Category Archives: art

The “Curse” of Redline’s Aesthetic

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Ever since before its actual release, Redline has been getting a lot of buzz among anime reviewers who have noted the look of the film, incredibly unique especially in today’s anime environment with a good deal of exquisite animation and attention to detail. The crowds are full of life and interesting alien designs. The vehicles used for racing are all incredibly stylish and showcase the wide array of personalities in the film. Redline oozes style and panache. However, for as refreshing as Redline‘s art is, it appears to be a double-edged sword through no fault of its own.

The “problem” with Redline‘s art is that it apparently makes people think the movie has no story, that it’s nothing but a pretty face, and has little to offer people who are interested in characterization and narrative. This is a mistake.

I’ll explain what I mean by just using the introduction to the film.

The movie begins with the Yellow Line race, a preliminary to the main “Redline” race which everyone in the galaxy looks forward to. The main character is Sweet JP, and based on the fact that it’s the start of the film, it’s easy to assume that we’ll know what will happen. If it’s a race designed to make JP look impressive, he’ll win. If he’s supposed to look like an underdog, he’ll lose. But then Redline throws us two seemingly contradictory bits of information. First, JP is a notorious for purposely throw races for profit. Second, JP really loves to race and has a passion for high-speed shenanigans. Just from that bit of information, the outcome of the race becomes ambiguous, as does JP’s character. How can a guy who fixes races enjoy himself behind the wheel that much? It gives Sweet JP a sense of mystery, and as the Yellow Line race builds up towards its climax, the question isn’t simply “will JP win or lose?” but rather “what kind of person is JP?” Would he give up money for the opportunity to enter Redline? It makes for a compelling protagonist, and it’s done with a good degree of subtlety.

I think part of the issue might be that Redline‘s frenetic, intense, and to some extent macho style makes people think that a show like that can’t have some heart, and even if the reviewers think otherwise, it doesn’t come across in the way they talk about it. While I do think that the aesthetic of Redline is such a prominent part of the film that if you dislike the way it looks you probably won’t enjoy it, I strongly believe that someone who is merely neutral towards the look of Redline can still get a ton of enjoyment out of it. Let’s not forget those potential viewers.

Explaining Decompression in Comics

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“Decompression” has been a hot topic in the American comics community for a number of years now. Characterized by a high panel count with each individual panel being relatively “light” on information, it is noted as being the primary mode of panel progression in manga as well as an increasing presence in American comics. Among superhero fans however, it seems to garner a particularly adamant resistance, one that goes as far as to champion “compressed” storytelling in contrast to it.

A cursory investigation on the topic of decompression on comics sites and blogs results in far greater instances of harsh criticism aimed at decompression than ones defending it, with the criticisms usually pointing out a lack of paneling efficiency or an unsatisfactory amount of story development within a given chapter. Because of the thin, monthly format release traditional to superhero comics, decompression is thus characterized as being a waste of not only time and (page) space, but also money. “Why show in five panels what you could easily show in one or two?” is the question lobbed at manga and decompressed comics in general.

Panel efficiency, and for that matter storytelling efficiency in general, is important. A story which gives the impression that it is wasting a reader’s time is a story that will probably never finish for the reader, but what is most fascinating about the criticisms directed towards decompressed storytelling is how it reveals the priorities and values of the American comics community. Consider the following comment from 2004:

Amazingly, at a time when new comic titles are lucky to survive beyond 12 issues, we are seeing comics where an entire month is devoted to the protagonist talking to his girlfriend. Most of us have had relationships that didn’t last that long. It is only a matter of time before we will see a superhero title get cancelled before the hero even makes his first appearance in costume. Imagine “Superman” getting the axe just before the rocket lands in Smallville.

…

No wonder it now takes five issues for Spider-Man to beat the Green Goblin nowadays.

As well as this one from 2007:

It’s a city in the future (a bagel breakfast cost 9 dollars, some futuristic cars and ad scrolls, the parking meters, the coffee cup disintegrates before it hits the ground).
The main character is black and looks like Avery Brooks, as someone pointed out to me when issue #6 came out. (Sorry, I can’t remember who it was.)

