OK, so. The thing where everyone in anime/manga fandom is all over the "pretty boys". I need a little clarification, in an "Is everyone seeing this the same way I am?" sort of way
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Usually if I find one of them pleasing (i.e. Light or Misa from DN), I'll find pretty much every other character in the series pleasing also. I assume it's a reaction not to the character but to the art--for me, at least.
It's weird when I find out that things I assumed were the same for everyone actually aren't!
I don't think many shounen characters are aesthetically pleasing, but J-fanarts of Sasuke? Oh my goodness they're so beautiful. Still don't think he's hot though. >_> (ITACHI LOOKS LIKE HE NEEDS MORE SLEEP. D: He's not hot. D:)
But I do think some guys in manga are gorgeous, like Sano and Umeda from HanaKimi. It's sort of hard to describe why, but I could always think 2D drawings of male chars are beautiful. ._.
I agree with that first bit! But that's a function of the style of the art, really. I think my problem is mostly that if you gave me pictures of every character an artist drew without context behind it, I would not be able to pick out which characters are "hot" and which ones aren't; it's the context that differentiates between characters within one style of art. I think Mogi from DN is more attractive, visually, than Yukimura from PoT, but neither of them is really attractive to me as a character if I don't know anything about them. Tezuka wouldn't draw me into PoT fandom any more than Horio would, if I were just going by "hot boys". They're not hot until I've learnt how to read the artist's visual shorthand.
(SO MANY PEOPLE think Itachi is hot, though! And I can see it if we're going solely by personality, if you like that type, or by interest. But I don't really get it myself, because I can't help but see those gashes lines under the eyes as saying "BIG VISUAL FLAW". They're a symbol that I think we're supposed to interpret as "
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Yes, they are doll faces. But the thing about anime is that it doesn't try to look realistic; it tries to create its alternate reality whose aesthetics more or less correspond to our reality. So anime fans eventually see the funny triangular faces and big bug eyes as perfectly normal, just like movie fans see the perfectly thin hard bodies and smooth airbrushed faces as normal. I personally now see the ridiculously big eyes as indicative that the eyes are important, and parallel to normal-sized eyes in our world.
The other thing is that a lot of attraction comes from people's behavior, not their appearance. A guy sitting on a roof? Could be hot or not. A guy sitting on a roof giving a girl a shy smile as he says, "You're so bad at this"? Totally adorable!
That's kind of what I mean, actually! I have a huge problem with clarity. :D The faces are doll faces, and only within the context of 1) the art style, 2) their universe, and 3) their own personalities are they any more than that to me. So it seems absurd to me to say (without having watched/read the source, and just seeing a picture with Sasuke and Naruto) that one character is hotter than the other. Or to say that Prince of Tennis has more pretty boys than Naruto (for that, I'd say--or at least mean--"the art is better" or "the boys:girls ratio is higher").
But that doesn't seem to be universal, as I'd thought.
...hhhmm! That's an interesting question. I actually haven't thought about it. I *do* classify anime characters as hot, or pretty, even though taken in and of themselves, well, they really are just a collection of lines around big to ginormous eyes.
For a lot of them, it's (mostly?) personality; ex: Temari, Ino. And possibly clothes ;). And some of them I find just plain old more aesthetically pleasing than other characters in the series - Kurenai or Neji versus Naruto or Gaara. For some of them, it's probably how they'd look if translated to real life; Asuma would *so* be my type.
But Itachi's personality does nothing for me, and looking at him, translating him to real life - well. yes. BAGS. Yet I'd say he's pretty. That might be me being influenced by fandom perceptions, or possibly just ridiculously pretty fanart. :D
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It's weird when I find out that things I assumed were the same for everyone actually aren't!
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But I do think some guys in manga are gorgeous, like Sano and Umeda from HanaKimi. It's sort of hard to describe why, but I could always think 2D drawings of male chars are beautiful. ._.
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(SO MANY PEOPLE think Itachi is hot, though! And I can see it if we're going solely by personality, if you like that type, or by interest. But I don't really get it myself, because I can't help but see those gashes lines under the eyes as saying "BIG VISUAL FLAW". They're a symbol that I think we're supposed to interpret as " ( ... )
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The other thing is that a lot of attraction comes from people's behavior, not their appearance. A guy sitting on a roof? Could be hot or not. A guy sitting on a roof giving a girl a shy smile as he says, "You're so bad at this"? Totally adorable!
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But that doesn't seem to be universal, as I'd thought.
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For a lot of them, it's (mostly?) personality; ex: Temari, Ino. And possibly clothes ;). And some of them I find just plain old more aesthetically pleasing than other characters in the series - Kurenai or Neji versus Naruto or Gaara. For some of them, it's probably how they'd look if translated to real life; Asuma would *so* be my type.
But Itachi's personality does nothing for me, and looking at him, translating him to real life - well. yes. BAGS. Yet I'd say he's pretty. That might be me being influenced by fandom perceptions, or possibly just ridiculously pretty fanart. :D
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