Maybe this is a repeat of how many other times but is it just me or do you guys find the art's/panel's style/design unbearable? Now...before I go on, I want to express that this is only my own personal opinion so please don't take any offense. From my previous attempts at reading, art wise - majority of the character design for both genders are very unappealing or just straight out ugly (the lips bother me the most) and the background/scenery feels very simple/dry...as for the panels, they seems so unorganized to the point of irritation...like the feeling of being "all over the place" or "clusterfuck"...oh and the overflowing of thought-bubbles on most of the pages is just .

Even as a person that's especially picky on art, I found the panel design to be the major problem for me since it feel perfectly fine when its in animation (regarding the art)...like Skip Beat, Fruit Basket, Lovely Complex, Ghost Hunt (hell...didn't even notice this one was shoujo at first), Bokura ga Ita, etc. Ranting apart, I really want to learn that maybe there's a few individuals who feels the same because it's very regretful for me that I'd have to ditch some interesting shoujo/josei titles due to a mental state.

For the gals that read this...just out of curiosity...do you girls have any complaints for the art/panel design on Shounen/Senien manga? Perhaps you realized the same problem I have with the opposite genre...something to talk about .

I am a guy and nope not really I didn't find it a problem with shoujo/josei because I tend to avoid mangas that have bad art and thats why i rarely read mangas dated before 2000 as they tend to have bad art. Too much flowers and bubbles do bother me but for me the most important part is the character's faces and body proportion and the shoujo/josei mangas I read are pretty good with that. Fruits basket did have horrible art though(one of the reasons i stopped reading it), lovely complex i just didn't like how the girls were drawn and skip beat is just about bearable. Those three don't really have good art especially the girls. Try out some shoujo/josei mangas with good art like Savage Garden, Cinderella Fella,The Prince's Cactus, The Bride of the Water God, Men's Kou and maybe you will notice some difference.

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Angel Beats--best anime of the 2010 spring season

For me, I don't care.

I don't really judge manga by art, weather it's Shonen, Shoujo, Seinen or Josei.

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I read so much mangas, I'm too lazy to watch anime!

Manga I'm loving ATM: Heart no Kuni no Alice

Yeah...I know what you mean. Personally I avoid manga before year 2000 as well but wouldn't mind the few exception like Rurouni Kenshin..Parasyt etc. The thing that gets me isn't really the bad art...instead it's the way the panel are aligned and structured...compared to Shounen/Seinen way where it feel "neat & organized"...don't really know how to clearly express it but it feels like reading through a wall-of-text vs accurately spaced paragraphs.

I'm female and it ain't a problem with me. Probably 'cos mm... there's a lot of seinen manga which is very very texty and dialogue-y or if not, very experimental... so it doesn't bother me at all. If you all thought that josei is wordy, go try Endo Hiroki's short stories. Now, that's one giant wall of text.

As for panel experimentations: I don't mind it...if not for shoujo/josei which experimented with panel layouts in the 70s, I'm not sure what kinda boring-ass panel designs manga would've been stuck with now. ^^;; Yep... probably no "double pages", "limited plot transition" and so on.

Edit: And oh, I read many many types of manga too... soo... few things really bother me.

Last edited by VampireBanana at 7:33 am, Apr 21 2010

I'm a male.I don't have any problems concerning shoujo/josei manga art/panel design if I'm interested in the story

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www.animeshippuuden.com

I'm a male.I don't have any problems concerning shoujo/josei manga art/panel design...If the art and story is good I don't care....

I'm female.
I don't 'devour manga like a starving kid'- but I don't let bad art and panel design get in the way of my reading a good story. So long as the art and panels are clear enough that I can see what's going on, I don't care if it's a little messy or ugly.
Over-crowded panels never bother me. Actually- I kind of like long dialogues.

