I feel like the anime style is somewhat important. I do not
know as much about anime as most of my friends back home (yes, I was in anime
clubs and went to Anime Boston and everything else), but I really was never as
into anime as my friends. I went along with them because they were my friends,
but my extant of anime appreciation was a few random episodes of Niurto, random
episodes of Pokemon, and a few random episodes of Yuh Gi Oh, and that was
pretty much it. I was really into Deathnote, so much so that I shot-gunned
trough the series and cosplayed as Misa-Misa one year, and Haruhi Susumia is
another anime I enjoyed. It helped that both female characters were characters
that I felt that I could identify with. I believe that the attraction for me
here was more about the characters than the show itself. Even in class, the
reason I believe I was more attracted to Parasyte because of how extreme it
was. I have never been a huge fan of gun related shows, but extreme shows. I use the term extreme almost like satirical.
These shows know how out there this idea is, so they don’t hold back. Even if
it’s something that could happen someday, they push the idea and then poke fun
at it. If it is not this aspect that attracts me, then it is a certain
character (normally the comic relief or a relatable female character).
While I’m not as big of an anime fan as some of my friends,
I do enjoy them. I don’t think I have one anime that I could really reference
as ‘most important’, but whichever one someone likes could be arguable for
‘most important’ in an art sense. I
believe that this easy drawing style coupled with available subjects is
extremely important to someone that wants to get into art. Anime was my gateway
into the art field because the ‘how to’ books were always available and there
was no way to mess up, plus my art program at school stunk. Once I would
understand anime and how to draw some characters, I would try to draw my
favorite characters from the animes I was watching, and then I would slowly
grow into drawing people I know and creating my own style. Granted, one could
fall into the pit of always drawing anime because it is such a simple
style, but there are some key things
that I learned from those ‘How to Draw Anime’ books that helped me understand
what I needed to learn here.
Instead of links to animes, I am linking some of my
pre-Ringling high school anime art. Please don’t judge too harshly.
Most are from 2007 through 2009 (I didn’t understand what
time stamps were)
And then I went to precollege classes and Ringling and anime
faded away.
I agree with you--I think anime definitely acts a gateway for most people who want to start getting into art. There's actually this idea that the reason why anime is somewhat simplistic compared to other art form is because most artists want their characters to be copied (that's why you'll see spin-off comics/ doujinshi being sold at conventions). It's a compliment in Japan for people to copy the characters--some copyright is involved, but it isn't as dangerous (since most spin-offs are not able to make a profit as high as the mainstream comic).
ReplyDeleteHowever, as said, there's nothing wrong with starting with anime as a way to get into the medium. Just as there is nothing wrong with starting the classical way. In the end, both require a person to be aware and open to new techniques and ideas (rather than pigeonholing themselves into one artistic style). Yuss~