"Bishounen"
OK, so. The thing where everyone in anime/manga fandom is all over the "pretty boys". I need a little clarification, in an "Is everyone seeing this the same way I am?" sort of way.
I don't actually think anime characters, in themselves, are attractive. They're blanks--they're pretty much all the same doll face with different hair and a few identifying marks (Atobe's mole, the rings under Itachi's eyes, Ibiki's scars, Fuji's ^_^ face). Some of the art is pretty, but most of the characters are pretty blank and similar within a certain artist's style. I know some of the characters are attractive because other characters say so, or because they act in a way that I associate with people who know they're hot, or because they don't have some marker that says "I am not supposed to be seen as hot or at least average-looking". I find others attractive because they have nice hair (:D) and their personalities & pasts are either cool or particularly dorky. There's nothing in the art design that makes Atobe or Sasuke objectively hotter than Oishi or Kiba. It takes imagination to pull "hot!" out of any anime character, even Temari or Yasu.
I'm not totally alone in this, right?
In other words: in what world is Prince of Tennis obviously populated with better-looking boys than, say, Naruto or Bleach or MPD Psycho? (Don't we all have to go through that period where our eyes are shredded by bad art before we acclimatise to the PoT version of attractive?) And why is Itachi a "bishounen" when he clearly has the marks of being haggard and world-worn? I really wanted to end those sentences with ??!? but I managed to restrain myself.
I don't actually think anime characters, in themselves, are attractive. They're blanks--they're pretty much all the same doll face with different hair and a few identifying marks (Atobe's mole, the rings under Itachi's eyes, Ibiki's scars, Fuji's ^_^ face). Some of the art is pretty, but most of the characters are pretty blank and similar within a certain artist's style. I know some of the characters are attractive because other characters say so, or because they act in a way that I associate with people who know they're hot, or because they don't have some marker that says "I am not supposed to be seen as hot or at least average-looking". I find others attractive because they have nice hair (:D) and their personalities & pasts are either cool or particularly dorky. There's nothing in the art design that makes Atobe or Sasuke objectively hotter than Oishi or Kiba. It takes imagination to pull "hot!" out of any anime character, even Temari or Yasu.
I'm not totally alone in this, right?
In other words: in what world is Prince of Tennis obviously populated with better-looking boys than, say, Naruto or Bleach or MPD Psycho? (Don't we all have to go through that period where our eyes are shredded by bad art before we acclimatise to the PoT version of attractive?) And why is Itachi a "bishounen" when he clearly has the marks of being haggard and world-worn? I really wanted to end those sentences with ??!? but I managed to restrain myself.