Umm … yeah, that’s it. Four panels for that???? If you found this comic page floating along our hypothetical street after someone in a fit of pique after spending 3 bucks on this ripped it out and hurled it to its fate, you would know absolutely nothing about this comic book except that it’s set in the future. That’s it. Would that make you want to buy the book?

They make a fair point. You don’t want a story with so little content that it becomes completely forgettable. However, from the above statements, you can begin to see how the concept of “content” is defined by the American superhero comics community. Content is a superhero getting their first costume. Content is Kal-El’s ship crashing in Smallville, Kansas. Content is Spider-Man foiling the Green Goblin. In other words, “content” consists of crystallized plot points within a story, things you can point to in a summary however large or small to say, “these are the moments of importance.” What content is not, apparently, is the silent expression of a moment in time or an entire month devoted to a main character and his relationship with his girlfriend. That those elements are considered to be superfluous to what “really matters” is, I think, the root of major misconceptions when it comes to understanding decompression or manga-style paneling.

If you were to go up to a manga author and say to them, “Your manga wastes the vast majority of its space,” they would probably look at you incredulously, because efficiency in page layout is actually very important for manga creators. If you then pointed to a Silver Age superhero comic as an example of brilliant economization of panels, they would probably react with still more disbelief, amazed at how much the page seems to be weighed down by its own contents. This is because the concept of “panel efficiency” is defined differently between the American superhero comics tradition and Japanese comics tradition. The difference can be summarized to some extent as the contrast between efficiency defined as the greatest amount of “stuff” packed into the smallest amount of space possible and efficiency defined as a slick, streamlined experience, but that doesn’t quite tell the whole story.

Above is a scene from Genshiken, a comic about a group of nerds who hang out together. It’s one of my favorite moments from my favorite manga about my favorite character, to the extent that I use it for the Ogiue Maniax banner. In it, Ogiue, the girl with the “paintbrush” hair and this blog’s namesake, has just witnessed a frivolous argument between two guys in her club, and is using that as fuel for an elaborate fantasy involving the two guys as romantic partners. Partway through, she tries to curb her imagination, but it’s so futile that she seamlessly transitions back into the fantasy.

Looking at those two pages, this moment is expressed in 11 panels. While you could make this scene more “efficient” in the American comics sense and just drop it down to maybe three or so panels—one for her beginning to fantasize, one for her trying to stop, and one for her continuing—it would change the very nature of this scene. It wouldn’t necessarily be a “worse” depiction, but the emphasis would be different. In panel 2, you see a closeup of Ogiue’s face with no text. From it, you can sense that the gears in her head are beginning to turn. Then, in the subsequent panels, the thought comes to life, growing slowly as if it has a pulse and rhythm all its own. The panels show Ogiue from different angles with varying expressions on her face, punctuated every so often by a brief pause, allowing the reader to see into her mind, not just in terms of what she’s thinking, but the process by which her thoughts unfold. So while the broad arc is “fantasize, pause, fantasize,” it is the “decompression” of that moment which gives it strength as a moment of characterization.

You may be thinking that the reason I like these pages are because of the fact that Ogiue is in them, but it’s actually quite the opposite. Moments like these are why I grew to like Ogiue in the first place.

Decompression in comics is not the same as having “natural-sounding dialogue” or having a moment feel more “realistic.” While those end up having a presence in many decompressed comics, especially in many of the American comics which have been in that vein, they’re not the reason decompression happens. Instead, decompression is about giving moments in a comic room to breathe, to show that those spaces in between the “major points” are important in their own way, or perhaps just as, if not more important. The result is that it affects everything else in the comic, from characterization to page design.

A “decompressed” comic packed into the same space as a “compressed” comic can have just as much content depending on how you define “content.”

