Ask John: How Did Anime Come to Look the Way it Does Today?

Question:
How did anime get to be the way it looks today? If you look at anime the way it was in the 60’s through early 80’s, regarding mainly the designs of the characters, the difference from the way it is today is quite dramatic. What led to the recent evolution of the current characterization style? The design that I am referring to is the enduring and popular style that is so common and well represented by titles such as Sister Princess, Burn Up Scramble and Kiddy Grade, among many others.

Answer:
It’s probably impossible to accurately describe the differences between the visual design of contemporary anime characters and those of ten, twenty and thirty or more years ago. There’s unquestionably a difference, but the specific characteristics of that difference are things that need to be seen rather than described. Experienced, veteran anime fans can even frequently roughly date anime character designs just by looking at them, but I doubt these same connoisseurs can explain exactly what traits distinguish a character design from the 1980s from a character created in the 1990s or 2000s. Anime character designs from the 1960s are typified by a cartoony and almost art deco look influenced by Osamu Tezuka and Shotaro Ishinomori. Character designs of the 1970s became a bit more realistic with and more spindly with the introduction of Lupin the 3rd, and the influence of character designers Yoshitaka Amano and Leiji Matsumoto. The 1980s were typified by highly stylized character designs with especially wild and big hair. In the 1990s anime character design style seemed to reflect the zeitgeist of the time by becoming more subtle, subdued and refined. That character design style has evolved in the current decade as not a response to the previous’ decade’s art, but rather a continuation of it that’s even more typified by thin, streamlined, soft lines.

In the same way that American comic book art has evolved over the decades, I think that fans take it as a natural occurrence that anime character designs have evolved and changed over the years. But I don’t think most fans consciously ponder what the influences effecting this evolution are. I’m also not certain that I can identify a singular cause because I suspect that the cause of the evolution in anime character design style is heavily influenced by Japanese culture and changes in Japan’s social history. But I think one of the most prominent and most unrecognized reasons for the changes in anime character design styles is one of the most obvious. As years pass, prolific and influential anime character designers come and go. I’ve already mentioned the influence of artists including Osamu Tezuka, Shotaro Ishinomori, Leiji Matsumoto and Yoshitaka Amano in the 1960s and 70s. Character designers including Haruhiko Mikimoto, Mutusumi Inomata, Michitaka Kikuchi, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Akira Toriyama, and Kenichi Sonoda were influential in shaping the stereotypical anime character design style of the 1980s. In the 1990s the work of Hiroyuki Kitazume, Kia Asamiya, Satoshi Urushihara, Atsuko Nakajima, and Nobuteru Yuuki were highly influential in shaping the characteristic visual look of the period. In the past four or five years, upcoming new artists and veterans with stunning new relevance to the anime industry including Range Murata, Keiji Goto, Hisashi Hirai, Toshihiro Kawamoto and original character designers including Kanan and Ken Akamatsu have helped define the look of contemporary anime characters.

I’m prepared to admit that I may be mistaken, and I may be citing artists that only I believe have been influential, but I do think that it’s reasonable to theorize that established and well known Japanese character designers influence their contemporary peers and collectively have an influence on the type of character design style the typifies the time period during which they are most prolific.