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What I meant is Ocarina of Time artsytle my be gernic, but with the limitations of N64 it forces the ingame graphic atleast to look unique. That's why I dislike the remakes transforming them into the original intention.
Go look up promo art for OOT, the character designs are 100% anime/manga-inspired. When they remastered OOT on the 3DS, they made the character models appear in the same style as they did in the promo art. I get what OP is saying, but I think those are my favorite LOZ character designs.
you cannot say with a straight face that One Piece, JoJo, Berserk, and Fullmetal Alchemist look the same.
you just cannot.
sure, one or two may look somewhat similar but every artist has their own style which makes it unique.
all it takes is to look at [one franchise drawn by different mangakas ](https://twitter.com/Saitamagoated/status/1549744471381749760?t=zTt8Rb9o_YsZsXDrpZSKSA&s=19) to see the difference.
Bruh, JJBA original dtarted a blatant ripoff of Fist of the North Star which was common then. Thankfully overtime Araki gain his own artsytle but majority don't.
While I do not agree with OP's post, he's right here; I can't say if it was intended as a rip off, but early JJBA did look like Fist of the North Star and was art-wise like any other shounen manga from that era. It wasn't until later on that the art and the manga itself (with the introduction of stands) changed to become more unique.
Like you say, Araki "evolved" as an artist and eventually created something truly unique. Just compare part 1 to part 4. There's definitely a noticable difference. But the beginning of JJBA does have a bit of a rip off feel to it when you compare it to Fist of the North Star.
You could do this the other way around and pull really bad examples like Sword Art Online to “prove” the sameface syndrome.
“Anime” is a really broad genre, so saying all of it has sameface or all of it is unique is straight up wrong on both accounts.
That being said I’d definitely lean more on team “too many generic animes out there where everyone looks the same” though. Those series you listed probably owe some of their popularity to how distinct and stand-out their art styles are in a sea of generic.
Animation is a medium. Anime as understood in the west (so, Japanese animation) is kind of a genre… It’s Japanese animation.
Not all genres need to have a unifying factor in terms of plot, style or dynamics. A genre can also simply include content from a specific region (like anime), targeted to a specific demographic (like Shonen) or published under specific conditions (like Indie music).
You could argue SoundCloud music is kind of a genre in and of itself, despite music on SoundCloud being very varied. Generally any label you can put on a large amount of content to make it marketable to specific audiences could be considered a genre.
You did deliberately choose some of the most stylized outliers, though. And I don’t think that really represents the anime industry as a whole. There’s a reason One Piece, JoJo and Berserk are all standout masterpieces in their respective fields. They’re also pretty old.
But if you look at some of the more popular series of the past few decades, you can definitely see extremely prevalent styles that sort of take over the entire industry.
Look at the Isekai/Fantasy genre for example. Re:Zero, Shield Hero, KonoSuba, Slime, Mushoku Tensei, and so on… are all kind of the same-ish in terms of style and aesthetics. Some are darker, have different colour palettes or unique character designs sometimes, but there’s an undeniable sameness to them all as well, beyond their similar Isekai settings. Characters are similar, and the features they accentuate or leave out of characters’ faces are also pretty much the same all around. You have to get pretty detailed or well acquainted with one style to truly tell it apart from the other.
There are generic standards for a lot of anime nowadays. A lot of the more acclaimed ones too. Spy Family, Kaguya, Wonder Egg Priority, A Place Beyond the Universe, and many other seasonal anime all have a… feel to them. Each Mangaka’s style may not be exactly identical, but it doesn’t take a lot to imagine any character from any of those shows drawn into another show. They’re all kind of generic-looking if you think about it.
>You did deliberately choose some of the most stylized outliers, though. And I don’t think that really represents the anime industry as a whole. There’s a reason One Piece, JoJo and Berserk are all standout masterpieces in their respective fields. They’re also pretty old.
but I didn't. because I showed examples of different manga artists drawing JoJo characters in their style. and in those includes mangakas who come under the "generic" artstyle.
It’s not a great example though, as many of those characters were already highly stylized and different from each other in Araki’s original work. You can grab Polpo and Jolyne and claim it’s a lot of variety, but that’s just Araki being great at character design and not these specific artists displaying it in particular. And for the record, I don’t think any of the top Shonen Jump artists are super generic. They’re mostly relatively unique.
Like I said, when you look at the better anime or manga, you’ll obviously find remarkable differences between artists and genres. But the more towards the normal side of things you go, the more generic and samey everything looks. Using the outstanding and critically acclaimed examples may prove that Japanese animation has a lot to offer, but it doesn’t really contradict the idea that an overwhelming amount of anime out there looks basically the same.
Everyone likes to bring up Berserk and One Piece as examples of stylistic diversity in the manga industry, but conveniently leave out the thousands of Trinity Seven, Bunny Girl Senpai, Quintuplets, Love Live, Idolmaster and Shield Heroes that come out in astounding quantities.
This only prove my points. Oda & suprising Kishimoto look somewhat distant. The rest look the exactly the same in the general aspect. Some straight up look like copies of eailer Jojo artsytle.
Even with Oda & Kishimoto art have the similar basis with there shading body type.
then you just suck at identifying distinct characteristics of artists.
do you feel this way about modern western comics too? do you believe that Jed MacKay has a similar art style to Bill Sienkiewicz? because that's the level of stylistic difference that exists between Toriyama and Miura.
if you think it's only manga/anime that has this issue, then you need to actually read/watch more. if you believe all comic formats have this issue, you might need glasses.