That is not to say that decompression can be used as a default excuse to defend the pacing of a comic. A comic which meanders, whether it’s manga or a superhero comic, can be enormously frustrating, but there is a big difference between “being slow” and “being directionless,” and the idea that “nothing is happening” may actually just be based on a pre-existing valuation of certain traditional elements within American comics that was less emphasized in Japanese comics. It is also important that decompression not be considered automatically a better form of comics expression, because the artistic tradition that has grown out of superhero comics is just as valid as any other. The rich “information density” of a “compressed” comic is its own sort of adventure, and you can even find some manga that utilize it to a certain degree, such as the work of Shirow Masamune (Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed). On that note, it would also be a mistake to say that a comic of purely decompressed panels is better than one consisting of entirely compressed panels. This is because not only is it impossible to truly achieve both (even the most “decompressed” panels involve some compression and vice versa), but also because individual execution and personal preference play enormous roles at that point. Perhaps some of the trouble brought on by the presence of decompression has less to do with the properties of the concept and more to do with the growing pains that have come from transitioning and adapting it into the American superhero comics culture.

Sometimes I think “decompression” is both the right and wrong word to describe this style of storytelling in comics. On the one hand, it does a good job of bringing to mind the “room to breathe” concept, emphasizing the lingering, undefinable inner emotions of a character or growing tension or the blow-by-blow impact of a fight scene. On the other hand, it also implies that the “significant” portions of the story are being pushed further apart from each other, when what is really happening is that the “small” moments are being regarded as anything but.

Testing Out Comipo!

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Get the trial version here.

Objectification of the Vaunted…or Something? (NSFW)

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When I look at certain cheesecake-oriented American comics such as Lady Death, Vampirella, and Taboo, I find that they bother me in a way that fanservicey manga, anime, etc. do not. It’s something I haven’t entirely figured out why, but there’s an inkling somewhere in my mind that tells me to head a certain direction. This post is the exploration of that feeling.

Before I start though, I’m going to have to point out that the images used in this post may be considered not work-safe. Careful!

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Lack of Variation, or Lack Thereof

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I think it’s common when discussing anime and manga with people who are perhaps only barely acquainted with those subjects to hear from them that “anime all looks the same.” You can point to plenty of titles with variation in theme, art style, writing, you name it, but there is still that sense that all anime has a similar feel. Usually I’m the one trying to explain how diverse those comics can be, but in a recent visit to a comic shop, I found myself somewhat on the receiving end.

In this case, it wasn’t manga but rather American comics that gave me pause to consider. Not really keeping up with those comics as I had in the past, I was looking at the rack where they have the weekly 32-page (or so) issues, your Avengers and Batman and what-not mixed with titles from smaller publishers, seeing what might be interesting. Then it hit me. Everything kind of looked the same. I could obviously see that there were many different artists working on each comic, but there were just certain shared elements that made it feel like one big monolith of a wall.

I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I feel like it might just be the sheer emphasis on Olympian physiques which exists in not only superhero comics but other action-type works as well. Be it male characters or female ones, what I can mainly remember from those covers is just how prominent the toned bodies on them are. It could also be something about the characters’ facial expressions.

I know better, and I can point to this or that indie title or graphic novel to show that’s why it isn’t the case, but I think that my reaction might not be that far from the person, let’s say an anime fan, who takes one look at the American comics section and finds little variety in it. At the same time, I’m also aware of how easily something like manga can be perhaps unfairly summarized by just a glance.

The Manga Amber of Otaku Hardcore

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Sometimes the really hardcore otaku manga out there are criticized for holding back anime and manga, for catering mainly towards maniacs who want their series to look and feel a certain way, and in doing so restrict the respectability that comes with artistic variety. But as much as topics like fanservice and moe exist prominently in these sorts of criticisms, and as much as there’s the image of the anime fan with seasonal short term memory, I feel that having hardcore devotees of anime and manga allows certain drawing styles to exist in comics even well after their heyday has passed.

70s-style shoujo manga is called such for a reason, and unless you’re Miuchi Suzue drawing Glass Mask and you’re literally a 70s shoujo manga artist still drawing to this day, it’s hard for an artist to draw in that manner and succeed on a mainstream level, especially if they’re a younger artist. Sure, you could put some blame on otaku liking more modern styles, but it stretches well beyond that demographic to the average reader, and the otaku magazines also seem like the only places left where someone can draw 70s shoujo-inspired comics and be appreciated for it.

