Just something that popped into my head while reading the "In Defense of Anime Women" thread. Why is it that modern anime has such a different visual style than the stuff from the 70's, 80's, and early 90's? People are always talking about how unrealistic the characters look, how characters that should look Asian look white, and so on, but this seems to be a relatively recent development. For example, I watched Akira last night, and darn it if every single character in that movie didn't look Japanese.
Now the following is going to have a lot of pictures, so please bear with me.
If you'll excuse the crappy quality of the picture, you can see that all of the hairstyles are realistic, and very few of them are in un-natural colors. Also, while very few of these characters look asian, very few of them are supposed to be asian, and the ones that are look like they could have come from somewhere in the appropriate part of Asia for the character. Captain Bright, for example, is supposed to be descended from English stock, while Hayato is of East Asian descent, and Lalah Sune (who isn't in the picture) is supposed to be of Indian descent.
Now compare this to the most recent spinoff series,
Once again, these characters are supposed to be from all over the world, but most of them barely even look human, let alone like a specific ethnicity of human.
Let's look at some even less crazy examples from older series
Now there's a character who looks not only human, but believably Japanese, minus the slight, Disney-like, exaggerations in the features. This was the norm at one point.
Again, characters from all over the world, who look like actual humans, and also have recognizable ethnicities.
Compare this to, say,
What are these things, martians?
Further, look at the images above. Why is it that the shading, colors, and everything else about the art style of the newer series is so flat, bright, and glossy compared to the older shows? It's hard to describe, but the newer series just look like shiny cardboard cutouts next to the older series, despite being generally more detailed and drawn with more attention to shading.
Finally, what is it with the way Anime tropes have developed over the years? It seems like the earlier series tended towards general story telling tropes, with very few tropes specific to Japanese animation. The newer shows, on the other hand? They're unmistakeably anime plot lines. If they were written down into novel form, it would still be really obvious where they came from. Why is this?
Any thoughts?
Now the following is going to have a lot of pictures, so please bear with me.
If you'll excuse the crappy quality of the picture, you can see that all of the hairstyles are realistic, and very few of them are in un-natural colors. Also, while very few of these characters look asian, very few of them are supposed to be asian, and the ones that are look like they could have come from somewhere in the appropriate part of Asia for the character. Captain Bright, for example, is supposed to be descended from English stock, while Hayato is of East Asian descent, and Lalah Sune (who isn't in the picture) is supposed to be of Indian descent.
Now compare this to the most recent spinoff series,
Once again, these characters are supposed to be from all over the world, but most of them barely even look human, let alone like a specific ethnicity of human.
Let's look at some even less crazy examples from older series
Now there's a character who looks not only human, but believably Japanese, minus the slight, Disney-like, exaggerations in the features. This was the norm at one point.
Again, characters from all over the world, who look like actual humans, and also have recognizable ethnicities.
Compare this to, say,
What are these things, martians?
Further, look at the images above. Why is it that the shading, colors, and everything else about the art style of the newer series is so flat, bright, and glossy compared to the older shows? It's hard to describe, but the newer series just look like shiny cardboard cutouts next to the older series, despite being generally more detailed and drawn with more attention to shading.
Finally, what is it with the way Anime tropes have developed over the years? It seems like the earlier series tended towards general story telling tropes, with very few tropes specific to Japanese animation. The newer shows, on the other hand? They're unmistakeably anime plot lines. If they were written down into novel form, it would still be really obvious where they came from. Why is this?
Any thoughts?