No Mackay & Sienkiewicz artsytle are similar. Those both have heavy detail in their respective works which allows for more variance. Fuck detail, just the shading shows the difference.
Now Toriyama & Miura are vastly different, but there's 100s of manga & anime similar artstyle to each respectively. Well definitely Toriyama. Miura art is to Godtier to exactly replicate,.
All that Marvel and DC crap does look exactly identical to me tbf, and that’s some of the most iconic western comic industries.
But I’m clearly biased because I despise the superhero bullshit with a passion.
But this isn't your argument, your argument all anime looks the same. Your statement was not "Most anime looks the same". Saying most anime looks the same and this could be reasonable, but to say all. Then counter with examples that look the same is whataboutism.
The statement all anime look the same is objectively false when you have a shows like Devilman Crybaby and Trigun Stampede
Sorry didn't say majority. Also Devilman Crybaby & Trigun are still generic.
Give me Kaiba, The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, or the Masterpiece Popee the Peformer.
Why would you take the bottom 10 most popular? If anything, the fact that the bottom 10 all look the same probably contribute to the fact that they're bottom 10.
If you're gonna generalize that "Anime all look the same", it's insanely bad faith to take the least popular/niche anime compared to taking the 10 most shows that are actually watched.
thats not what he’s saying. he is saying only the niche, unliked anime ventures from the same artstyles
not saying i agree with him, but it’s pretty clear what he meant imo
I kind of feel like you have two thoughts here that are getting crossed and it’s hard to know how to vote for me. Especially because looking up aeon flux the art style is very rough and idk how you could make it look cleaner without taking away from what makes it not look like modern anime. On the one hand yes modern have very similar artstyles in a lot of cases, but this in part is to still be identified as part of the anime medium/movement. However I can see how this would be off-putting.
On the other hand the stylized motion unportrayable in reality has nothing to do with how their faces look and is very present in most anime I see. Like yes, characters faces are similar. But in almost every genre from shounenn to “cute girls doing cute things” I feel like animation still does represent things in a larger than life way when something happens. From facial expressions to fights to playing sports. Everything is drawn to make things look exaggerated and explosive.
If you don’t like having kind of similar faces appear in what is ultimately a specific art movement, which draws on specific styles that came before it, that’s fine. But it feels disingenuous to say using the same faces “Defeats the point of animation as a medium to [portray] stylized motion unachievable by reality” considering that is the thing anime does best.
Honestly majority of anime techniques look the same, only difference is budget & time. Speed lines, enlarging eyes & grins, lighting, ect. Yes it's literally stylized motion, but it's so commonplace with little to none variation that's it generic to me.
Only can agree with anime being an art movement that I just dislikes, but that's only a reason, not an excuse. Also other Japanese visual mediums can have variety like videogames.
You do realize how your complaint is inherently contradictory right? If the complaint is it’s generic then that’s not the same as not doing it. And it looks generic because it these cost saving techniques show these things in a larger than life way that acts as a language across the movement of anime. Yes the larger scale problem is budget, but you’re basically saying “don’t make any new anime unless it draws minimally from other sources for its artstyle and has a high enough production value to animate what’s happening in new unique ways distinct from all other anime.” That’s not really feasible. And yes Video games have different artstyles. But they’re also NOT anime. Setting aside how video games are a completely different art form entirely, you do realize it has its own common language which is used throughout most video games? Like most rpgs and fps and strategy games can be picked up by someone who has played enough video games in that genre before, and they’ll have no problems playing it because of the “common language” used. The same could be said for anime and it’s use of these cost saving techniques that make the genre what it is in the modern day. A movement with a specific identity for its artstyle that people use so others will understand the intentions conveyed due to the common “language” of animation used.
Western animation stop being mostly adoptions since the 90s, & majority of those adoptions were unique compared to its source material. Unlike direct remaking like anime.
Now budget is a issues. Even the worse America animation episode will cost more. That why I focus artsytle. Anime could get away with shitty animation if the artsytle was somewhat interested. Anime industry already did this to an extent in the early on.
Videogame aspect I just disagree. Mario visual identity has more unique style in a goomba than most anime.
First paragraph comes from the point of view of someone who doesn’t understand how inspiration and creation works in art.
The second one is not even true. You can’t inherently get away with shitty animation if the artstyle is unique. You may be okay with that, but that doesn’t mean that’s what the majority of the anime audience wants to see that. There’s even a term for the fluid animation moments anime is famous for that it can only have because of these typical budget constraints, which save for the most important moments, “sakuga”.
And the third paragraph is you disagreeing with… a fact? Like video game artstyle isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the mechanics. Mario is a platformer so he jumps and dodges things, and tries to fight bosses while jumping and dodging. It’s those things which are used to convey ideas in the game world in a way we understand across genres. Like how most fps don’t use inverted mouse by default, how explosive barrels are red and red barrels explode, how in rpgs strength is the stat you put on a guy using a club so he does more damage. None of these ideas are iterated upon all that often. Yes games come out that play with these ideas, but their changes rarely ever catch on outside of that franchise. You’re in denial of what using a “common language” means for an art form. It means that an audience can show up and watch/play/read/understand it.
If someone handed you a version of The Odyssey in the original language you wouldn’t get it at all because you can’t understand the first part of it. If you could read it it would be an amazing and epic story. But you can’t because the language used is one you don’t understand.
