Americans cannot draw anime

I am convinced, no matter how much wannabe-anime style art I've seen, that one has to at least have some Asian in them to draw the anime/manga style.  Yes, it's also cultural, but culture and genes go hand in hand.  The "L/R" misconception is actually the ear and brain processing the letters a certain way, and Japanese people are also more responsive to higher pitched sounds rather than low bass, as seen in a lot of their music.  So call me a eugenics Nazi, I don't care.

Most US or Europe art tends to have square or straight eyes, to denote seriousness or "toughness."  The anime round eye style seems to be a perception of femininity, a welcoming of it even in males, that allows the character to look naturally gentle or naive.  The sense of 2D moving fluidly in 3D is also different in some way.  US animators tend to focus on the whole body at once, from disney to Hanna Barbera to South Park to any show made for Adult Swim.

The closest thing to anime art is Pinup girls of the mid twentieth century (when females could be oggled without complaint) and some US comics, especially Image, but even these aren't pure manga style (they are unique, but some try to resemble anime). 

There is some perception of what a character "should" look like to manga artists, which creates the style, and can be seen in Korean anime style art where the heads are wider or more squished.  Somehow, the us perception of what a charracter should look like in 2D either ends up very two dimensional, or like Furry art.  Something in US artists makes a lot of them predisposed to drawing Furry art, or cartoon animals, but not humans.  Humans have always been the most awkward, strangest things to draw, and either must look photorealistic as in fantasy art, or be abstract and cartoony.

Did someone say Weeaboo?

Weeabo or not(and there are some whoppers in there); I often feel like normal human movement in anime tends to feel more natural somehow even though it tends to use less frames per second. This is after watching a lot of american cartoons then later getting hooked on anime, and looking at cartoons again. By normal human I mean people drawn reasonably close to real life proportions in shape and whose movements aren't usually exagerrated except in certain cases, like extreme shock or anger. I don't include the bouncy looney tunes type of animation in this comparison because that's an entirely different style.

>>1 It certainly is not genes. You have not studied science if you think it's genetic.
Culture can explain everything in your list. Everything.

More things to consider:
- There were lots of "furry" Disney cartoons in the 80's and 90's to which Americans and Canadians were exposed at a young young age. This exposure creates a gut level reaction and ability to draw furry style. This easily explains its popularity!!

- You are grouping a lot of manga styles into one category. You've looked at the older 60's and 70's era manga, I'm sure? Quite a lot looks in no way similar to the modern sharp-and-angled style.

- European comics. It doesn't look american, it doesn't look japanese. What if Hergé's style were as insanely popular as manga? Would we ("we" because I am one of you) be striving to get it to look "right" and cursing ourselves for not being as good as the weird and exotic people of Belgium? Would we be able to tell instantly if a particular drawing were a genuine belgish creation, or a cheap US wannabe?
I think so. We would do that.

- You have, hopefully, seen spanish, french, and latin american doujinshi? They look exactly, EXACTLY like "real" manga, and trust me, I have as discerning an eye as you, if not more. These artists are not asian in any way, no asian blood, yet they draw well enough to even draw the notice of fellow artists in Japan.

In my view, the reason why Americans and Canadians cannot draw manga-style is because we have a different tradition of art. We tend more towards the abstract, the individual style, learning from scratch how to interpret the world on paper. We are immersed in, and trained from birth to hold, this mindset.

We are not trained to copy. We are not trained (except in certain graphic professions in the past) to study closely the exact technique and shape of a drawn symbol. We have no centuries-old tradition of artistic apprenticeship comparable to that of Europe, Latin America and Japan. (Not to say there haven't been artists produced comparable to those nations, but I simplify it.)

In general, then, we don't even know where to begin when attempting to emulate a style. And the few artists who can do it, must not be interested in manga or anime as serious storytelling techniques, although I wish it were otherwise.

Please >>1, look at what I have said and study up on the avenues of research I have suggested. It's fine to be a eugenics Nazi for genetic things, but in this case I do not believe it fits.

