Would you know the reason behind Ash's art style shift? Like, was it something plot-related? I'm an anime-only fan so I think this was something that happened only in the manga since Ash doesn't change his look in the anime.
Hi! Thank you for your question!
And Oh boiiii you asked this at a very good time :’D
I was thinking of doing a comparative study of Akimi Yoshida’s art style throughout the manga ( and her other works) for a very long time, since I was always wondering what made her shift the style around so much?
I browsed through almost all of her available works online in a chronological manner, and what I found was that, she has the “same face syndrome” that a lot of creators unfortunately grow into. I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing, but it does make you wonder about the relative variety of characters /tropes that an author uses to establish a certain distinction between their works.
I’ll elaborate it visually here (this list includes Yoshida’s most popular works over the years, I have excluded multiple works published in the same year) :
Tell me, do you recognise the characters that look virtually identical to Eiji or Yut Lung or Ash (or I can even spot someone who looks like Ibe-san above), in her other works?
If I was a new reader who was completely unfamiliar with Yoshida’s works, I’d have practically no idea which manga I was reading if the titles had not been previously clarified, simply because all the characters looked essentially the same across her works. This fact hit me even harder as I was hunting for pictures from all the above titles.
There’s a clear pattern here : all her early works, until Banana Fish, had art that was softer, rounded, with fluffy hair (I’m sure this is due to the contemporary fashion trends at the time).
Banana Fish is where her art changed. This manga ran for over a decade, and during that time, Yoshida didn’t essentially produce any other major works, and quite obviously so.
In Banana Fish, we see the art change form rounded, pretty, childlike features, to a more rugged, hardened, and flowy look, as typified by the longer hairstyles, sharp jawlines, strongly arched eyebrows, and more billowy clothing, with bold, stark lines and circulating between a specific set of expressions on the characters’ faces.
Since you’re an anime only fan, I’ll elaborate here, that Fly Boy is a prequel to Banana Fish and contains Eiji’s backstory. Angel Eyes and Private Opinion are also prequels and have Ash’s backstories, also including Shorter and Blanca. All the three can be read beforehand, without worrying about spoilers.
Garden of Light is an immediate sequel to Banana Fish, and contains *MAJOR SPOILERS* so don’t read it unless you finish the manga / anime.
Now, as for the changes in appearance of Ash and Eiji, I’ll put the following compilation :
These are panels from volumes 1, 12 and 18, in that order, and shows what I wrote above : the major shift in art style.
I’ll also include excerpts from interview of Akemi Hayashi (the character designer) and Hiroko Utsumi (the director) about how they approached the changes in design and animation from the manga style, to fit into the contemporary setting:
Here is what they say about Ash’s anime design :
(Like I said in my previos post, I find the art style in the middle volumes (roughly vols 9 - 14) most pleasing, and the art designers also chose the earlier ones as reference.)
So, now you know why the anime has consistently kept to a single design choice, and it makes sense, because, the whole timeline of the manga barely covers a year and a half. On the other hand, from the perspective of a mangaka, it’s only natural that their style will evolve over such a long span of time and that the characters will look and feel different in the two media.
I personally, appreciate both the styles equally. I’ve seen a lot hue and cry over “why we’re not getting the nostalgic 80′s feels and etc etc”, but I support the changes is design and time frame. You have got to admit, that Banana Fish is a work that will be relevant no matter when and where and in which format it is adapted, because of the universal nature of the themes and issues that it deals with. So, a modern setting is unique in itself, with the added benefit that it has drawn in a huge audience of new fans, including myself, because of how unique that first impression of it had on me. ^_^
PS - I’m really sorry for dragging this post for so long omg. I kinda….had to get this out XD
I’ll be posting all the links and picture sources in the reblog, since tumblr is apparently eating up new posts that have hyperlinks.
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