Anime styles

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 10:37 pm

I made this thread at Pippin4242's request for the anime style discussion from the Skins thread. Enjoy! I'll be back myself.

Post by **Impenitent** » Thu May 08, 2008 12:40 am

vison wrote:As for anime, I loathe the "style" of it so much I can't bear to see it. It all looks like Pokemon to me.

Me too! I don't say it out loud in my daughter's hearing, though.

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Thu May 08, 2008 1:09 am

I have seen some excellent anime films—Miyazaki especially—but my appreciation is not because of the character drawing style, not at all. In fact it disturbs me that so many talented kid artists will draw people only in that style, almost as if they want to hide any sign of individuality in their subjects or even themselves.

It's a very old style; I can remember watching TV cartoons from Japan where the characters were drawn like that, forty years ago and more (Speed Racer, Gigantor). I didn't care for it then, either.

Post by **eborr** » Thu May 15, 2008 10:01 pm

hello just dropped in what a wonderfully wide ranging bizarre conversation, dear friends it does you great credit -

Post by **Hachimitsu** » Sat May 17, 2008 2:28 am

Hey I just wanted to say there are different styles for different anime, depending on the genre. Shoujo/girls manga (has really large misty eyes), shounen/boys manga has much more lines in their line art and more action etc... There is even an anime that does it's art in the woodblock/art nouveau style. Usually over time you can tell what artist does what type of work even if they change styles for different type of manga (CLAMP for example always like petals and wings in their art work and they change their art work quite a bit depending on the project)

There are some things that are the same regardless of genre like the large eyes. Actually when Japanese anime first started out it was based on Disney animation and some things over time got more exagerated. Like the large eyes for instance, are used to convey more emotion in less frames of television. The crazy hair colours is to help differentiate characters since everyone having black hair like RL Japan wouldn't be so useful selling manga and anime. Also the crazy hair styles is so a person can recognize a character in silhouette. I can actually provide some pictoral examples but I don't want to derail the thread any further. If anyone wants to start a thread I'll post in post in it.

Sorry I just had to defend the art of manga and anime since it actually is an art.

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Sat May 17, 2008 2:33 am

for Wilma. It's always great to see you!

for eborr. You too!

Post by **Hachimitsu** » Sat May 17, 2008 2:34 am

Sorry I can't get the link clickable. I will probably be gone for a couple of weeks since Anime north is next week and I will be busy.

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Sat May 17, 2008 2:41 am

I got it fixed. It was the parentheses in the URL. I found the article you meant to link to and copied that URL, which replaces the parentheses with %28 and %29.

Let me know if I put in the wrong link!

Off to read article.

Post by **Hachimitsu** » Sat May 17, 2008 2:45 am

Thanks for fixing the link. Unfortunately they don't show the art examples of clamps works over the years.

For example RG Veda, Cardcaptor Sakura and xxxHolic artstyles are very very different yet all done by clamp. Pips would be better at this then me.

Post by **Pippin4242** » Tue May 20, 2008 12:36 am

I'm here upon my white charger.

I was just thinking... why does everybody think I watch Skins?
Prim, Wilma, this is a discussion I'm very, very much interested in having, but I'm afraid that we might go into depth too much. Would it be sensible to request a thread split?

*~Pips~*

Post by **Pippin4242** » Tue May 20, 2008 2:18 am

Apologies for image-heavy post.

Sure, nine out of ten anime might share a few common drawing tropes. Anime has its roots in a devastated post-war economy. It had to be as expressive as possible given a low frame rate and limited animation. That, and the love of one hugely influential artist for Disney, is what helped shape anime in a very general way. Even with huge budgets and hundreds of animators, your average anime character is likely to have, for example, a nose represented by a single line with a dot for a nostril, and large eyes, unjoined at the corners, with thin eyebrows and several points where light hits the iris. But I would strongly contest the idea that all anime and manga are alike, artistically.

With the main drawing styles ranging from Hellsing...