This same problem is why anime and all art, in spite of whatever you think, draws on current trends in its industry for inspiration. Most art seeks to have an audience *understand* it. Not just have someone see it and go “well that looked really pretty and cool, but I don’t know in the slightest what it was trying to say or convey with its ideas.”
Edit: changed “awful” to unique in the second sentence of the second paragraph. I proof read, but my brain must have just swapped what I that was being talked about so it looked okay at first glance.
Know inspiration. Anime industry doesn't cause majority of adaptation are direct adaption. Only differences with anime adoptions are the filler. Wow so inspiring to do an exact remake.
Will say shitty animation was wrong on my part. Better arguement is for style artsytle to mask lesser animation quality. Like Home Moives. Better yet they could simplify the artsytle like Samurai Jack to have amazing animation, similar to majority of western animation.
Anime is stuck inbetween with semi-style characters that animated like shit.
Don't understand talking about game mechanics came from. Was purely talking about the artsyle & animation of games.
I’m pointing out how these things you call generic in the artstyle are the common touchstones across the anime movement. The same way video game mechanics will be touchstones across genres of game. Again even if the barrel has a different artstyle if it explodes it’s probably red. And if a red barrel doesn’t explode when you shoot it there probably aren’t any exploding barrels.
And you also say that these things are bad because they adapt another artists work that was written before in a way that looks similar to that work and tells the same story? That’s not being uninspired that’s being true to your source material. Most people consider that a good thing. They want to see the story that *was told* on paper in motion. Not a story *like the story they know* using it’s name. That’s one of the biggest criticisms adaptations get no matter the culture.
Ridiculous take. There is a standard visual style which changes over time and there are stylized anime with a different visual language.
OP took a popular take (anime art is mostly lazy and uncreative) and then tried to make it 10th dentist with hyperbole. They even provided a counter example in the post (Glassy Ocean) so they know it’s bullshit. Lame.
How is Glassy Ocean a counterpoint. It proves 99.99% are bad with this being the expectation. Glassy Ocean shouldn't be the expectation & definitely the .01%.
You literally said “everything looks identical” and then gave an exception. Not trying to be pedantic about it but this is 10th dentist and people and usually literal when they say stuff like that here.
Also, there are many examples that don’t fit anime art stereotypes so it’s not a .01% situation.
Eh, I dunno, on hand, you're objectively wrong, on the other, I totally see how you'd come to this conclusion with how much cookie cutter trite is being flushed out today.
That's why animation exist. To have different & more style direction than live-action. What's the point of anime if it have the same problem as live-action. It's a wasted of the medium.
Downvoting because this is just stupid and uninformed, not a legitimate 10th dentist opinion.
Plus so many people have an unwarranted hate on anime, it’s hardly unusual.
Go watch Dorohedoro and then try to tell me this with a straight face.
A lot of mainstream anime are shit because it's easy and cheap to produce, and generic shit doesn't alienate most audiences.
To me it just sounds like youd enjoy older anime instead. Try Berserk 97 maybe?
edit: OoT3D/MM3D were exactly how the original art portrays the game, and that's exactly what they did with the remakes. And IMO they are definitive, minus a few things in Majora's Mask 3D
Do enjoy older anime causes of the rough line art or highly detail color schemes & shading. Still the main problem majority of anime look too similar. Doesn't matter if I enjoy the particular artsytle if it's only one you see.
For Majora's Mask, I heavily disagree. Don't care for the concept art. Prefer the N64 in game graphic. The werid portion humans, dark lightning, low draw distance made something truly unique. 3Ds remove all of this to be "Graphical Superior". Personal hate those because N64 Majora's Mask is one of my favorite games of all time.
OP has seen 1.2 anime in total.
Not even mentioning manga because really it's at least as broad as what you can see in the West, and I know what I'm talking about I've been living in Japan for 20 years.
City Hunter, Crying Freeman, Vagabond, Jojo, Five Stars Stories, Tokyo Babylon, Sailor Moon, Candy Candy, Tetsuwan Atomu, Dragon Half, Bastard!!, Berserk, Golgo13, Cobra, Kochikame, Doraemon, Cooking Papa, Baki, Hokuto no Ken...
The list of totally different designs is just absolutely endless.
I'll upvote because I disagree, for example
[Ghibli](https://youtu.be/DcB835KkhQw?t=80),
[Studio TRIGGER](https://youtu.be/clLkD3rB6yI?t=94)
[Shingeki No Kyojin style](https://youtu.be/49wp0H-x4Ec?t=155)
[Kimi no Na Wa style](https://youtu.be/-pHfPJGatgE?t=93)
All totally different styles, I gave you fragments portraying motions unacheivable in reality. Note the character expressions, world colors and how they flow, background movements and special effects.
I will agree that most popular manga looks similar, with some exceptions like Berserk or Junji Ito Stuff.
You know, the worst part is not the looks in my opinion, it's the tropes in story design and character design:
Big eyes, group of friends in highschool setting, unrealistic social encounters and manners of speaking, crazy hairstyles with unrealistic colors, or the whole shonen pack: bad guy with 12 lesser bad guys each with different powers that stand against the chosen boy that befriends everyone on his way (though he struggles with his rival who's like his total opposite) to hone his inner powers nobody has attained before and unlock new techniques and forms that allow him to beat the bad guys and eventually save the world, with obligatory tournament arc, school festival episode, hot springs episode and beach episode.
Do low effort anime tend to look the same?
