Art Evolution / Anime & Manga

What a difference 33 years and 11 different series makes.

• While not getting into too much detail, anime made during the 1920's, 1930's, and 1940's look extremely different compared to modern looking anime starting in the mid 1960's. Character designs that most Westerners and Europeans are familiar didn't truly occur until the tail end of the 1970's and early 1980's.
  • Up through the 1930's, Japanese animation tended to imitate the look of American cartoons, albeit stiff and somewhat rotoscoped.
  • From The '40s until the mid-50's, the majority of character animation looked more rotoscoped, especially characters' facial expressions. By The '60s, the majority of anime was animated limitedly (as seen in a majority of Tezuka's shows from that period) similar to American cartoons during this era.
  • The character designs for anime in general started looking more detailed beginning in The '70s but didn't reach their now-traditional style until The '80s.
  • After the industry's switch from cel animation to digital at the start of the Turn of the Millennium, most anime first attempted to provide a rough imitation of its predecessor before eventually adopting a shinier, glossier look compared to the starker and subdued colors of most cel-animated works.^note This is not to be confused with Western 2D digital animation, which still generally features flat coloring, but goes for a louder palette than cel animation.
  • This phenomenon is lampshaded in the pilot episode of Osomatsu-san, where the Matsuno sextuplets briefly shift from their 1960's cartoony art style to the angular, Bishōnen one commonly associated with modern anime as a parody.
• Kosuke Fujishima's artstyle has changed a lot over the years:
  • The characters in the Ah! My Goddess manga went through several different designs before they finally stabilized somewhat, and minor changes on faces are still being made in the latest volumes. This webpage◊ shows just how much Belldandy's look alone evolved.
  • You're Under Arrest!'s most noticeable change was between season 2 to season 3, though there's a noticeable change (de-evolution) from the OVAs to season 1. The series has gone through several design changes during its run, each to fit the style of the time period. Most noticeable being the eyes which have gotten more big, colorful and bright, a trend carried over to Ah! My Goddess before they shrinked again. Aoi gets a noticeable change◊ in appearance over the pace of the series. Even more apparent◊ in the manga, where originally Miyuki and Natsumi looked nothing like their iconic designs and looked like Rumiko Takahashi's characters instead.
    • Heck, compare You're Under Arrest! and Ah! My Goddess artstyle-wise. Sometimes it doesn't even look like those two series were drawn by the same artist, especially in the beginning.
• Compare Yoshihiro Togashi's art style from his debut work Okami Nante Kowakunai to early Yu Yu Hakusho to late Yu Yu Hakusho to the recent chapters of Hunter × Hunter
  • Oddly enough, in the YuYu Hakusho Kanzenban volume cover illustrations, Hiei looks kinda like Killua.
• Early chapters of Kodomo no Jikan featured highly simplistic, flat character designs and little shading. As the manga has accumulated more installments, the artwork has become noticeably cleaner and more detailed.
• Reborn! (2004) has some examples. Here is a quick run-through of a handful of characters from their initial appearances to how they look now. Feel free to gawk.
• Hisashi Eguchi's art style has changed dramatically since The '80s. Nowadays he uses a more signature, realistic style compared to the more generic style he used then. Compare the way he originally◊ drew Hibari, from Stop Hibari-kun, to the way he redrew◊ her on the covers of the recent reprint.
• The artwork of famous character designer Akio Sugino has changed drastically over the years. Just compare this shot◊ from the 1973 version of Ace wo Nerae to this one◊ from 1988's sequel. To be fair in the earlier adaptations of ''Aim for the Ace!, he was basically copying Sumika Yamamoto's artstyle (y'know the creator of the original manga), in the OVA's the series ArtShifted over to Sugino's own artstyle
• Usazaki Shiro, the creator of act-age started off as a newcomer to the manga scene. Over time, their art has evolved from having a distinct lack of backgrounds and simplistic character art to include detailed backgrounds and characters drawn with more care.
• An odd one in Ah... and Mm... Are All She Says: Every time◊ Nishi appears◊, his head◊ gets narrower◊.
• Ai Yori Aoshi in its first chapters the characters look quite amateurish and not as great, but the characters get much better looking at the series goes on. Then the art takes an inexplicable drop in quality in the last volume or two, carrying into Umi no Misaki before becoming good again after a while.
• Not only the art in Angel Densetsu evolved considerably during the series, the author usually talks about how he's refining his drawing skills in the tankobon's notes.
• Isayama Hajime's artwork for Attack on Titan has improved vastly over time, becoming more consistent and just plain better. Even fans will admit the early artwork was dreadful, with rough pencils and characters that looked awkward or hard to tell apart. Comparing the early chapters, with its incredibly awkward and inconsistent work, to the more detailed and flowing recent work, shows just how much his artistic abilities have improved with practice.
• Azumanga Daioh initially started with a generic "90's anime" style carried over from Kiyohiko Azuma's doujin work, before gradually shifting towards a cleaner and rounder look throughout its run; background art also becomes more detailed, and the use of perspective becomes more realistic. A tenth anniversary reissue in 2009 would feature Azuma redrawing and adding numerous strips, with this content bearing a closer resemblance to his next series.
• While not really the case in the anime (being based on later novel designs), the character designs of the Baccano! Light Novels have noticeably changed over the course of the series — especially in the case of Isaac and Miria, who started out rather◊ sleazy◊ and end up looking like poster-children of hyperactivity that they are within a couple of books.
• Bakuman。's art has changed, but the mood itself is the most noticeable. Everything at first, from the expressions to the staging, are all rather low-key. As the hero gets a more Hot-Blooded attitude towards his work and life in general, the art gets much looser and more energetic (but retains the careful attention to detail).
• Yumi Tamura's Basara underwent quite the change from its first volume to latter ones. The art began rather rough and angular but became more round and defined.
