Anime, you’ve changed! To be honest, the look of it is always changing. Styles and fads suit each age, so let’s see how anime has evolved over the past few decades.
On 2ch, a commenter uploaded the following image below, which Kotaku has translated into English:
I quite like this as it gives a good, nuanced look at just how anime has changed since the 1990s.
Elsewhere in the same thread, others uploaded images that also show how anime styles have grown. You might have seen them before, but if not, have a look.
I wonder what anime will look like 30 years from now.
Comments
16 responses to “How Anime Art Has Changed: An Explainer”
I thought the reason was because the new style is easier and cheaper to animate.
SHHHHHHH!!!!
Little of column A, little of column B.
And this is why I still like the 80’s style most/down with pointy-nose.
Yeah, and the old style would probably have been cheaper to animate in the days when everything was hand-drawn.
I’d also argue that this is just an artificial example, there’s a huge amount of variation in the look between different shows now, much more so than in the 80s and 90s.
Only recently. For most of the 2000s they had that bubblegum look.
While I’m sure you can find examples of that look, I’m not sure that it was actually a trend.
Unless you mean really bright colors on everything by ‘bubblegum look’? If so then yeah, most of the early to mid 00s was them all suddenly going “holy crap when we paint digitally and present our stuff digitally we can make the colors SEAR INTO YOUR RETINAS”
So much the 90s, though hair has improved with newer techniques
The thinner lines probably also have something to do with the spread of HDTV and larger television sets overall.
If you’re using a small SD television to watch a noisy analogue broadcast, you need the thicker lines to actually see the detail. The same thing happened to western shows like The Simpsons when they switched to HD/widescreen.
not just that, but also the swap to digital ink. The commentary to the second (but the first episode when they swapped perminantly) episode of the simpsons done in digital mentions that it allows them many more layers than would be possible before without major cel artifacts.
I like the old style, but that’s just personal preference. I shudder to think what something like Cowboy Bebop would look like drawn today :/
Maybe closer to Death Note style which I like.
It’s interesting to see the comparisons side-by-side, but it really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that something from this decade looks different to something from 20 years ago…
Is this just me or does it look like Cardcaptor Sakura is flipping us off?
Late 80’s/Early 90’s will always be my comfort zone, in terms of anime.
So no one wants to talk about pandering to creepy otakus and how much loli there is in almost all anime nowadays? Was it that bad 20/30 years ago?
Nadesico’s Ruri
Cowboy Bebop’s Ed
Magic Knight Rayearth’s Princess Emeraude
Dragon Ball’s Chi chi & Dragon Ball GT’s Pan
The whole female cast of Card Captor Sakura
I could keep going.
People wanted to do Ed?! Really? And Sakura?