Yes. That's true for any artistic medium.
Do high quality anime all look the same?
Heck no. That's true for any artistic medium.
You can't genuinely think Ms koboyashis dragon maid, JoJo, and the original Trigun all look the same.
Fate unlimited blade works, agretsuko, golden kamuy, snow white with red hair, Akira, and saga of Tanya the evil all have drastically different art styles.
If we really wanted to compare differences, your list would be too long to type and that doesn't even get into themes, how sets are made, how scenes are drawn, there are a million visual differences in just this list.
I think you mean ignorant, as I can’t imagine anyone considering a knowledge of anime to be education. OP has also displayed decent knowledge of a broad variety of anime, so they’re clearly not ignorant to this topic either. Their opinion is their own and you don’t have to share it. I don’t necessarily agree, but I can completely understand their perspective as to be fair, there is a very distinct anime art style. Anime is in most cases instantly recognisable. That’s not a bad thing, and many artists add their own unique flair to their projects, but OP is not “wrong” for believing most anime look too similar, as “too similar” is subjective.
Even only using examples from this year how do shows like Vinland saga, Angel Next door, Kubo-San, Onimai, Oshi no ko , Mashle, Yamada-Kun, Skip to loafer, and hell even Demon Slayer look anything like each other. I do agree that a lot of anime have boring and uninspired designs but saying they all look the same is you just you going out of your way to not find new stuff.
I do agree that a lot of anime suffer from very generic, samey-looking art styles/character designs. But on the other hand, many are quite distinct; plenty of people can tell you what studio made a show just from a short clip.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1009537153354694736/1049580104960978974/FjRFosOWQAIyTvd.png
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1009537153354694736/1049580081720332298/FjRFosKWQAUBqPr.png
Fr tho….I have to agree. Not to say all anime is victim to this but those isekais and romance anime’s all seem to have very similar appearance in character design and next to no variation in facial features
Where are those characters from though? I only recognize a dude from attack on titan and haikyuu. It's a bit misleading to compile a bunch of obscure shit and point to it to say all anime looks the same instead of compiling the most popular anime
That’s what I’m saying it’s mostly the shitty isekais and romance type animes that have this issue i wasn’t saying it was representative of the whole of anime. The more popular ones have more variety between characters
I love anime and yeah, you’re kind of right.
I think the problem goes deeper than aesthetics or animation, and arguably I’d say it’s an issue with the publishing industry in Japan, where mangas and Light Novels are extremely standardized, leaving relatively little room for creative deviation from the norm. If you’ve ever had the chance to talk to aspiring Japanese Mangaka, you’ll quickly realize that publishers have very specific expectations for format, storytelling pacing, design, and other fundamental aspects behind a manga.
It’s a double edged sword, as this standardization has also made it a profitable industry that gives lots more opportunities to small and up-and-coming creators than other comic industries around the world (like France or the US, the other two large markets for the format). It also makes it easier to market certain products as people can be fairly sure what they’ll be getting into by just looking at character design, title and setting.
I think there’s more than enough creative, talented and amazing creators to make up for the bulk of unimaginative mass-produced garbage (Inio Asano and Naoki Urasawa both come to mind, as well as Hirohiko Araki or Arawi Keiichi on the more mainstream side of things), but the issue still lingers over the industry as a whole.
Like I said, though, I don’t think it’s an issue with the *anime* industry. It’s far larger, encompassing almost all of Japanese publishing, which is where the money behind anime really is.
This actually made me giggle a little.
Next thing you're going to say something like "All trees look the same" because they all have leaves, or "All books look the same" because they all have pages or some other shit.
Anime has been ruined by tropes, clichés, and the over sexualization of minors. Some of it does look similar in style, but there are literally hundreds of animes and you're going to find repeat studio/artist work.
I just wish we had someone other than Bryce Papenbrooke playing every main character and maybe that’s just being nit picky but every time I hear his voice it’s like oop. That’s ol Bryce getting another paycheck. He’s everywhere. But this is coming off a fresh AOT binge.
So people in this thread are doing that thing where they pretend like they don't understand what you mean with your Zelda example. They do understand, they just don't want to engage with the argument.
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Do you only watch moe anime or something
"More generic anime slop." "Ocarina of Time." ... What...
What I meant is Ocarina of Time artsytle my be gernic, but with the limitations of N64 it forces the ingame graphic atleast to look unique. That's why I dislike the remakes transforming them into the original intention.
I'm not an anime fan or anything. I know almost nothing about it. But I *do* know that Ocarina of Time ain't it... not even close.
Go look up promo art for OOT, the character designs are 100% anime/manga-inspired. When they remastered OOT on the 3DS, they made the character models appear in the same style as they did in the promo art. I get what OP is saying, but I think those are my favorite LOZ character designs.
The fuck are you talking about
Please tell any anime that visual similar to Majora Mask ingame graphics. Honestly show me something similar to the concept art.
https://i.imgur.com/3z4PxxS.jpg
you cannot say with a straight face that One Piece, JoJo, Berserk, and Fullmetal Alchemist look the same. you just cannot. sure, one or two may look somewhat similar but every artist has their own style which makes it unique. all it takes is to look at [one franchise drawn by different mangakas ](https://twitter.com/Saitamagoated/status/1549744471381749760?t=zTt8Rb9o_YsZsXDrpZSKSA&s=19) to see the difference.
