it's a long one but this is from a YouTube comment I made pertaining to the style we used for the animation, some context the person talked about Jojo's anime not being manga accurate.
tldr a lot of the philosophy is be close but follow the vibe cus the style changes too much to just Be Manga Accurate. manga accurate isn't enough info
So the thing about "manga accurate" is there's a clear distinct difference between Araki's style in Phantom Blood and say Stone Ocean. Araki's style has changed since 1987 and even then Part 3's similar style was different from Phantom Blood.
In animation this is a fickle thing to deal with cus animation for the most part is about being consistent, but also easier to animate. There's also the goal of your animators learning the style (this is an issue in the industry cus shows end too early or change the style that they cant learn the style so off modelness happens more often)
DP obviously chose to go with changing the artstyles according to the style of the Arc with Part 1 and 2 being closer in similarity. So it is manga accurate, just not accurate to Stone Ocean. Stone Ocean 2000 is manga accurate but not accurate to Phantom Blood 1987. There's alsothe fact Jojos manga art doesnt have a set palette. Which DP acknowledged but again its easier to pick a palette that looked the best (throw in the color design is a different department from animation, animators cant control what goes on there but of course sailorcrisis and I are our color design department)
Its the same here but for the sake of consistency, sailorcrisis and I decided to go with one character design and stick with it. Naoko has more than one style that we broke down into 4 or 5, mainly based on reprints and book covers. We call them Nakayoshi (1991), Tankobon (1992), Shinsoban (2003), and finally recently Kanzenban/Perfect Edition (2014) as well as the recent full color manga and what's WITHIN the pages. She draws a little different when working with Black and White.
This design is heavily based on Kanzenban for shre but Theres differences in anatomy and even her painting style throughout the years which effects what colors we think are "manga accurate", it effects how we draw the eyes for example. Kanzenban doesn't entirely dictate what we use though! ie the brooch here is based on some old concept Nakayoshi era designs, while in Kanzenban the brooch is gold or silver (kanzenban is even inconsistent). Its not currently manga accurate but we both think it looks good and elegant, like Naoko's tastes. Even the cel shading style we use comes from her anime art but not necesarilly copying what she does but as a means of studying how she uses watercolors, her habits.
Anyway depsite the differences, there are some habbits thats still in Naoko's style, so the best course of action for us was to look at them all, use aspects of them and put it together, like an amalgamation of 20 years of Naoko's art. Even the cel shading style we use comes from her anime art but not necesarilly copying what she does but as a means of studying how she watercolors, her habits. The bonus in making amalgamations is that for manga fans, it's a specific of style for someone. Shinsoban lovers see shinsoban, Nakayoshi lovers see Nakayoshi ect. Cus all the styles are in there in subtle tiny ways. ie the noses are visible which is not the case in Kanzenban or shinsoban, but the skirt's shape comes directly from Shinsoban cus we felt that looked the best with the body shape we used (which also comes from shinsoban and Kanzenban, the bodies are a LOT more hourglass curvier in Naoko's older art)
Its partially why the animation took 3 years, but the design process took MUCH longer! mainly cus sailorcrisis and I prefer different styles! 😂 she likes shinsoban and Kanzenban, i like Nakayoshi and Tankbon (which itself is a broad term since Tankobon and Nakayoshi was around the same time and the names pertain to the series' entire run from 91 to 95. Nakayoshi was the magazine, Tankobon was the home release volume books. but the one I prefer is the style in early chapters i like that one!) but yeah instead of choosing one or the other we mixed it up, and made a single character design out of it. (though we are making changes but theyre small lots of times, we are perfectionists lol)
So.. yea its manga accurate but not necesarilly pertaining to a specific one. It's all about hitting the vibe and understanding what Naoko was trying to go for. Same for Jojo, just a different way of goin about it. Stone Ocean would NOT be the same vibe if it was in Phatom Blood's style. Our way is not the 100% correct way for some people either, and it probably won't work for every manga series. But the philosophy is just "be close but follow the vibe." the vibe kinda being Naoko's elegant and expensive tastes, ethereal and slow motion.
