I think we've seen enough complaints and posts all over the DD board about how manga artists are being criticized as lazy, bad artworks or stereotypical. This is the place for all manga lovers to post your frustra... I mean... comments here or show proof that not all mangas/animes artists are lazy, stereotypical, etc.

Okay, here're examples of an anime with realistic proportions:
Slam Dunk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhc-InuTdlo
Death Note: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iox1mhS4Esk

To be honest, I really hated Slam Dunk. So much of it was predictable.

The hotheaded foolish main character who has work unnaturally hard to get mad basketball skillzors. Naturally, he believes that anything can be achieved through hard work

The cool calm and collected rival who is pretty much everything that the main character want's to be

The female lead whose only purpose is to be utterly in awe and in love with the rival, but also the main characters love interest.


Oh by the way, do you know what other anime has the exact same characters?

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura from "Naruto" respectively fit those characteristics.

Ueki from "Law Of Ueki" and Luffy from "One Piece" both fit the characteristics of the main character

Ash and Gary from "Pokemon" fit the characteristics of the bain character and rival respectively, and share the same kind of rivalry

Of course all of that is sugared with lots of fanciful basketball moves and language so no one notices that.

Actually, in most mangas when the artists started their storyline, they usually go for common characteristics of the characters to enable the readers to associate with the characters easily. However, most manga artists do that only as starting foundations in storytelling. They all started their storyline like a baby copying their parents' walking style. It takes several years of drawing and practice for the artists to develop their own style of storytelling. Similarly, in Slam Dunk, the characters have evolved to a more serious and less typical tone in the latter part of the storyline.

Anyway, these examples are only to point out the artistic aspect of manga/anime that not all manga artists draw in similar artstyles.

I have irrefutable proof that anime is amazing (and by irrefutable I mean, I will cry a lot if you tell me it's a bad anime, so if you want to wound this tender soul... TT_TT.)
That proof is: Neon Genesis Evangelion! Shinji! Aaaagh! Where, where where WHERE have you ever seen a character like him? A lame, weak leading man who can't make decisions and yet is so tragically awesome? He's got real depth. His struggles are easy to relate to because he doesn't take the Ichigo/Naruto/Luffy route of "never give up! I have indomitable strength! Yaagh!"
And btw, just because you can give the names of other characters from different shows that have similar characteristics, doesn't automatically negate the glory of said shows. I mean, think of Tom Joad from Grapes of Wrath (heh.. and who's gonna pooh-pooh at GOW???) he's got the classic "hero complex" in which any time he sees people in danger he tries to help them, he never gives up, he fights fights fights and values his friends and family above all else. I mean, you could say the same thing about Naruto, about Luffy, about Ichigo, etc... but that doesn't make Tom Joad a stereotype. It just makes him kewl. lol.

I think that the art in anime & manga is so appealing, that even if sometimes it can be formulaic, I don't mind because it's an amazing formula.And anyway, you can always tell Tezuka from Kishimoto (so easily~~!) and think of Akira-- that looks nothing like Midori Days, right? I remember reading the last volume of Midori Days, and it had a bunch of "Good job finishing what you started, Kazurou Inoue!" little drawings from the artist's friends, and one of them I looked at for about .00001 seconds before realizing, "Holy cow, it's the guy who does Zatch Bell!"
So what I mean to say is, there are artistic subtleties within the genre that keep anime from being too formulaic, and no matter what format, artists will always instill their particular brand onto their art, right? And as for plot and character development, it's true that shounen anime tend to feature fiery-blooded men in the forefront, but I mean, that's not always the case. (Shinjiii!!! <3!!!!)
hehe ok I'm done ranting. ^_-

Where, where where WHERE have you ever seen a character like him? A lame, weak leading man who can't make decisions and yet is so tragically awesome?

Just about everywhere. That's been the trend with just about anything aimed at audiences over the age of ten. Older anime fans relate better with a loser character who does great things/gets the girl. There isn't anything particularly deep about it. Gainax is a company founded by otaku and their original projects tend to deal with stereotypical characters, visuals, and subjects to appeal to people like themselves.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just about every character in every show from every country deals with archetypes. Hell, you're taught to in any writing class. While I still enjoy anime, I do have to admit that certain archetypes appear more often than others. Shinji is a classic example of one that is everywhere in anime and manga. The weak kid with no self confidence who is given a source of power. It's an archetype typically found in mecha series, among other genres.

