-handed because it’s written into their story.
For example, Ushijima from Haikyuu! is left-handed. In volleyball it’s a major benefit for him and his dad stood up for him against his family to left Ushijima use his left hand instead of being forcefully changed to right-handed.
Akiyama from K-On! is also left-handed, something that is troublesome for many musicians such as Akiyama who’s a bass player. Since basses are set up for right-handed people, you need to seek out a left-handed specific bass. For Akiyama, once she gets a left-handed bass her music potential explodes.
Ed from Fullmetal Alchemist is left-handed because he lost his right arm, which he lost when he failed human transmutation when he was younger.
Sasuke however is suggested to be left-handed because when Hagoromo askes for Sasuke’s dominant hand he holds up his left. He also tends to sign jutsu with his left – however Sasuke uses his sword and other weapons in his right. So perhaps he’s ambidextrous. This seems to be the cause for quite a few characters. And other characters are left-handed but it’s more of a small fun detail fans can notice – such as Zero Two who uses her left hand when learning to write but it’s not a thing that’s brought up.
But who’s your favourite left-handed character? What’s your thoughts on this topic?
Akiyama 
Ed 
Sasuke 
Ushijima
Use my affiliate links to support this blog!
The Spooky Red Head Blog 
I picked up Tezuka’s A Message to Adolph manga. It was flipped to read left-to-right, so everyone was left-handed. Very disconcerting!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Lol! Too funny!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Oh wow! That’s insanely interesting! I wonder how much influence artists preferences and flow has on character traits like this!
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s a really good question. Tezuka had passed away years before the English release, so short of creating a typhoon from Heaven he had nothing to say about it. From what I’ve see most are “Am I getting paid? No problem.” The fuss over ScarJo In Ghost in the Shell might be a good example (it wasn’t a big deal with the original creators).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Left or Right handedness has always been a bit odd for me. I have fairly bad Spacial dysgraphia, meaning I have a very hard time understanding spacial directions. So I couldn’t even tell the difference between my right and left hands until I was 20 and someone taught me a trick to tell the difference. Yes, this means that like some anime characters, I get lost very easily! A funny little quirk I have is, even though I try to be right handed, sometimes I’ll do something with my left hand without noticing until someone points it out to me. Right, left, up, down, to, and fro mean very little to me. One time when I was in a painting class in college, I was painting a still life along with the rest of the class. I was very pleased with how my painting was going. I had the shadows just right, the gradation of light and dark looked good. The lines were a little wobbly, but I thought I had done a very good job. The professor came up to me, looked at my painting and said, “Wow, that’s amazing! I’ve never seen a student do that!”. I thought she was complimenting me. And she even said that no student was as good as me, I thought I must be sooo talented! Then she said,” But what inspired you to paint a mirror image of the still life?” . . .What? Until my professor pointed it out, I hadn’t realized that I hadn’t painted the still life, but rather the exact opposite of the still life! My professor was surprised not because my painting was good (it got a B grade) she was surprised because it was so strange! Lol!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for sharing! I haven’t heard of spacial dysgraphia before. That’s very interesting that directions mean so little! Although I could only imagine how frustrating it could also be at times… It’s very cool that you sometimes write left without realising, especially since dominant hands seem to be such a highly debated topic with regards to scientific explanations (I’ve heard people say it’s to do with brain hemispheres, bones, and so much else, but never have I seen someone consider directional sense as well in their explanation)
LikeLiked by 1 person
oooo i’ve never thought of this tbh, the only one i know is left handed is eijun but that’s like his specialty. also lol i forgot about ushijima, so i guess i’ll go with my sports boys. also of course sasuke would be xD
LikeLiked by 1 person