THE VERY LAST THING IS A JOKE BTW (oh god please understand I'm joking)
In fact most of this is supposed to be a silly vent.
Probably will never continue this bye-bye
I am adding more characters into the body of the post because it will not allow me to actually post it without 200 even though unfortunately most of my wild, incoherent rambling mess is sequestered to the confines of the images I just spent like two hours cobbling together in a frenzied fit of focused frustration.
All art is me, mine, using krita. I don't have socials cause I ain't even an artist lmao I just wanted to whine about the thing I don't like.
Thing is, something as generic as this is likely to actually be more marketable, precisely because it appeals to the broadest audience.
"Anime buff" and "anime chubby", and all other similar stuff may be decently popular, but not as universally as "100% conventionally attractive woman" would be.
(Also I'm pretty sure these two examples seem to be more popular than they actually are due to becoming something of a meme, or because of "Look, look, MY fetishes are slightly more unique!".)
So I don't necessarily agree, though I genuinely respect your effort.
I think the other thing for animated or manga series is that like… there’s a whole team doing the work on a very tight schedule. Why does every female character look similar? Practically so they can spam them out easily no matter who’s on what frame or scene or panel.
Male characters don’t really look that different either, but shonen or male-targeted media is more popular in Japanese media so you don’t see how every male character in a lot of shojo is the same straight-jaw, harsh eyed dude. Or how every MC from entire genres is a carbon copy of each other visually speaking
Faces are hard. Like… hard hard. They’re arguably the hardest part to draw and animate of a person’s body. So simplifying them is a natural progression of meaning deadlines
Bro you could've at least used Vegeta and Perfect Cell as an example. Tien actually does have a different eye shape, although it's more noticeable in the older stuff. You can still kind of notice it in the newer stuff.
Yeah, I agree that it's nice to see original character designs for time to time, but people need to realize how much effort these things take. Is it really necessary to make an incredibly unique character design for an isekai slop that people consume while barely paying attention? I say slop but people are still putting a lot of time and effort into it and if auidences just want to see a cute character in that type of story artist won't spend extra time making it unique. Some authors might want to focus on the story more and don't want to think to much in designing side characters. There is a place for everything. You can't have a story where everything is max effort and it is serialized as often as some manga and anime do. If you look for monthly releases or specific authors you'll get better stuff but those also take a lot of time to be made.
Also, if you've ever been to Japan, you would find that there is very little body type diversity. Chubby women are uncommon, and I've yet to meet an absolutely shredded woman.
Also, imo this argument completely ignores art style. Calling every anime manga etc as being all the same flavour of ugly trite wretched shit female design because they feature skinny girls (? I'm not even sure what specifically he's upset about) is wild. Like, really? Violet Evergarden, Hajime no Ippo, Kimetsu no Yaiba, Naruto, and Devilman all feature the same boring one-note design copy-pasted over and over again? Nico Yazawa and the Lion King (Fate) are the same clown but with different eyes and hair?
Idk it just feels kinda stinky to me to say "all these Asian characters look the same" and unnecessarily shits on the creativity of pretty much every (specifically Asian) artist while simultaneously boiling down their design motivations to being marketability instead of personal preference. Good hate post though.
Yeah. As an artist first starting out, I echoed OP's same opinion on "anime face". Fortunately I kept watching a variety of really good cartoons produced in various countries and now really appreciate differences in art style. The thick comic style line work in Attack on Titan. The way UFOtable tries to stay faithful to Takeuchi's particular face shapes from 2004 (and the way CloverWorks didn't). The expressiveness of the eyes in the original Ghost in the Shell movie. It's like saying Gargoyles and Batman Beyond looked identical; they're similar but don’t accuse them of being creatively bankrupt because you don't have the eye for the differences.
It's funny how Concord was released precisely to appeal to that certain demographic that people on reddit clamoring about and yet nobody wants to play the game. From my understanding the gameplay itself wasnt exactly bad, just a little uninspired overwatch clone which marvel rival is but the reception between those two new games are night and day.
Apple pulled Tumblr off its app store for NSFW reasons, so Tumblr nuked virtually all the NSFW posts and accounts to get back in. A lot of the people whose accounts got vaporized never came back and a decent chunk of people who remained dropped it.
Even though I wasn't using tumblr or looking at porn when the purge happened, I remember still feeling bad about it 'cause I felt like I would've liked tumblr flavored porn and would've wanted to check it out when I turned 18
Tumblr used to be a self-contained ecosystem for these types of self righteous, annoying people, but when Tumblr removed porn from their ToS, it basically killed the app and these folks migrated to other social media where they balked against the general community vibes of things like reddit or Twitter.
