I voted for the last option. I'll take a good story/bad art over bad story/good art any day of the week. As for realistic and surrealistic artists:
most realistic: IKEGAMI Ryoichi (mangaka of Sanctuary
best surrealistic: like Highway-STAR said, Matsumoto Taiyo has pretty trippy art in Black and White

"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained."

• Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain

I'm so tired of "the art is not as important as the story line".... 🙄
If the art is nothing for you then why choose to read manga, run for novels instead.
😃
I personally love detailed artwork and it's true that I will drop the manga if the art is not pleased to the eye.
I'm not really a fan of fantasy from the beginning. I prefer Slice of life genre. I prefer realistic art.
Some mangas that are forever my favorites:
Emma & Otoyomegatari & Kaze Hikaru & Oooku (historical type)
Nana & Paradise Kiss (the world of youth, fashion, etc... )
Slam Dunk (sport)
The art there is not like some manhwa which only have a eye-catching cover but the art inside the book suck.
Some thought bubbles, some tiny changes of the moods, etc... are dealed with so well in those mangas. Many thanks to the style and the art.

[img]http://i799.photobucket.com/albums/yy272/flower_of_life/Indigo_Blue_Chapter_10_148-1.jpg[/img]

I immediately thought "Nakamura Asumiko!" when I saw your post title 😛

I voted for "surreal" as opposed to the last option because I'm into manga as much for the art as the story, like darcyaglow said. For me, art is a very important aspect in manga, especially in the sense where it kinds of adds value (for lack of a better term) to the plotline.

The reason why I didn't vote the first option is because I like my manga characters to be riduclously pretty. 😁 I kid, I find realistic art to be beautiful too. Its just that as opposed to extreme-realism, I would prefer extreme-surrealism because it presents such a wonderful, quirky alternative to how we usually view the world, through our human eyes.

looking for this yaoi title; any help is appreciated!

i really like realistic art but also the more artistic parts of me just craves surreal mind bending art so i just have to say that its the story that matters...

oh please do click this!
The sweeter the apple, the higher the branch. The quieter the fart, the nastier the smell.
GUESS WHO??

Quote from Highway-STAR

With practice, anyone can do realistic art. Surreal art demands a certain sense of creativity and design.

Quote from calstine

mannequin-like characters

As far as one can see, poll respondents tend to confuse "character design" with "art". When will people acknowledge that design does not equal visual representation in general?

Narumi Kakinouchi has gained a reputation as a character designer, but her drawings are patently lacking in background details. How could we compare artwork of hers with art of Kaoru Mori's, whose attention to detail that has been always present to fullest advantage? Design is a different category; neither Kakinouchi's nor Mori's style could be considered 'realistic' or 'unrealistic' - both artists draw their characters fairly typical for mainstream manga.

Quote from calstine

The story is what is important.

What's wrong in appraisal of art and story as two utterly unrelated features? They are unrelated, after all; if mangaka's storytelling skills are excellent, one can ignore mediocre artwork and keep up reading, - but if, as darcyaglow said, one holds art as nothing and thinks that story is the only component that matters, others are not obliged to adopt one's principles and refrain of giving credit for mangaka's drawing skills.

Quote from Allez

Quote from Highway-STAR

With practice, anyone can do realistic art. Surreal art demands a certain sense of creativity and design.

Quote from calstine

mannequin-like characters

As far as one can see, poll respondents tend to confuse "character design" with "art". When will people acknowledge that design does not equal visual representation in general?

Narumi Kakinouchi has gained a reputation as a character designer, but her drawings are patently lacking in background details. How could we compare artwork of hers with art of Kaoru Mori's, whose attention to detail that has been always present to fullest advantage? Design is a different category; neither Kakinouchi's nor Mori's style could be considered 'realistic' or 'unrealistic' - both artists draw their characters fairly typical for mainstream manga.

Quote from calstine

The story is what is important.

What's wrong in appraisal of art and story as two utterly unrelated features? They are unrelated, after all; if mangaka's storytelling skills are excellent, one can ignore mediocre artwork and keep up reading, - but if, as darcyaglow said, one holds art as nothing and thinks that story is the only component that matters, others are not obliged to adopt one's principles and refrain of giving credit for mangaka's drawing skills.

True- I admit you're right about one thing...I might not have been clear about what I wanted to say. What I meant was, you see people voting shoujo romance manga with 10s by stating "the guys are so hot and great to look at - and that's really the only reason I even read it" and then rate manga with more advanced story-lines with 3s and 4s saying; "the story is good but the art is bad, so I'm abandoning this". So, it's not me who is confusing character design with art- I of course know they're two different things, but most manga readers don't, and I was referring to such people.

And you're mistaken if you think darcyaglow is appraising 'art and story as two unrelated features' - she said quite clearly that she'll drop any manga that doesn't have art that appeals to her.

And- whoever said you shouldn't give a mangaka credit for good art? I don't remember writing anything of the sort! I only said that basing your opinion of a manga simply on the artwork will cause you to miss out on a lot of good stories with well thought-out plot-lines and great characters.
But, well- if someone reads manga only for the art, that's his / her choice; everyone's entitled to their own opinion, and what each reader looks for in a manga is different.

Also, I don't know how you ran away with the idea that I was trying to 'oblige others to adopt my principles' - I most certainly said nothing to that effect.

The line concerning 'unnecessarily low' and 'inappropriately high' ratings has nothing to do with the subject of this thread, which has been supposed to be about art preferences. There is no need in setting forth beliefs about MU's rating system. It's offopic; and if one misses deserving series relying on the ratings, that's one's own fault to begin with. The line concerning 'plot of the book' has nothing to do with discussing ART STYLES, either.

Get the facts straight before starting to argue. Everyone has their own ideas about manga's art. tartufo has asked about personal taste and personal experience. Thus lecturing a certain 'you', who is supposedly 'drooling' over manga pages and doesn't care about it's 'actual content', adds nothing up to the poll. It could only be considered a reproach. Moreover, the declaration about the reason for art to be 'there' has no foundation in fact (btw, the kanji characters for "manga" - 漫画, - literally mean "cartoon pictures") .

And don't start twisting my words to get your point across. I haven't said anything about darcyaglow's reading habits or preferences; I subscribed to her statement about the tendency to set story above art.

Anyway, I insist on the question being worded incorrectly. What exactly has been implied as 'art' and what kind of art style can be taken for realistic? If we admit 'realism' as something that can be seen in our everyday life, then any manga panel which features a character standing against vacant space or floating in the air (there are dozens of manga artists, who pay little more than zero attention to backgrounds) should be taken as an example of unrealistic drawing style.

I think the art should reflect the story, or vice versa.
If the story itself is supposed to be realistic, then a realistic artistic style would accentuate that realism best
Similarly, if the story is meant to be unrealistic (read: most shojos, and definitely fantasy genres), then the art should be surreal

😀

I am much more a fan of surreal art than realistic art. I don't mind semi-realistic (e.g Death Note) as long as it retains a slightly unrealistic style. I'm not afraid to say I would rather read Q-ko-chan over Vagabond based purely on art style. But realistic art does have it's place and I don't mind reading it every once in a while.

On a side note, I'm a completely shallow person when it comes to manga so I could care less about the art style fitting the plot. I judge manga pretty much on art alone.