• Kentaro Miura's artwork in Berserk started out with a rough, unpolished style similar to a lot of the manga in the 80's, particularly in the characters' faces and eyes. As the series went on, Miura became much more experienced with inking and drawing, and consequently became much more ambitious in the level of detail he put into the manga, and the characters' anatomy and faces became much more refined, with certain characters like Guts and Griffith looking very different now in comparison to their first appearances. The series eventually became famous for its detailed, high-quality art.
• The Big O had a significant art upgrade between its two seasons. This may be in part because season two was drawn on computers; legend has it that season one was the last major traditionally drawn anime.
• Tabata's art improves throughout Black Clover and becomes more detailed and shaded during the manga's serialization, with especially gorgeous backgrounds and spreads later on.
• In Black Lagoon, Revy used to look a bit more Asian in the first arc, and her hair was a good bit shorter.
  • Despite having fought in the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Balalaika looked around 20 years old in a series that takes place in the mid 1990s. By the second arc though, ten years seem to have been added to her age.
• The art style of Tsutomu Nihei's Blame! changed not once, not twice, but several times throughout its course. Thankfully, Nihei's style appears to have finally become consistent.
  • However some of his fans decry the art of The Knights Of Sidonia as being too different from the styles featured in Biomega and Blame!; in an interview, he admitted that the change in art style was partly to make a manga with more mainstream appeal.
• Bleach has evolved significantly over its run. The first few volumes have a distinctive rough, square-jawed style carried over from Tite Kubo's first series, Zombie Powder. By the time the Soul Society arc begins, the art style has become smoother and more detailed, with a noticeable increase in brush-style linework. That move towards more graceful and economical lines continues throughout the series, although slowly and subtly enough that most of the time it is not immediately apparent unless a character has been Out of Focus for a long time. For example, Isshin's appearances are rare enough that it's easy to see the difference in style from the beginning of the story, to just after Soul Society, to Deicide, to after the timeskip.
  • A demonstration of the evolution from the Agent of Shinigami Arc to the Hueco Mundo Arc: Exhibit A: Uryuu.◊ Exhibit B: Ichigo.◊
  • A compilation of initial character designs compared to later, evolved versions here. (Warning: Some Fake Karakura arc/post-timeskip spoilers!)
• Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo started off fairly crudely drawn, and very rough looking, but over the span of its 28 volumes (including Shinsetsu, the timeskip) the art improved vastly.
• The art style of Bokura no Hentai became more refined over time and the characters became more detailed.
• Boys over Flowers began with lackluster art. Tsukasa's hair looked odd, but as the volumes progressed, the art got better, and it looked less like something on his head and more like hair. The eyes and faces also underwent a few changes.
• Although Shimotsuki's early art for Brave10 was actually pretty good as far as dynamism and detail, it was far more chaotic, more prone to being off-model and the character designs saw many adjustments as the series progressed. By the sequel, the art is clear, gorgeous and consistent.
• Brave Command Dagwon has a very noticeable improvement in shading and detail starting with episode 38 that continues for the remainder of the show, making the remaining episodes look much closer in quality to the Stock Footage.
• Case Closed:
  • Case Closed is rather interesting, as the anime has actually followed the art evolution of the manga very closely. Given that Gosho Aoyama's art style has evolved considerably in the past 22 years, it makes for a very jarring experience to go back and read the first issues or watch the first episodes.
  • Aoyama's style change is even more evident in his shorter manga, Magic Kaito. Considering that he only makes a chapter every few years, the series shows significant style changes in each volume (especially the 4th one, released 13 years after the 3rd).
• Although Chrono Crusade is a fairly short series, it was released over a time period of about five years, and Daisuke Moriyama obviously improved as an artist over that time. Just compare the cover of the first volume◊ with the color insert in the final one◊ of the two main characters. Then, the series was reprinted with brand-new covers. The change in art style◊ is surprising, in fact you could probably fool someone into thinking the covers were drawn by a different artist!
• In C'mon Digimon, the aesthetic of the monsters was not much different than Pokémon Red and Blue but after the V-pets came out, the monsters were reinterpreted to look more like something out of a Gross-Out Show or 90s Superhero comic. The Digimon Chronicle tie in pets, Digimon X-Evolution and Digimon D-Cyber were supposed to show upgraded X version of the monsters more in line with newer, cleaner looking American comic books but this aesthetic ended up being applied to new monsters as a whole, whether or not they had X antibodies.
• Kaori Yuki took a hiatus for Count Cain after 5 volumes, to focus on her parallel-running series Angel Sanctuary. With the latter completed after a few years, she returned to Cain (now labelled Godchild) and the art is noticeably different.
• Early volumes of Death Note are done in the fairly typical Shōnen style, with frequent Face Faults, Visible Sighs and Sweat Drops. As the series gets darker though, all these effects disappear and the artwork becomes sharper and more realistic. A flashback to the first chapter uses this for effect as an Art Shift. When Light gives up his memories and reverts to his mostly-innocent personality from the beginning, his face changes dramatically. His eyes open much wider than normal, stress lines disappear and he seems younger and less evil. The artist of the series admitted that it was hard to unlearn everything he'd innovated and go back to the original sketches.
• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Gotouge comes from a background of drawing single chapter horror stories, her style of drawing face structures was more in the line of drawing smaller piercing eyes, occuping less space on a character's face, that method persisted in Kimetsu, her first long serial, but as the series progressed Gotouge began to draw her characters with bigger eyes and more comically expressive faces; the anime adaptation lines itself with Gotouge's later art style from the get go.
• Descendants of Darkness, where the manga artwork and the characters — especially the male characters — start out damn pretty, then through the first 11 volumes gradually became drop-dead gorgeous and sexy. Unfortunately, the very last manga installments suffered from a massive drop in art quality, with the character designs becoming distinctly crude and blocky compared to the earlier artwork, possibly because of health issues with the author.