One example I can think of is the title Christie High Tension, a detective series centering around the niece of Sherlock Holmes. She learned the game from her Uncle Holmes, and now she’s heir to the name Jaaaames B- uh, in any case it has an art style straight out of that Candy Candy/Rose of Versailles vein, and it runs in the same magazine as Dance in the Vampire Bund of all things.

Certainly you couldn’t call it “progress,” as it’s more a kind of preservation of the past, but I know that I always feel a little sadness when I look back to older manga art, and ask where this all went. It’s not really about lamenting the changes that have happened to manga, so much as it is wishing that as trends develop, the old ones still don’t end up being forgotten, that manga continues to increase its variety.

Doctor Who Anime Fan-Trailer: Good Skills, But…

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Translator Paul “Otaking” Johnson, probably most famous on the internet for his criticism of fansubbers (not the illegal part but that they draw too much attention to themselves) and his particular views on how anime should look (five-tone shading), recently released a finished preview of his Doctor Who anime treatment. Taking the iconic British science fiction hero and putting him in Japan, the whole thing lasts 12 minutes. While Johnson has since taken the Doctor Who video down, I still want to give my impression of it, and you can still find previous versions around.

I’ve been critical of Johnson in the past over his adherence to “five-tone shading.”  There was never anything inherently wrong with the concept of “five-tone shading,” and my criticisms were primarily that there are a variety of ways for anime to look good, that budget inevitably plays a factor, and that if you disregard all shows that don’t use that shading style, you look down on not just current anime but also anime from before the 1980s. But it being a few years and all, I had to wonder what he’d learned since then.

Now I am not a fan of Doctor Who as much as I have never actually watched it, so I cannot judge this preview animation based on how well it captures the Doctor Who spirit. Anything I know about it is from reading the internet. I also understand that it’s more a proof of concept, not a trailer or anything that requires a storyline, so I won’t say anything about plot coherency. Having done a bit of animation in the past myself, I can tell that Johnson has talent and put a lot of work into this project.

But it still doesn’t look good, and while that doesn’t preclude an animation project from being all right overall, it is a problem for Johnson who prides himself on understanding what makes anime look good, especially because the preview is meant to be a visual showcase.

There are certainly elements of it which look impressive, bits and pieces that stand out and grab your attention, but taken as a whole, it is less than the sum of its parts. I do not mean that the characters sometimes look off or that the animation goes sour at times, because that sort of thing happens. The real issue stems not from a lack of technical skill or any minor flubs, but from an inherent flaw in Johnson’s aesthetic philosophy.

Five-tone shading is not the entirety of the problematic philosophy, but its effects are very clear in the work itself and so a good place to start. Again, there is nothing wrong with thinking five-tone animation looks better, but just about very single character and object in the animation has this in spades, to the point that it becomes overwhelming. Everything is so specifically made to have that elaborate shading scheme that it is difficult to look at. Characters are frequently as prominent as their surroundings, the foreground is often times difficult to differentiate from the background, and it just ends up as a garish mess. It’s just too much. There are plenty of anime out there which use that shading method, but they don’t overwork it into every single thing all the time to the degree that everyone and everything fights for your attention.

Another problem is that when you’re animating with five-tone shading constantly, it becomes difficult to maintain the shadows while in motion. One need only look at the original, pre-release animation from Super Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix to see this problem. They originally went for a similar shading style there, but it causes shadows to be inconsistent and to “pop” unnaturally unless a lot of care is taken. There are limitations to five-tone shading, among then simply time and manpower. When five-tone shading is used as an absolute rule, those limitations become even more apparent.

It’s not just shading which can create this problem, but also character design, which is why a show like Turn A Gundam has relatively simplistic ones. This is also another area where the Doctor Who anime preview runs into problems, because much like with the shading, the character designs have too many aesthetic bells and whistles as the result of a particular desire for 80s anime-level “intensity.” All of the characters look dated as a result.

