RANT ALERT: Because someone has to say something!

[eonen]

Okay, here's the deal: if I had the power to enforce this, I would decree that for, say, the next two-to-five years, unless you were raised in Japan or are of recent Japanese descent, you are NOT allowed to draw in that anime/manga style

Comments

Agreed

[water451]

I love the anime/manga style when it's used appropriately or not so heavily stylized. I especially like it when it's done messily by a talented artist for story-telling effect (see Masamune Shirow, Yukito Kishiro, Katushiro Otomo). Western adoption of the style usually just looks sickening to me, with extra-clean lines and heavy stylizing. It doesn't help that the characters tend to be vapid, too, which plays right into the cultural expectation that comics/cartoons are for kids or younger teenagers. That latter bit might be the root of the whole annoying pattern.

Re: Agreed

[eonen]

Vapid, yes. Agreed, absolutely.

Now, I don't know how much of that is horribly bad translating--goodness knows that most of the anime I've watched feels dumbed down, even the stuff aimed squarely at adults--or if it's genuinely a cultural thing, but there rarely seems to be much depth even to legitimate, Japanese anime characters. I'd like to believe it's just something lost in translation; I wonder how American cinema seems to the Japanese.

But, yes...I've noticed the same thing, and it doesn't please me at all.

Re: Agreed

[luchog]

Check out Range Murata. His is some of the most distinctive and atypically creative work I've seen. He puts out a colour anthology of unusual manga artists, titled Robot; that really breaks away from the typical manga/anime style.

Re: Agreed

[eonen]

I think you're missing the point. It's the rabid Anglo fanboys/fangirls that I want to develop their own style, not the people who actually make REAL anime/manga.

Re: Agreed

[luchog]

No, I'm not missing the point, I'm simply passing along a recommendation to someone who I thought would be interested. Nothing to do with the OP.