Anime with the worst art styles

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Chiibi

I don't think LS's art was meant to be "cutting-edge-amazing" just "cute".
Which it accomplishes well. Simple but cute. It was based on a 4koma for Pete's sake! Has anyone seen amazing art from a 4koma!?

I saw a Little Busters 4koma that I felt had pretty good art... but I know what you mean about the typical standards of 4koma art, lol.

[Full Metal Coast]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Yeah, Lucky Star's art style isn't that good.

I thought about choosing Lucky Star myself, but... I gave it a pass since Lucky Star is a pure otaku comedy show (i.e. the anime's visuals aren't that important to what the anime is trying to accomplish).

yeah i know but for me if i dont enjoy the animation style of an anime i just cannot sit through it.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Full Metal Coast

yeah i know but for me if i dont enjoy the animation style of an anime i just cannot sit through it.

I have to admit that art style is huge for me too.

If something has gorgeous artwork, I'm likely to cut it a lot more slack in other areas. OTOH, if something has subpar artwork... I have a hard time enjoying it even if it's strong everywhere else...

[Chiibi]

I have to admit that art style is huge for me too.

Me too....thus Peter Chung works will never be watched by me. It....rapes my eyes, shall we say?

[Full Metal Coast]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I have to admit that art style is huge for me too.

If something has gorgeous artwork, I'm likely to cut it a lot more slack in other areas. OTOH, if something has subpar artwork... I have a hard time enjoying it even if it's strong everywhere else...

haha true. patience is not one of my virutes and this is especially so with anime

[Archon_Wing]

Blasphemy about Akagi's nose! Akagi would rise from the grave and kill you with it... while winning yet another game of undead mahjong.

I don't really think an art style has ever turned me away as I usually get used to it. Maybe it's because I don't really expect realism in an anime. The only time that I couldn't watch an episode because it was ugly was probably certain filler episodes of Naruto that my friends sometimes tell me to watch. And the infamous psycho face Deen seems to love so much in Higurashi/Umineko is pretty bad too.

[Cryonosis]

Man, only one other person out of this whole thread brought up Gilgamesh? Just doesn't seem right that people would bring up average looking anime's over Gilgamesh. . .

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[Chiibi]

Originally Posted by Cryonosis

Man, only one other person out of this whole thread brought up Gilgamesh? Just doesn't seem right that people would bring up average looking anime's over Gilgamesh. . .

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I never watched it.....but now I DEFINITELY won't. THEY LOOK SO WEIRD!!

[hinakatbklyn]

Gilgamesh....... I guess the story line got me through the series until the last few episodes. Shows like this I would watch on TV (Video on demand) instead of buying the DVD.

It may not be the same company but here are similar art styles I would pass on if not for the storyline:

Gantz and Red Garden

[Metaler]

I never liked Trigun's art style. Especially the manga. It's always hard for me to figure out what's what in it. There's so much disorganized detail, that the image becomes "poluted".

[Starry Dust]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I'm not sure what overall art styles are the worse, but two of the freakier aspects of the art styles of a couple older anime always bothered me.


One is the noses of Escaflowne...

Spoiler for Escaflowne kiss scene:

The other are the legs of XXXholic...

Spoiler for XXXholic long legs!:

These aren't bad animes, really, but I found it hard to enjoy them due to how these physical features were really exaggerated on a lot of characters, and hence stood out like an almost constant sore thumb to me.


You see a little bit of XXXholic's very leggy art-style with Code Geass, but thankfully its toned down a bit compared to XXXholic.

Haha, Escaflowne.
I love that series but I agree with the noses. That's why I like the movie's animation style/designs more. It looked better.

And my gawd, those 2 almost look like stick figures
That's one aspect I don't like about Clamp. Their exaggerated limbs.
I love their art designs & all but....sheesh.

For me, I have to say Noein & Princess Tutu.
Alot of people say Noein has bad animation but I think that's just its style in general, especially with those crazy fight scenes. But the inconsistency is quite obvious sometimes.