• D.Gray-Man started off as a sort of generic-looking manga but has since developed a more distinctive look. The art has become much more detailed and dynamic, and the characters (namely the Noah) have gotten much... prettier. Some fans lamented the loss of "shota Allen," though.
  • The art also changed noticeably between chapters 186 and 187, when the author went on hiatus due to illness. When it came back, it was much more detailed and some of the characters had changed again; Allen and Tyki (who's also had an Expository Hairstyle Change) for comparison.
    • Although Tyki has returned to his original look, likely due to fans' requests.
• The manner in which the characters were drawn in Digimon Data Squad was also different to the manner they were drawn in earlier seasons.
• In the first season of Digimon, Leomon's special attack was animated as an orange lion's head flying toward the target. In season 3, it was animated as a stream of fire beginning with a lion's face.
• D.N.Angel has a drastic change in style, possibly due to the many hiatuses the mangaka took.
• Dragon Ball: The original series started off with Akira Toriyama's signature style with nearly uninterrupted lines, in other words almost no sharp angles. As the series progressed, the most notable change occurred mid-way through the Saiyan Saga of Dragon Ball Z and the characters were almost entirely made of sharp angles.
  • A specific noteworthy example is Vegeta. Compare his original look◊ with his present appearance; his nose and brow become harder-looking and his facial expressions are less manic. This is generally believed to have happened because Vegeta's Heel–Face Turn wasn't part of Toriyama's original plan, and he was just going to be a one-off villain before the fandom latched onto him.
  • The Art Evolution is particularly noticeable when several Dragon Ball characters make a cameo appearance near the end of the Buu Saga, updated to fit Toriyama's contemporary art style.
  • Toriyama's art style underwent another change after Dragon Ball ended, resulting in a somewhat simpler and less heavily detailed style seen in Jaco the Galactic Patrolman and Dragon Ball Super. This was really noticed when it was announced that Future Trunks would return and people compared his new appearance◊ to his original look◊.
• Elfen Lied's first volume◊ was extremely Off-Model and very 90s-style. The manga however quickly became more high quality, to the point where by the last volume◊ it could pass as being drawn by a different mangaka; it also looks like it went from Shōjo style to Shōnen style. The Diclonii's horns were also a lot longer originally, though later they started to look like cat ears.
• Eyeshield 21's art evolution is more noticeable with certain characters. Hiruma in chapter 1 kind of looks like Eddie Munster, but when that scene was redrawn for a flashback he's lost some of that feral look. Monta too changed over the course of the series. The evolution is especially noticeable with the Bookend, where a two page panel from the first chapter was redrawn with all the new team members and showing how both the characters and the art progressed. Similarly, characters that were once incredibly distinctive in their Gonkiness were toned down considerably as time went on; Kurita became less cartoony, and Niinobu Kasamatsu became about 1/3 his original width.
• Fairy Tail's art style has gone from being quite similar (if not outright identical) to One Piece to having its own style and being more classically anime-like with a slight Western look. The artwork is much smoother, the lines are thicker, and the characters are less lanky. For example, characters have gone from having normal mouths to usually having Cheeky Mouths, and the girls have bigger eyes and smaller noses. Lucy in particular goes from looking like a blonde Expy of Nami to having very few similarities.
• Mikiyo Tsuda's art has changed somewhere between her creation of Family Complex and the later release of its semi-sequel, Princess Princess: the characters in the latter series are drawn with rounder faces, narrower bodies, and generally thicker lines, giving the overall Manga a more distinct Shōjo style, although the proportion seems more distorted.
• Natsuki Takaya's artstyle has changed rather drastically from being reminiscent to that of old-school shojo with character designs being rather lanky, to a more consistent, smooth, and organic style she draws with now. This change can be easily seen by comparing the much earlier chapters of her successful Fruits Basket to the more later ones. The characters were drawn thin and with sharply-defined, pointy features. Later on, they became smoother and wider]].
  • An even more dramatic evolution can be seen when one compares Those With Wings to her ongoing series, Twinkle Stars.
• Future GPX Cyber Formula originally started out with average-looking art design, particularly the car designs, which looked more like toy race cars than real ones. But by the time the OVAs rolled around, the character and mechanic designs improved significantly, and the cars now looked like real race cars. Strangely, it also mixes with Art Shift in the last 2 OVAs, where some of the flashbacks has kept the older art, so some viewers might be confused.
  • The series' last two OVAs, SAGA and SIN, has a change of the art style. The clearest example of the trope is Asuka Sugo, the protagonist's fiancee. She looks clearly like a full-grown woman, but since several flashbacks and photos of her younger days keep the old art, Asuka ends up having 2 different looks in the same show. For an example, here's her look in the TV series◊ and here's her look in SIN.◊ This is because the last 2 OVA's had MyHime (and My-Otome's) character designer.
• The GeGeGe no Kitarō characters have changed more than a little in the over 50 years it's been running. Compare Neko Musume◊ over the years. In contrast, Kitaro◊ hasn't changed much in design but you can see the art style differences.
• Individual characters in the Genshiken manga start out drawn fairly realistically, but grow more stylized and cartoonish as the series goes on. By the time the ninth volume rolls around, you wonder if this is how the characters in the first volume would have depicted theelves in a doujinshi.
• The art from the early (~1-10) volumes of Get Backers is remarkably different; the anime's character designs are based on the later volumes, so those who were introduced to the anime first often react negatively to the earlier, grittier character designs. The most dramatic differences are probably in Ginji, whose hair lengthened quite a lot, and Himiko, who started out looking very plain and almost boyish in her introduction story, but is incredibly pretty by the time we hit the Eternal Bond arc. Something in the way her eyes are drawn and her lips are shaded does it. That Rando Ayamine improved drastically over the course of 39 volumes is the general consensus.
