Originally posted by kafka47:
Lovely work, both of you...except get the kids out of the cockpit (you know my aversion to anime) and put in some honest to goodness photo realistic individuals.
Like this one:
Also see my
previous post.
That's not currently viable for tv cel animation. You're comparing two different mediums and methods of composition, with differing budgets and different goals. Both are good examples and succeed in their goals. I wouldn't expect cel animation to look like a novel cover painting that incorporates photos (which still looks stylized and "unreal" to me; I can still see the “brushstrokes” and the technique used to trick the eye). Digital animation no matter the country of origin still isn't up to seamless quality yet and is still very expensive and not viable for a tv show, especially if it has a typical tv budget for Japan.
As for the kids comment, those two characters are indeed the youngest ones. The character on the left is the rookie. In the manga she's a 12 year old born and raised on the Moon (i.e. low grav) and “part of a long study regarding the effects of space on human development.” (
source) In the anime they changed her age to 20 and IIRC dropped the born on Luna angle. Both characters start out in 2075 cleaning up space junk (the lowest space job around) and are later in training for a mission to Jupiter. Also keep in mind the intended audience, who are likely to be more interested if they can identify with the main characters. Having a 40 or 50 year old average looking veteran as the main character isn’t the case in most tv shows anywhere, live action or animated, however unrealistic it might be.
The eyes and facial expressions look to be within the range of a person with
epicanthal folds* and other typically Japanese facial features. There’s possibly some slight exaggeration but for similar reasons to why Classical Greek Drama uses exaggerated costumes, to draw attention to and distinguish the character. It’s also a technique that originated with and is still used by Disney, the eyes are the windows to the soul thing. All of this is used to clue in the viewer about a character and their current emotional state, one of many such visual cues. Manga and Anime are mediums with a short deadline and usually small budgets that need to convey a lot of information quickly.
If such stylistic conventions prevent you from watching or reading Planetes, well that's your choice to make. IMO you'd be missing out on an excellent series (in either format, manga or anime tv show) and a good story about wanting to be an astronaut for what is just a medium and cultural convention, one not overly used in Planetes.
As always, hope this helps and your mileage may vary.
* as an example, here are two pictures of
Ayu, a current top Japanese pop singer and celebrity. She's done many popular music videos, commercials, and ads and is 26, about the same age as the character on the right (25) in the Planetes image.
Image 1
Image 2
(edit: fixed images;
original source)