...to Astro Boy...

...or the Rose of Versailles (this is Marie Antoinette)...

...where men can look like anything, from this...

...to this...

...or this...

...and the girls range from this...

...to this...

...or even this...

...(and by the way, the character in the first image, Sir Hellsing, is also female...) I can't help but think that people who believe that all anime and manga look similar simply haven't seen enough decent anime yet. There's so much variety out there. Please don't judge the style by the work of a few fledgling artists who are simply copying the tropes they recognise. To say that all anime look alike is about as meaningful a statement to me as saying that all American TV shows look alike because they use flesh-and-blood actors.

*~Pips~*

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Tue May 20, 2008 2:25 am

Most illuminating!

So I have been seeing anime around the web and didn't even recognize it as such—because it didn't look like what I thought of as anime.

Post by **yovargas** » Tue May 20, 2008 2:41 am

I don't know what it is. Aside from maybe Miyazaki, those all look like variations on the exact same thing. There's plenty of variation there but somehow they more or less feel the same to me. And to varying degrees, I find them all pretty darn annoying (aside from maybe Miyazaki).

Post by **Impenitent** » Tue May 20, 2008 3:02 am

Hi Pips.

My daughter (she was 15 yesterday. So grown up!) has been watching a lot of anime for the last two years and it has varied widely. Let's see if I can remember some of the titles....

Naruto series
Avatar series
Death Note series
Howl's Moving Castle
Fullmetal Alchemist
Evangelion
Spirited Away

...I know there are others, but I haven't paid attention to all the titles.

Thing is, I know that just as in any other artistic media the quality varies wildly - not just in the screenplay, but also obviously in the visual image. Undoubtedly there are examples at both ends to point to and I have no doubt at all that you can point to wonderful examples. That's not at all my argument.

The thing that bothers me the most about the anime I have seen her watch is what I can only describe as the prevalence of the sexualised child image.

The depiction of women (generally; I know that there are exceptions) seems to be very sexualised to me. A character supposedly in her 20's (or superhumanly over 100 years old) looks like a kewpie doll with a childlike perfect face dressed in generally provocative clothes. Even when all covered up, there is a sly reference to a sexualised body beneath. Generally they are not all covered up.

I know, I'm using the word generally a lot. *shrugs*

It bothers me because any well told story can be very influential. My daughter was immersed in anime for a long time and I started to see changes in the way she presented herself - hair, make up, clothes.

I don't mind her experimenting with these things - she's a teenager, budding sexuality requires some exploration, I know that.

But there seems to be a lot of unwholesomeness in the way the images combine the child and sexuality and I feel uneasy about the stereotypes my daughter may have started to build in her head. The world is NOT full of adults with childlike yet provocative beauty.

So...that's my problem with it.

BTW, anime compulsion seems to have been a phase. She's into Stephanie Meyers now.

Pips, I'm happy to be proved wrong. Do you think I'm way off line?

Post by **Alatar** » Tue May 20, 2008 10:10 am

I'm not sure if this counts as anime, but I'm starting to really like the Squaresoft Final Fantasy VII stuff. I watched the movie and was a bit lost, but thanks to Pips explanations figured most of it out. I'm currently playing Crisis Core on the PSP which is essentially an interactive movie punctuated with fight scenes. In the chronology, this is a prequel to the story told in FFVII, just as Advent Children is a sequel to it. At this stage I'd love the opportunity to experience the storyline of FFVII without playing a clunky old PSOne title, so I'm hoping for a remake.

