/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

The art got better, but to be honest I almost dropped the manga when I first read it because of the art. Not my favorite. I was amazed by what ufotable was able to do with the anime.

It's professional level. It's not the manga's fault, nor the magazine's fault, that random retards across the ocean have an incorrect idea of what constitutes "professional level" artwork. It meets the standards they demand before they'll hire you, therefore it is professional level.

>>6934562
It's perfectly serviceable art with good character designs and without any major wonkiness or anatomy mistakes

>>6934562
Can someone explain me the appeal and success of this series? As someone who enjoys good shounen manga (Rurouni Kenshin, Eyeshield, Jojo, etc.) from time to time, I had to drop Demon Slayer around Vol 5 or 6 due to how shallow and forgettable it felt like. I'm missing something?

>>6934562
Those hands and faces are /high/ beg at best, but that's not a bad thing. It actually gives me hope that I can create a successful manga without being extremely good at art.

Better than 100% of /ic/.

>>6934562
another proof story telling is a more important skill than drawing

>>6935013
But the storytelling of it sucks as well

>>6935013
9/10 times, the anime is what makes the manga extremely popular.

>>6935013
>Generic shonen story with meh characters and no depth
>good storytelling
Ok

>>6935013
honestly what matters the most is how look it cools.
once people go "wow that looks cool" and read up the manga, then the story matters

>>6935005
Tapping into our desire for a cute sister to cuddle and protect.

>>6935008
>Those hands and faces are high beg at best
Delusional
I've never seen a so-called "high beg" do anything close to this stylish, visually creative, and confident. Not even a big fan of her art, but you guys are really bad at assessing these things.
She's a basically competent comics artist with a cool style. If you want to make manga, don't hope to be mediocre, just aim high and do it.

>>6934562
I really like the art and the story. The thickness of the humans took some getting used to since the meta is thin stick lanky leggy designs. I really like the Taisho era and colors/patterns of kimono and swords. Incorporating traditional Japanese meanings and history into a classic shonen story. It's got distinct and colorful characters, though I can't ever remember their names because they don't spend a lot of time on side characters. Maybe just one season but I'm old now and my memory isn't what it used to be.

I think I have more of an affinity for it because I was going through a hard time when I first started watching. I felt like I was trying to break the impossible boulder set before Tanjiro to purposely force him to give up. But like Tanjiro, I didn't give up and I broke through against all odds. It felt meaningful to me. I don't have a sister, but I rewatched the first episode again last year and felt comforted to know that I have people in my life that would protect me like Tanjiro protects his sister, Nezuko.

I don't watch a lot of anime or read a lot of manga, I'm also picky because I overthink things. I guess as far as the storyline goes, to each their own. That's why so many stories exist. I appreciate that they don't belabor the events and that they do have a direction...unlike say, Naruto and One Piece. To see that the story will eventually end is nice, though there's always the option of liking or not liking the ending.

I'd like to see more from Gotouge. I know being serialized is pretty stressful. She hasn't released anything since 2020 when Demon Slayer ended, but she's won a lot of awards and recognition. So hopefully she'll have the money and time to leisurely create a new manga.

>>6935005
From someone who likes it, it's literally just fullmetal alchemist's premise just done weaker but still good despite that. It's a shonen with fun character designs, and it doesn't overstay it's welcome. Unlike most, it knew when to wrap things up.
>>6935013
Also this. Demon Slayers art isn't bad but it's story telling certainly carries it. Clear and concise visuals and good panelings go a long way.

>>6934562
Better than SNK and beastars. im fine calling it pro because manga is more than accurate or neat art. The white pill is that it's way more important to be good at layout composition, paneling, visual effects and gesture, than it is to be accurate. Even "wrong" art looks good if you're a composition master. Writing on the other hand is the leading cause of series failure
>>6935005
No because I think the same thing

There's very few manga artists that can't be considered professional. Their discipline and consistency is unmatched in the world.

Open your fucking eyes anon. It might stylized and white and black. But this is fucking mesmerizing.

