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Old 2012-03-18, 16:32   Link #101
Eragon
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Haha, I bet anybody(including me) who liked Initial D couldn't care less about how the characters looked. I don't really mind watching anime from the 80's as long as the story is good. As for what I prefer more, the modern designs I guess. But really If can watch Shin Chan then I can watch pretty much anything
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Old 2012-03-18, 17:09   Link #102
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Originally Posted by C.A. View Post
The Madhouse adaptation of Wolverine is a prime bad example of anime design, he was given a bishie sharp chin and skinny look, completely taking away his rugged and wild original Marvel design, destroying his personality. Anime tend to go for such form first, function later designs. If you were to look at 10 different characters all in a static neutral standing pose, you won't be able to tell what kind of personality they have because their designs don't reflect their function much. If you were to put Wolverine, Clark Kent, Joker, Homer, side by side, you'd be able to tell who's wild, who's a good guy, who's insane or lazy even without them doing anything.

Of course there are still great character designers such as Hirohiko Araki, who could create designs that are badass all the way to downright insane and bizarre. Eiichiro Oda's designs for One Piece started out pretty generic but went exponentially creative by the years, characters literally come in all shapes and sizes.
I agree with the points you are making in this thread.
But for this one, I can't understand how you could possibly think this is a good thing.
This is exactly what ticks me off when watching western animation and makes it impossible for me to enjoy it for anything else than comedy.
This feature breaks any immersion and changes otherwise interesting characters into mere caricatures.

Coincidently I have the same problem with One Piece. It's hard to enjoy the story and look past what I perceive as joke characters.
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Old 2012-03-18, 17:42   Link #103
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eragon View Post
@fanty
Haha, I bet anybody(including me) who liked Initial D couldn't care less about how the characters looked. I don't really mind watching anime from the 80's as long as the story is good. As for what I prefer more, the modern designs I guess. But really If can watch Shin Chan then I can watch pretty much anything
I'm pretty sure that the character designs bothered me less than the 3D cars and 2D people clashing in Initial D.
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Old 2012-03-18, 21:12   Link #104
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Originally Posted by ahelo View Post
Well of course the story is the main priority and no one should watch anime based on the characters, but saying that character designs aren't important is like saying you can just replace an anime character with a stick figure or something. Character designs still play a role in perceiving an anime after all besides being entertainment, there are people who do treat anime as art.

If you can't tell apart one character from another then obviously there's something wrong with the designs. I'm not saying you shouldn't watch such series but character designs should still be taken into account.
Here we go the other extreme with stick figures. I am saying that the whole package is much more important . Otherwise, we may as well bitch all day along about how Takeuchi recycles or write off Araki's style as "gay". And miss rich characters like Ryougi Shiki or Dio Brando.
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Old 2012-03-18, 22:39   Link #105
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I actually don't mind stick figures if they're used well:
http://xkcd.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw4wzwYeZ0Y
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Old 2012-03-18, 23:14   Link #106
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky View Post
I agree with the points you are making in this thread.
But for this one, I can't understand how you could possibly think this is a good thing.
This is exactly what ticks me off when watching western animation and makes it impossible for me to enjoy it for anything else than comedy.
This feature breaks any immersion and changes otherwise interesting characters into mere caricatures.
I know, right!? This is exactly the point I tried to make too. They don't leave anything to the imagination by putting the entire personality into the appearance! It's way too simple to read!

Quote:
Coincidently I have the same problem with One Piece. It's hard to enjoy the story and look past what I perceive as joke characters.
Erm....yeah, same goes for me..... I know it's supposed to be a wonderful series but....Pinocchio nose!?
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Old 2012-03-18, 23:59   Link #107
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Originally Posted by Chiibi View Post
Over my journeys through many anime forums, I've found people complaining "character designs in the 80s were more attractive boo-hoo where did they goooo!?"

............I really can't agree with that at all. I'm a bishoujo/nen fan and can't really name any 80s anime characters that made me go "Ooh, she's/he's pretty!" On the contrary, they look ugly to me, with the smaller eyes, pudgy faces and thick hair.

I mean, why would an anime watcher prefer this

Spoiler:


Would you chalk up old-school preference to simply nostalgia? Or not? Also, where do you stand and why?
I fully agree with that. 80s chara design looks just plain awful
It is totally beyond me how any sane person could prefer freaky stuff like afro Kei over today's designs - there's *light years* between them.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mecharobot View Post
I don't know, I personally like this:
Spoiler for pic:


over this:
Spoiler for pic:
Hell no!
Caveman Ken looks just plain horrible.
If you like that caveman look, why don't you watch GI Joe, or Superman, or most other dumb Yankee cartoons, which are generally full of these brickbrained steroid-abuse bodybuilder types?

