How Important are Character Designs to You?

[ShiroiHikari]

I guess I don't understand the idea of being literally repulsed by art styles. People say One Piece is so ugly they can't watch it; to me, that is unfathomable. Character design/art style is more or less tertiary for me, meaning that the two most important things about a show are story and characters. An art style that I find aesthetically pleasing and high animation quality are nice bonuses.

For example, I do think that the art style and animation of Gundam SEED were both pretty crap, but if the writing and story had actually been good, I would've been able to overlook that. Instead, pretty much EVERYTHING about it sucked, so I pick on the art style. It didn't have character design so much as...well, I dunno what you'd call it, but I'm partial to the term "sameface". Switching the hair styles and colors around does not make for good character design, and that's pretty much all Hirai does.

This is why I can appreciate something like One Piece, where the character design is actually good. They have different faces and body types and outfits, and things like that. The art style may be "weird" but you can't deny that the actual character designs are creative and fun.

[blkmage]

My point was that character design has to be judged within the context of the show. One Piece was an example because people dislike its style rather than its character design. Cross Game was an example because it has a notorious case of sameface. Obviously, the character designs in Cross Game are more constrained by realism, but there are similar shows that do far better in that area. Oofuri is an immediate one that comes to mind.

And I never said it makes the work inherently less good or that there's any sort of scale; remember, I don't think style or character design has that much bearing, given the kinds of shows I watch. At the same time, I'm not going to pretend Adachi is a master of character design when I mix up Aoba and Ko on occasion.

[Sapphire225]

I said important; there will be some exceptions to anime where the character designs are not my preference, but I end up liking the show anyway (such as One Piece and Soul Eater), but usually how the character designs are, as well as the art of the environment and objects speak alot about an anime.

For example, you have to admit that it is pretty refreshing to see several anime characters of different shapes and sizes than anime characters that look like clones with different hairstyle and color.

Also, it would be nice for females in anime to wear enough clothes that would be socially acceptable rather than wear unfathomably short skirts and midriffs (I think I spelt it right). As well as for them to have realistic bust sizes.

[TheSubtleDoctor]

My point was that character design has to be judged within the context of the show.

I thought my reply made it obvious that I understood this point. To be clear: I do get what you're saying, I just disagree with you.

One Piece was an example because people dislike its style rather than its character design. Cross Game was an example because it has a notorious case of sameface.

Again, I totally understood what you were saying here and replied to exactly this point. The reason I refered to a fictitious scale of Oda to Adaichi was so I wouldn't have to write out long form "a scale of character designs that are all completely different to one another to character designs that are quite similar to one another" which, as you can see, takes longer to write.

Obviously, the character designs in Cross Game are more constrained by realism, but there are similar shows that do far better in that area. Oofuri is an immediate one that comes to mind...I'm not going to pretend Adachi is a master of character design when I mix up Aoba and Ko on occasion.

While Cross Game's two leads look quite a bit alike, I don't think that EVERY character in the show looks the same. I won't sit here and hold Adaichi up as an innovative character designer or argue against the fact that some of his characters look remarkably similar (as do characters in Big Windup)]other features[/B] of character designs that you can objectively evaluate apart from their similarity to the other designs in the context of their same show. Quality does not equal difference to the work's other characters; a lot of factors determine the quality of a character design.

One can participate in meaningful discussion about show X's character designs being better than those of show Y. I fail to see how such talk would be regarded as intrinsically hilarious or meaningless. For instance, it is perfectly licit to say something like, "The character designs in Cross Game are pretty similar to those in Slow Step, but Cross Game has better designs." Is there a special exception to the rule when comparing shows from the same creator? Why? If we can compare the designs in two such shows, why not two shows by different creators?

Also, you yourself compared the designs from One Piece to Cross Game and Big Windup to Cross Game. You picked out a feature of the designs, sameness of face, and said that according to this criteria, Cross Game's designs are bad and One Piece's are good and Big Windup's are better than Cross Game's. I didn't find your remarks meaningless at all. Your judgment about Adaichi's designs in cross Game isn't just based on their relationship to other Adaichi designs from cross Game; your evaluation also rooted in a catalog of various character designs that you have seen in anime and expectations you have formed based on those.

Sure, when you compare character designs you are analyzing the overall art direction of a show, but you are doing so specifically concerning the character designs...sort of like talking about animation quality of two shows by specifically focusing the discussion on character animation (as opposed to the animation of robots or missiles, or vehicles, etc.). You don't have to judge character animation against character animation in that same show (this would just be silly). The analogy isn't perfect: sue me =) I just wanted to be as clear as possible about what I mean.