>>6935155
99.9999% of manga is traced and 3d models. they do some clothing and bug eyes. its very easy to be consistent with blender. its not art. its a sterilized pipeline.

>>6935013
>another proof story telling is a more important skill than drawing
Generally I tend to agree with you but in this particular case the reason why this is so popular is because of how the anime looks, Ufotable did an amazing job.
Remember that before the anime in 2019 this manga was barely selling anything then the anime went viral because of its cool art style and beautiful animation spreading on social media like wild fire, mainly those short videos on tiktok.
This is the same reason why OPM is only popular because of Murata art and the first season cool visual and crazy sakuga.
People think that ONE deserves any credit but this is not true, the plot is cliche and the characters are walking stereotypes.

>>6935013
The real order of importance is this:
Marketing > Art > Shipping > Characters > Story

>>6935169
lol the result is still professional mate. Professionals are the people that use shortcuts the most.

And the crazy thing is that the best mangaka usually don't use that. Unless they're working with crazy structures or vehicles, of course. Anyone that's good will tell you that it's easier to draw when you're skilled than with tools. And the Japanese are very skilled.

>>6935005
>Anime is eye candy
>First anime for a lot of Zoomers
>Anime came out when anime in general finally became mainstream instead of a niche that only weebs care about (Thanks to Netflix)
>2020 covid happened and that made this anime exponentially more popular
>Tiktok helped its popularity a lot specially when episode 19 went viral on it and Youtube
>The movie came out and became the highest grossing Japanese movie ever and the highest grossing movie in 2020 period (live action or animated)
>Ufotable is fucking good, top 3 anime studio in terms of art/animation quality, it's top 1 for many
>The story, characters and theme appeal to both genders, not sure about the ABC+ people
There's a bunch of other factors that went in that mix like how fujoshis like it for the huge number of cute bois and their interactions or how powerlevelfags love it for the cool fights but that's more generic imho. A good example of an anime that tried to copy this formula was the first season of Jujutsu Kaisen back in 2021, they even had their episode 19 equivalent, which is episode 20 I guess.

>>6935188
I forgot to say that when the anime came out the manga was selling like 5 million copies or something like that and after the anime 1st season + movie its sales surpassed 150 million copies in just 1 year and that manga outsold One Piece volume sales in that year by a lot.

>>6935173
>member that before the anime in 2019 this manga was barely selling anything...
lol tourist making shit up

>>6935173
>People think that ONE deserves any credit but this is not true, the plot is cliche and the characters are walking stereotypes.

>>6934562

composition is kino

>>6935169
Yes, his shit looks exactly how traced 3d models would look like. Late berserk used this crap too and it lost all the soul. I hate modern hysteria for optimization so much bros. It just destroys everything. EVERYTHING has to be an arms race, if you don't abuse every single glitch available you are not even considered in the competition. I hate modernity so fucking much. Unabomber was absolutely right.

>>6935169

No way they'd be able to hit those crazy deadlines without taking shortcuts even with assistants.

The line art is very amateurish and he's insecure in drawing shadows therefore he decided not to draw them at all, this is what makes it feel so "unprofessional". Still has a lot of soul tho

>>6935220
>>6935188
>>6935223
The real reason Kimetsu became a hit is that character designs are solid enough and volume 1 cover is good: you see the title and the guy protecting the girl and you immediately get a grasp of the story bar the finer details. It has SOVL and APPEEL

Attack on Titan, One Punch Man and other popular shit is the same

Western zoomers don't explain Japanese success

Boost from anime is important but that's true for ALL manga, those mangas were already hits among animeless works

>>6935015
The Art is very good, the fighting scenes are amazing, and it's all depicted very clearly, the reader always knows what is going on in each panel. It's definitely not something amazing looking like the witch's atelier, but the storytelling is top notch with mc getting super creative in each fight. It is a legit 10/10 manga, they did awesome job with anime too. Yes I'm a big fan, thanks for reading my blog

>>6935169
There he is. Posting it again. Mr. "I saw one or two artists who we know uses 3D therefore I will spam that all manga uses 3D even though we have more evidence to the contrary". Here's your guaranteed reply and your reminder that not everyone here is retarded enough to believe you.

