In the world of anime there are a lot of ways to refer to the chief method of presentation used in the medium, the art. You can discuss color palette choice, character designs, anatomy, background usage, angles, scene selection, orientation, etc. You can also discuss aspects of the animation like fluidity, consistency, and the type of animation used among other things. Problems arise when people who want to discuss anime that stick out due to a particular combination of these artistic choices conflate the terms into a sloppy and vague thesis with few distinctions on what exactly it is they want to talk about. To discuss the “art” of a particular show, it is imperative that one also understand the different aspects that are covered under that umbrella term, and additionally how they all alter the presentation of that show or work.

Many fans like to talk about aesthetics of a show, whether it’s scoffing at the flash animation-style movement of Studio Trigger or analyzing the rotoscoping of Aku no Hana and discussing the merit of so many different ways one can create an animated work. Unfortunately, it can be confusing distinguishing from the multiple facets of what creates an anime, or any artistic work involving the illusion of movement. These chief distinctions can be most accurately summed up as the design, style, and animation of the anime in question. While I’ve discussed broader aspects of anime creation in a previous article, different aspects of the artistry were only briefly mentioned at the beginning and only expounded upon very little strictly in relation to the roles of artists and animators.

The words design and style tend to be the most conflated when it comes to fans discussing the way an anime looks. The best way to describe design in this context, as it is a varied term that changes its definition depending on what kind you mean, is the artistic interpretation and choices used to convey the purpose, setting, physical characteristics, personality, and role of any particular object inside a creative space, whether that space be an image, narrative, comic, or animation. While it’s certainly worth looking into architectural, background, and clothing design in anime, most fans only feel the need to remark on them when they stick out, and character design is the most discussed when pinning down a show or film in regards to purpose and how well the show utilizes everything in it. The above images are commonly referred to as a character sheets, the first of which features characters in typically three poses standing straight showing off their design (front, back, profile) and normally an action shot of them in motion or a few detail shots of important aspects of their design. These sheets can be accompanied by various detail paperwork, such as expressions, various hairstyles or outfits the character might wear. Occasionally some sheets put the characters in various environments, though that is normally reserved for more detailed concept art. When a character and cast is designed well, each individual looks and feels unique just from looking at them all, both independently and together, whether that references a larger variance in design like Akatsuki no Yona based largely on color and personality traits represented in their designs…

…and Gangsta. whose cast of characters is less about color and loud outward differentiation than their individual roles in the story and their places in the lore and history of the city that they live in.

In these examples, no matter what their method is to try and separate the characters based on physical appearance, the cast remains distinct and unique enough so that the audience can easily pick out any of them whether the work featuring them is official or fan art. To have a design that fits the world the writer and artist have set up lends well to the immersion of an audience and further helps to keep the characters as a part of the world they inhabit. When character designs are lazy, unintuitive, or all around ugly or uninspired, they leave a bad impression on the viewer and typically push the audience away from the show, or worse, become wholly unremarkable and forgotten. One easy distinction for lazy design is what some artists call “sameface,” or the distinction that when a character’s hair and body is removed that they will no longer be distinct from any other character (at least of their gender) and simply fit a mold that was used over and over again.

This isn’t to say that a distinct style, a particular artist’s drawing expression and methods that replicate throughout their works, is bad because it is pervasive, in reference to Key properties. Most anime or manga created by CLAMP, for instance, have distinct characteristics that make them immediately identifiable for fans and non-fans that are familiar with their work. However, CLAMP’s characters are still distinct across properties since the style varies, quite drastically in some cases. While characters from AIR and Kanon, for instance, will be drawn in the same style despite being different shows/visual novels:

CLAMP is a collective of multiple artists that all draw very similarly (at least to stay consistent) and suffer significantly less from this “sameface syndrome” as shown in the stylistically faithful X/1999 and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles.

That isn’t to say that Key art is bad because they have a distinct style that can make their works easily identifiable. What arguably hurts the creative properties that Key makes is the inability to distinguish characters from each franchise due to designs being too similar as well as falling into the “sameface” trap I mentioned before. While “sameface” is commonly seen among budding artists or artists that are still developing their unique style as well as practicing with different facial structures, this is less excusable in regards to marketed and licensed products by professionals. CLAMP has characteristics that make their works distinguishable from others that still allows their characters to be (mostly) unique (long, thin limbs and bodies, broad shoulders, commonly long fingers and hands, complex shading in hair, etc.) Key’s art style being heavily influential over the moe genre in general didn’t help this either. As much of the early moe shows tended to pull from Key directly as a style while riding off their success and typically copied them with significantly less interesting and unique results, at least before moe gained multiple influential franchises to establish a variable style with a strong market, including Kyo-Ani.