A separate but related question: what is an anime's art style if not the character designs? Do we really need to parse the debate into character designs versus background and inanimate object designs?

And I never said it makes the work inherently less good or that there's any sort of scale; remember, I don't think style or character design has that much bearing, given the kinds of shows I watch

I didn't say that you thought the overall quality of the work was related to character designs. What I said was that, according to your reasoning, sameness in character designs, regardless of the designs' other merits, calls for us to label the quality of a work's character designs as poor, not the quality of the work as a whole.

Also, let the record show that I do find your distinction between evaluating art within the context of a show and comparing art to other shows to be a useful and important distinction.

[blkmage]

Actually, yeah, you're right. I think what I meant to say was in the other direction, that you can't judge character design without context. Otherwise, it does just boil down to 'do I like how this looks' rather than 'is this character well designed for its purpose'.

And yes, you absolutely can separate style from character design and it is definitely a meaningful distinction, see Hidamari Sketch vs. Madoka Magica or Honey and Clover vs. Eden of the East.

[the_wolfs_howl]

I'll admit I'm a bit confused as to the definition of "character design". What makes it different from just the overall art style of the anime? Is it stuff like "they draw so-and-so's hair like that," or is it just "Dr. Butterfly has a mustache shaped like a butterfly"? (Would Gankutsuou's weird thing with the clothes be considered character design or art style?)

Regardless, I don't find it terribly important to me. It's always nice if it appeals to my tastes, but if everything else was awesome, I'd be able to stand just about any kind of character/art style. I suppose it does affect what I think of the characters or the anime itself, but it doesn't completely ruin the enjoyment unless it's absolutely ridiculous (*cough*Moonface*cough*) or fanservicey.

I have noticed some irritation in myself with "sameface." There were two classmates in Kaitou Saint Tail who looked exactly the same except that one had brown hair and one had black - and I think they even had extremely similar names >_< And then there's two characters in Gunslinger Girl that looked so similar I could never tell them apart, which led to a lot of confusion when one got captured and the other wasn't

[Wallachia]

What makes it different from just the overall art style of the anime? Is it stuff like "they draw so-and-so's hair like that," or is it just "Dr. Butterfly has a mustache shaped like a butterfly"? (Would Gankutsuou's weird thing with the clothes be considered character design or art style?)

Regarding Gankutsuou - The Count of Monte Cristo's use of still patterns on everyone's clothes, that is definitely just the art style.

Now about character design. I believe good character designs should help you recognize a certain character instantly compared to other similar looking ones from any other show. Bad character design is when the artist was lazy and makes a fairly generic looking person whom you could place almost anywhere. That doesn't mean the character himself is bad, just that person in question is not very interesting to look at.

Here's a very questionable example:

[Maokun]

I'll chip in now on the topic of what is good or bad character design. While similarity of faces is something that betrays either laziness or amateurishness, I think it a smaller fault than say, grotesque anatomic disregard or plain ugliness of design.

When I say "ugliness" I don't mean that I think all characters should be beautiful: a good character designer can create really ugly people that are, however, interesting to look at and beautiful in their imperfection. Take Tokyo Godfathers or Spirited Away. Kubo Tite and Eichiro Oda are also really able to create amazing ugly characters. On the opposite hand, bad character designers will make ugly even the characters that are supposed to be beautiful, cue the biggest offender in my book, Kia Asamiya. All this might sound a bit shallow, but remember we're talking about a visual medium. If you want to compete in this league, you need to be aesthetically pleasant at least to a point.

The other factor I mentioned, anatomic correctness is not limited, as many surely suppose, to breast size. In fact, a good character designer can make a believable and proportionate character with unrealistic cup size (why he'd stoop to serve such mentality is another issue.) Rather, I'm talking of less notorious, but more telling flaws, such as shoulders and/or neck width, limbs length and overall proportion (seriously, the guy from XXXholic TV can go get stuffed,) hands/feet shape, ear placement, etc. You cannot get more factual about the quality of character design than anatomic correctness. A character designer with a poor grasp of anatomy is no better than an engineer bad at maths.

[ich1990]

Character design doesn't matter to me in the least.

That being said, I will always have a special place in my heart for the JoJo's and the Kaiji's and the One Piece's of the world who are willing to push beyond norms.