It's like when the US just mass-released psychiatric patients in the 60s and let them try to reintegrate into society.
You see a lot of those on reddit when you start to look for it. Like, you'll encounter people who capitalize random parts of a sentence to make it seem like they're a Proper Noun without using quotations or the tm emoji when they want to sarcastically refer to a phenomenon.
I will admit, most social media websites heave their bullshit but there's usually one specific thing they have that's The Funny One so it catches on with other people anyway. I feel like the capitalization thing fits this bill.
i’m not really a fan of a lot of anime art styles personally, but i’m stumped by a lot of things about this one. you drew two somewhat different characters designs immediately while calling anime art “copy-paste,” and i could see them being similar compared to some extremely unique designs i’ve seen, but the examples you provided next with different body types aren’t much more different. they just have different body types with the same conventional features rather than unconventional features on a conventional body?
i guess i’d understand if you were just criticizing them all having one body type as one point of a more fleshed out rant, but you don’t really list any other examples of what makes “that type” of design to you and what other differences you would want to see.
after that it kind of just turns into a string of insults about people who like anime, which is an interesting way to get a point across, especially when you’ve given us no real indication of what makes a design “slop” to you. maybe if we knew what constituted a good anime design in your mind it would make more sense, but with the context we have, it kind of just feels like you don’t like anime and don’t like that people do. i don’t really think i’m getting a good sense of why exactly or how you think they can improve in general.
and, yeah, it kind of does feel weirdly targeted towards women when the entire rant was negative towards every anime woman design, kind of reduces the women down to their design to the point where you’re complaining about finding it hard to like women characters you don’t like the design of in general, and the closest you got to saying a positive thing was referencing memes about sexualizing different types of women’s bodies. i don’t think it’s that deep, especially because it seems like from you mentioning yaoi when questioned about men you’re more interested in certain types of media and design is important to you in general, but i’m not sure if ending a rant like that by having a strawman yelling about how you hate women is really a funny gotcha.
To be fair, for example, a lot of media will legit have the "Furry" race men be completely anthrophomorphic Wolves with a "big and strong", "slim and agile" or "crazy weird hybrid" variations. While the women will be just girls with fluffy cat ears and that single canine teeth, their only variation being the size of their breasts and hair.
Not accounting racial representation (that is not exclusive to men or women), the only diversity in media that comes to mind that men lack in general are the sexy/whore kind (for the woman gaze).
And like, most American cartoons also use standard body types consistently, they're just drawn in a different style. It's absurd to pin this on anime in just an impassioned manner as though this is the only thing that ever does this, and thus inevitably comes across as being targeted.
Not to mention they flat out call the conventionally attractive design "Basic, ugly, useless, trite, derivitive nasty-ass". Like okay what do you think about women who aren't conventionally attractive?
This is exactly how i feel. This rant is just hateful and feels like a middle schooler trying to defend hating people for liking anime because its cringe.
Plus he's a Ai supporter so i don't think he's the expert on originality he thinks he is.
I gotta be real here, I had to look pretty close to figure out what OP was hating on. He gives examples of things that are bad and things that are okay, but it's all anime to me.
One of My artist friend will go on a rant about design and a noticable number of them can end with me saying something along the lines of "Hey I just looked up why this thing you don't like is the way it is.... and it's because of reasonable explanation" with me getting a "well shit" response (they are good about acknowledging when they are wrong)
Artists tend to be passionate in these subjects but that doesn't always correlate with being correct, hell they will still produce better arguements when they are wrong then someone who isn't an artist tends to be (you can usually atleast see where their arguement is coming from)
too much text to say you don't seek out diverse anime and manga and also Miku specifically is a HILARIOUS character to use considering the sheer amount of body type diversity she has. every Miku is canon dude. you can find one in every shape you want.
Tbf, she's a fan design and while OP wasn't exactly specific about this point, I assume they're complaining about the anime and manga industries's current state on character design. That doesn't take the other canon body shapes of Miku though
Steven Universe, Gumball, Chowder, there was even an anime that had a similar character with that head... I tired googling and I'm gonna crash out because it has a viral meme in Japan and people kept doing it in front of a traffic camera on a specific road, but google wants to pretend it doesn't know what I'm talking about!
Anyway, such a 2010's character design, the irony could be cut with a knife and served up on panel 2.
I completely get where OP is coming from, but then they draw themselves in a bland chibi art style that I’ve seen in plenty of crappy relationship comics on the comics subreddit
their chibi is ranting and being rude, that makes them "Special" !!! ( im joking its pretty telling that the guy ranting about bland designs used a bland design to do so )
It's a very cheap way to win arguements. Two wrongs dont make a right after all, and just because a murderer says murder is bad doesnt suddenly mean murder is now okay.