Here's one of the cutscenes from FFVII: Crisis Core

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6ZaSipHuO4

Post by **Pippin4242** » Tue May 20, 2008 12:16 pm

Impy, I don't think you're entirely off-line. There's an unfortunate tendency for anime, as with every other form of modern media, to oversexualise youthful traits. The merchandising aspect is capable of pandering to some fairly horrible whims, and there are some very creepy shows out there (Kodomo no Jikan, I'm looking at you). The fact that there's a genre term for anime and manga concerning "a sexual attraction to younger girls, or girls with underdeveloped secondary sexual characteristics" is pretty worrying to me (lolicon, from 'Lolita complex'). However, the milder forms (and even Kodomo no Jikan, to be honest, from what I've watched of it) are pretty harmless. Moe, meaning 'budding', is sort of the little sister (or, considering what we're talking about here, the older sister...) of lolicon, and it refers to young, innocent girls who the viewer's heart goes out to; they want to protect them, or be an older brother figure to them. Funnily enough, for all that it sounds creepy, I'm quite a fan of moe anime, (or at least the few that I've watched), because they tend to be rather interesting, with high production values and good stories. I've watched Air, and I adored it, so I've just started on Kanon, and I'm halfway through Utawarerumono. Binbou Shimai Monogatari was terrible though. Maybe because I only came into contact with it halfway through the series, when I worked as a temp editor for a fansub group.

On the other hand, the variety in anime means that there are some truly fantastic female heroes out there. A few good examples might be Oscar Francoise de Jarjeyes, the fictional female commander of the royal guard of the court of Versailles in Marie Antoinette's time; Saber, the incredible sword fighter from Fate/stay night (spoilers:whose true name is Arturia; the King Arthur on whom the legends are based), Nana (from Nana), who won't follow her love to Tokyo because she refuses to live in his shadow and suffer damage to her pride; Fuu, from Samurai Champloo, who manipulates two angry samurai into becoming her personal bodyguards until she's fulfilled her destiny, and just about any Miyazaki character you can name.

To be honest though, the vague feeling I took from your post was that you disapproved of Ayanami Rei, from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but the character's rather unique roots make this an interesting idea to address. See, fifteen and younger strikes me as rather young to be watching Evangelion. It's quite... screwed up. It's very postmodern, and quite concious of what it's doing. Rei is basically meant to be lolicon pedo-bait, because the director (as he later explicitly stated) was sick of the manipulable, almost emotionless kind of female character popularised by the time Evangelion was written. Rei is the most extreme possible example of this idea. Spoilers from hereon in, for anybody interested in watching it. She's a clone, fully replaceable from parts. The Rei we see in the series is actually the third one. She seems to be a broadly sympathetic character; she was created simply to be used, though the man responsible comes to care for her more than he does his own son. The director, Hidekai Anno, was apparently horrified at her popularity; she wasn't really meant to be 'nice'. You can buy all sorts of Rei merchandise, from body pillows to seriously creepy action figures. (Trust me, you don't want to know).

I guess I don't really know what I'm trying to say here. Anime can be deeply misogynistic at times, but on the other hand, I've never seen one as bad as, say, Bratz. What's popularised by anime is a sense of... sexy innocence? Though there's fanservice (skimpy costumes and characters in the shower) I've never, in my admittedly limited experience, really seen any anime (bar, maybe, GTO?) where the characters act in a slutty way. At the end of the day, it's an entire media format we're talking about. There's some good, and some bad. It also most definitely works both ways. There's plenty of exploitative stuff with male characters too, though perhaps that's a topic for another day (when I'm not meant to be revising.

)

Prim, I'm glad you found my little rant illuminating.

I feel pretty passionately about anime (well duh, I guess) so I tend to feel a bit put out by people using "anime-style" as an umbrella term.

yov, I do wonder what it is that you're picking up on. I guess there's still the fact that most use thin outlines and cel-shading for the colouring style? A fairly muted palate?

Back to Impenitent, an interesting point - Avatar: The Last Airbender isn't actually anime. It looks like anime, it tastes like anime, but it's 100% American. Doesn't mean I don't adore it though. (I have a Sokka action figure.