On a related note, for longer running shows or franchises that typically have a stricter schedule with set budgets (Gundam, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Naruto, Yu Yu Hakusho, One Piece, etc.) there are multiple artists whose work on the show revolves like a turnstile, more notably that the key animators will rotate between shows. While CLAMP artists usually refers to the character designers in particular, since they work on both anime and manga titles, these key animators will bring their own unique style to each episode they do in terms of how the characters change subtly on screen. Most anyone who has sat down and watched at least one long-running anime can tell you that this happens constantly. For me growing up, Yu-Gi-Oh! was the first time I really noticed this difference, particularly because I like the style of one key artist above the rest of them. Once I noticed this, the phenomenon was impossible not to notice in other long running shows from then on, and even in some shorter ones as well.





All of these screenshots are from episodes during the popular Egypt arc (easily the best arc in the series) showing Yami Yugi in his original body as Pharaoh. Due to the series being over 200 episodes, they required multiple individuals to do key frames. Although the Yu Gi Oh! “style” isn’t different nor is the design of Yami Yugi in particular, each artist can’t help but leave their own impression on their episodes. Of the persistent style changes I could count about four, give or take, and that along with differences in movement fluidity, perspective, monster design, and background detail occasionally made going from one episode to the next almost a kin to going from the source material to an adaptation.

While design and style are vague and a bit difficult to define at times, animation is easily the most clear cut of these buzzwords, but also seems to be the one chosen by critics to represent the entirety of the art of an anime show. Animation is simply the illusion of movement, using multiple still images in sequence to make it seem as if a character or other individuals in a frame are in motion.

Style and design certainly have an effect on how well an anime is received to an audience, but the animation is what truly brings everything to life and (pun intended) gets it moving. Lore and narrative can suck a person in, but aside from reading a visual novel or a picture book, making them move along with that narrative makes the world seem real, at least while you’re watching it. There are plenty of different types of animation that are normally characterized by either the technology used to create that animation (CGI, hand-drawn, flash) or other techniques that use a combination of other more basic ones (digital, rotoscope, etc.) The type that is selected for an anime will typically rely on budget and artistic vision and those constraints that that vision is forced to work in and the creativity required for their solutions. In the modern age, completely hand-drawn animation is a rarity. Works such as Redline are normally passion projects with the money and diligence to back it up with most other anime being made digitally (typically hand-drawn frames and digital coloring and sequencing, which is why I considered a combination of techniques.) Animation tools such as CGI and rotoscoping are normally used in particular instances within standard shows, either for cost-cutting reasons or artistic reasons.

Some studios (or simply particular shows) have stood out among their peers for using primarily an alternate kind of animation, or being completely comprised of techniques that are normally left for cost cutting measures or normally left out of anime all together.

Kill la Kill is a special case for Studio Trigger. They combine the standard animation seen from them in the likes of Gurren Lagaan along with occasional and (usually needless) CGI of characters who are front and center along with a large amount of still shots of poses that do not transition from one another like Inferno Cop. The right scene is an example of a scene that could be in any anime with the jarring poses usually used for comedic effect, but this kind of animation is frequent in Kill la Kill. The decisions that determine the worth of your show and intellectual property can very well rely on what kind of animation style you decide to use and how well it fits with the message and themes your show is meant to convey as well as the setting to an extent. As an example, CGI in an old Middle Ages show like Spice and Wolf should be heavily limited to large crowds or left out entirely as it could detract from the piece if used too much, similar to how Shin Sekia Yori used CGI only for large armies and a few water-faring ships.

There are a lot of aspects that go into the creation of any type of art, much less just anime. Art in and of itself has many categories, uses, outcomes, and functions that it can be very difficult if not overwhelming for those who are not always artistically inclined to keep up with and learn all of the terminology, nor is it always necessary for them to. When people complain about a show like Kill la Kill or Aku no Hana and they voice their disgust for the “animation” but then go on to complain about the way the characters look (how needlessly sexual the outfits and poses are or how ugly the characters look, respectively) it gets confusing trying to keep up with the discussion. Generally, those who spend more time watching, researching, and learning about anime will normally pick up on these distinctions and be able to talk about them more clearly and succinctly just through exposure, but not everyone picks up on these differences or finds them worthy of their concentration. Art is no less complex when it is being applied to anime, and it does a disservice to an individual themselves as a fan of an animated work as well as anime itself to not respect the amount of attention, work, and skill required to bring their favorite hobby to life.

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Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters screenshots from episodes 206, 207, 208, 212