Appearance Guidelines

Kokoro aims to provide an immersive anime-fantasy environment with the aesthetic of a slice of life visual novel.

To achieve this end, we require from our guests to adhere to our standards with regard to their avatar appearance if they wish to participate on sim.

For all guests, anime heads are required. As a guest spends more time on the sim, we expect them to work on their avatar to suit the aesthetic of the sim if they wish to be allowed to stay with us in the long term.

Aesthetic Considerations

Style

Anime comes in many different styles, but Kokoro's is one of a visual novel. Think Koi-Choco, Toradora, Shuffle! rather than Bleach, Naruto or Dragon Ball Z.

This style is about taking the human form and simplifying it to it's most basic and elegant lines, the shading is intentionally kept flatter and simpler - It's not about what you can add, it's about what you can take away.

Height

Kokoro is built to scale and so are its inhabitants. You should create your avatar to scale. We do make exceptions for fantasy races of characters that are smaller, as such characters fit into our VN Aesthetic, but not larger characters.

Average Male/Female height by Country

Head to Body ratio

The key to making your avatar look older or younger is the head to body ratio. The larger your head is relative to your body, the younger you will look, whilst having a smaller head will make your character seem more mature.

On Campus

When you ride the cable car down from the town of Seiiki, the entire island is Kokoro's Campus Grounds. You should be dressed appropriately either as a student or as a staff member before riding the Ropeway to campus grounds.

During your first few days it is acceptable to simply visit dressed how you are. However, you should begin working on an avatar appropriate for long term use at Kokoro. A guest may visit Kokoro Academy's Campus as an Exchange Student or an Exchange Teacher. Depending on which you choose, there are different aesthetic requirements.

Students

Bodies

Students at Kokoro by and large will be younger and smaller than our staff and must not use mature bodies such as Maitreya, Jake, Legacy or other body designed for more mature proportions.

Instead they should use bodies with less exaggerated features such as the Kemono and Kuroo. These bodies being 'anime by default' typically do not require changes to skin etc as they are designed to fit an anime Aesthetic to begin with, but you should avoid wearing skins that increase the detail density of the body or attempt to make the skin more 'realistic' with exaggerated highlights and shadows etc.

Outfit

On campus, all participating as students must wear School Uniforms or other school attire such as Gym Uniforms, School Swimwear etc.

You are not required to wear Kokoro's Official School Uniform, even if you have been issued one, however you are required to wear *a* school uniform. Note that, if not wearing our official uniform, your character will be considered an exchange student.

Please refrain from impersonating our students. Acts that can deceive such as copying the official school attire or claiming to be an enrolled student when you are not is frowned on and will cause you to overstay your welcome.

Teachers and other Staff

Bodies

Teachers should be taller and more mature in appearance to students. We allow the use of bodies such as Maitreya, Jake and other realistic human avatars, however these bodies are not 'anime by default' in the sense that their skins are usually detail dense with intricately shaded details such as shaded kneecaps, elbows, hands and use of strong highlights and shadows. These skins are not suited for an anime avatar, and an anime skin will need to be found for the character that has more flat shading and reduces the amount of detail within the skin.

Outfit

Whilst teachers and staff do not wear school uniforms, they must wear smart business attire whilst on Campus.