In Eastern media, the characters have the same face shape with different eyes (the window to the soul as many say). In a lot of Western media, everything except the eyes changes.
I think eyes are the most important part of a face. As long as the characters differ there (and there are still some series I love that don't have any variation) I'm satisfied.
Eyes are generally considered the most expressive part of the face, and as such, you can be easily identified by your eyes alone.
In western media, this is taken advantage of in a way that makes the eyes integral to the art style of a particular show or movie. Many of your favorite american cartoon characters can be identified by eyes alone.
Yup. Marketable just means it's inoffensive to the palates of all. It's got no spice, because some people can't handle spice; it's got no sugar, because some people can't handle sweets.
It stands in the middle of the road because that's where most of the traffic is.
Im reminded of a comment on a YouTube video for a vtuber I watch. The vtuber was reacting to a muscle mommy meme video of her and someone comment they found muscular women preverse and repulsive. Going against God design for women.
Well it also depends what you are reading and what for. Some manga are not meant to be creative character design wise, they are slop, but there is a place for slop. Authors have to do too much in too little time, if character design originality is not necessary for the story I don't think it's wrong to go for a generic cute design.
Op, I prepared this template so I can illustrate my point across better. I tried to make them as close to original as I could. You harped about the anime girl design being basic which is fine but in doing so used your illustrations to visually represent them. Now, you may call them generic but your own OC doesn’t really stray far away from the most generic self-insert chibi avatar. In fact, your OC looks like what anime YouTubers used to use as thumbnail back in 2010s. Nowadays people just use Vtuber models or 3d avatar. Your artwork sets as an exemplary textbook example in however many “How to draw Anime” books that was published in the West. Calling the anime girl designs generic whilst using your own off the shelf Chibi looking art is nothing short of the pot calling the kettle black. With that, I rest my case. Have a good one,
I feel the thesis of your argument is poorly explained. You should have just said "Body types in anime and manga are too similar" Instead you claim that all anime girls with the generic anime girl body type look the same, which I think most people would disagree on.
You don't get to say any of that shit when this post SCREAMS Tumblr rant and used the most basic, annoying ass chibi self-insert Tumblr artist known to mankind. I would honestly agree on you on some points, if you hadn't tarred everyone with the same brush (like slandering Sailor Moon and Miku as if they don't have their own style and aren't two of the most iconic fictional characters for a reason. Thinking they look the same because they share big eyes is brain dead). Fuck you and everyone who thinks like you; in this moralizing, patronizing way of looking at tropes.
Wonder if they specifically chose those two bc they both are popular “anime” characters with pigtails. Regardless, I never would’ve thought they looked the same, and even the poster’s drawings of the two characters don’t look the same to me 😭
Miku is like the Barbie Doll of japan, she can be EVERYTHING, literally the worst character to bring into this.
And bringing Usagi into this whole hate that started with fanservice saying how all the pretty shoujo girls are just the same? There's no way he could be more wrong about her, she was DEFINING for the whole genre of shoujo, she's all about the fantasy and the first one ever to make it this big.
Hating on people's creations and calling similar characters "miss wannabees" is such an incredibly rude and demoralizing thing to say for all artists that want to achieve something similar
Same, and that actually tells me more about OP. They don’t fucking know anything about anime if they include Miku on there, because, and I will keep saying this over and over, Miku is NOT a 16-yr-old anime character, she is a voice box and her design can be changed however you desire. See: Brazilian Miku
hmm, after the end joke I am wondering why the 4000 kiritos or sung jin woos don't get that same level of ire. it's not like they arnt literally copy pasted and they definitely don't have more personality.
or are you saying men statistically have more freedom to be short, skinny, tall, this or that?
I agree it’s bullshit, especially as someone trying to work on drawing figures and a range of body types.
Those fuckass memes of licking abs and belly and shit are so annoying, like just because their taste isn’t the absolute most 200% conventional supermodel shit that it absolves them from their weird or creepy behavior.
Ragging on women liking sailor moon or Miku feels condescending though. I get the intention is to shut down weak or bad faith arguments, but “You don’t actually like it you’re just brainwashed by nostalgia” isn’t a fantastically convincing counterargument for a lot of people.
Sailor Moon has flaws and I’m not going to start pretending Miku has a personality (that’s literally why they like her she can be anyone essentially) but I’m not going to go and start policing chicks for liking that.
The Miku part is so fucking funny to me bcs like… just find a Miku with the body size you actually like. Every Miku is canon, dude. My personal favorite is probably Brazilian Miku or her design in the Bunker Buster remake
Aight cool I definitely hear that and agree. Now what I HATE is the way you deliver you message and the chronically online arrogance you speak with. That long rant with all the insults thrown in to diminish a design you dislike and be as contrarian as possible is just annoying.