And no, I don't have any problem with shounen / seinen art styles. Except for when they depict grossly out-of-proportion females with nothing but huge busts, tiny waists and colossal hips ; and men with monstrous, muscly bodies and legs so skinny I can't imagine how they can support those humongous torsos . Don't get me wrong; I'm not crazy about flat-chested girls and effeminate bishounen- but sheesh! People should look at least remotely like human beings, right?
Apart from those exceptions, any art style in a manga of any demographic is just fine with me.
If you don't believe me, go check out my lists- you'll see.





Last edited by calstine at 8:28 am, Apr 21 2010

I love shoujo and find no problem with it whatsoever,
And your poll doesn't make sense.

As for shounen, I don't read it cause the plots don't interest me at all and I typically don't like the drawing style. I don't know what you are talking about panels... I don't see such a big difference.

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Wow, a considerable amount of the 'eat-everything' type here!

Myself, I choose to avoid such manga. Although I do feel that Josei tends to stray away from the cliches Shojo manga suffer by the bucket.
An artist, I will not read something with even mediocre art. My being an artist has made me incredibly picky...

I read, manga and otherwise, for stories, not art, but I prefer most shoujo paneling to most shounen paneling. Yeah, as with anything there are some that really suck, but shoujo manga artists are who pioneered the creative paneling techniques you see in manga. Just take a look at the paneling in Oniisama e or, for an even more pioneering work, Sakura Namiki and compare it to most shounen paneling. The latter might be easier to follow, but the former is definitely more inspired.

My tastes, art-wise, favor the early stuff, the older the better. I'm not very fond of the modern typical shoujo art style, but I can't stand the modern typical shounen art style. Part of it is because of the way squishy way girls are drawn, part of it is because of the ugly scowling faces, and part of it because I just kind of like pretty things.

Last edited by akari_mizunashi at 9:01 pm, Apr 21 2010

Hmm i didn't really have any problems with panelling whatsoever in any type of manga. Its pretty easy to follow. What i have problems with is those big eyes that they sometimes have in shoujo mangas lol like fruits basket, whats up with that??

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Angel Beats--best anime of the 2010 spring season

Ohhh that's Tezuka Osamu's influence... he did that for Astro Boy and some of his other titles I think.

And this guy was in turn, influenced by Disney and Betty Boop(American art).

Care to elaborate regarding the poll?...maybe people find the last option to be a bit restrictive and/or out of place (doesn't make sense)...but my intention for it was to create an extra "other" sort of option that's topic related...while avoiding to flood the poll with all available choices.
The option itself basically serve as a multiple-option-in-one (perhaps not the best/appropriate simile that covers everything) targeted at manga-reader who:
-speed-read
-read manga just because it's manga (without a care for anything specific)
-story-driven readers (imo - in general manga is made up of two aspect..art & writing (50/50) hence the "don't chew, just swallow" since you're missing out on half of what food can offer..taste & nutrition.)

As for the panels in comparison...if you're familiar with both shounen/shoujo art/panel (or even at first glance) you can tell the difference after a few pages...the lack of white bordering...inconsistency of panel shaping (within the tetragon format - shounen remains as rectangle/square while shoujo includes irregular ones such as trapezoid, parallelogram etc) and sizes...the overlapping of panels...in which all factors into misguidance for me or should I say "hard to follow". Here's an example for reference...I'm also aware that not all of the pages are like prior description but usually there's enough of them to make up for the majority of the chapter.

Well. I think I have a pretty interesting view on this.
I'm female and shoujo tends to make me incredibly unhappy. I tend to dislike the art style and the way the panels are divided up.I can't ever get into the plotlines either. Every now and then a nice manwha will pull me in, but even that's rare. Clamp, however, I find I can always get interested in.

Shounen, I often find the art styles to be immature, and the plotlines to be run of the mill, there are still a few I read, however.

It's Seinen and Josei that tend to hold my interest. The Seinens have to be based off of more of an action based plot, gunslinging, that sort of thing, and the Joseis can't have a shred of romance.
I find the plots to be much more involving in these types of manga, however, and I find them to be much more attractive art-style wise.