I can potentially see why someone would think that I’m criticizing 80s/90s character designs as a whole for not being “new” enough, I should clarify my point. Everyone, with possibly the exception of the Doctor himself, looks like they were inspired by a 1980s version of a “How to Draw Anime” book in the sense that the characters all look like they were made with the idea that this is how anime characters are supposed to look, down to the hairstyles and the little details. This is most prominent with the character of “The Master,” whose eyes make him look like a 17 year old wearing a fake beard. Certainly there are actual anime out there which are also guilty of this, but it’s still something to be aware of.

I could touch on more aspects, but I’m not trying to nitpick little flaws as much as I’m using them as examples of how the basic approach to this project has problems. Again, the whole project is impressively made, but the overall flaw with Johnson’s animation style is that he sticks too closely to his beliefs about how anime “should” look. Because the aesthetic philosophy upon which that’s founded is underdeveloped and incomplete, it results in a work where certain elements, such as shading detail and particular character traits, have been rendered extensively but at the expense of fundamental aspects like visual clarity and not forcing characters into overt visual tropes just because that’s how things were done. There is nothing inherently wrong with the desire for elaborate visuals in everything, but it alone cannot act as a visual foundation.

Sonya Blade is an Awful Character

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With the recent release of Mortal Kombat 9, a lot of beloved figures in the Mortal Kombat franchise have been re-designed to look both modern and reminiscent of their very 90s character designs in an effort to bring the series back to its old school roots. Remembering that Sonya Blade’s design was absolutely awful in the previous game, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, sporting the most ridiculous shirt ever, I wondered how they would portray her in this iteration. While the new design is an improvement, it makes me realize that Sonya is actually just a terribly-designed character.

Here is Sonya throughout her 3-D fighting game history, away from the live actor portrayals that characterized Mortal Kombats 1 through 3. If you did not tell me that they were all supposed to be the same character, I simply would not be able to tell. Nothing is consistent about her, short of the fact that she’s blonde, has big tits, and shows an exposed midriff. Sonya Blade is a terrible design because she is a non-design.

While she could be criticized for having an over-sized, unrealistic chest and ridiculously skimpy outfits, that’s not really the point here, as the scantily clad and jiggling girls of Dead or Alive share those properties in spades and yet are still distinctive even when they’re wearing 1 cm-thick bikinis and taken out of a relative comparison with each other. Nor is the problem that her design is too generic, as the Virtua Fighter series is all about cookie-cutter characters, and yet whether it’s the blocky and outdated graphics of Virtua Fighter 1 or the more recent Virtua Fighter 5, Sarah Bryant, a fellow fighting blonde, is still recognizable. Chun-Li can appear in Street Fighter Alpha younger and sporting a different outfit and still look like Chun-Li, and she also successfully made the transition to 3-D with her very iconic look and style.

On a broader scale, video game characters rely on a certain degree of iconic visualization, and though this is more easily done with a mascot like Mario or Sonic, it’s still possible with a more realistic figure. Sub-Zero and Scorpion show this, despite the fact that they both started out literally as the same character design with different colors. it’s clear that Sonya simply never had anything beyond her rack and her belly button to distinguish her. Back in Mortal Kombat 1, when she was the only female character, this arguably could have been sufficient, but as more and more girls have appeared in the franchise over time, also with large breasts and bare midsections, it really makes it obvious that she wasn’t thought through thoroughly.

For a further comparison, take a look at this image Sophitia Alexandra from the Soul Calibur series which I conveniently obtained from elsewhere. Although her design has gone off the deep-end in recent games, it’s very clear that all of the above figures are supposed to be the same person, even when drawn by different artists. If I were to make an educated guess as to what makes Sophitia work but not Sonya, I’d say that it has to do with the fact that Sophitia was designed in the first place with certain key visual elements like her sword and shield, skirt, and gentle demeanor, and even when next to her somewhat similar sister Cassandra, you can still tell the two apart by how their designs convey their personalities. It can be as simple as that, so that when they’re given makeovers in later games, a person can take one look without being told specifically who it is and say, “Aha, that’s her! …She looks terrible!”

Japan: Opportunities to Give and Consider

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A number of sites have cropped up in the wake of the 8.9~9.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Japan last Friday and the ensuing tsunami and nuclear scare with the purpose of uniting anime fans to donate to Japan. Certainly a noble cause, but one that I have honestly not felt entirely comfortable with, just because I don’t want it to be “about” being an anime fan.