)

Alatar, I really can't get into Final Fantasy VII. Maybe it's like Naruto for me? It seems okay, but so overrated that I'm put off by my own cynicism? Absolutely stunning animation. Really beautiful. But Advent Children struck me as fanservice; every character shows up, gets a nod at the camera, there's a fight, the world's safe again. I'm quite sure that's how 'Memories of Nobody', my favourite Bleach film, would look to a non-Bleach-watching audience, but then, I wouldn't particularly recommend it to people who hadn't already watched Bleach. I did watch your clip though. That dub seems painfully stiff to me, but the animation was breathtaking. Thanks for that. Also, I'm totally giving Final Fantasy in general a chance. I've been enjoying Golden Sun since my gf lent me her GBA, and when a friend of mine was selling some things I bought FFIV for GBA, and FFIII for the DS. Time will tell.

*~Pips~*

Post by **Hachimitsu** » Tue May 20, 2008 7:18 pm

OK first of all I wanted to say that there are basically 4 catergories for manga and anime, they are basically named after the main demographic they are aimed at. You always have to keep that in mind since at times it determines the type of characters, story lines and art styles. Also Imp it would explain why the series your daughter is watching has more sexualized images.

Shounen/boys- Aimed primarily at boys preteen up to the teen years. Shounen series usually have lots of action and will have some time of fanservice for guys (ex: scantily clad women, giant gravity defiant boobs). usually no romance whatsoever. I don't know how to describe the art style but there is lots of wooshing motions. If you ever get a look at Shonen Jump maqazine you will see there is a bit of commonality in the whooshes in the art. Examples of SHounen series are Bleach, Naruto, Death note, full metal alchemist, (Neon Genesis) Evangelion, Ranma 1/2, One Piece and Claymore. (Claymore really takes a departure from the average manga style) Shounen series sell the most.

Bleach

Full metal alchemist

Naruto

Claymore

Shoujo/girls- Aimed primarily at girls preeteen to teen years. SHoujo mainly has romance and the art style the characters with big misty eyes and lots of flowers and foliage in the backgrounds. Examples of this are Fruits Basket, Card Captor Sakura and Ouran High School Host Club. (Ouran is a satire that makes fun of the shoujo genre while being a shoujo itself.) and Sailor Moon

Fruits basket

Ouran

Seinen -Aimed at men in late teens and adult men. This does not mean that it's all about sex, there are tons of Seinen manga that cover a wide range of subjects. From the ones I have read they can be pretty sweet. (In one a guy makes mittens for everyone he cares about). Examples xxxHolic

, Chobits (made me cry), maybe Mushi Shi

, and Beserk (18+)

Josei - aimed primarily at women in late teens and adult hood. Less fantastical elements as in the other 3 catergories and deals with more realistic issues of adult women. Example is Nana which is extreme popular.

Once you know that you get an idea of what manga and anime will have what. While there are subcatergories these 4 are the main ones. For example Card captor sakura is a shoujo that is aimed at little children. Also most of the time people outside the target demographic are can be fans of a particular demographic. Although I am a girl I really like Shounen series and my favourite series is xxxHolic which is a Seinen.

It seems Impy your daughter watches a lot of shounen series so it may explain why it has so many over sexualized women.

I will say depending on the studio that does it for the english world the anime and manga could be censored.

I will post links to the terms lolicon, shotacon, moe and fanservice so people know what these terms mean.

If a parent (or anyone) wants to have an idea of the different types of manga and anime read the Manga: The complete guide. It explains a whole ton of useful info (like cultural differences) and you can read up on what series your child is watching and see if it has anything that you might disagree with (ex:nudity).

I will say the thing that attracted me to Bleach (I just decided to watch it as a joke, I totally intended to laugh at it), was that it had a teeny tiny female character who dresses modestly, severely bossing around the male lead of the show. I just loved it. Rukia (the bossy girl) totally busts my expectations for an action anime that seemed pretty boyish. She totally isn't like "save me, save me" and is an A cup girl. Totally strong female character and that really impressed me.

OK I am gonna a post this and do my next post on art styles and CLAMP.
EDIT: Fixing links, adding links, fixing spelling.