>You have, hopefully, seen spanish, french, and latin american doujinshi?
Link to some plz?

not only facial features, but muscular anatomy is very different too - I can hardly model it well in form. :(
http://www.planetgargoyle.com/models/arremer3d2.jpg

One of the contributing factors is the lack of direct reference and model sheets of musculature of the anime/manga style -

luckily i'm getting a purebred jap to do the texture though \o/

Also, americans keep using super thick HB pencils.

>>4
kudos

>>4

amen

>>1
eugenics Nazi

Could an American ever, ever, ever design Katamari Damacy?  NO.

>>10
give him the right drug yes he could

Would an art school dedicated to manga/anime style ork in the US?  No, it would only produce US art in a wannaba anime style.  No matter how many How to Draw Manga books people buy, or how much anime style art they post on Deviantart, it will generally be US style art with blocky/straight lines and narrow eyes. 

http://www.nesteggstudios.com/

The concept art for this game reminds me of the Wonder Woman  drawing in Excel Saga.  Artists still can't evolve past He-man.  Unless they're 50-100% Asian. 

The general style of anime can be traced back to Disney. Japanese art of the 19th century bears almost no relation to what we see in any cartoon today, regardless of where it came from.

I suspect the Anonymous that came up with this ridiculous idea doesn't draw himself or he would recognize that EVERY ARTIST DOES HAVE A UNIQUE STYLE, even if there are great similarities across professional anime and manga art. The difference between Japan and the U.S. is that Japan, being a small and dense country with a different market structure, has developed a tighter set of definitions on character design. When U.S. artists try to incorporate the style into their OWN characters, they end up with a blend of disparate influences, some their own, and others from Japan, and they don't have the same artistic community available to bring their work into line with the norm of Japan's art. But there are many, many artists anywhere in the world capable of faithfully emulating EXISTING characters from Japanese manga and anime. The style is set up such that emulation is easy. Style differences, when the artists involved are skilled, get reduced to small variations in line weight and curvature.

In U.S. comics you can often clearly tell a difference in pencilling/inking styles in a long-running series. With superheros, in particular, the anatomy varies widely and some characters end up looking chubby in one story and ripped in another. This is because the character design in superheroes usually isn't very tight - costumes are important, faces are important, but nobody pays much attention to the shape of the sixpack or the bulge of the bicep. In U.S. animated works this difference probably contributes a lot to the percieved weak animation of many cartoons. On the other hand, U.S. animation has very deep problems in terms of how it currently gets funded, and in general the budgets are pushed down, not up.

anime was inspired by betty boop - an american cartoon.
There's no ridiculous jap ancient history behind it you waps.

>>14

Let's keep the italians out of it.

And I'm pretty sure most of the early anime was taken from Walt Disney, recreating classics into the distinctive japanese style.

It could be the other way around though, I'm not sure.

>>15
yeah, early anime has pretty heavy disney influences. tezuka was a huge fan.

I keep trying to give US adult comics a chance, from the US stuff brought out by mangerotica, penthouse comics, and other independents, but it just doesn't match up to the quality of manga artists, who have a keen understanding of angle usage, motion, conflict, and emotional response.  US comics lack something, and a lot of times it looks like the artist is drawing a profile or anatomical figure without concern for scene or situation.

>>mangerotica, penthouse comics,

hahahahahha

read more, fag

I swear, people just dig to the bottom of the barrel just so they can have something to bitch about. OMG LOOK AT MEGATOKYO, STUPID AMERICANS FAIL AT TEH MANGA.

Come on thats bullshit. Yeah I have not seen any american anime on the level of authentic japanese anime. But I have seen plenty of indipendent and syndicated work that is just as good. There is talent out there. They may not have the culture thing on their side, but whatever. Not all manga must take place in japan, have japanese characters etc.. It depends if they have been working in the style for a while or they are a non manga artist trying their hand at the style. Thats where the true mangakas talent will shine. And I'm pretty sure anyone who grew up in japan and is well ruited in the culture will be able to produce a very authentic and good manga or anime.
And so on. whatever man.

c'mon! Americans can so draw anime! I'm american and I've been drawing anime style ever scince I was still in grade school! Japanime especially!!! I mom always said I was good and I thought I was, too!

>>1
Casue they don't want to they are afraid that people will just call them nubz who can only copy. Add to the fact that Anime is still quite unpopular in the majroity of America and thus people are afraid that theyir work will no get interest if they are Anime like.