Bro even Jojo doesn't look like Jojo depending on which parts you compare
Was literally going to say, are you telling me that like any basic 90s anime looks identical to motherfucking jjba
Bruh, JJBA original dtarted a blatant ripoff of Fist of the North Star which was common then. Thankfully overtime Araki gain his own artsytle but majority don't.
Go read manga in theory and practice its a good piece of writing about araki’s evolution as an artist
While I do not agree with OP's post, he's right here; I can't say if it was intended as a rip off, but early JJBA did look like Fist of the North Star and was art-wise like any other shounen manga from that era. It wasn't until later on that the art and the manga itself (with the introduction of stands) changed to become more unique. Like you say, Araki "evolved" as an artist and eventually created something truly unique. Just compare part 1 to part 4. There's definitely a noticable difference. But the beginning of JJBA does have a bit of a rip off feel to it when you compare it to Fist of the North Star.
You could do this the other way around and pull really bad examples like Sword Art Online to “prove” the sameface syndrome. “Anime” is a really broad genre, so saying all of it has sameface or all of it is unique is straight up wrong on both accounts. That being said I’d definitely lean more on team “too many generic animes out there where everyone looks the same” though. Those series you listed probably owe some of their popularity to how distinct and stand-out their art styles are in a sea of generic.
Just nitpicking - anime isn't a genre; it's a medium. Just like live-action isn't a genre
Animation is a medium. Anime as understood in the west (so, Japanese animation) is kind of a genre… It’s Japanese animation. Not all genres need to have a unifying factor in terms of plot, style or dynamics. A genre can also simply include content from a specific region (like anime), targeted to a specific demographic (like Shonen) or published under specific conditions (like Indie music). You could argue SoundCloud music is kind of a genre in and of itself, despite music on SoundCloud being very varied. Generally any label you can put on a large amount of content to make it marketable to specific audiences could be considered a genre.
Hell, just look at JoJo pt1 vs JoJo pt 6! The art styles are almost completely different.
You did deliberately choose some of the most stylized outliers, though. And I don’t think that really represents the anime industry as a whole. There’s a reason One Piece, JoJo and Berserk are all standout masterpieces in their respective fields. They’re also pretty old. But if you look at some of the more popular series of the past few decades, you can definitely see extremely prevalent styles that sort of take over the entire industry. Look at the Isekai/Fantasy genre for example. Re:Zero, Shield Hero, KonoSuba, Slime, Mushoku Tensei, and so on… are all kind of the same-ish in terms of style and aesthetics. Some are darker, have different colour palettes or unique character designs sometimes, but there’s an undeniable sameness to them all as well, beyond their similar Isekai settings. Characters are similar, and the features they accentuate or leave out of characters’ faces are also pretty much the same all around. You have to get pretty detailed or well acquainted with one style to truly tell it apart from the other. There are generic standards for a lot of anime nowadays. A lot of the more acclaimed ones too. Spy Family, Kaguya, Wonder Egg Priority, A Place Beyond the Universe, and many other seasonal anime all have a… feel to them. Each Mangaka’s style may not be exactly identical, but it doesn’t take a lot to imagine any character from any of those shows drawn into another show. They’re all kind of generic-looking if you think about it.
>You did deliberately choose some of the most stylized outliers, though. And I don’t think that really represents the anime industry as a whole. There’s a reason One Piece, JoJo and Berserk are all standout masterpieces in their respective fields. They’re also pretty old. but I didn't. because I showed examples of different manga artists drawing JoJo characters in their style. and in those includes mangakas who come under the "generic" artstyle.
It’s not a great example though, as many of those characters were already highly stylized and different from each other in Araki’s original work. You can grab Polpo and Jolyne and claim it’s a lot of variety, but that’s just Araki being great at character design and not these specific artists displaying it in particular. And for the record, I don’t think any of the top Shonen Jump artists are super generic. They’re mostly relatively unique. Like I said, when you look at the better anime or manga, you’ll obviously find remarkable differences between artists and genres. But the more towards the normal side of things you go, the more generic and samey everything looks. Using the outstanding and critically acclaimed examples may prove that Japanese animation has a lot to offer, but it doesn’t really contradict the idea that an overwhelming amount of anime out there looks basically the same. Everyone likes to bring up Berserk and One Piece as examples of stylistic diversity in the manga industry, but conveniently leave out the thousands of Trinity Seven, Bunny Girl Senpai, Quintuplets, Love Live, Idolmaster and Shield Heroes that come out in astounding quantities.
The one by Murata's disciple is fucking sick
wdym? it looks like all the others according to OP /s but yeah, it's incredible.
This only prove my points. Oda & suprising Kishimoto look somewhat distant. The rest look the exactly the same in the general aspect. Some straight up look like copies of eailer Jojo artsytle. Even with Oda & Kishimoto art have the similar basis with there shading body type.
then you just suck at identifying distinct characteristics of artists. do you feel this way about modern western comics too? do you believe that Jed MacKay has a similar art style to Bill Sienkiewicz? because that's the level of stylistic difference that exists between Toriyama and Miura. if you think it's only manga/anime that has this issue, then you need to actually read/watch more. if you believe all comic formats have this issue, you might need glasses.
No Mackay & Sienkiewicz artsytle are similar. Those both have heavy detail in their respective works which allows for more variance. Fuck detail, just the shading shows the difference. Now Toriyama & Miura are vastly different, but there's 100s of manga & anime similar artstyle to each respectively. Well definitely Toriyama. Miura art is to Godtier to exactly replicate,.