• Ken Ishikawa: Just look at the first series of Getter Robo (made in the 70s) compared to the second series, Getter Robo Go (made in the 90s). Back then his style was almost identical to his mentor, Go Nagai, and had lots of weird, warped proportions and expressions. As time passed, he retained the intensity of expression and sense of movement and refined it with stronger anatomy and greater detailing to create one of manga's most distinct art styles.
• The main evolution Good Witch Of The West took was between the first and second volume when the artist abandoned the childlike figures and to draw them more realistically. The male characters took quicker form than the female characters. Along with this the artist drew less and less flowery backgrounds as the series got more serious.
• The art style in the Gravitation manga changes so radically from Vol. 1 to 12 that if you pick a random page out of each of the two volumes, you wouldn't believe that they were made by the same artist, much less that the main character is the same in each one. Just compare this image◊ of Shuichi in volume 1 to this one◊ of him in volume 6.
• GTO: The Early Years: The difference between the appearance of the characters at the beginning and at the end, six years later in the real world, is definitely noticeable. It was only Tohru Fujisawa's third series as main writer and artist, and his first to last more than a year.
• Kōsuke Hamada's Hanebad! starts off making most of characters borderline Noodle People, save for the notably short Ayano. Faces are generally more simple and cutesy, fitting the lighthearted tone of the beginning of the story. Towards the semi finals of the first tournament, the characters were given bigger proportions and more realistic, serious faces, which also coincides with the manifestation of Ayano's dark side in the finals. The art style then evolves into something more cartoony with crisp outlines resembing the ones in My Hero Academia. Overall, speed lines gets increasingly used every badminton match, regardless of artstyle change.
• Haruhi Suzumiya: At the beginning of the manga adaptation, everyone (especially Kyon) look a bit more chibi than in later chapters.
• The Hellsing manga's style changes considerably over time. In the first volume, most characters have a generic manga style with huge eyes and tiny chins and not many unique facial features. The characters also have a tendency to be inconstant and facial features warp from panel to panel, and the action scenes look quite amateurish. This changes once Hirano gets comfortable with his style however.
• The art in Hetalia: Axis Powers has gradually become more rounded and sketchier. Just compare this◊ to this◊.
  • While some of the characters have stayed relatively similar in design over its run, America originally started out with sleeker, center-parted hair. In time, he would wind up sprouting an Idiot Hair and his overall hair style became a bit mussed with a side part. Italy's own curl also started relatively small, but quickly grew into the defining characteristic (the difference was even poked fun at in an illustration).
  • France originally had shorter, somewhat greasy-looking hair, and the early art style definitely didn't do him any favors. While his hair grew out with the style change, he also lost the white spats over his boots.
  • Estonia and Lithuania had slightly different hair styles in their debuts, with Estonia having less of a bowlcut and Lithuania having less fringe. In comparison, Latvia started out as slightly smaller than the other two, but wound up shrinking and becoming more child-like.
  • South Italy was originally somewhat taller than his younger brother as both a child and adult, but wound up shrinking to become the same height. And then in World☆Stars, he's actually shorter than North Italy.
  • This picture (click to zoom), charts out the evolution of the artwork.
  • Season 5 of the anime had a HUGE art upgrade from the seasons before it - the colours are more sophisticated and stick closer to Himaruya's colour charts, the hands actually look like hands (not hand-shaped-blobs) and generally look better.
• Higurashi: When They Cry:
  • The anime underwent a significant style change during the OVA Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei, greatly improving on almost all the anatomical errors present in the first two seasons of the anime.
  • Before that, Kai got a massive face lift when compared to the first season, which was often rather flat and rough. While this did occasionally work for the Sanity Slippage and Laughing Mad scenes, most of the time it was simply Off-Model to the point where there was no model to begin with. It's especially noticeable when they had a flashback to one of the more memorable question arc scenes, the scene where Mion and Rena visit Keiichi while he's "sick". They look more welcoming◊.
  • Art Evolution appears in the manga when the same artist draws two arcs (question and answer). For example, the Onikakushi-hen artist. The proportions are much better (most noticeably with Mion's ponytail, which was basically a sliver of hair in the question arc), Mion's bangs were corrected, the hands look more like hands and less like... flippers, and overall the art style is more detailed, especially in the eyes and hair.
• The change from the beginning of the Hikaru no Go to the end (5 years) is remarkable. At the start, the art was relatively cartoony, while the series wrapped up with art that was far more realistic and subdued, like the artist's later works of Death Note and Bakuman。.
• Hunter × Hunter is a strange (and infamous) case where it both displays the author at some of his best and worst. The series shows a departure from the more 80's/90's style the author was drawing in during his earlier serialization, YuYu Hakusho, but the inconsistent quality of the art during later parts of the serialization was a subject of much scorn. Several chapters of the manga were drawn while the author was ill and literally looked like a child's scribbles. The author wisely chose to take a break and focus on recovering from his illness, and the latest chapters he released after the end of his hiatus are of fairly good quality. Also, the author revises the art for the volume releases, which greatly improves the art (for an example, see here◊ is chapter 252 when it was released in Shonen Jump, and Here◊ for the fixed tankobon release).
  • Cases of plain bad art aside, the series' character designs have a lot of subtle to major changes depending on what point of the series you're on, with certain◊ characters◊ looking◊ very different during certain points of the series.
• The characters in Inside Mari have gotten more realistic looking over the chapters and the art style overall has improved. There are some chapters that look sketchier than others though.
• In the Marvel Anime: Iron Man, Marvel Anime: Wolverine, and Marvel Anime: Blade series in the Marvel Anime anthology, Wolverine is much more of a Bishōnen than his comic counterpart. In Marvel Anime: X-Men, he takes on the more rugged appearance of the comics.