Quote:
Originally Posted by mecharobot View Post
Compare the features of this 80s loli:
Spoiler for pic:


to this new one:
Spoiler for pic:
Again, the 80s loli is just plain awful!
While I'm not into lolis, I'll take Ika over that... that ugly 80s thing any day of the week.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gamer_2k4 View Post
The thing about 80s anime characters is that...well...they don't look like anime characters. 90s characters look too "raw." If I'm going to watch anime, I prefer the crispness of 2000s design. I'd have to say that the Haruhi anime probably best exemplifies my favorite visual style.
Good point there. 80s is right out and looked just plain awful. 90s got better and finally had characters which were not too bad and didn't make you run away screaming, but were still to "raw" overall.
The recent design is clearly the best there.
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Old 2012-03-19, 00:05   Link #108
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Honestly...I'm really kinda standing in the middle here. There are designs from both eras that are great, and there are designs from both eras that suck ass. Anytime someone says "MODERN ANIME BEATS ALL OLD ANIME" or "Fuck this, we should go back to the 80s of GOOD ANIME", I tend to punch my screen out (figuratively of course.)
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Old 2012-03-19, 09:38   Link #109
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Originally Posted by Chiibi View Post
What about Big O and other realistic-looking anime? It's not just in the design. We can also tell if it's "from Japan" by facial expressions and certain ways the characters move too. You don't see American male characters put their arm behind their head when they get embarrassed much or the female ones hold a clenched fist to their lips when they're enchanted or scared. Then there's the sweatdrops, the tick marks, the angry fangs, etc. These are ALL of Japanese origin. (as far as I know)
Big O is far from realistic, its very stylised in its clean and angular lines. Bringing up Big O and character movement doesn't contribute to this discussion purely on character design. In fact Big O's character design is so western inspired, people wouldn't think its from Japan at first glance.
Quote:
But it's kinda ironic that so many people who copy anime can't freaking do this. American people who attempt the manga style (mainly the ones Tokyopop published) still have western-looking characters with just a couple more highlights in their eyes to make them "look anime". The genius behind Megatokyo is the only one who did it right so far!
Do you truly believe those artists who draw such American manga are actually good artists? You probably can see the lack of skill and technique yourself. If Megatokyo is the only western artist you know of that can draw anime characters, I suggest you look around more, maybe in deviantart, and not look at the amateur fanartists.

http://and-babel-fell.deviantart.com/
http://mooglegurl.deviantart.com/
http://nheira.deviantart.com
http://meago.deviantart.com/
http://hiritai.deviantart.com/
http://rannsama.deviantart.com

Quote:
Studio Ghibli, Crayon Shin-chan, Lucky Star, Panty and Stocking, Air TV, Paradise Kiss, Dragon Ball, lol, how long do you want to keep playing this game, eh?
Funny that you include Panty and Stocking when its obviously using the Powerpuff Girls style. Everything else you mentioned seem to fall under big eyes including Shin-chan, otherwise cute characters as well.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky View Post
But for this one, I can't understand how you could possibly think this is a good thing.
This is exactly what ticks me off when watching western animation and makes it impossible for me to enjoy it for anything else than comedy.
This feature breaks any immersion and changes otherwise interesting characters into mere caricatures.

Coincidently I have the same problem with One Piece. It's hard to enjoy the story and look past what I perceive as joke characters.
One of the fundamental principles of all animation including anime, is exaggeration.

Character design has always been accompanied by exaggeration in both animation and comics. What type of exaggeration do we see in anime? Big eyes, small noses, slimness, bust size, crazy hair, crazy clothes. So what are these exaggerations used for? Prettiness, coolness, purely for the form, it shows a lack of creative decisiveness, lack of exploration and experimentation of design. Japan is afraid to take risks in their design.

I'm not sure how it breaks any immersion, because even using One Piece as an example, the variety of design is what created such an amazing and imaginative universe that us fans find so appealing and intriguing.

If the opposite is true, does that mean you find that characters with all similar body shapes increases immersion for you? Isn't that what people usually complain about? That there are too many guards looking the same that it breaks immersion, its just like too many Officer Jennys and Nurse Joys.
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Old 2012-03-19, 10:25   Link #110
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It breaks the immersion because the idea that a character has visual features, including their body features, that match their character/job/attitude, are completely unrealistic, and logically backwards.
Unless you go the route of the likes of StarWars or MassEffect, where being evil somehow makes you look evil by power of the force/magic.

This is ok in comedy, but is completely rediculous if the show is going for a more serious attitude.
To stick with OnePiece, I just can't take an enemy serious, that is living on a winter themed island and therefore looks like a crossover of Santa Clause and a nutcracker...
I mean, ok it's fun and interesting. But it comes at the cost of making the whole thing look like some kind of implausible staged joke.