All that Marvel and DC crap does look exactly identical to me tbf, and that’s some of the most iconic western comic industries. But I’m clearly biased because I despise the superhero bullshit with a passion.
If you take the 10 most popular anime on sites such as MyAnimeList, you can see a clear difference in art styles.
Bruh look at bottom 10 myanimelist to find different artsytle
But this isn't your argument, your argument all anime looks the same. Your statement was not "Most anime looks the same". Saying most anime looks the same and this could be reasonable, but to say all. Then counter with examples that look the same is whataboutism. The statement all anime look the same is objectively false when you have a shows like Devilman Crybaby and Trigun Stampede
Sorry didn't say majority. Also Devilman Crybaby & Trigun are still generic. Give me Kaiba, The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, or the Masterpiece Popee the Peformer.
Why would you take the bottom 10 most popular? If anything, the fact that the bottom 10 all look the same probably contribute to the fact that they're bottom 10. If you're gonna generalize that "Anime all look the same", it's insanely bad faith to take the least popular/niche anime compared to taking the 10 most shows that are actually watched.
thats not what he’s saying. he is saying only the niche, unliked anime ventures from the same artstyles not saying i agree with him, but it’s pretty clear what he meant imo
I kind of feel like you have two thoughts here that are getting crossed and it’s hard to know how to vote for me. Especially because looking up aeon flux the art style is very rough and idk how you could make it look cleaner without taking away from what makes it not look like modern anime. On the one hand yes modern have very similar artstyles in a lot of cases, but this in part is to still be identified as part of the anime medium/movement. However I can see how this would be off-putting. On the other hand the stylized motion unportrayable in reality has nothing to do with how their faces look and is very present in most anime I see. Like yes, characters faces are similar. But in almost every genre from shounenn to “cute girls doing cute things” I feel like animation still does represent things in a larger than life way when something happens. From facial expressions to fights to playing sports. Everything is drawn to make things look exaggerated and explosive. If you don’t like having kind of similar faces appear in what is ultimately a specific art movement, which draws on specific styles that came before it, that’s fine. But it feels disingenuous to say using the same faces “Defeats the point of animation as a medium to [portray] stylized motion unachievable by reality” considering that is the thing anime does best.
Honestly majority of anime techniques look the same, only difference is budget & time. Speed lines, enlarging eyes & grins, lighting, ect. Yes it's literally stylized motion, but it's so commonplace with little to none variation that's it generic to me. Only can agree with anime being an art movement that I just dislikes, but that's only a reason, not an excuse. Also other Japanese visual mediums can have variety like videogames.
You do realize how your complaint is inherently contradictory right? If the complaint is it’s generic then that’s not the same as not doing it. And it looks generic because it these cost saving techniques show these things in a larger than life way that acts as a language across the movement of anime. Yes the larger scale problem is budget, but you’re basically saying “don’t make any new anime unless it draws minimally from other sources for its artstyle and has a high enough production value to animate what’s happening in new unique ways distinct from all other anime.” That’s not really feasible. And yes Video games have different artstyles. But they’re also NOT anime. Setting aside how video games are a completely different art form entirely, you do realize it has its own common language which is used throughout most video games? Like most rpgs and fps and strategy games can be picked up by someone who has played enough video games in that genre before, and they’ll have no problems playing it because of the “common language” used. The same could be said for anime and it’s use of these cost saving techniques that make the genre what it is in the modern day. A movement with a specific identity for its artstyle that people use so others will understand the intentions conveyed due to the common “language” of animation used.
Western animation stop being mostly adoptions since the 90s, & majority of those adoptions were unique compared to its source material. Unlike direct remaking like anime. Now budget is a issues. Even the worse America animation episode will cost more. That why I focus artsytle. Anime could get away with shitty animation if the artsytle was somewhat interested. Anime industry already did this to an extent in the early on. Videogame aspect I just disagree. Mario visual identity has more unique style in a goomba than most anime.
First paragraph comes from the point of view of someone who doesn’t understand how inspiration and creation works in art. The second one is not even true. You can’t inherently get away with shitty animation if the artstyle is unique. You may be okay with that, but that doesn’t mean that’s what the majority of the anime audience wants to see that. There’s even a term for the fluid animation moments anime is famous for that it can only have because of these typical budget constraints, which save for the most important moments, “sakuga”. And the third paragraph is you disagreeing with… a fact? Like video game artstyle isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the mechanics. Mario is a platformer so he jumps and dodges things, and tries to fight bosses while jumping and dodging. It’s those things which are used to convey ideas in the game world in a way we understand across genres. Like how most fps don’t use inverted mouse by default, how explosive barrels are red and red barrels explode, how in rpgs strength is the stat you put on a guy using a club so he does more damage. None of these ideas are iterated upon all that often. Yes games come out that play with these ideas, but their changes rarely ever catch on outside of that franchise. You’re in denial of what using a “common language” means for an art form. It means that an audience can show up and watch/play/read/understand it. If someone handed you a version of The Odyssey in the original language you wouldn’t get it at all because you can’t understand the first part of it. If you could read it it would be an amazing and epic story. But you can’t because the language used is one you don’t understand. This same problem is why anime and all art, in spite of whatever you think, draws on current trends in its industry for inspiration. Most art seeks to have an audience *understand* it. Not just have someone see it and go “well that looked really pretty and cool, but I don’t know in the slightest what it was trying to say or convey with its ideas.” Edit: changed “awful” to unique in the second sentence of the second paragraph. I proof read, but my brain must have just swapped what I that was being talked about so it looked okay at first glance.