>>6935574
You are retarded if you dont believe it. Only artists that actually draw are extremely rare and the assistants almost exclusively fill in details with clip paint assets, blender, photobashing, etc. like this isnt a drawing. people will post this hack as some amazing artist. it would be like posting AI as your own work or praising the artist for it. But its standard to just do shit like this and clap liek a seal at how good the art is.

Or you can go look at ugly art like that frieren funeral manga - blatant 3d models and cut and paste clip studio backgrounds. the person creating it doesnt know how to draw. everything is stiff and perspective of people and background does not match at all. its most popular anime this season, but its based on completely traced/fraudulent "artist".

im not saying you shouldnt do this to produce manga or comics (lot of american comics using it these days and you get shit like robin or batgirl comic with a bathtub cut and pasted in front of a door types of errors). but we are discussing art. and retards like you love weeb trash so much without any knowledge of how art is made, how manga (not art) is created and how little actual artistic skill these hacks have, yet you will defend it to the death.

>>6935586
>posts more outliers to prove ubiquity
Don't say 99% if you can't prove 99%. All you've proven by posting these is that some tiny % of manga uses 3d (or in the cast of your image, photos, not 3d). 4 or 5 examples is not even close to an appreciable % of the entire industry. To claim otherwise is simply lying.

>>6935586
*post the two artists who are the most known for their use of 3d models*

btw you couldn't even draw an anime face on top of a 3d model permabeg

>>6934562
No dumbass that's /pro/ level as in they made millions off successful SOVL-FUL work

>>6935015
Go make a better manga week after week under deadlines then if it's so easy>>6935019

>>6934912
>>6935621
There's nothing about this that looks /pro/. Murata is a good example of /pro/ level art, possibly even Master level above /pro/. Kimetsu's art started off high /beg/ and ended high /int/. It's good progress, but nowhere near pro level as far as the actual drawings themselves are concerned.

>>6935667
>There's nothing about this that looks /pro/.
See
>It meets the standards they demand before they'll hire you, therefore it is professional level.

/ic/ does not decide what is "pro level", because /ic/ is not an employer of professionals. "Professional" is an objective descriptor: as in, it's a fact that this work is professional because the biggest comicbook publisher published it along with many more skillfully drawn works. That's not even getting into the fact that the drawings might not be on the same level as many of its peers, but the actual comicmaking absolutely is, but /ic/ (and really most english-speaking communities) cannot accurately identify these aspects so it goes ignored or unarticulated
Using the term "professional" to describe a subjective concept like how "good" or "skilled" something is is simply unnatural. Use a more subjective term which doesn't have pre-existing definition which will often conflict with this new usage.

The /beg/, /int/, /pro/ scale makes no sense because only "intermediate" makes sense as a description of skill. One can be a beginner and be a terrible or amazing artist and one can be a professional and be a terrible or amazing artist, so you get constant threads on /ic/ like this one where anons will post some work and ask if it's beginner or pro or whatever for comedic effect, highlighting how useless this scale is.

>>6935586
is this image you posted using 3d modelss?

Most Japs suck at coloring, but if you had eyes you'd undestand the drawing itself is checking all the necessary boxes to be appealing.

>>6935667
>Master level above /pro
yeah, /pro/ could have it's own levels. but idk if anyone on ic gets to those levels. maybe a couple.

>>6935827
"Commercializable" should be no metric on this chart, given there's examples of commercial work as low as mid /beg/. When you try to mix in the objective metric of whether a work is professional or not the classifications fall apart. The vast majority of professional work does not "manifest mastery" of any part of commercial art production. Many fail to even manifest competence in such areas. The chart holds professionalism on a ridiculously high pedestal, given how much objectively professional work is considered shit by the majority of users here.