In this respect, yes, I find that if this does not happen, but instead all characters get the same treatment, making them all look cool or whatever, this increases immersion.
In that case it is just an overall artstyle.

By the way, it is not like anime is never doing this. Far from it.
Often you can tell who is the which kind of anime charcter arche type just by looking at them. The Rei type for example (silent , unemotional girl).
I don't like it much either. But at least this is more of a case of tradition (or being unoriginal), instead of spelling it our in an obvious way.
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Old 2012-03-19, 10:35   Link #111
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky View Post
It breaks the immersion because the idea that a character has visual features, including their body features, that match their character/job/attitude, are completely unrealistic, and logically backwards.
No, it's not. You're really badly overstating your case here.

You don't know any crazy guy in real life that actually looks crazy? You don't know any hard thuggish people in life that actually look hard and thuggish? You don't know any clean-cut looking people in real life who actually do have clean-cut/straight-laced personalities?

People's appearance doesn't always match their character/job/attitude in real life, but often, they do.

So it's hardly "completely unrealistic and logically backwards" for a character to have an appearance that matches their character/job/attitude. I wouldn't want a 100% match here across-the-board, but some matches are to be expected and are probably beneficial in fact (as some characters you might not have the time to devote lots of exposition for, so having a telling appearance can be helpful for setting an immediate impression).

Also, having a generic template for everybody is certainly not an improvement over having distinct character designs intended to reflect specific characterization.

I don't have a big problem with anime's frequent body/facial type template approach, but a bit more body type/facial type variety here couldn't hurt.
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Old 2012-03-19, 10:43   Link #112
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Exaggeration can used to amplify effects not just positively, but also negatively, which means you don't have to exaggerate the right part for the right job, but a large contrast also creates a stronger design.

Lets take a huge bulky guy, 190cm tall, 95 kg for a simple example, immediately we associate such a character to brute strength, brawn over brains, possibly a villian, one of the strong henchmen.

But then I give this character a contrasting personality to his image, he is actually very gentle, he is a violinist and tends his garden and love playing with his two pet dogs.

Is it still too comedic? Maybe his wife died 2 years ago, he has been living alone in a big house which makes his size seem small. We play around with relationships, spatial interaction. There are countless ways to play around with characters of any sort, as long as not everyone looks the same.

Big guy interacting with small guy, big guy with small sword fighting with small guy with big sword, big guy racing a small guy through a swamp. They are the last soldiers of their respective platoons on a war zone, how do they go about killing each other?

It is perfectly fine for exaggeration to happen in serious stories, we can even exaggerate the seriousness for greater effect.
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Old 2012-03-19, 11:43   Link #113
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Quote:
Originally Posted by C.A. View Post
Big O is far from realistic, its very stylised in its clean and angular lines. Bringing up Big O and character movement doesn't contribute to this discussion purely on character design. In fact Big O's character design is so western inspired, people wouldn't think its from Japan at first glance.
Well, yeah, that's my point, since you said "all anime at first glance looks like it's from Japan".

Quote:
Do you truly believe those artists who draw such American manga are actually good artists?
Lol, no, they suck. But you said "it's so easy to draw anime characters" so I find it ironic that people with mediocre skills fail at it.

Quote:
If Megatokyo is the only western artist you know of that can draw anime characters, I suggest you look around more, maybe in deviantart, and not look at the amateur fanartists.

http://and-babel-fell.deviantart.com/
http://mooglegurl.deviantart.com/
http://nheira.deviantart.com
http://meago.deviantart.com/
http://hiritai.deviantart.com/
http://rannsama.deviantart.com
I'm perfectly well aware of those who can actually do it on DA; I'm one of them
I meant Megatokyo is the only published one that did it. Please read my posts a little more carefully, eh?

Quote:
Funny that you include Panty and Stocking when its obviously using the Powerpuff Girls style. Everything else you mentioned seem to fall under big eyes including Shin-chan, otherwise cute characters as well.
o__O Shin-chan's eyes aren't big-they're black dots! Miyazaki's eyes don't look any larger than Disney eyes. Anyway, it doesn't MATTER because they all look unique; eye size is irrelevant because all the eyes differ from one to the next. Why are you only focusing on eyes anyway? Eyes are but one small detail. They all have different bodies, faces, hair, etc.

Quote:
Lets take a huge bulky guy, 190cm tall, 95 kg for a simple example, immediately we associate such a character to brute strength, brawn over brains, possibly a villian, one of the strong henchmen.

But then I give this character a contrasting personality to his image, he is actually very gentle, he is a violinist and tends his garden and love playing with his two pet dogs.
Wow, what you just did there is a trope I've seen at least THREE times in anime. So aren't you kind of contradicting yourself there? I don't see this trope used in western animation much because like you said, everyone is designed to match their personality.