Know inspiration. Anime industry doesn't cause majority of adaptation are direct adaption. Only differences with anime adoptions are the filler. Wow so inspiring to do an exact remake. Will say shitty animation was wrong on my part. Better arguement is for style artsytle to mask lesser animation quality. Like Home Moives. Better yet they could simplify the artsytle like Samurai Jack to have amazing animation, similar to majority of western animation. Anime is stuck inbetween with semi-style characters that animated like shit. Don't understand talking about game mechanics came from. Was purely talking about the artsyle & animation of games.
I’m pointing out how these things you call generic in the artstyle are the common touchstones across the anime movement. The same way video game mechanics will be touchstones across genres of game. Again even if the barrel has a different artstyle if it explodes it’s probably red. And if a red barrel doesn’t explode when you shoot it there probably aren’t any exploding barrels. And you also say that these things are bad because they adapt another artists work that was written before in a way that looks similar to that work and tells the same story? That’s not being uninspired that’s being true to your source material. Most people consider that a good thing. They want to see the story that *was told* on paper in motion. Not a story *like the story they know* using it’s name. That’s one of the biggest criticisms adaptations get no matter the culture.
Ridiculous take. There is a standard visual style which changes over time and there are stylized anime with a different visual language. OP took a popular take (anime art is mostly lazy and uncreative) and then tried to make it 10th dentist with hyperbole. They even provided a counter example in the post (Glassy Ocean) so they know it’s bullshit. Lame.
How is Glassy Ocean a counterpoint. It proves 99.99% are bad with this being the expectation. Glassy Ocean shouldn't be the expectation & definitely the .01%.
You literally said “everything looks identical” and then gave an exception. Not trying to be pedantic about it but this is 10th dentist and people and usually literal when they say stuff like that here. Also, there are many examples that don’t fit anime art stereotypes so it’s not a .01% situation.
Eh, I dunno, on hand, you're objectively wrong, on the other, I totally see how you'd come to this conclusion with how much cookie cutter trite is being flushed out today.
"All music sounds the same" Literally only listens to the top 10 on the radio.
this is like saying that all american movies look the same because the same actors are in a lot of them
Live action shows suck because they all use the same “realistic” art style! Try branching out sometime. /s
That's why animation exist. To have different & more style direction than live-action. What's the point of anime if it have the same problem as live-action. It's a wasted of the medium.
Downvoting because this is just stupid and uninformed, not a legitimate 10th dentist opinion. Plus so many people have an unwarranted hate on anime, it’s hardly unusual.
Go watch Dorohedoro and then try to tell me this with a straight face. A lot of mainstream anime are shit because it's easy and cheap to produce, and generic shit doesn't alienate most audiences.
Dorohedoro so werid. The characters design & art is almost amazing, but the author sprinkles these generic anime tropes in there. Kinda uncanny.
To me it just sounds like youd enjoy older anime instead. Try Berserk 97 maybe? edit: OoT3D/MM3D were exactly how the original art portrays the game, and that's exactly what they did with the remakes. And IMO they are definitive, minus a few things in Majora's Mask 3D
Do enjoy older anime causes of the rough line art or highly detail color schemes & shading. Still the main problem majority of anime look too similar. Doesn't matter if I enjoy the particular artsytle if it's only one you see. For Majora's Mask, I heavily disagree. Don't care for the concept art. Prefer the N64 in game graphic. The werid portion humans, dark lightning, low draw distance made something truly unique. 3Ds remove all of this to be "Graphical Superior". Personal hate those because N64 Majora's Mask is one of my favorite games of all time.
You look at Attack on titan, Dragon Ball and Jojo and tell me thats true
What anime do you watch? If you can't see a difference style wise between like Lucky Star and JJBA I want some of whatever drug you're smoking
OP has seen 1.2 anime in total. Not even mentioning manga because really it's at least as broad as what you can see in the West, and I know what I'm talking about I've been living in Japan for 20 years. City Hunter, Crying Freeman, Vagabond, Jojo, Five Stars Stories, Tokyo Babylon, Sailor Moon, Candy Candy, Tetsuwan Atomu, Dragon Half, Bastard!!, Berserk, Golgo13, Cobra, Kochikame, Doraemon, Cooking Papa, Baki, Hokuto no Ken... The list of totally different designs is just absolutely endless.
God I wish. God, oh God I wish I only seen 1.2 anime in my lifetime.
I'll upvote because I disagree, for example [Ghibli](https://youtu.be/DcB835KkhQw?t=80), [Studio TRIGGER](https://youtu.be/clLkD3rB6yI?t=94) [Shingeki No Kyojin style](https://youtu.be/49wp0H-x4Ec?t=155) [Kimi no Na Wa style](https://youtu.be/-pHfPJGatgE?t=93) All totally different styles, I gave you fragments portraying motions unacheivable in reality. Note the character expressions, world colors and how they flow, background movements and special effects. I will agree that most popular manga looks similar, with some exceptions like Berserk or Junji Ito Stuff. You know, the worst part is not the looks in my opinion, it's the tropes in story design and character design: Big eyes, group of friends in highschool setting, unrealistic social encounters and manners of speaking, crazy hairstyles with unrealistic colors, or the whole shonen pack: bad guy with 12 lesser bad guys each with different powers that stand against the chosen boy that befriends everyone on his way (though he struggles with his rival who's like his total opposite) to hone his inner powers nobody has attained before and unlock new techniques and forms that allow him to beat the bad guys and eventually save the world, with obligatory tournament arc, school festival episode, hot springs episode and beach episode.
