This is a brilliant post by Cuchlann of Super Fanicom in which he gets into the bones of Hidamari Sketch’s use of symbols to represent characters. If you’ve seen HidaSketch, you’ve surely noticed the way that characters will at times entirely disappear from a scene, and be represented only by a symbol, usually on a single-color background, backed by the character’s voice. If we take a look at these symbols (as Cuchlann does) we can find all sorts of meaning to their connections with the characters. However, to that end, I have nothing to add. Cuchlann does a wonderful job of exploring those meanings, and I largely agree with what he had to say, and the comments on the post I think round out the discussion quite nicely. So, instead of also talking about what the symbols might mean, I’m going to talk about why the symbols exist, from the standpoint of an Akiyuki Shinbo connoisseur (lol).