• Jiraishin was Tsutomu Takahashi first foray into manga. In the beginning the art is competently done but somewhat generic. Near the middle of the series one begins to notice Takakashi's growing expertise; the characters begin getting much more stylized and distinctive, and the inking starts to take a life of its own (with an emphasis on deep blacks and thin lines), giving Takahashi his signature "sketchy" look, which was continuously refined in his more recent works like Jiraishin Diablo, Sidooh, Skyhigh, and Hito Hitori Futari. This distinct aesthetic would be passed down to his assistant Tsutomu Nihei and Nihei's own assistant Hayashida Q (creator of Dorohedoro).
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has come a long way from its early chapters. In Phantom Blood, the characters were so overmuscled that they barely looked human, and moved their joints in such strange ways that they looked even less so. Contrast to Golden Wind, where everyone looks slim and minimally muscled, and also very feminine. When Steel Ball Run moved to Ultra Jump, the muscles are done almost realistically and noses are actually visible after Golden Wind and Stone Ocean, where most of the time only nostrils are drawn.
  • Here◊ is a timeline of the art change throughout JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. And if you want to go back even further than JoJo, this◊ is a panel from Hirohiko Araki's previous series, Baoh the Visitor.
  • When creating character designs for the JoJo anime, David Production (DP) goes about this differently than Araki does with the manga. For consistency, DP is influenced by the specific art style Araki used towards the end of any given Part from the manga and will use that style as a guide for the character designs throughout that same Part's anime adaption. This mostly applies for characters that make regular appearances, such as the JoJos and their allies. The anime adaption of Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency notably shared the same art style, which resembles Araki's style towards the end of Part 2 where muscular characters were still the standard, but they weren't misshapen as seen for most of Part 1's manga run.
    • Despite first appearing as tall and menacing in the manga, DP chose to have both Tamami Kobayashi and Toshikazu Hazamada from Diamond is Unbreakable retain shorter heights as seen during later Chapters in the manga as they gradually shrunk. In turn, the anime avoids Your Size May Vary for these two, unlike the manga.
    • Strangely enough, Iggy from Stardust Crusaders averts this, as DP introduced him in the anime with his more dog-like face design, then gradually changed to a more expressive human-like face later on, much like when Araki tweaked his design during Part 3's manga run.
• Over the years in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, a clear shift of Akasaka's art◊ can be seen. While initially all characters look rounder, more childish, and their hair is more detailed, Akasaka has shifted to a sharper and simpler artstyle that resembles the one he used for ib:Instant Bullet.
• You can see Ken Akamatsu's style evolve by reading his various series in order. Late A.I. Love You looks like early Love Hina, late Love Hina looks like early Negima! Magister Negi Magi, etc. Negima! Magister Negi Magi is long enough that there's a marked difference between the first few chapters and the latest ones. In particular, Negi is drawn noticeably different, although whether this is just Art Evolution or an intentional reflection of the fact that Negi is about two years older is up for debate. The first chapters of Negima had a very different style from Love Hina, a conscious shift that was later unmade when Akamatsu slowly returned to his older, more familiar style (which then continued changing from that). A late Call-Back to first chapter of Negima makes the evolution even more obvious◊.
• Kinnikuman's artwork began in a very simplistic, cartoony style befitting the comedy focus of early chapters. When the author genre shifted the primary focus from silly jokes to wrestling, the art becomes drastically more defined; characters have an actual shape rather than being mostly blobs.
• K-On! started with the characters' pupils taking up all of their eye, and the lines gradually became thinner, cleaner, more solid, and were on-model.
  • The anime seasons also had their own evolution. Season 2's characters' models are more consistent, their heads are ever so littler in proportion to their bodies, and particular animation sequences make those in the first season look like chicken scratch!
  • In the beginning of the manga, Mugi didn't have distinctively large eyebrows, though they were slightly thicker than the others to give them a "blonde" appearance.
• Unusual anime example with Little Busters!: the animation of the first season was pretty regular, with occasional Animation Bumps for big episodes. (Though not the first episode, strangely.) Naturally, the people who were angry Little Busters was being animated by J.C. Staff and not the illustrious Kyoto Animation were not happy. And then the second season, half the length of the first, came around, and just the first three episodes alone showed much, much better animation than anything from the first season. It's as though they got the same animation budget for both seasons and used the excess damn well the second time around.
• Lucky Star - Konata starts out looking rather generic, but it doesn't take long for her to obtain her trademark lazy eyes, and cat-like smile.
• The difference between a late-90's Magical Emi, the Magic Star OVA and the series made in the late 80's put whether it belongs to the same series in question.
• Makoto Shinkai's character artwork has become a lot cleaner and crisper over the years. Just compare those in Voices of a Distant Star to in Your Name. Having bigger budget and dedicated character designers in his later productions probably helped.
• A case of deteriorating art: The manga of MÄR from Nobuyuki Anzai began with a cute and rounded, yet highly detailed style that shifted from endearing to startlingly serious rather nicely; all of the backgrounds were also well-drawn. By volume 7 of the manga, the characters appear sharper, backgrounds are often left out, and the quality of the lineart is exceptionally poor.
  • Nobuyuki Anzai's previous work, Flame of Recca was the exact opposite as well as a great example of this trope, comparing the crude and bland designs of the first volume and the fine and visually appealing art of the later volumes, you'd think he was making a hentai at first.
• Medaka Box started out looking average but by Chapter 19 it starts looking like a completely different series which continued its story.
• Monster by Naoki Urasawa. The art in the beginning is a bit flat and somewhat cartoony with the characters. Later volumes the characters look like they have more depth and more realistic looking.
• In Sorano Kaili's Mother Keeper the art improves so drastically it's almost unreal. Looking at Graham in the first chapter and then looking at him as the hot dad of later chapters, it's almost like it's a completely different person.
• In My Monster Secret, in barely 40 chapters the author's trait evolves to the point of being nigh unrecognizable. The characters' faces get more rounded and their eyes and noses bigger; as a result, they look somewhat more childish, less tall, and cuter. The shadow work and facial expressions have also become much more elaborate, to the point they've become one of the main selling points of the series.