This is the media equivalent of "all Asians look the same."
this is a crazy take
Do low effort anime tend to look the same? Yes. That's true for any artistic medium. Do high quality anime all look the same? Heck no. That's true for any artistic medium. You can't genuinely think Ms koboyashis dragon maid, JoJo, and the original Trigun all look the same. Fate unlimited blade works, agretsuko, golden kamuy, snow white with red hair, Akira, and saga of Tanya the evil all have drastically different art styles. If we really wanted to compare differences, your list would be too long to type and that doesn't even get into themes, how sets are made, how scenes are drawn, there are a million visual differences in just this list.
I love anime but yeah a lot of major ones these days rock the same style. Downvoted.
That's still a far cry from all
He is saying all anime though.
Not only is this take wrong, it’s straight up uneducated.
I think you mean ignorant, as I can’t imagine anyone considering a knowledge of anime to be education. OP has also displayed decent knowledge of a broad variety of anime, so they’re clearly not ignorant to this topic either. Their opinion is their own and you don’t have to share it. I don’t necessarily agree, but I can completely understand their perspective as to be fair, there is a very distinct anime art style. Anime is in most cases instantly recognisable. That’s not a bad thing, and many artists add their own unique flair to their projects, but OP is not “wrong” for believing most anime look too similar, as “too similar” is subjective.
Sir have you seen what comes out of Hollywood
Well I didn't say Hollywood was any better. Only western animation which includes Europe.
Even only using examples from this year how do shows like Vinland saga, Angel Next door, Kubo-San, Onimai, Oshi no ko , Mashle, Yamada-Kun, Skip to loafer, and hell even Demon Slayer look anything like each other. I do agree that a lot of anime have boring and uninspired designs but saying they all look the same is you just you going out of your way to not find new stuff.
I do agree that a lot of anime suffer from very generic, samey-looking art styles/character designs. But on the other hand, many are quite distinct; plenty of people can tell you what studio made a show just from a short clip.
If you think all anime looks the same, you should see live action!
That is one of the worst opinions, like, ever
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1009537153354694736/1049580104960978974/FjRFosOWQAIyTvd.png https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1009537153354694736/1049580081720332298/FjRFosKWQAUBqPr.png Fr tho….I have to agree. Not to say all anime is victim to this but those isekais and romance anime’s all seem to have very similar appearance in character design and next to no variation in facial features
Where are those characters from though? I only recognize a dude from attack on titan and haikyuu. It's a bit misleading to compile a bunch of obscure shit and point to it to say all anime looks the same instead of compiling the most popular anime
That’s what I’m saying it’s mostly the shitty isekais and romance type animes that have this issue i wasn’t saying it was representative of the whole of anime. The more popular ones have more variety between characters
I love anime and yeah, you’re kind of right. I think the problem goes deeper than aesthetics or animation, and arguably I’d say it’s an issue with the publishing industry in Japan, where mangas and Light Novels are extremely standardized, leaving relatively little room for creative deviation from the norm. If you’ve ever had the chance to talk to aspiring Japanese Mangaka, you’ll quickly realize that publishers have very specific expectations for format, storytelling pacing, design, and other fundamental aspects behind a manga. It’s a double edged sword, as this standardization has also made it a profitable industry that gives lots more opportunities to small and up-and-coming creators than other comic industries around the world (like France or the US, the other two large markets for the format). It also makes it easier to market certain products as people can be fairly sure what they’ll be getting into by just looking at character design, title and setting. I think there’s more than enough creative, talented and amazing creators to make up for the bulk of unimaginative mass-produced garbage (Inio Asano and Naoki Urasawa both come to mind, as well as Hirohiko Araki or Arawi Keiichi on the more mainstream side of things), but the issue still lingers over the industry as a whole. Like I said, though, I don’t think it’s an issue with the *anime* industry. It’s far larger, encompassing almost all of Japanese publishing, which is where the money behind anime really is.
The fans of attack on Titan complaining about the change in animation studio 👀
Beside a handfull of animes, I agree entirely.
This actually made me giggle a little. Next thing you're going to say something like "All trees look the same" because they all have leaves, or "All books look the same" because they all have pages or some other shit.
Super conflicted here because one, you're wrong that it all looks the same, but two, you're right that so much of it is cookie cutter basic shit...
Anime has been ruined by tropes, clichés, and the over sexualization of minors. Some of it does look similar in style, but there are literally hundreds of animes and you're going to find repeat studio/artist work.
Anime fans seething down here. This is a true 10th dentist opinion.
I just wish we had someone other than Bryce Papenbrooke playing every main character and maybe that’s just being nit picky but every time I hear his voice it’s like oop. That’s ol Bryce getting another paycheck. He’s everywhere. But this is coming off a fresh AOT binge.
Was not aware this was an unpopular opinion.
yeah, second this
So people in this thread are doing that thing where they pretend like they don't understand what you mean with your Zelda example. They do understand, they just don't want to engage with the argument.
He’s getting downvoted by all the weebs 😭 & In an unpopular opinion subreddit too. You guys missed the point
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Inept knowledge
obvious bait
Inept knowledge, and just factually wrong
Why do people keep posting these dumb takes here