>>6935833
production industries, aka not twitter porn comms.

>>6935841
That's right, production industries. You haven't got a clue, do you? Do you think all production studios hire the same level of talent as the highest level studios or publishers?
Take a look at a manga, for example. Plenty of people here seem to think the one in the OP is not of a "professional level", and yet it's only mediocre in its artwork. There are many, many, many manga that look worse than this one, and yet it's all still professional work.

>>6935849
I agree they are pro. didn't say otherwise.

>>6935017
I hate watching anime adaptations of good manga. 9/10 times they butcher it

>>6935856
And I didn't say anything about twitter porn commissions.

>>6935865
sorry lol. my train of thought followed
>given how much objectively professional work is considered shit by the majority of users here.
because around here the work that gets shit on most is porn comms.

>>6935871
Right. No, I was referring to the ocean of mediocre/bad works. From shovelware mobile games to the many mediocre/bad movies, games, comics and the like which nobody ever talks about because they're just not worth talking about. It was somebody's job to do the art production for all of these, and they can't have all been masters of their craft.

>>6935013
if you want proof of that, this is a FAR better example

>>6934562
A lot of mangaka want to tell stories and are just utilizing the best selling medium in Japan to tell their stories. If a manga has good art it stands out because that's not the norm, like Vagabond or Berserk. Look at anime that are really popular right now or recently like Jujutsu Kaisen and Bocchi the Rock, their manga are not good at all art wise. JJK's manga is painful to look at for me personally, it's like a book of sketches. If you're looking for good anime art look at illustrator's works.

>>6935005
I ended up dropping it too because the followup was so dull, but the 1st chapter was one of the best opening setups I've read, and that probably counts for a lot if something is going to take off like it did once the animu came out.

>>6936294
Honestly ONE even at the start had good paneling and decent understanding of perspective, better than Demon Slayer

>>6935220
>making shit up
Sure anon you could just google it but you're too much of a Zoomer for that, at least ask the AI like your school classmates.
>https://comicbook.com/anime/news/demon-slayer-anime-influence-manga-sales-boost/

>>6938234
Here's the same information in a picture because I know you don't read either Zoomer-kun.

>>6935240
>Boost from anime is important but that's true for ALL manga, those mangas were already hits among animeless works
Nigga read on the boost from Kimetsu from the anime, it's unrivaled in the industry. No other manga come even close to that huge boost.

>>6938234
>>6938237
Not him but 400k per volume is still a very very high number and something like 20x the amount a series typically needs to sell before the magazine considers it worth continuing. I believe there was a point where it wasn't selling especially well, but this data you're providing implies the opposite: it was selling very very well to start with, and the anime boosted it to insanity. If you were trying to argue that it was selling poorly before the anime then you proved the opposite.

>>6938256
Not any of those anons, but comparing it to the threshhold to be cancelled is kind of silly, obviously things on the chopping block aren't getting adapted.
It's also kind of dumb to compare it to the already adapted stuff, because obviously it was getting trounced in sales by established franchises; it didn't have any volumes in the top 50 in 2018.
I'm curious how it compares to other about-to-be-adapated serieses. It would be annoying to check but I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure it wasn't doing anything noteworthy amongst that group.

>>6934562
The quality is serviceable to the story, which is what truly matters in regards to manga and comics.

>>6938377
I bring up the threshold because this guy is framing it like it was pretty much a failure before the anime. Personally, I got the impression at the time that it was doing "just okay" before the anime, but the numbers he posted, if true, completely dispels that impression. Again, I'm talking about it in the context of that 400k-per-vol figure. It's a very high sales figure even for the popular Jump series with anime at the time. If the number is true then it was already a big hit before the anime bump.

>>6938379
I think "just okay" is about right. That's lifetime 400k not per year, which is definitely not shit but not anything exciting.
It was less of a hassle than I expected to find something to compare it to, because promised neverland ran the same years as kny in jump and in anime form and was a top 10 seller pre-anime in 2018 and was selling 400k/vol just that year.