Does the artist's ability on what they draw detirmine the genre? (Light Novels)

[asaqe]

An ongoing trend in Light Novel is the number of cute girls on the covers. With that comes a somewhat predictable bunch of harem/romance light novels with a good deal of ecchi content within it.

So I ask you this question? Do you think the industry is influenced by what artists they could hire? I mean if they are more artists who can draw decent male characters Light Novels will be more like Bishounen Battle stories or if they can draw mecha,

Does the artist really detirmine the storylines nowadays?

[gsilver]

I find artists that can draw "ugly" people well to be far more fascinating than the typical bishoujo style.

A lot of manga (and probably even more so light novels) is market driven, but in manga, there are enough outlets for material with diverse enough audiences that they aren't particularly limited. Of course, what actually gets scanned/translated is another story. The bishoujo/otaku-focused stuff is a lot more popular than, say, Ressentiment (now there's an unflattering view of the otaku if there ever was one).

[Klashikari]

I think it is actually backwards: there is a huge pool of artists available, and some of them are a tad "typecasted" like how some Seiyuu are (Kantoku and Kanzaki Hiro are obviously on the moe side). As such, while you can "guess" the genre at times, it is more a matter how the author sees their own series and picks their fancy in the lot. And with that in mind, you can guess the harem setup is just the trend itself, and not really because artists can only draw moe things.

Generally speaking, the usual trend with light novels is a bit similar to why anime/galge have the usual school life setup: because it is what the target audience is looking for.

[TinyRedLeaf]

When you're an artist working on a freelance basis or with a small studio, you'll take whatever job you can get to make ends meet.

An artist who doesn't constantly challenge himself to explore new styles and artistic directions shouldn't be in the profession, really. He wouldn't be doing himself or potential employers any favours by being so unmotivated.

[relentlessflame]

I think Klashikari is right; the publishers get story submissions all the time, and they try to see if they can figure out a good pairing of author and artist that will make the light novel more marketable.

I suppose it is a bit of chicken-and-egg problem in the sense that there are a lot of bishoujo artists because there is a lot of demand for bishoujo content (a lot of these artists may also work in the eroge business, for example). If there were demand for another sort of content, then artists would begin to focus on that sort of content. But the fact that there are such talented bishoujo artists is one of the draws that keeps people interesting in bishoujo content. So I suppose that it's a bit of a self-perpetuating cycle.

That being said, as was said, I don't think the medium is being held back by the artists. Rather, the medium is driven by the interests of the customers. If there were a demand for light novels centred around bishounen, or mecha, or whatever else, I think it wouldn't be hard to find artists to support those themes as well. But you have to ask fans of those genres are interested in light novels, or if another medium is more appropriate.

[NinjaRealist]

Romance has always been hugely popular in every form of written fiction, but with the advent of television and comic books, romance has still managed to endure, and in fact has become relatively a much more popular form of written fiction, for the disgustingly simple reason that people still prefer to imagine their sexual fantasies rather than have them be imagined for them.

The same is not true for genres like action and horror.

So it's not that there are more romance artists but rather that literary fiction tends to predominate towards romance because of its popularity within the medium.

[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

When you're an artist working on a freelance basis or with a small studio, you'll take whatever job you can get to make ends meet.

An artist who doesn't constantly challenge himself to explore new styles and artistic directions shouldn't be in the profession, really. He wouldn't be doing himself or potential employers any favours by being so unmotivated.

I'm pretty sure a lot of artists are quite capable of drawing new things, but that's really not the core problem: if you can't tickle the publishers fancy, it simply won't work, since they are basing on a business novel focused on a very niche audience.
It is quite apparent when a lot of these artists self publish their own doujinshi on comiket, and often lead to setup and all that isn't really usual (for instance, Komatsu Eeji did some mecha musume or even full mecha doujinshi and artworks on his free time, but it is rarely something picked up by the industry).

Also motivation may come from their own pride/liking for a certain genre as well: you can consider it as staying in their own safe zone, but it is perhaps also a style that basically define their perspective and art. And generally speaking, the demands for peculiar style and all isn't common, and only few of them, such like Huke, had the chance to have their own style being recognized by the industry, by sheer luck and/or coincidental opportunity.

[DonQuigleone]

I'd say quality Mecha artists are actually fairly rare, if only because "mechanical design" (in anime credit terms) is a more specialized task. I'd say the best use a combination of technical drawing and art.

Other then that, I'll echo what others have said and say that it's not the supply of artists that holds back content, but the demand. The reason there's so much bishoujo out there is simply because it sells, and that's what the publishers think the customers want (and they're probably right).

But there's never a shortage of other starving artists out there willing to draw in other styles.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by NinjaRealist

Romance has always been hugely popular in every form of written fiction, but with the advent of television and comic books, romance has still managed to endure, and in fact has become relatively a much more popular form of written fiction, for the disgustingly simple reason that people still prefer to imagine their sexual fantasies rather than have them be imagined for them.

The same is not true for genres like action and horror.

So it's not that there are more romance artists but rather that literary fiction tends to predominate towards romance because of its popularity within the medium.

It's not so much about sexual fantasy. It's more about the housewives living their escapist fantasies when trapped in a marriage that sucks. Do you seriously expect them to read Germinal or a doorstopper like Romance Of The Three Kingdoms when they have easier reads like Harlequin books? That doesn't stop them from reading and buying good stuff. Which is why Stephen King still enjoy his popularity in despite of being outside many people's comfort zone.

[asaqe]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

When you're an artist working on a freelance basis or with a small studio, you'll take whatever job you can get to make ends meet.

An artist who doesn't constantly challenge himself to explore new styles and artistic directions shouldn't be in the profession, really. He wouldn't be doing himself or potential employers any favours by being so unmotivated.

Believe me, I know how that feels when going to an anime convention. The artist alley is a mostly unmotivated lot. A Japanese artist in comiket would gladly do hentai to get a couple of sales but most of the artists who work at the anime cons over where I live specifically states they refuse to do H or nudes.