• The Art Evolution in Naruto has been somewhat unusual. The drawing style becomes far more linear over time, making it a little less cartoony. This has an unusual effect on character faces. From straight on, they often end up being very flat, unemotional and generic. However, they are greatly improved in profile and at 3/4 angle. Also, in later chapters of the manga, the characters look boxy when standing still, as their bodies don't seem to taper at all at the hip (this has improved somewhat).
  • During the Tsunade retrieval arc, Kishi seems to have started making rather noticeable eyelash marks on the characters' eyes, giving many characters a temporary feminine look.
  • People who got into the series from the anime (which has art based on later chapters) may be surprised by how amazingly different some characters look in their first manga appearances. Shikamaru in particular was almost cro-magnon looking in contrast to later where he merely has a distinct looking nose and brow, and in that same chapter Choji's eyes frequently look like singular lines while later he's merely squinty.
• Over the course of twenty-six episodes, Neon Genesis Evangelion is an interesting case of characters growing to look much more sharper and refined, matched with the overall animation becoming much more limited due to budget constraints. By the time the final theatrical movies were released, many of those scenes were re-animated (specifically in the Compilation Movie) to look much, much nicer for a final cut. Compare Rei, Shinji, and Gendo's appearances from the sixth episode to those same takes utilized in "Death and Rebirth".
• Noblesse has had 2 major art shifts. According to fan polls, it gets worse each time. If it didn't have the same artist's name on it, you'd think they were drawn by someone else.
• One Piece's distinct style has changed quite a bit over its decade-long run. In the beginning it used many thick lines, giving the art a round, bouncy, cartoonish look. The lines eventually became thinner and crosshatching and line shading is used extensively. The characters' features have become more loose to the point where Zoro, for example, can look buffoonish one frame and a hard-boiled badass the next. This carries over to many a character.
  • Chopper didn't start out looking as ridiculously cute as he does now... though he was pretty cute to begin with.
  • Looking back, the backgrounds and layouts were pretty bland compared to more recent ones. They were functional and well drawn, but weren't quite the feast for the eyes they are now.
  • This image◊ sums up the Art Evolution over the last 15 years. Luffy actually appeared more grown up at one point before once again becoming more child-like later on.
  • Compare Opening 1 of the anime to Opening 10. And then compare that to Opening 15.
  • Of particular note is Shanks, whose appearance became hunkier and hunkier as time went on, to the point where his earlier design could pass as entirely different character if not for the similar coloration and vague resemblance to his later design. Though a lot of the dissonance can blamed on the fact that Shanks rarely appears in the storyline proper.
  • It may be hard to remember, but Luffy, Zoro and Sanji all had pretty similar faces early on, especially Sanji and Luffy. As time went on, Luffy got a more child-like, round and androgynous face, while Sanji and Zoro got smaller, narrower and fully outlined eyes, bigger noses, more defined chins and thicker necks. Now, Sanji looks much more like Zoro than Luffy.
  • Nami has her styles change, too:
    • In the anime, her eyes have been drawn lighter since the Time Skip, going from dark brown to near orange. Furthermore, her eyes were originally drawn uniformly brown, with the irises only visible when she was showing strong emotion. Now, the irises are visible at all times (though the manga still generally follows the pre-Time Skip design of "uniform brown unless emotional").
    • Like all of the women from early One Piece (such as Tashigi or Vivi), Nami became curvier and significantly more well-endowed over time as Eiichiro Oda's art style evolved.
• Osamu Tezuka evolved from being a competent amateur to being the best artist in the field he helped invent. Compare this◊ from Diary of Ma-Chan (his first published work) to THIS◊ from Ode to Kirihito made about 25 years later. One is comedy and the other horror, but damn.
• Pokémon Adventures changed artists at one point. The first artist had a chibi-ish style with simple backgrounds, but she eventually got sick around the middle of the third arc. The second artist initially attempted to mimic her style for the remainder of that arc, but starting with the fourth arc he smoothed things out with his own style, a more typical shonen style with more detailed backgrounds.
• Pikachu has undergone quite the style change (similar to the page image Garfield, losing weight is the most noticeable change) as the Pokemon anime went on, as has Meowth. The quality of drawing is noticeably better, they're actually using CG in scenes now, and the art gets even better during important battles or when the animators just want to show off. The same applies to the games. The same thing can be said for the human characters as well, particularly concerning the eyes. Originally everyone had skinny eyes (except Brock), but as the series progressed the majority of the characters got more rounded eyes. Ash and Pikachu now have pupils and irises that are distinguishable from one another, for one. Compare these two screencaps◊ of Ash doing his signature "Hat Turn", from Kanto and Unova. Kotaku had an article featuring various comparisons from the Unova flashbacks of Kanto and Johto events. The characters received another art design revamp in XY, with Ash being taller than he was in Best Wishes, having sideburns, and having visible nails.
• In Ranking of Kings, Sousuke's artstyle is very minimalistic, giving the series a picture book for children outlook, the early manga chapters look a little crude, it is only later down the line his artstyle solidifies itself; the anime adjusted to Sousuke's later style from the get go.
• Rave Master was Hiro Mashima's first big manga, and he never worked as an assistant for anyone, so the style at the beginning is a little crude, and improves drastically over the 35 volumes the series runs for. In addition to everyone's faces looking less pudgy, Elie stops looking like every other girl who appears, Haru's hair spikes up more, Plue's ability to emote improves, and everyone under the age of 30 actually starts looking their age, rather than anywhere from 3 to 7 years younger.
• ARIA: Kozue Amano's artwork evolved considerably compared from her short story work to AQUA, and AQUA to ARIA. The anime also has this in every season, possibly with budget increase.
• In Rosario + Vampire, if you look at the first chapter and the most recent one without reading any of the ones in between, you'd think they were drawn by entirely different artists. The characters looked much rounder and more cartoonish (and just plain not as good) in their humble beginnings, but given the series began as a romantic-comedy, this evolution is plenty justified when Cerebus Syndrome set in, turning the events of the story into a full-blown shounen direction.