I have benefited greatly from anime and manga. It has been a great source of entertainment, comfort, self-realization, and even one of the reasons I currently have an unbelievably wonderful job. I studied in Japan because of a love of animation, and I continue to make friends in Japan because of that passion. But before I could donate as an anime fan or an anime blogger, I had to do so as a human being.

However, I realized that it’s not my place to tell people “why” they should donate, or even if they should be donating at all. I have my reasons for acting as I have, and I know that the folks running these donation drives have the best intentions at heart. The more opportunities the better, and I can at least provide people with links to donate, whether you want to do it as an anime fan, an anime blogger, or just a person who wants to help.

Anime Fans Give Back to Japan: They’re doing a 24-hour podcast tomorrow, March 19th, starting at 6pm EST. They have a number of fans, podcasters, and even industry professionals lined up to show their support.

Crunchyroll Japan Earthquake Donation Fund: The biggest streaming site for anime promises to match donations.

Anime and Manga Bloggers for Japan: They’ve got two donations going, one for Shelter Box, and one for Doctors Without Borders, a self-explanatory group that I first came to know due to their distribution of Plumpy Nut to combat malnutrition in Africa. That’s not exactly the problem here, but I think it says a lot about their mission.

Japan Society: 100% of donations go straight to helping Japan.

Red Cross

UNICEF

Lastly, a lot of artists have been creating work in response to the earthquake, and as much as I have neglected that side of myself, I felt my hand moving on its own when put in front of a piece of lined paper and given a writing tool to work with. It’s not exactly a clear-cut “Pray for Japan” image, but it definitely comes from the heart.

The Cross-Cultural Exchange of a Couple of G’s

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In 1996, Russian-American animator Genndy Tartakovsky premiered Dexter’s Laboratory and pioneered the thick-lined,”flatter” animation style. This style can also be seen in Samurai Jack and Star Wars: Clone Wars, as well as in Powerpuff Girls, where Genndy was director.

Flash back a few month to 1995 and we get one of most the influential anime ever, Studio Gainax’s Neon Genesis Evangelion. Gainax, known for a variety of works from various genres, are especially fondly remembered for their giant robot fare, most notably Evangelion but also Aim for the Top! and Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann.

Now, in late 2010: Gainax’s latest anime is a tongue-in-cheek cartoon about a pair of misfits and heavily utilizes thick outlines and very flat character designs, while Genndy Tartakovsky’s newest show is an honest, non-parody attempt at a super robot-themed series. Both series’ debuts occurred less than three weeks apart from each other.

While the relationship between Japan and America’s cartoons and comics have been put in the spotlight recently with collaborations such as the joint Iron Man and Wolverine projects involving Marvel and Studio Madhouse, the fact that Genndy Tartakovsky’s Sym-Bionic Titan and Gainax’s Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt have come into existence so close to one another puts an even greater focus on the two nations’ cartoons. Here in one cross-section of time, we can see the active/passive exchange of ideas as these cultures’ animation styles appear to intertwine so tightly that they sling each other across the Pacific Ocean.

Neither show is so like the animated series of the others’ country that they come off as weak imitations. Sym-Bionic Titan takes fusing robots, a fight against a powerful invading force, and various other giant robot tropes, mixes them in with Genndy’s own character aesthetics, and places the story firmly within America and its own cultural norms. Meanwhile, Panty & Stocking utilizes the visual elements and humor of early “Cartoon Cartoons” (as Cartoon Network referred to them) while also injecting very anime-esque expressions and reactions from its characters, most notably in their faces, and also ramping up the humor to more “adult” levels. The two series and their hybrid styles reinforce both the idea that creativity is not limited by national borders and that individual cultures can still maintain some of their distinctiveness when it comes to artistic output.

This is not a bad thing.

As a final aside, the personal robot used by the character Lance in Sym-Bionic Titan reminds me of the titular robot from Galaxy Gale Baxinger.

I can’t be the only one, right?