Your Favorite and Least Favorite Manga/Anime Art Styles Plus Examples

I will say that the artwork in the beginning of Ao T was pretty amateurish and sloppy. Even Isayama admits he's not the best draftsman, and frankly i would have to agree. he has a long way to go, but at least he knows that.

edited 6th Sep '14 11:11:51 PM by wehrmacht

@wermacht - Agreed on Takehiko Inoue's art being godly. He's just on the entirely different level when it comes to art skill.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

I stand to my point, AOT eyes are empty, in fact, the humans are way creepier than the titans.

edited 7th Sep '14 2:00:36 PM by Tomodachi

To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.

Also, their faces seem to almost always stuck in "Bwuh..." mode.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

I'd argue that's a good thing. Titans mostly act on pure instinct and are an inhuman menace, but those very traits make it difficult to relate to that kind of threat. Antagonistic humans are obviously easier to relate to, so in some ways it's easier to feel scared of them rather than of giant man-eating monsters.

The humans are the antagonists?

Dude, I hate the Jaeger boy and said he will become a villain called the Titan King, but I was kinda kidding with that second part.

edited 21st Apr '15 7:19:08 AM by Tomodachi

To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.

I wouldn't go that far.

the titans in Ao T are whack as hell.

Well, no. Part of what I mean is, it's not a situation where all of humanity is united together against the threat that Titans present. People hold a great variety of opinions and viewpoints which often clash with one another, which is kinda unusual given how these sort of stories sometimes go.

The other thing I mean is that the series often delves on just how its characters think and feel, and sometimes the extremes they'd be willing to go to achieve their objectives, in a He Who Fights Monsters style. Several humans are meant to be creepy.

it took a bit, but Hirohiko Araki's new style◊ is growing on me. i think i started warming up to it around Part 7 of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Steel Ball Run.

as far as my least favorite... probably the early art for Inital D.◊ something about the faces is just off-putting.

edited 7th Sep '14 4:18:16 PM by crimsonstorm15

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.

Araki has mad skills but he needs to shed the sameface a bit and allow his characters to have more exaggerated expressions, or at least get better at making subtle ones. if he could overcome that he'd be top tier for me.

also, as far as bad art goes, masami kurumada (saint seiya) is pretty bad. his art style was appropriate for the times but it hasn't aged well at all; his perspective sucks, there's gonk everywhere (and not well-drawn gonk either), his anatomy is stiff, and he hasn't improved much if at all in the past 20+ years. it's pretty depressing.

edited 7th Sep '14 4:20:22 PM by wehrmacht

Add that to his bishonen characters and repetitive plots, and we got a show beloved by all of latin america, but not interesting in the slightest for me.

I haven't read read enough of Katsura Koshino work. What do you think of her?

edited 8th Sep '14 12:54:32 AM by Tomodachi

To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.

It becomes particularly noticeable when pretty much every saint seiya spinoff (Episode G, Lost Canvas, etc) has both better art and storytelling and is thusly basically superior to the original in every way.

speaking of saint seiya spin-offs, megumu okada (episode g) is in a really weird place for me art-wise. his characters look really really weird◊ with overly large eyes and really skinny bodies even by clamp standards◊, but his pages have really meticulous rendering through screen-tone and everything else is super realistic◊ and well-drawn◊.

Man, what with the anorectic character?

I haven't watched enough of the spin off, but I agree, they are better. If only we didn't have a character named "Alone" then everything would be perfect.

edited 8th Sep '14 3:00:41 AM by Tomodachi

To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.

Speaking as a major SS fan since I was a very young child, Kurumada's main strenght in the art department is the design of the Cloths, they manage to be beautiful, intricate, and awe-inspiring all at once.

I will concede that his character art isn't the best though.

Also, werhmacht, do you mind if I Save those images you posted in my PC?

edited 8th Sep '14 7:07:43 AM by SaintDeltora

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

i will give him that his cloth designs are great. to be honest i find it pretty weird how he can be so good at that but suck at almost everything else.

uh sure go ahead you don't really need my permission lol

I didn't wanted to risk it, in case that was part of your personal collection or something.

My main problem with the Cloths is that, with the exception of the Gold Cloths and above-ranked ones, they all cover very little of the bodies of everyone (the point of an armor), which is the main reason why I prefer the Omega Bronze Cloths even if they all look like spandex.

Out of curiosity... what do you think of Saintia Shou's art?

edited 8th Sep '14 2:11:48 PM by SaintDeltora

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

Just popping back in on the advent of completing one ABe series and making my way through another to reiterate the fact that this man's character designs are really gorgeous.

Also, I would like to amend my previous statement and say that even Kenji Nakamura's "tamer" work (Gatchaman CROWDS) is really impressive from a design perspective. Also, shout-out to Hiroshi Hamasaki (Shigurui) and Rie Matsumoto (Kyousougiga) for just making really cool-looking shows even when I'm not sure if I actually like them.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Gatchaman Crowds has that weird v-shaped smile thing going on.

I think that's intentional, though. It's part of the bird theme.

What's precedent ever done for us?

My personal favourite would be Super Seisyun Brothers. I thought usually an artstyle would render girls cuter and guys more handsome, but the anime (haven't read the source manga yet) managed to make both male and female characters adorable.

Just manage to buy one of Saint Seiya volumes, a nice adittion to my library.

And my opinion is: Very static characters, hard to see attacks, and Shiryu girlfriend/sister/Girl eyes scream OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR FACE!!

Still, nice addition to my library.

... I like this certain hentai artist, he has a beautiful anatomy and very great sex scenes. I'm not going to mention real name because this is a safe for work wiki.

edited 6th Oct '14 2:17:55 AM by Tomodachi

To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.

i think you can mention names, just don't link any nsfw images and you're fine.

also that's the problem with kurumada: his style is largely based on old-school manga by the likes of Osamu Tezuka and Go Nagai.

...and not to disparage how hard those guys worked or how important they are, but old manga did not really have a very good sense of structure or solid basis in artistic fundamentals (gonk everywhere, stiff anatomy, bad perspective work when any of the scenes are even in more extreme perspective, etc). kurumada is not lazy, you have to work very hard to keep up a schedule in shounen jump like he did, he just never really learned how to draw properly. i hold this against him more now because even if you start off as a bad artist you can eventually become good. it took a very long time for people like takehiko inoue and kentarou miura to become as good as they are now. but it's been like 20 years since saint seiya and kurumada has not gotten any better. it's pretty depressing.

edited 6th Oct '14 2:48:49 AM by wehrmacht

>Phone

I think he draws that way just because he likes it, honestly.

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

Inio Asano uses a realistic style◊ I'm not very fond of. I prefer stylised exaggeration in my manga (though not absurdly ridiculous like Oda's hideous caricatures), but his backgrounds are some of the most gorgeous, delightful things to grace manga pages.◊ Ya see that, Kubo?

"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer

I'm not the first person to say it but I like Aoki Ume's art. Hidamari Sketch and Puella Magi Madoka Magic are two of my favorite anime and they just would not be the same if not for her wonderful artwork.

edited 6th Oct '14 11:39:01 AM by Mistborn