  • This is an especially striking example due to the astonishing speed with which it happened. Rosario + Vampire is 9 years old, but by its 2nd serialization less than 4 years later it was barely recognizable. It helps that this was Akihisa Ikeda's first manga, and he improved as an artist very quickly.
• The change in character designs for Rumiko Takahashi's other series Ranma ½ is even more noticeable. Compare the rounder, cartoony character designs of the earlier volumes to the lankier, more serious ones in later books. And the gradual shift to more stylized figures over the course of the anime, culminating in the "Gainax treatment" that all the girls got for the 2nd movie (especially Nabiki) .
  • You could probably trace her art's evolution all the way from Urusei Yatsura through Maison Ikkoku and Ranma ½ to the end of Inuyasha for that matter.
    • In fact, you can trace that evolution (well, from Urusei to Ranma anyway) all the way rather quickly with Mermaid Saga, which she worked periodically on from 1984 to 1994.
    • An even better example would be One Pound Gospel, on which she worked from 1988 to 2007. The first 2 volumes look like Urusei Yatsura/Maison Ikkoku, the 3rd one like Ranma ½ and the 4th like Inuyasha.
  • Ranma's braid seemed to do a reverse evolution, however, going from much more realistic-looking in the earlier volumes to something that looks like three balls and the end of a paintbrush.
• Rurouni Kenshin also changed its art style greatly between the first volumes (somewhat amateurishly drawn) and the much more polished Kyoto/Ten Swords arc, then it went on to an even more stylized style for the final volumes.
  • And in the recent Kanzenban re-edition, the new covers and new character designs are once again completely different.
• The '90s anime of Sailor Moon is noticably different between the first and 5th seasons. Just try watching the first season after finishing the 5th. It isn't simply better animation, the characters look noticably different (to be fair they're supposed to have aged 2 years).
• Author Kouji Kumeta, best known for Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, has a habit of starting of starting off series in one style, and ending them completely differently. His first relatively successful manga, Go!! Southern Ice Hockey Club, started out in a fairly generic late-'80s style and worked its way into a much more angular, completely different look. Following on that, Katte ni Kaizou started out with this angular, shaded look, and ended up as, well... Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei. His latest series has had a modest amount of change in the way characters are drawn, but not as extreme as his previous two series. This is lampshaded substantially in episode 2 of Goku, where everyone is drawn in the author's art style circa 1991.
• School-Live! has received slightly less moe looking art to go along along with the Cerebus Syndrome. The characters bodies are drawn more proportionately than they were in early chapters. The anime uses the original art style.
• The frogs in Sgt. Frog became less tubbier as the manga progressed. Sgt. Keroro and Pvt. Tamama look like they ate too many sweets in the past. Meanwhile in the anime the way the frogs have been drawn has changed slightly too.
• The early art in Shinichi Sakamoto's Kokouno Hito showed promise but was a bit rough; characters were often drawn as if they had parts of their skulls missing and the proportions were often wonky in general. As the series went on the art became much more detailed, polished, and realistic, which would set the standard for Sakamoto's next series, Innocent, where the art became even more complex and detailed.
• Slam Dunk went through extreme jumps in quality for a manga that only lasted 6 years (relatively short by Shonen Jump standards). The style of the early chapters was generic and dated; thick lines, too much shading, and pompadours everywhere made it look like any late 80s and early 90s shonen manga. By the end of the manga, Inoue has his trademark realistic style, making Slam Dunk distinct from other mangas by the mid-90s. His art would evolve even further in Vagabond, where Inoue would not only make his art even more realistic, but also take up inking with a brush as opposed to a pen later in the manga, turning the manga into a beautiful example of calligraphy.
• The artwork for the original Slayers novels shifted rather oddly. The first few novels featured characters with very delicately detailed clothing, a trait that fades away in the later novels. Another notable change is the faces of the characters: the female characters have very rounded eyes and cheeks, and the males actually have masculine jaw lines; Gourry the swordsman and Rezo the priest looked far different originally. By the eighth novel, all of the characters had generic pointed chins and faces, and the anime adaptation followed suit with these designs.
  • Many changes can be attributed to the fact that Araizumi is now using Photoshop and SAI to draw and color his art, resulting in a saturated, pastel-like color palette, whereas, up until around that time, he used all traditional media, followed by it mixed with a minimal amount of technology. Along with this, most of the characters, especially Zelgadis, now resemble their anime designs.
  • There is also the manga adaptation of the first two anime seasons; the first half of the manga was well-detailed and fluidly drawn; by the 5th graphic novel the art deteriorates severely, as if the authoress lost all interest in doing the work. By the final graphic novel, all of the characters resemble paper cut-outs.
• Since season 1 of the anime version of Slayers came out in 1995 and the most recent (Evolution-R) in 2009, obviously this would happen, but even watching the season 3 (TRY), which came out in 1997, then going back and watching some of the early episodes can be rather jarring. Lina's design in particular has changed quite bit? Most noticeably, her hair started out as reddish-brown and over time changed to bright red. Interestingly, though in all continuities there is a running gag about Lina having a flat chest, it started out rather large in the anime but actually see to have become smaller over time (though it still isn't as small as it's made out to be).
• The Soul Eater manga's art has grown significantly more refined since the first volume. Notable differences are the generally softer and rounder lines and shading and specifically Maka's design, which was originally much more child-like. The anime adaptation took this eventual change and used it from the start for a more consistent look. There's even a difference from the pilot chapters to the first one. Also, the number of Panty Shots and nudity scenes have toned down considerably, though the occasional one is still tossed in for the sake of Fanservice.
• The Strawberry Marshmallow manga has this in spades; in the first volume the characters change almost unrecognizably between the earlier and last chapters. This may have to do with the fact that two years had passed by between making them.
