Honestly, her designs are copies of each other. Don’t get me wrong. They’re okay sometimes for example, I didn’t mind them at all in SHUFFLE! I loved the designs in SHUFFLE! which is what attracted me to the game in the first place! This was probably due to the fact SHUFFLE! was a joint effort between her and Hiro Suzuhira, but now that Hiro Suzuhira is gone, Navel is just bringing out games with characters that have the same face and body type but different clothes. I am not attracted to their games at all anymore because there is no variety between the characters at all in terms of appearance. Now that I think about it, I only like the characters Hiro Suzuhira designed to begin with which, according to wikipedia, are Nerine and Asa-senpai.
Sure, I love the character designs by Mitsumi Misato, Bekkankou, and Noizi Ito. They’re my three favorite character designers I could say off the top of my head. They design characters that are all practically the same in one way or another, but at least there is some kind of variation that makes things tolerable and don’t leave me feeling like I am seeing the same damn character just dressed in a different set of clothes.
Mitsumi Misato
Bekkankou
Noizi Ito
Aoi Nishimata’s designs are just annoying. If you liked one character designed by her you probably like them all. Granted, maybe personality of the character is also a big factor in distinguishing them. I will say that some of Aoi Nishimata’s non game CG work is good and you can tell the difference between characters half of the time. So, I think my main beef is how her designs are presented in CG form.
Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 10:04 am |
didn’t she do Shana too? Ah…now I remember.
I guess, yeah, charadesign is secondary to personality and whatnot, so you could call it icing on the cake, but redundant designs just shows laziness or that the artist can’t really do much else. The first picture was a hilariously good example of that.
Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 10:14 am |
lelangir@ Yeah, Noizi Ito does the designs for Shana and also Haruhi.
Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 10:56 am |
About that first picture- I believe the same person did the character designs for Lovely Idol, an even bigger example of design recycling. Their hair colors were pretty similar too, which made it harder to tell them apart. Bad script didn’t help either.
Oh yeah, my other beef with recycled character designs is when every character is the exact same height.
Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 11:01 am |
Niles: I think it’s funnier when relative height is ignored or rarely abided by (cough Toshokan Sensou).
Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 11:31 am |
Niles@ Yeah, she did Lovely Idol too it appears. They look really rehashed.
Monday, December 1, 2008 at 5:56 am |
Oh gods, she’s probably the only artist whose art I detest. Everything that she draws looks alike! Every strand of hair is the same as the one before, and every girl looks like she’s half asleep. And don’t get me going on how awkward her anatomy is. If only some of Hiro Suzuhira’s style rubbed off on her. Her coloring’s pretty good though, I’ll give her that.
Monday, December 1, 2008 at 6:24 am |
I want to see something of those later character designers you mentioned where they’re all in the exact same pose. I think what’s making them distinguishable are little personality quirks shown through their poses, rather than actual design differences. That’s good, in a way, because it shows the person took the time to get into the heads of the characters to some extent, but it doesn’t make up for the inability to create a new character.
I was always confused as to why a series adapted from a pre-existing manga (or game) actually needed a character designer; particularly a short one. I assume to make model sheets and that’s it. Sailormoon I sort of understood why, since the art style changed over 18 volumes.
Monday, December 1, 2008 at 6:25 am |
sidenote: This is Alicia from before; I just set up a blog for later.
Monday, December 1, 2008 at 9:20 am |
ok so that’s why Shana and Haruhi look kinnnnda of similiar! -_-”
Monday, December 1, 2008 at 3:47 pm |
Choux@ Yeah, she has some nice coloring.
kuropengin@ I don’t think it is always the poses because you can have various characters still do different poses but all look the same. Really, I think it comes down to face, body type, and fashion.
Mobius@ You think so? Hrm.
Friday, December 5, 2008 at 2:05 pm |
I love Aoi Nishimata, but I think she does suffer from the Hisashi Hirai syndrome. Her style is great, and I like most her designs, but she needs to branch out a bit. I collect all of her+Hiro’s doujin, and that stuff is just great.
Friday, December 5, 2008 at 2:58 pm |
wildarmsheero@ I was waiting for you to stop by since I know you’re a Kaede fan. Hrm, I’ll have to look into those doujins then.
Monday, April 6, 2009 at 11:18 pm |
I hate that kind of art style, period. It reminds me of those crudely drawn HCGs I always see.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 at 4:47 pm |
It’s very rare that I’ll find HCGs I like. I’m picky when it comes to art styles.
Saturday, July 11, 2009 at 1:42 am |
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