Post by **Pippin4242** » Tue May 20, 2008 7:43 pm

Wilma wrote:(In one a guy makes mittens for everyone he cares about).

Oh my gosh. Please tell me it was Watanuki.

I think your point about target audiences is very valid, but at the same time I think that there are plenty of anime, at least these days, intentionally aimed at more than one of those areas. Trigun would be pure seinen if it wasn't for all the romance and philosophy. Honey and Clover, the archetypal josei, has a major character with irrefutably moe traits. Chobits is seinen with a purely shoujo artistic mentality. And XXXHOLiC... I don't really know what I feel that's supposed to be right now, but I don't think it could be said to be pure seinen. That doesn't feel right at all. Perhaps it's just because CLAMP are all female, but there's way too much ho-yay for it just to be aimed at guys.

Neon Genesis Evangelion, for the record, I would say is intended to work on two levels. The first is as a shounen mecha series. People who were watching it for this reason would have been sorely disappointed by the final two episodes of nearly pure psychoanalysis. There was also a definite seinen subtext throughout the series. Or maybe a Freud-fanboy subtext. It was definitely meant to work on two different levels of genre.

Bleach has a format which absolutely screams shounen, and it's written for a shounen weekly, by a male author, with plenty of busty ladies. It also works extremely hard not to alienate its female audience (pushing to the point of parody the nuisance which the bustiest character finds her body to be) and providing in equal measure plenty of sexy shirtless men. I only personally know one or two male fans.

I'll be very interested to see what you make of CLAMP. I found RG Veda to be almost unrecognisable, and while I love the art of Tsubasa, I thought the XXXHOLiC characters looked hideous in the RESERvoir CHRoNiCLES anime.

*~Pips~*

Post by **Hachimitsu** » Tue May 20, 2008 7:48 pm

Like I said those 4 catergories are very very very general Pips!! We wanna keep it simple for people who aren't too familiar with anime and manga. I am gonna edit in some art from shonen and shojo manga to illustrate the difference in art.

The Clamp one is for Prim's benefit

*goes off to photobucket*

Post by **Hachimitsu** » Tue May 20, 2008 8:32 pm

First I wanted to say in part the reason I like manga and anime is that for anime based on manga it is very consistent. Unlike western comics, the artist/writer that starts a manga series will be the one to finish it. (Manga series end, they don't get constantly reinvented, (also since it ends it does not get dragged out past it's prime)) No other writer comes in to take over if a work is unfinished.
Also usually the writer is also the one that does all the art too. So for most manga all the art and writing is done by one person. That results in very very consistent characterizations and story. (Unless it's a writer and art team like the two people who do death note, one does the story and one does the art, lots of collaboration of course). Of course the single manga artist (called Manga-Ka) has assistants but they do most of the art and directs the assistants. (Assistants almost never draw characters, they do backgrounds usually)

CLAMP is a group of 4 female manga-ka. They do all the art and writing themselves and have no assistants. They have at least been around since the 80 and have done tons of series. Depending on the project they can change their art style and they love to cross over their characters to different series.

One of their first big hits was RG veda (based on Hinduism) That was around the late 80's

Zomg!! The 80's

As you can see the art is very very angular.

Cardcaptor Sakura was a huge hit and started in the mid 90's. It's a shoujo aimed at little children. (It's so cute!) Also It's a shoujo with a sort of action bend as the little girl Sakura has to capture all these escaped cards. Clamp wanted to do a different take on the super hero costume deal since it would be dissapointing for a little girl to wear the same outfit everytime so they have Sakura wear a different out fit for each of her capturing adventures.

As you can see the art is pretty different from RGVeda

For my final example is one of Clamps current work called xxxHolic. THe first thing that attracted me to xxxHolic was the art style. They do a woodblock/ art nouveau style which I just love. (The very last one is a crossover and is sort of done in the style of their other current project, but it has the kids which I like.)

Added an extra one for Prim

Edit: Added definitions and links and fixed spelling.