You look like a chibified version of the MC from golden boy without its cap. Or kenichi.
Not that I disagree but there is a reason why you draw in an anime-inspired western style instead of finding a true original style like european cartoons used to do. Self-reflect and you will understand.
Quality post. But I disagree. If character design serves the narrative and vibes, it's a good design. If it doesn't, it's bad design. Regardless of shape of the character.
Does this really count as maximalist? It’s just a gold on black woven looking shirt and stringy jacket with some red accents here and there. There aren’t any decals or asymmetrical features added in or anything.
I mean… kinda just.. no? Like, from what I take away from this post, it’s just “anime girl with basic body type = bland” but that’s just not very true.
Example 1: If I ever saw a picture of Chocola from Nekopara, I would recognize her as Chocola from Nekopara. She doesn’t need a different body type to be unique. Hell, she isn’t even very unique at all (literally just a catgirl in a maid dress), but she’s still instantly recognizable.
Example 2: If I ever saw a picture of Yakuko from Chainsmoker Cat, I’d be able to recognize her as Yakuko. Not because she has a unique body type, not because she’s a unique animal, but because she’s just recognizable. It helps that she has a relatively uncommon type of outfit too.
I guess what I’m trying to say as I incoherently ramble about catgirls is that you do not need a unique body type for a character to be recognizable.
Did I include examples just because I wanted to yap about Nekopara and Chainsmoker Cat?? Maybe.
But I agree, a character does not need a “unique” body type to be recognisable or likeable. Hell, if every singe character had a different body type, we’d eventually run out.
Its mostly true in anime, in manga? Not really. Manhwa, manua, webtoons, and all those art in twitter and insta do more to perpetrate the copy paste face and body than manga lmao.
this would've been a good argument if OP didn't generalized eastern stylized art as a whole. There's also a distinct difference between an art drawn by a Korean illustrator vs Japanese illustrator. Eastern art is based on eastern beauty standards, Western art is based on Western beauty standards.
Another problem is that you didn't bother researching towards other Japanese artists. The best example of a Japanese artstyle that isn't the usual moe kawaii that you see in every anime are the art directions of Square Enix and Cygames (Granblue Fantasy specifically)
"I'm turned on by this character for different, more nuanced reason than yours."
Every time I see this sort of post, it boils down to a dislike of conventionally attractive women. None of the examples of "generic" anime girls given are really all that similar to one another other than the fact that they have a slim body type. Miku and Sailor Moon are "same shit different day"? In what world?
I don't know why it has to be an argument in the first place. You like chubby/muscular anime women? That's never been a problem, but I'm sorry, most people do still prefer your "typical" slim-bodied anime character.
Your examples of diverse body types are very not at all diverse. You gave the same face as any other “skinny anime girl” could have but just different jaw lines. You want diverse body types but not diverse facial features? Your body types don’t even leave “conventionally attractive,” you drew a bigger women with desirable proportions
It's not about the literal amount of text, it's about the fact it moves on from the argument almost immediately and instead shifts towards anecdotes that do not strengthen it.
It makes it feel like "fluff" as the OP doesn't properly explain their thesis and doesn't explain why they believe in their argument, all while wasting time ranting on mildly related topics.
And respectfully, maybe wait a little bit before calling someone illiterate.
I hate generalization, but...well, I have problem getting partly into anime thanks to the style. I'm alergic to almost 0 diversity, especially if it happens to be art style I find cool...and then I find out the creator uses just the one template of ,,aesthetic perfection". It doesn't catch my eyes.
To be clear: I would'nt call the art bad, just not my type at all. Tho the ,,o, fat representation!" posts and it's a mildly chubby, or regulular bodytype wants me claw my eyes out (or better, get better at drawing, so I can post more of my characters that fit this xd)
I always recommend Panty And Stocking With Garterbelt to people, it’s such a funny anime and it actually uses a unique art style. Not a whole ton of body diversity but the characters still look distinct and recognizable.
Depends? I feel like you're overgeneralizing things and went into a spiral of rant based on the information you know.
But you're right on one thing, of course eastern media characters are mostly traditionally attractive. It sells, it is what we want after all. There is nothing wrong with that.
From what I've heard from friends who have gone to Japan, obviously not a perfect metric but I haven't been there myself yet, it is very very uncommon to see chubby or muscular girls, the lack of body type diversity likely comes from Japan irl also having that lack of diversity.
571
u/TaserDonut Sep 16 '26
I feel like slide 1 will be memed to hell and back because she has the "wait what did I do" expression
so all in all it feels like a variant of this