And I always thought PT's character designs were ugly. It screams something that would come from the 90's. Like puffy hair & all.
It's a good series though :]

[Full Metal Coast]

Originally Posted by Cryonosis

Man, only one other person out of this whole thread brought up Gilgamesh? Just doesn't seem right that people would bring up average looking anime's over Gilgamesh. . .

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Yuck. That looks disgusting

[qwertyuiopz]

those animes with those stick arms and huge hands
bleach, one piece, code geass, tsubasa chronicles, etc


i like kyotos fluid animation but i agree with the mutant eyes

[Chiibi]

And I always thought PT's character designs were ugly. It screams something that would come from the 90's. Like puffy hair & all.

I....I LOVED Princess Tutu's designs.... So cute. But I guess a little simple....

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Marisa Kirisame

Air Kanon Clannad This is probably a very controversial statement since my impression is that most people out there consider the Key style to be gorgeous, but I'm not one of them. Those bug-eyes turn me off like nothing else, and with the distance between the two eyes it just make all the girls look like they're mentally deformed (which, might not be that far from their real personality but that's another subject altogether).

Oh you are certainly not alone on this one. KEY's art style has got to be one of the worst out there. The art style alone devalues the emotion it is trying to give off a lot of the time because the characters always look too "cute" for my taste. Never mind the fact that I am not a big fan of the stories, the animation alone would have turned me off from these animes if it were not for the incredible amount of hype placed on them.

[Vicious108]

Originally Posted by Marisa Kirisame

Air Kanon Clannad This is probably a very controversial statement since my impression is that most people out there consider the Key style to be gorgeous, but I'm not one of them. Those bug-eyes turn me off like nothing else, and with the distance between the two eyes it just make all the girls look like they're mentally deformed (which, might not be that far from their real personality but that's another subject altogether).

Definitely this. Huge eyes and lack of a proper nose are not my idea of "cute".

HM to Gundam SEED, where eveyone has the same face, male and female alike.

And Escaflowne's noses did weird me out at first, but I got used to them quickly. Probably because the show itself was awesome.

And Akagi/Kaiji's art is awesome, since those series are better off ugly. It suits the stuff that happens in them.

[Oppius]

Originally Posted by Full Metal Coast

Yuck. That looks disgusting

What works in real-life may won't work in anime. In this case their lips.

Earlier episodes of One Piece also have lots of animation errors.

[FreezeTheSun]

Fairy Tail. Well, it's not really the art form, but more of the animation.

[Vampire]

Originally Posted by Cryonosis

Man, only one other person out of this whole thread brought up Gilgamesh? Just doesn't seem right that people would bring up average looking anime's over Gilgamesh. . .

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If they drew normal mouths than it would've pass as average art; sadly they went for originality which failed poorly in this case.
Monster's art doesn't look appealing at all but believe me, it's a great story.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Vampire

Monster's art doesn't look appealing at all but believe me, it's a great story.

In real life, most people aren't all that attractive, so having a number of less attractive or even rather ugly characters reinforces Monster's realism. Of course, most of the key characters are quite attractive, with Johan and Nina at the top of the list, but I think Tenma himself is also rather handsome. Eva is too "put-together" for my taste, though she looks better later in the show when she becomes more human. (I also suspect Monster's character designs say something about how the Japanese view Europeans, but that's only a hunch.)

I was going to write this when the Lucky*Star discussion came up, but it's pertinent here, too. It's rather unfair to rate the artwork of manga adaptations since the animators must deal with the characters as drawn by the manga-ka. I think Urasawa chose to draw somewhat ugly characters for the reason I gave above. Lucky*Star is an adaptation of a 4-koma comic, so again the character designs were the decision of the artist, not the animators. Criticisms of the character designs in derivative anime works should be targeted at the manga artists who created the designs in the first place. It would be the same as criticizing the artists who draw the Peanuts animated features because they use the designs that Charles Schulz created.