Experience

Recently, due to lack of better things to do with my day, I've been watching a lot of anime with a friend of mine. We've been rewatching a lot of series I saw oh so many years ago in high school when I was first introduced to anime, including Chobits and Trigun.

I so very distinctly remember when I first saw those cartoons, wishing I could draw so well. Now that I've been through art school, oh. my. gosh. There are so many things that are just wrong. And I've come to realize I hate cell shading, I much prefer flats and a higher frame rate to 'shadow'. The biggest problem with anime is  the low frame rate, programs often use one still image and just animate the mouth. This means the characters have zero facial expressions. Which is why the voice acting always sounds terrible. I used to think it was English dubbing, but no, I realized the reason it seems so terrible sometimes is because it is extremely difficult to match voice emotion when every character looks like they just came from a botox appointment.

Dominique the Cyclops, how do your shoulders work? This makes no anatomical sense. Seriously, try and imagine her body under the clothes. Creepy as all get up, right?

If it wasn't for hairstyle, all the women in this picture would look exactly the same. They are one wig shop adventure away from a hilarious mistaken identity episode.

It's not that I don't like anime now, although I think I have a distinct preference for American animation over Japanese as far as character design, attention to detail and acting (facial expressions help so much). It just that my eyes, and judgement have changed with experience and I find that so interesting. Culture may extol the benefits of youth (particularly for women), but I wouldn't go backwards for anything. Mostly because I am less of an idiot as I grow older and I'm quite proud of that.