Is the anime industry going through a change in drawing style?

[Yes]

Does it seem like the art styles for anime are changing? I use
Crunchyroll to watch anime, so I'm not sure my impression reflects
general changes to the drawing style in the anime industry or not. It
just seems like the way anime characters are drawn in the current
series CR carries are starker than series from even just last year. "A
Certain Magical Index" is an example. The drawing style in season 3 is
very different to me compared to that of seasons 1 and 2.

And I can't place my finger on it, but it seems like new series (to me,
that is) are also using a different drawing style than from what I've
seen in previous years. I guess "Goblin Slayer" and "Golden Kamuy" are
examples of the art style re: the depiction of character faces and
landscapes e.g. I'm noticing.

I don't know where any anime series are from, but when I look at the
way the anime is drawn, I just wonder if what I'm noticing in the art
work is due to the country in which an anime is produced or if I'm
seeing a change due to an industry-wide re-think. Does country of
origin of the anime enter into the way the anime is drawn? There are
times when, looking at the credits, I get the feeling that the anime is
not from Japan but another country.


Thanks,

John

[Dave Baranyi]

Post by Yes
Does it seem like the art styles for anime are changing? I use
Crunchyroll to watch anime, so I'm not sure my impression reflects
general changes to the drawing style in the anime industry or not. It
just seems like the way anime characters are drawn in the current
series CR carries are starker than series from even just last year. "A
Certain Magical Index" is an example. The drawing style in season 3 is
very different to me compared to that of seasons 1 and 2.
And I can't place my finger on it, but it seems like new series (to me,
that is) are also using a different drawing style than from what I've
seen in previous years. I guess "Goblin Slayer" and "Golden Kamuy" are
examples of the art style re: the depiction of character faces and
landscapes e.g. I'm noticing.
I don't know where any anime series are from, but when I look at the
way the anime is drawn, I just wonder if what I'm noticing in the art
work is due to the country in which an anime is produced or if I'm
seeing a change due to an industry-wide re-think. Does country of
origin of the anime enter into the way the anime is drawn? There are
times when, looking at the credits, I get the feeling that the anime is
not from Japan but another country.
Thanks,
John

Anime art styles change all the time. Many anime are based upon published manga series and the styles in manga have changed continuously too over the years. Usually the art styles in anime that are based upon manga try to duplicate the style of the manga.

So, for example, the art style in "Karakuri Circus" looks different from say, "Golden Kamuy" not only because the mangas for each have different authors/artists but because Karakuri Circus is based upon a 20 year old manga series whereas the manga for Golden Kamuy is still being published.

When you look at very long running anime/manga series like "Meitantei Conan" ("Dectective Conan"), which has been running since 1996, or "One Piece" which has been running since 1998, you can see an evolution in the artwork too, although the general "look" has remained similar. (Check out the first episode of each and then look at the most recent episode of each and compare the artwork, the character designs, the line work and the colour palates.)

Art always changes and anime/manga are no exception.

Cheers -

Dave Baranyi

[Yes]

Post by Dave Baranyi

Post by Yes
Does it seem like the art styles for anime are changing? I use
Crunchyroll to watch anime, so I'm not sure my impression reflects
general changes to the drawing style in the anime industry or not.
It just seems like the way anime characters are drawn in the current
series CR carries are starker than series from even just last year.
"A Certain Magical Index" is an example. The drawing style in
season 3 is very different to me compared to that of seasons 1 and
2.
And I can't place my finger on it, but it seems like new series (to
me, that is) are also using a different drawing style than from
what I've seen in previous years. I guess "Goblin Slayer" and
"Golden Kamuy" are examples of the art style re: the depiction of
character faces and landscapes e.g. I'm noticing.
I don't know where any anime series are from, but when I look at the
way the anime is drawn, I just wonder if what I'm noticing in the
art work is due to the country in which an anime is produced or if
I'm seeing a change due to an industry-wide re-think. Does country
of origin of the anime enter into the way the anime is drawn?
There are times when, looking at the credits, I get the feeling
that the anime is not from Japan but another country.
Thanks,
John