Or the otehr case scenario is that in the US people place a lot of emphasis on self identification and thus tehy always draw something in between cause they want to show that "hey I can do a perfect combination of the 2 styles I created my owbn style that take the good from both I am soo awesome!!!" 

If by anime you mean cartoons, then Americans are superior. Japan cartoons are at the bottom of the barrel in terms of artistic quality. Maybe they have good ideas, but the art is shit.

I am going to remain anonymous.  But I am of Irish descent no asian in me at all and I sign all of my art with a made up korean name and am hailed on message boards as a great artist, now, the rason I started using an asian name is because I was getting so/so comments under my real name, since I changed my name to a korean name my art is great. so is it prjudice.

>>24
I lol'd!

>>24 is Dan Kim

>>24

that's what i'd do if i went into wap-centered art; IMMEDIATELY take up a japanese pen-name. being japanese, in this fandom, is a magical commodity that will allow you to get away with anything.

i think it has to do with the way asians learn to write, which is different to westerners... the manga charas can be seen as a prolongation of kanji and ideograms, same goes for their emoticons...
it's not only about an asian penname, you know many japs have english-based pennames and such...

>>21
you gotta be kidding lol

>>4
only one thing: not everything in Europe looks like franco-belgian.
And yes, in Europe we have wannabes that try to make it look like Hergè, and they fail.

>>30
Certainly not, but there are failures in every place, even Japan mind you!

>>31
In Japan, there are many artists that try to emulate the styles they've seen in Europe too... the results are weird indeed. It's what they call "nouvelle manga"... anybody ever heard of Taniguchi?

And it's not like all Japanese people know how to draw manga. Many (thousands) actually suck at doing it.

>>32
.... Have you read Jiro Taniguchi?
Have you read Katsuhiro Otomo?
Have you read Hayao Miyazaki?

If you have and still say 'the results are weird indeed.', then I really admire your talent.

Well, I think their results are unusual (in fact, that is the appeal they have as authors). Personally, i'm tired of the flat generic manga, and of course, of all the wapanese that follow it...
True, "weird" wasn't the most appropiate word for it.

...

Manga artists have individual styles. I think Masamune Shirow’s (Ghost in the Shell) glossy artwork looks very different from Range Murata’s (Last Exile) clean retro-styled artwork which looks very different from Yoshitoshi Abe’s (Haibane Renmei) sketchy artwork.

The problem is, while American Superhero and Fantasy fans idolize individual artists, American Anime fans idolize shows and genres. American Anime image galleries and image boards rarely mention the artist’s name. Instead, Anime is consumed as if there is a giant pipeline running from Japan to the U.S., sucking all Japanese artists’ work into one stream and mixing them all together. How can American Anime fans be critical of anime art when they consume it like candy by the handful, without even knowing the names of the artists?

It's not only the Japanese who have an 'anime' style you retards.  But to have a point, the differences between Korean, Chinese and Japanese 'anime' are subtle and tend to only be recognizable to those who either pursue art or grew up in the culture
Wapanese is an unfortunate current trend because people are forgetting old comics and things and worshipping anime/manga/Japs too much

FUCK YOU YOU DONT KNOW SHIT ABOUT JAPAN OR ANIME SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH YOU QUEER.ANIME IS BULL SHIT ITS NOT REAL IM FROM TOKYO YOU ASS HOLE YOU SOUND LIKE YOUR GAY.WELL I GOT NEWS FOR YA FAG WE KICKED YOUR ASS IN PERL HABER YA BITCH!!!!!!!!!

FUCKING GOOKS

Sushi, the key word here is sushi.

If an American learned how to make sushi, and he lived in a small town ala South Park, he would end starving because people around him wouldn't want his sushi. But if this person lived in a big city like New York, he could afford his living with a sushi bar/restaurant.
Still, in this city a Japanese chef would still be more popular.

And of course, if the American wanted to earn more money, he could try moving to Japan, if sushi can be popular and is expensive in the US, it's popular and expensive in Japan too.
Anyway, he wouldn't be as popular and well paid as local sushi experts.

So, is it really so important to make sushi??