Put here because loose though my own editing standards may be, even I think it would be a misfile for the main page in this form:
Smile Tropes: A signature feature of the manga's art style is an exaggeration of all the "extraverted" facial features and expressions, applied to almost all characters, to the extent that if transplanted into a different artist's setting (with the context thus removed), most characters would look a touch deranged most of the time. This has the interesting consequence of greatly reducing the visible distinctions between a "normal everyday smile", a Cheshire Cat Smile, and a Slasher Smile. The effect is for a character switching among those between panels to lose the normal emotional distancing produced in the reader by an apparent one-panel Art Shift, enhancing the ability of comedic and dramatic reveals to feed into and be momentarily mistaken for each other. While it's pretty clear from the start of the manga this is a comedy, there's a resulting feel of underlying tension, at times approaching faux-horror, which takes a few chapters to get used to.
Might be overthinking this idea anyway. Still, I recall being initially interested on the series partly due to feeling the first few chapters seemed to convey through this, and the occasional doubling down on the effect later on (such as for encountering Karen), until I got used to it - and taking "needing to get used to people sometimes suddenly seeming alien or menacing just because they're people" as a metaphor for the series' content certainly is overthinking. But it's an uncommon effect not really noted in the main page currently, possibly due to it not being well suited to animation. Character entries do mention individual smile tropes, but not the connective thread which causes them to show up so often (which topic probably belongs on the main anyway). Thought I'd put a first draft down before I simply forgot about it.
Put here because loose though my own editing standards may be, even I think it would be a misfile for the main page in this form:
- Smile Tropes: A signature feature of the manga's art style is an exaggeration of all the "extraverted" facial features and expressions, applied to almost all characters, to the extent that if transplanted into a different artist's setting (with the context thus removed), most characters would look a touch deranged most of the time. This has the interesting consequence of greatly reducing the visible distinctions between a "normal everyday smile", a Cheshire Cat Smile, and a Slasher Smile. The effect is for a character switching among those between panels to lose the normal emotional distancing produced in the reader by an apparent one-panel Art Shift, enhancing the ability of comedic and dramatic reveals to feed into and be momentarily mistaken for each other. While it's pretty clear from the start of the manga this is a comedy, there's a resulting feel of underlying tension, at times approaching faux-horror, which takes a few chapters to get used to.
Might be overthinking this idea anyway. Still, I recall being initially interested on the series partly due to feeling the first few chapters seemed to convey through this, and the occasional doubling down on the effect later on (such as for encountering Karen), until I got used to it - and taking "needing to get used to people sometimes suddenly seeming alien or menacing just because they're people" as a metaphor for the series' content certainly is overthinking. But it's an uncommon effect not really noted in the main page currently, possibly due to it not being well suited to animation. Character entries do mention individual smile tropes, but not the connective thread which causes them to show up so often (which topic probably belongs on the main anyway). Thought I'd put a first draft down before I simply forgot about it.