[Fish and Chips]

Character design doesn't matter to me in the least.

That being said, I will always have a special place in my heart for the JoJo's and the Kaiji's and the One Piece's of the world who are willing to push beyond norms.

Italian-American immigrant, circa 1890, according to Hirohiko Araki.

[ABlipinTime]

... And once again, we discover that "good" and "bad" character appearance is a subjective thing.

It would have been better to phrase the poll question as "Does character design that appeals to you help in getting you to watch a show?" or something along those lines.

As for what Maokun said:
That would be referring to talent of the artist, which may or may not be appealing. In which case, we could ask the question, "Does a well-detailed(??) or creative(??) character design help in getting you to watch a show?" or something like that.


There are certain things that certain groups of people agree they enjoy viewing or not viewing. We could do a poll (which I may or may not do) of a list of upcoming anime and ask "If you just had to choose on the basis of artwork or character design or what Maokun said, which of these shows would you watch?" (and allow for several choices). I bet we would find over a period of time that the results would be very broad, as in, many if not all of the shows would have at least one vote because someone likes the design.

Now, if someone would go out and find a chart of anime with a broad range of character designs, we could do this poll.

[Wallachia]

Now, if someone would go out and find a chart of anime with a broad range of character designs, we could do this poll.

This is the closest I've got.

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

You are my hero.

[Xeno]

Character design wasn't terribly important to me when I was still actively seeking out new shows to watch. If I liked the premise of the show I'd most likely watch. My favourite anime is Initial D and that show has terrible character design and Stages 1-3 plus Extra Stage 1 had awful cgi for the cars. By the same token, if the show looked like they didn't even try, then I might be put off, but I'm actually more put off by the super-sharp lines and cleanliness of a lot of the more recent shows I've seen. I miss the days of G-Gundam, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, and St. Luminous Mission High School.

[R86]

I'm talking of less notorious, but more telling flaws, such as shoulders and/or neck width, limbs length and overall proportion (seriously, the guy from XXXholic TV can go get stuffed,) hands/feet shape, ear placement, etc. You cannot get more factual about the quality of character design than anatomic correctness. A character designer with a poor grasp of anatomy is no better than an engineer bad at maths.

This. In fact I wish I could change my vote to "very important" or even "exceedingly important," now that I think about it. It is not at all rare for me to be unable to watch a show, or to decide not to watch a show in the first place, or to grit my teeth through a show with an otherwise acceptable story, because of grossly anatomically incorrect characters.

We expect stylization in anime, and in fact I believe that there is something about the characters not being too realistic that makes it easier for the story to go straight to our imagination. (This is just a theory of mine and I could be completely wrong.) But there is a line somewhere at which the human form is so distorted that it becomes difficult to "buy in," difficult to identify with the characters, difficult even to accept them as vehicles for certain gestures and types of emotional expression.

No doubt that line is in a different place for each of us. And no doubt that's as it should be. But I will stop here, because this is the third time I have tried to reply to this thread, the other two of which quickly degraded into rants against this or that particular show, which I would spare you all from. Thankfully Maokun more or less made my point for me.

[ABlipinTime]

http://www.christiananime.net/showthread.php?t=58721

Thank you, Wallachai, for the image.
The images are kinda small, but it should work anyways. What am I complaining about.

[blkmage]

Just saw a trailer for a new GONZO anime which prominently highlighted character designs by KEI and that got me wondering: do people who say they care about character design actually pay attention to who's doing character design? Obviously, this doesn't really apply to manga adaptations, since it's really obvious, but for visual novel adaptations or original productions, it does. Or, in the case of light novel adaptations, do you care who did the illustrations? For instance, when that trailer says KEI, do you know who KEI is and why that's a selling point?

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

Well, I personally have just been beginning to learn who all works on anime as staff, so I admittedly don't know who many character designers are. I'm thinking about watching Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari because Katsumi Enami did the character designs, and there are definitely some people I'd like to see do more character designs, like Yuusuke Nakamura or VOFAN.

[KhakiBlueSocks]

[font="Trebuchet MS"][SIZE="4"][color="RoyalBlue"]I just have one standing rule about my character design preferences:

I cannot, will not, shall not, and AM NOT, going to watch an anime that is done in the style of "Reign: The Conqueror".

That is all.[/color][/SIZE][/font]

[Gojira]

It doesn't matter to me that much, as long as they're not poorly drawn.