• Stardust Telepath: At the start, the series had a very "4koma-ish" style. Madcap humor, sparse and abstract backgrounds, changing aesthetics every ten seconds for comedy. By volume 3 it has mostly settled into a fairly cinematic style with a consistent tone, standardized proportions, and realistic backgrounds that make heavy use of gradients, with a handful of chibi comedy moments sprinkled throughout depending on the mood.
• Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Mostly noticeable in some of the female character designs. Over the course of the series, Misa's hair grows less stylized and more realistic, as well as many of the bridge uniforms growing more intricate and detailed.
• Tomie takes this to an extreme. Saying that the earliest installments were rough around the edges for a professional manga may be a bit of an understatement. By the end, the artwork is done in Ito's signature style.
• The character designs in Urusei Yatsura slowly changed over the series. This normally wouldn't be very noticeable from episode to episode, however, the Title Sequence with the old character designs didn't change for a large part of the series. The manga, on the other hand, has a quite different style at the beginning before settling into the style more usually associated with Rumiko Takahashi.
• Vampire Knight: You'll notice the progress in quality of the art as the series progresses.
  • Sadly it also suffers from a decrease in quality halfway through the second arc.
• Somewhat apparent in Venus Versus Virus. The characters round out more evenly after volume 5. Very apparent when you look at the oneshot from the first volume.
• Observable in Video Girl Ai (and probably continuing through all of Masakazu Katsura's works as well).
  • I"s, a later work, undergoes intentional art evolution. Early chapters, based when the characters are in early high school, use a shonen "typical" manga style. With successive chapters, as the characters grow older and more mature, so does the art style. Towards the end of the series there is a flashback to early on, complete with original art style. It's quite a shock compared to what you have gotten used to seeing over time. (See the example in the title's article.)
• Vinland Saga, when it changed from being a weekly Shonen to a monthly Seinen, the art became much more detailed and a few of the character designs were tweaked. Most notably with Bjorn, a character that went from being a slightly pudgy Big Guy who could easily be described as fat, to a burly wall of berserker muscle.
• Wandering Son had far more detail in its artwork, became cleaner and rounder, and overall became better with its facial expressions after the first few volumes. The first volume had a comparison with a protagonist of a previous series by the mangaka. The latter relied on Artistic Age, while the former had realistic looks for their ages. The protagonists of said manga were middle schoolers, not that much older than the Wandering Son gang near the beginning of the series, but are lanky and look years older than they are. Colors also changed as time went on. Takatsuki originally had brown hair before changing to black around volume 3 and Shi originally had blond hair instead of black. Everyone has Curtains Match the Window's, so the brunettes have brown eyes and the raven haired characters have black eyes; Takatsuki changed eye colors in volume 5 and Chiba in volume 4 (apparently Anna too). Nitori's hair color has darkened over time too, from light brown to a darker shade.
• The art in the later volumes of X/1999 is very different than in the earlier ones, not surprising since publication spanned over more than a decade. More generally speaking, with CLAMP you can follow their art evolution through their manga from RG Veda or CLAMP School Detectives to their latest works like ×××HOLiC and Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-, since that they have alternated Mokona and Nekoi Tsubaki as main character artists in different comics. Overall, they have shifted towards using more elements of Nekoi's delicate style.
  • It's particularly glaring each time a character from one of their earlier works shows up in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, looking somewhat different compared to how they did in their own series.
  • This is actually explained by the fact CLAMP likes to try to keep the art style in each of their series different from each other.
• While the overall art style is still recognisable as the same as the one at the start of the series, Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches changed a fair bit for a series that was only released for five years. The characters look more bishojo/bishonen-like at the end than they did at the start, and among other things that have changed, they have Oddly Visible Eyebrows (they didn't for the first 90 chapters), smaller noses and less visible lips (sometimes even Cheeky Mouths). It's hard to tell whether this is a case of Miki Yoshikawa becoming more of a Lazy Artist or just changing the art style to be more "classically" manga-like.
• Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou has a brief insert in between two chapters lampshading this.
• Azuma's next comic after Azumanga Daioh, Yotsuba&!, saw its own art evolve over its ongoing run, with the earliest issues closely resembling Azumanga and growing even more refined, with simplified shading and less detailed eyes; Yotsuba herself becomes shorter and rounder, looking more like an actual five-year-old. Meanwhile, the background art nearly approaches photorealism.
• The art in the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga changed pretty drastically after the first couple of volumes. The early designs have a lot of differences, such as Yugi having no nose, Jonouchi having a haircut more akin to Leonardo Dicaprio than his signature 'do, Mokuba being much chubbier and more mean-looking, and Kaiba being much shorter and stockier as opposed to towering over everyone as he does later in the series. In the years following the manga's end Takahashi's art has also gotten noticeably better, particularly in regards to his painting ability, making his illustrations much more realistic. This is best seen in the series' bunkoban covers.
  • This goes for the various spin-offs as well. GX's art style used thicker, bolder lines that gave the characters a slightly softer look compared to the sharpness of the original series (to say nothing of its dips into Non-Standard Character Design), while 5D's featured a return to the original series's sharpness. ZEXAL deviated rather drastically from the mold, showcasing an art style with features that were much less stiff and much more cartoony, even garish, than anything that had come before along with more expressive character animation. ARC-V meanwhile splits the difference between ZEXAL and GX, featuring designs that are less wacky but still retain ZEXAL's more lively animation and color.
• Yuu Watase had a case of Only Six Faces for a long time in their various series. However, their art evolved a lot during Ceres, Celestial Legend, giving characters more distinct faces and overall being a bit rounder. It's especially noticeable once Watase proceeded to work on Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden and drew new art for the original Fushigi Yuugi characters. Compare an older image◊ to this newer image of Miaka and Yui◊. Even their way of coloring evolved.
• YuYu Hakusho saw its share of this, the manga and the anime. Hiei was the most significant example.

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