Quote:
Also, having a generic template for everybody is certainly not an improvement over having distinct character designs intended to reflect specific characterization.
Still less like treating your audience like idiots, imho.
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Old 2012-03-19, 11:57   Link #114
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Anime style might be so easy that the western artists keep trying to do things like they know...like adding a nose for example. Or trying to add more detail and lines, because it seems unfinished to them.

Or they are Dreamwave: Transformers and like "detail".
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Old 2012-03-19, 12:00   Link #115
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Why do I mention eyes so much? Actually that question should be directed to Japan.

There has been various research published in both scientific and artistic contexts on why Japan focuses on eyes so much. The research comes down to this, Eyes are deeply rooted in the cultural and psychological behaviour of Japanese.

When the rest of the world talk, they get clues of the emotions of other people mostly through their mouth, whether they are smiling or pouting etc. In Japan, the movement of the mouth is very reserved, they don't like to open their mouths too much or smile too widely, giving them a kind of cultured, polite and shy demeanor. But in place of the mouth expressions, Japan has eye expressions and they read each other's emotions through the eyes. They are very obsessed with eyes for its beauty and as the saying goes 'the eye is the window to the soul'.

The obsession with eyes is not just seen in behaviour but through their media. Film research has shown that Japan uses exceeding more extreme close up shots to the eyes than any other international media. This obsession of eyes also led to the big eyes we see in anime that will never go away.

And for different bodies, some of us has been discussing in the thread that anime style bodies vary very little. More often so, the main difference in character bodies are height and bust size, if they don't wear different clothes, you can't tell their bodies apart.
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Old 2012-03-19, 12:19   Link #116
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My first experiance in hearing about character art was from the Dark Crystal special in 1982.

There, illustrator Brian Froud talked about how he starts his projects....always with the eyes. They eyes are a window to the soul is more or less how he put it. If you want to believe something is real, the eyes have to reflect a sort of life in them. (This might be why I'm fascinated by the eyes of Nagato Yuki)
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Old 2012-03-19, 13:11   Link #117
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Let's appreciate designers.

In no order of preference:


Mostly anime and manga:

Haruhiko Mikitomo

Spoiler:


Tsukasa Hojo

Spoiler:


Katsuhiro Otomo

Spoiler:


Yoshihiro Togashi

Spoiler:


Yukito Kishiro

Spoiler:


Yoshiyuki Sadamoto

Spoiler:


Nobuteru Yuki

Spoiler:


Asako Nishida

Spoiler:


Oh Great

Spoiler:


Tetsuo Hara

Spoiler:


Hirohiko Araki

Spoiler for FABULOUS MAX:


A non exhaustive list. I'd have taken longer if I did not have to sleep just right after.
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Old 2012-03-19, 13:19   Link #118
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Originally Posted by Sheba View Post
Let's appreciate designers.

In no order of preference:
Oh Great seems somehow out of place there...

(I'm a fan of Oh Great's artwork, but I think of it as more of a modern style. The rest in there remind me more of the 90's.)
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Old 2012-03-19, 13:20   Link #119
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*sigh*
I know how important eyes are. I'm saying it's not fair to pick ONE thing that's around the same size and go "this needs variety". The size means NOTHING if the style is completely varied, which it is!

Quote:
Originally Posted by C.A. View Post
And for different bodies, some of us has been discussing in the thread that anime style bodies vary very little. More often so, the main difference in character bodies are height and bust size, if they don't wear different clothes, you can't tell their bodies apart.
Again, I refer you to the list I just gave you.





YOU CAN'T TELL THEIR BODIES APART!? I assure you, if Buruma put on a sailor fuku like Konata, and the picture was cropped so you couldn't see heads or hair, I will still be able to tell which one's Buruma and which one's Konata. With much ease. Konata's way skinnier and looks like a child. Buruma is fuller with a mature body and has muscle.

Quote:
Let's appreciate designers.

In no order of preference:
Nobuteru Yuki and Asoko Nashida are amaaaazing. *.*
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Old 2012-03-19, 13:21   Link #120
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Originally Posted by Shimapan View Post
I fully agree with that. 80s chara design looks just plain awful
It is totally beyond me how any sane person could prefer freaky stuff like afro Kei over today's designs - there's *light years* between them.
Any sane person would distinguish between the real character designs and some poor screen caps.

The basic character designs of Gunbuster, Macross, Dirty Pair and Maison Ikoku ,the examples shown by the OP, are fully on par with those shown from Code Geass and Air and vastly superior to the generic design of Da Capo.

Last edited by Bri; 2012-03-19 at 13:38.
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