As for visual style, a lot of anime does blend together, but that's quite often due to the abundance of work done by a handful of studios (Gonzo is particularly bad when it comes to making everything look the same and they're everywhere these days). You'll still find some work with original styles that look like nothing else, but what Americans are most familiar with are the big time commercial successes. Most of the popular series are designed to be as appealing to the public as possible with familiar styles, characters, and story lines. It's no coincidence that some of the most popular anime series in Japan follow the fight-of-the-week formula.

Y'know, sometimes I think that I would probably hate Evangelion a lot less if people weren't always jumping and screaming about how "awesome" it is. Of course, I'm the kind of guy who hates people like Shinji; I see no point in watching a series with a main character I hate. I almost didn't watch Deathnote because the main character came off as such an emo whiner in the first episode. I don't see the point in watching a character sit around and whine.

Gainax had a similar character in Naota from FLCL, with the difference being that Naota had something of a drive in his life. He had goals that he reached for, and in a way his sad, whiny exterior was a mask to hide his goal-driven nature, which he found embarassing for whatever reason. It's a character that's conflicted, but still has redeeming qualities. Watching Shinji was like making a whole TV show out of the main characters whiny loser sidekick.

Ah, some anime and manga are good, like Berserk, or Death Note*, but then you get the really terrible stuff (in my opinion) like Evangelion. Hated Evangelion. Whiny loser kid bitches. Fights with mech. Bleh.

I really love stuff like Cowboy Bebop, Rurouni Kenshin, and Berserk. They all feature characters that can be looked up to, and they're all directed really well. Generic stuff like Naruto, YuGiOh, or basically any other Shonen anime I really can do without. They almost never end, the animation tends to be choppy, and they're all walking cliches.

Look, I like anime when it's well done, but a large majority of it is generic crap. Fanatics who think that something is amazing just because it's from Japan or because it's anime style are not thinking for themselves.


*Sure, Light is whiny and emo, but if you read the ending you'll get it...

Case Closed is pro. Haven't found anything like it.

Baki the Grappler is good, but it's pretty stereotypical, what with the main character trying to become 1337 powerful.

Those are the only two animes I even bother to watch habitually.
(Infact that's all I watch besides the news).

To me the anime that goes the furtherst against stereotype is Full Metal Alchemist, Edward Elric actually seems to have quite a notmal and explainable personality, although all those outbursts about being short gets really annoying after a while.

Artwise, I really don't like anime for all having a very similar style. Say what you like about artists putting in their flare and all, but in the end, anime are all have a very similar formula. Big shiny eyes, pointy noses, unnaturally cute/pretty characters.

In the western world at least, art forms take on a lot more variety. This is taking more than just Marvel and DC into account of course. From the Marvel/DC overly muscular superhero look, to the mindboggling Frank Miller influenced black and whites, to the angular goth SLG stuff.

Hmm, the only "school" anime/manga that wasn't somewhat stereotypical of all the others is Great Teacher Onizuka. Aside from that, wow. Just wow. Everything else just feeds of something else. Worse than pop music.

I duno XD about the whole school anime thing. ITs stereotypical, I suppose, but they don't really have superstrong love/romance stuff going on, which seems to be the focus for a lot of the school-animes. I always thought of Fruits Basket as a "school" anime and I LOVE the show. Its got its overly dramatic parts, but it also has some ridiculously funny stuff. I can't wait till they make a continuation :3 For now, I'm just reading the manga..which is follows very well. I'm kinda happy they left Fruits Basket anime open ended and didn't change so many things that it couldn't be picked up after the manga was continued (the manga is still going, I think. Last time I checked it was up to volume 14 in japan, but its almost that far along here in the US now too.)

The Fullmetal Alchemist anime is so confusing and just...(plot wise)poorly executed compared to the manga it was based on. It seemed like they were trying to cram a more epic plot into too few episodes, and the manga was still an ongoing while they made the anime, so they just kinda..made stuff up to fill the ending in cause they didn't have one to work with yet. And...Nazis are a cop-out for a bad guy XD; but yeah. That's just me. I love the anime anyways, because I love the characters and the animation is pretty, but the manga has much stronger story telling.

Mark
To me the anime that goes the furtherst against stereotype is Full Metal Alchemist, Edward Elric actually seems to have quite a notmal and explainable personality, although all those outbursts about being short gets really annoying after a while.

Artwise, I really don't like anime for all having a very similar style. Say what you like about artists putting in their flare and all, but in the end, anime are all have a very similar formula. Big shiny eyes, pointy noses, unnaturally cute/pretty characters.

In the western world at least, art forms take on a lot more variety. This is taking more than just Marvel and DC into account of course. From the Marvel/DC overly muscular superhero look, to the mindboggling Frank Miller influenced black and whites, to the angular goth SLG stuff.