Anime art styles change all the time. Many anime are based upon
published manga series and the styles in manga have changed
continuously too over the years. Usually the art styles in anime that
are based upon manga try to duplicate the style of the manga.
So, for example, the art style in "Karakuri Circus" looks different
from say, "Golden Kamuy" not only because the mangas for each have
different authors/artists but because Karakuri Circus is based upon a
20 year old manga series whereas the manga for Golden Kamuy is still
being published.
When you look at very long running anime/manga series like "Meitantei
Conan" ("Dectective Conan"), which has been running since 1996, or
"One Piece" which has been running since 1998, you can see an
evolution in the artwork too, although the general "look" has
remained similar. (Check out the first episode of each and then look
at the most recent episode of each and compare the artwork, the
character designs, the line work and the colour palates.)
Art always changes and anime/manga are no exception.
Cheers -
Dave Baranyi

I suppose it was the art work differences in "A certain Magical Index"
in the current season compared to previous seasons that caught me by
surprise. The characters are drawn so differently (to me) that they
were almost unrecognizable.

And I was wondering if country of origin played a part too. For
example, IIRC, the series called something like "Fox Matchmaker" seems
to have two alternative versions, one localized for China and another
for Japan (not sure if that's the correct geographic local term). The
plot is pretty much the same with a slightly different emphasis but the
artwork is definitely different. And with other series, I'm unable to
place which country an anime is from but the character set in the
credits look different from those I've associated as being 'Japanese'
in origin, but I'm not sure if that perception is true or just due to
the story and art work being unlike what I'd grown accustomed to
watching from previous years. As you can probably tell, I haven't
studied Japanese nor the other Asian languages, just have read enough
comments to know that each of the countries have different character
sets, such that when the opening and ending credits are displayed, I
can sort of tell there's a difference but can't identify specifics.
Time and watching more anime will help, it's just that it'd be nice to
know where the anime was made to put it into a generalized frame of
reference.

The best analogy I can make is with the film industry. U.S. films have
a different feel to them when compared with those from England, France,
Germany, etc. The film styles are different and it helps me to enjoy
and appreciate the movie for what it is.

John

[a***@gmail.com]

How Anime art has changed:

https://kotaku.com/how-anime-art-has-changed-an-explainer-1656750480

https://kotaku.com/how-anime-art-has-changed-since-2010-1820000213

[Yes]

Post by a***@gmail.com
https://kotaku.com/how-anime-art-has-changed-an-explainer-1656750480
https://kotaku.com/how-anime-art-has-changed-since-2010-1820000213

Thanks. The comparison along with descriptions of the changes are
fascinating. I've always enjoyed watching animation, starting with the
cartoons from my youth and the Disney movies, especially a film like
Fantasia. I've read short, non-academic articles showing the changes
over time of Mickey Mouse and its related characters. And I've also
read academic tracts covering some of the changes over time re: Western
art movements. So trying to understand what's going on with the anime
industry in Japan and other countries is intriguing.

John

[Nick Bowler]

Post by a***@gmail.com
https://kotaku.com/how-anime-art-has-changed-an-explainer-1656750480

I expect some of the 1990s-versus-2010s differences are at least in part
directly due to technological advances, in particular the transition
away from thick lines and high contrast details. Essentially everything
animated in the 90s was traditional cel animation and essentially
everything in the 2010s is a fully digital process all the way from
drawing to display.

A lot of television animation in the 90s would have been designed for
analog NTSC broadcast in mind and very fine details would tend to get
lost in transmission, or worse, even damage nearby parts of the image
due to how NTSC ("Never Twice the Same Colour") signals are encoded.

There are also degradations inherent to the cel process: when you stack
up a bunch of cels the lower layers lose sharpness.

Various forms of film processing used at the time also introduced its
own image degradation, for example a typical process used to overlay
titles on the image involves several film-to-film transfers with a loss
of resolution at each step.

All of that is irrelevant with digital animation and high definition
digital broadcasts, there is essentially zero loss of detail at any
step so animators are free to include much more fine detail than
before.

Then we have shows like "Megalobox" where the animators intentionally
crippled their process by using modern techniques but doing everything
at low resolution in order to get back some of the "feeling" of old
school animation.