Hey, I think ACDB would benefit of having characters that look alike indexed.
Actually, I use ACDB mainly for finding characters for using on Roleplay on an RPG, so it would be very nice for me too.
For an example, I was using images of Ryoushi Morino for my Character:
http://www.animecharactersdatabase.com/character.php?id=22153
And later, I also found Tsugumu Kihara, which appearence is VERY similar to Ryoushi's:
http://www.animecharactersdatabase.com/character.php?id=22153
But I found Tsugumu MONTHS after finding Ryoushi, if that function existed before, I would have pictures of both way sooner.
There is also Kouichi Sakakibara, I found in between those two:
http://www.animecharactersdatabase.com/character.php?id=36067

Wouldn't it be great? What do you think?

I like the idea RyouMisaki.

I'll give it some thought as to how best to implement.

I think it'll be important to have a reason why the characters are similar. As it can get quite subjective. Just as an example, one could claim all the characters in Gintama are similar because they use the Shinpachi base. lol ( Gintama joke ) xD

On a more serious side, I'd have plenty of use for such a feature. Such as helping me find similar protagonists. ( in personality and abilities )

What kinds of similarities were you focusing in on?

私は日本語を少し読むと書くをできます。あなたも？

I was focusing on physical appearance only, but it's true that they could be indexed by personality or abilities, but it would be hard to moderate.

Some more obvious characters would be, for an example, Kyou and Ryou Fujibayashi, as they're twins. o/



And they also bear similarities to Frederica Bernkastel:

As Rei stated already, the problem with this function is that it is very subjective.
Characters from which you find they look alike could be considered quite different in the eyes of someone else.

For example the two characters you mentioned feel totally different to me.
They have different colors in skin/eyes/hair and the eyes are differently shaped which gives them unique facial expressions compared to each other.
The only thing that looks the same to me is the hairstyle, which is a fairly commonly used hairstyle to begin with.

All in all there is always room for improvement concerning character searching but I do not think we should head down the subjective road too fast.

I think it could be fun. Getting input from members about which characters they feel are similar, and why. At the least, it'd generate some interest in characters and more content. ^_^

I'll have to start simple,

- Character Profile :: Similar Characters -

This character is similar to : ENTER ID HERE
How : EXPLAIN HOW THEY ARE SIMILAR HERE


This would be the end of phase one, and likely what I can code today.

Later on, I could see improvements like counting the number of times a similarity was added. Something like

5 people say this character is similar to _____.

( phase 2 of coding )

And then another improvement, like allowing members to Agree or Disagree with a similarity, and tallying up those numbers.

( phase 3 of coding )

私は日本語を少し読むと書くをできます。あなたも？

If it was implemented, I think it would be very necessary for it to be moderated, so people wouldn't say characters that aren't similar in any way are lookalikes, for an example, comparing Mr. Satan with Kobato.


Having people being capable of agreeing or disagreeing with the similarities, would be nice, so people could do moderation, on some extent, and then, characters which were very disagreed would have their "Similarities" taken down from their pages.

This way, people could quickly find people like Bardock, who is almost identical to Goku, and other similar characters.


And there's this guy too, I can't remember, named Turles:


Or maybe Shouichi Irie with Nikaido Yuu.



Also, thank you for the attention you're giving to my suggestion, thank you very much! ^-^

The moderation part is really tough. I always hope people will have the best intentions, and use a feature properly. It's the Internet, so that only lasts so long. lol

It will happen that bogus relations are added ...

Initially the best protections I can implement are

1) requiring an explanation for the similarity be entered
2) allowing moderators to delete invalid similarities

I would hope that all similarities could have a valid, interesting argument put forth. Lacking that, moderators would be free to delete them.


I'm coding now, and hope to have something ready in the next hour or so. ^_^

私は日本語を少し読むと書くをできます。あなたも？

I've got something ready for testing.

From any character profile, you can click a link in the sub menu Similar that will bounce you down to this :




Similarities can be entered, deleted, and viewed by moderators and creators. I'll take a little break now ... still to do is making it look a little more pretty, and building a mass listing of similarities entered so far.

[ Edited Jul 13, 2014 ]

私は日本語を少し読むと書くをできます。あなたも？

I hate to be the "Nay Sayer" of the bunch but I'd have disagree with this function, we do have the Tag searches and Image Filters...
I just seems to me this will fill up char pages with useless opinionated gobbl-di-gook (much like many of the Tags).
That's just my thought, I could be wrong... but time will tell.

[ Edited Jul 14, 2014 ]

I am with Mitsugu on this matter. There are already more than enough ways to very easily find characters you are looking for and most importantly those are really objective ways of searching.

Sure having it as a button to click which brings you to a secondary page which shows all characters that are alike could work but having a bunch of subjective information on the actual character page itself just feels wrong.

New functions are often a nice thing on websites but I would not recommend this system unless it is done in a way where it is not shown on the actual character page but instead is a small button which brings you to a second page in order to not fill up the character page with nonsense.

To be honest seeing groups on character pages like : "♥FRANCE X ENGLAND♥ BY HETALIA_ITALY" in a huge font is already annoying enough to look at. No offense to Feli's tastes here but stuff like that is completely irrelevant to the characters information and is honestly nothing more than bothersome.

But I am going off-topic here, to make a long story short :"Character pages should be clean and not filled with subjective stuff, additional functions concerning characters are better of on secondary character pages which can for example be opened by the buttons at the top of the character page."

Obviously that's just my opinion but more is not always better, especially not when it makes things chaotic.