Manga itself has as much variety as the western counterpart. Sadly, majority of those big eyed commercialized ones are flooding the western market. In Japan, there are a lot of these non stereotypical mangas that are actually obscured by the west and never made to the shores of the western market. Thus a lot of the western counterpart immediately assume all mangas are the same partly because the western market only takes the one that are popularized or more accurately, or those that reflects the "sweet" side of Japan culture and artstyle.

If you manage to dig further away from the commercialized ones (I'm afraid it's completely hard to find it in the west), there are plenty non conventional mangas with artstyles that are downright wierd, unusual and never popular or poorly marketed in Japan and thus never made it to the shores of other countries. What's even worse is that many people assume the commercialized manga reflects Japanese people and their culture but in actual fact it's completely untrue ( http://www.gaijinsmash.net/ [gaijinsmash.net] ). People who have been to Japan were even more surprised to find that the amount of "big shiny eyes, pointy noses, unnaturally cute/pretty characters" (in actual, it's around 50%-60%), as you have put it, are one of the things overhyped by the western market and media.

Geez, I'm going to be spending an unhealthy amount of time reading all the articles on that site now.

Eunice P
People who have been to Japan were even more surprised to find that the amount of "big shiny eyes, pointy noses, unnaturally cute/pretty characters" (in actual, it's around 50%-60%), as you have put it, are one of the things overhyped by the western market and media.

I've been to japan once and I did find a lot of stereotypical manga culture there. Even the manequins in the shops were done in manga style. Majority of the girls there were also dressed in the usual manga uniform, blouse with frilly miniskirt with long socks and optional legwarmers.

So quite frankly I didn't really see anything unexpected, except for the vending machines. Oooooh the vending machines....

But then again, that was a school trip 3 years ago, so it probably isn't saying much.

Majority of the girls there were also dressed in the usual manga uniform, blouse with frilly miniskirt with long socks and optional legwarmers.

That's kind of a stupid statement. You can't blame all aspects of Japanese culture on manga. The uniforms are taken from European trends and were adopted during the modernization efforts in the early 20th century. Although manga artwork seeps into some aspects of Japanese society, manga itself is more a reflection of Japans culture than their culture is a reflection of manga.

Case Closed is pro. Haven't found anything like it.

I have. A lot, actually. It's just most series in that genre aren't as long and never really attracted the same level of attention in Japan, so you won't see them in the US anytime soon. Personally, I think it's too bad. I find Conan to be one of the less inspired detective series.

Kristen Gudsnuk
Zatch Bell!

heh, this is why Im hesitant about dubbed anime and *translated* manga released by major companies. Sometimes you dont know what you're getting.

Zatch Bell is actually Konjiki no Gash Bell (or Golden Gash Bell) and the character Parco Folgore sings a delightfully amusing song called "Chichi wo moge" or basically breast groping.. It was translated as "boogie all day" or something like that. Its actually a pretty amusing series, but I never understood how they came up with Zatch Bell from Gash Bell.

They probably thought Zatch sounded more marketable and less violent than Gash.

Gash is also a comon dysphemism for "vagina". Perhaps that had some bearing?

Mark
stuff

Then tell me if my eyes are deceiving me that some of the mangas/animes I have seen such as the ones below are all stereotypical.






http://www.z-builder.com/manga/mugen/monthly/2002/sept/2.html
http://lambiek.net/artists/y/yasuhiko_yoshikazu.htm [lambiek.net]

OMGWTF!! That old guy's eyes are like so buggably HUGE!!!

There is stereotypical art everywhere you look. Don't get so holier than thou. For example, I'm sick and tired of every other comics heroine looking like Angelina Jolie. What's with the huge fascination with fat lips??? Oh, and porn star bodies. It's irritating.

Yes, it's possible to lump US popular style and Jpn popular style into 2 general categories. From that point on, it just depends on what general art characteristics you like better.

For me, more lines on the paper does not equal more detailed. Big muscles and breasts on everybody down to the garbage man does not make the comic more aesthetic. CG colors which run rampant over the page and make my eyes tired trying to see all the shapes does not make good storytelling art. And too many words in too little art does not make it a comic.

awww who cares...it's a style. it shouldn't matter. comics is about the infusion of story and art...so selecting an art style to do that is up to the artist.

but i do agree there are some lackluster creativity on both sides such as in japan: school (boy meets girl) or in america steroid looking superheroes with capes. with 1 dimensional characterization on both japanese and american comics

Look, I'm aware that not all that stuff is stereotypical. I buy a lot of the none-stereotypical stuff myself. But people like the emulate the stereotypes because they're easy. It's those cliche's which get annoying.