Today, I have been struck at the core of my soul as an anime fanboy: a girl whom I respect very much and who is a talented (amateur) artist in western style has called anime and manga "a piece of shit": "What kind of art is that? The faces are just triangles, it's as if a standard pattern was repeated over and over. Where's the human variety? And what's with those ridiculous noses? A triangle and a dot? What is this lame art? Even I can do that! I could watchj those shows you praise so much for the stories, but the art just makes them disgusting. Look at Disney: those are people I admire: they take the mass of features that is a face and they animate all of it!". Stuff I didn't even notice, that I took for granted: but to her there wasn't much difference between Misa Amane, Seiya or Pretty Cure, while I saw those as belonging to different planets artistically.

Since I am a very flegmatic person, and it caught me by surprise, I couldn't help but stare while she smashed my favourite art form to the dust.

Everyone, please help me make a good retort: I shall not rest until she sees the beauty of manga and the heart within!

I think ma is a very good art style.

But anyway,

My experience is rather limited but stuff by Urasawa Naoki tends to be slightly more realistic...while still retaining that anime-esque vibe.

20th Century Boys, Monster◊.

she is just ignorant

For variety, The Big O almost looks like Bruce Timm did it. Ghost In The Shell I would say is different from something like Clannad. Batou's nose is definately not a dot.

Also, while yes, animanga art style tends to be much more homogeneous, there is often a lot af variation in hairstyle/accesories, which is where a lot of variety is added.

Depends on the exact reason she's criticizing it. If it's blandness I'd suggest showing her the Trigun and Hellsing manga. If it's lack of realism, I can't really help.

Yeah, I was thinking of showing her Gi TS. And Berserk, too: in Berserk, NO-ONE looks the same. And , yeah, obviously she's ignorant: she never got the chance to get used to this medium.

Show her some Miyazaki?

Tell her to read Monster- no, Pluto, and yes, some Miyazaki.

smacks forehead

Miyazaki of course! How I could forget?

edited 23rd Oct '09 6:51:30 PM by IllConstruct

If she wants something cerebral and loaded with Scenery Porn, show her Blame.

I think I know where she's coming from. She might criticizing the sense of draftsmanship. Many manga artists don't go to art school to learn how to draw but learn from those "How to Manga" books. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing but sometimes weaknesses like the inability to draw backgrounds show up in manga.

You don't need "a good retort", attacking back will only make things worse. List out what she said doesn't work, and then find examples that address that issue she has. If she says "all the faces look the same, " find one that has a number of deeply individual characters (Frankly, I tend to agree with her on that — the examples I've seen (not many, admittedly) tend to be confusingly similar — for example, I can't tell one Sailor <whoever> from another.)

That's right: "retort" as in "well reasoned counter-argument based on well-established counter-examples". So although Tezuka made awesome stories, his art is exceedingly simple and naïve-looking, and that is a fact...

edited 23rd Oct '09 7:38:54 PM by Raw Power

Uzumaki

I like Naoki Urasawa's style. Pretty unique.

As for faces. Yeah. I can't think of a counter to that. Only Six Faces runs rampant.

One Piece is very distinct. And I've yet to see a nose in Jojos Bizarre Adventure that could be called 'just a line and a dot.'

Also, be sure to make it clear just how mainstream these examples we're giving you are; you don't want her walking away thinking manga's another one of those media where "all creativity is relegated to the fringe, man, those high rollers have all sold out to the gods of moe!"

I'd go with something known for its Cast Of Snowflakes. Urasawa is your best friend here, but you can use just him as your counterargument. Another one I'd go with here is Planetes

From the looks of her complaints (and looking at the characters/anime that she's ranting against), it looks like her biggest aversion is to the Bishoujo/Moe aesthetic (Let's be fair to her here; the whole huge-eyed, small-nosed moe-emphasizing style of a lot of series can look atrocious to someone not used to them. Or even to someone who is used to them, for that matter. Yes, Key Visual Arts, I am taking pot shots at you). If that's the case, showing her some stuff where characters' noses actually have bridged and nostrils might help. Macross Plus, maybe

edited 23rd Oct '09 10:29:51 PM by Sparkysharps

You use things other than the face to tell the sailor scouts apart, anyway.

• Pluto - green hair, red/purple color scheme
• Neptune - turquoise wavy hair
• Uranus - blond short hair, yellow/blue color scheme (or men's clothing when in civilian form)
• Saturn - young, black hair
• Jupiter - tall, brown hair, ponytail, green/pink color scheme
• Mars - stylized purplish black straight long hair, red color scheme
• Venus - long blond hair, red/orange color scheme, most easily confused with Moon
• Mercury - short blue hair
• Moon - blond hair in double bun with long tails, red/blue color scheme, most easily confused with Venus.

Keep in mind that people are going to find it easier to see design difference if they're used to the conventions an artstyle use. So don't expect her to agree with you just because you find a perfect Cast Of Snowflakes.

Urasawa is very influenced by European comics so it may be very useful or just judged not manga-ish enough.

edited 24th Oct '09 12:45:19 AM by StillWaters

Older manga like Osamu Tezuka's tend to be less angular than modern manga even when it isn't realistic. I would recommend Kazuo Koike's and Goseki Kojima's Lone Wolf and Cub and Samurai Executioner, Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond, Naoki Urasawa's Monster, Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Junji Ito's Uzumaki, Hitoshi Iwaaki's Parasyte, Osamu Tezuka's Adolf, Yukinobu Hoshino's 2001 Nights, Kentaro Miura's Berserk and Yukito Kishiro's Battle Angel Alita.

In the 70's or in the 80's realistic style in manga might have been a sign of western influence but nowadays I believe It's just how many seinen manga are drawn. Ryoichi Ikegami who was influenced by American comics influenced Takehiko Inoue who didn't mention any western influences when interviewed.

edited 24th Oct '09 2:12:52 AM by SanjuroBateau

Break down the barrier between the two styles. There really isn't much seperating them. Nothing is stopping an anime from looking like Beauty And The Beast, for example.

Show her Kaiji and Akagi.

Or better yet, show her a Bambi video and make side-by-side comparisons.

I agree with her. Urasawa is an exception (and how!), but the fact is that 99% of manga and anime out there is very poorly, lazily drawn (to say nothing of QUALITY).

If you really want to prove her wrong, show her a volume of Monster, Twentieth Century Boys, or Pluto... Those should be easy to find. But I do think she's right.

edited 24th Oct '09 7:46:43 AM by insofar

S Hockingly enough, I'm doing an art project where I'm defining how there are artistic differences in each Manga artist. I started out with the Shounen ones, which may have been a poor start. However, If you Line up Bleach, Naruto, Dragonball, One Piece, Hunter X Hunter, and Shaman King/Ultimo (I had done it by artist), You should have some pretty clear cut differnece, especially since there is a wide variety of character types in One Piece and Hunter X Hunter, and there's a huge artistic shift in Shaman King to Ultimo.

I like Naoki Urasawa's Yawara and Monster but threads like this almost could make me a anti-fan. In my opinion his style is good but not really as unique as everyone seems to think. Realistic style is very common in seinen manga and even some shonen series have a pretty realistic drawing style (Fist of the North Star, Death Note and partly even Naruto).

Lone Wolf and Cub can at first feel a bit like bloody exploitation series but once you get in to it you'll see there's a lot more to it and Goseki Kojima is one of my favorite manga artists.