Japanese manga has developed its own
visual language or iconography for expressing emotion and other
internal character states. This drawing style has also migrated into
anime, as many stories are adapted into television shows and films.
The popular and recognizable style of
manga is very distinctive. Emphasis is often placed on line over
form, and the storytelling and panel placement differ from those in
American comics. Impressionistic backgrounds are very common, as are
sequences in which the panel shows details of the setting rather than
the characters. Panels and pages are typically read from right to
left, consistent with traditional Japanese writing.
Panel characteristics
There are several expressive techniques
typical (and some of them unique) to the manga art form:
- Screentone: Transparent adhesive sheets manufactured with a distinctive pattern (typically, some form of dots or hatching, but also including a variety of flashy effects like stars or explosions, or commonplace scenes such as cityscapes, schoolyards, and natural landscapes), these are cut out and overlapped on the panel to introduce shading and detail that would be time-consuming or unfeasible to draw by hand. Increasingly, physical tone sheets are being replaced by computer-generated equivalents.
- Expressive dialogue bubbles: The borders of the speech/thought bubbles change in pattern/style to reflect the tone and mood of the dialogue. For example, an explosion-shaped bubble for an angry exclamation. Also, manga does not usually follow the normal Western comic conventions for speech (solid arc extending from the character's head) and thought bubble (several small circles used in place of the arc). The latter bubble style is often used for whispered dialogue in manga, which can confuse Western readers.
- Speed lines: Often in action sequences, the background will possess an overlay of neatly ruled lines to portray direction of movements. Speed lines can also be applied to characters as a way to emphasise the motion of their bodies (limbs in particular). This style, especially background blurs, extends into most action based anime as well.
- Mini flashbacks: Many artists employ copies of segments from earlier chapters (sometimes only a single panel) and edit them into the story panels to act as a flashback (also applying an overlay of darker tone to differentiate it from current events). This can be considered a convenient method to evoke prior event(s) along with visual imagery. In situations where a character's life events flash across his/her mind, a splash page may be used with the entire background consisting of segments from earlier chapters.
- Abstract background effects: These involve elaborate hatching patterns in the background and serve to indicate or strengthen the mood of the plot. It can also illustrate a character's state of mind.
Facial features
While the art can be incredibly
realistic or cartoonish, characters often have large eyes (female
characters usually have larger eyes than male characters), small
noses, tiny mouths, and flat faces. Psychological and social research
on facial attractiveness has pointed out that the presence of
childlike facial features increases attractiveness. Manga artists
often play on this to increase the appeal of protagonists. Large eyes
have become a permanent fixture in manga and anime since the 1960s
when Osamu tezuka was inspired by Disney cartoons from the United
States and started drawing them in this way.
Furthermore, inside the big eyes, the
transparent feeling of pupils and the glares, or small reflections in
the corners of the eyes are often exaggerated, regardless of
surrounding lighting, although they are only present in living
characters: the eyes of characters who have died are the colour of
the iris, but darker. Sometimes this death effect is also used to
indicate characters who are emotionless due to trauma or loss of
conscious control because of possession (ghost, demon, zombie, magic,
etc.). In characters with hair partially covering the face, the eyes
that would otherwise be covered are often outlined to make them
visible, even when the hair is particularly dense and dark.
Certain visual symbols have been
developed over the years to become common methods of denoting
emotions, physical conditions and mood:
Eyes
Eye shape and size can be exaggerated
or changed altogether. Love-hearts and doe-eyes indicate an
infatuation, while stars indicate that the character is star-struck.
Spirals indicate confusion or dizziness, while flames or wide empty
semicircles indicate that the character is angry or vengeful. When
dead, unconscious or stunned, "X"s are sometimes used as an
indication of the state. Eyes may be replaced with two "<"s
facing in opposite directions to represent a variety of emotions,
such as nervousness or excitement. Eyes without pupils and reflective
glints indicate a state of delirium.
Enlargement of the eyes, where they
become huge and perfectly round with tiny pupils and no iris and
going beyond the reach of the face (often shown with the mouth
becoming like a stretched semicircle, the point of which extends past
the chin) symbolises extreme excitement. Similarly, turning eyes into
two thick half-circles, conveys a cute, delighted look .
The character's eye shapes and sizes
are sometimes symbolically used to represent the character. For
instance, bigger eyes will usually symbolize beauty, innocence, or
purity, while smaller, more narrow eyes typically represent coldness
and/or evil. Completely blackened eyes (shadowed) indicates a
vengeful personality or underlying deep anger. It could also indicate
that someone's being a wise-guy type, particularly when accompanied
by grinning. A character's eyes are shadowed regardless of the
lighting in the room when they become angry, upset, something is
wrong with them, or they are emotionally hurt. Bubbles forming in the
corner of a child's or female character's eyes often indicate that
the character is about to cry.
Mouth
Mouths are often depicted as small,
usually rendered with one line on the face. A fang peeking from the
corner of the mouth indicates mischief or feistiness (unless, of
course, the character has fangs normally). A cat mouth (like a number
"3" rotated 90° clockwise) replacing the character's
normal mouth, and usually accompanied by larger eyes may also
represent mischief or feistiness.
Nose
Again, noses are often depicted as
small, with only a brief L-shaped mark to locate them. With females,
the nose can sometimes be removed completely when the character is
facing forward. In profile, female noses are often button shaped,
consisting little more than a small triangle. A balloon dangling from
one nostril (a "snot bubble") indicates sleep.
Head and face
Sweat drops are a common visual
convention. Characters are drawn with one or more prominent beads of
sweat on their brow or forehead (or floating above the hair on
characters whose back is turned). This represents a broad spectrum of
emotions, including embarrassment, exasperation, confusion, and
shock, not all of which are necessarily considered to be
sweat-inducing under normal conditions. Actual physical perspiration
in manga is signified by even distribution of sweat drops over the
body, occasionally on top of clothing or hair.
Throbbing "cross popping” veins,
usually depicted as a cruciform or triskel in the upper head region,
indicate anger or irritation. These shapes can sometimes be
exaggerated, and placed on top of hair when the character is facing
away from the viewer. Further throbs indicate additional anger.
However, some manga such as Doraemon uses smoke puffs to represent
anger, and does not have the vein insignia.
A red cheek or hatchings on the cheek
represent Blushin, usually used when embarrassed by romantic
feelings, while oval "blush dots" on the cheeks represent
rosy cheeks. This can sometimes be confused with a scribble on the
cheek, indicating injury. Sometimes when the character is drunk a
long blush through the nose would appear.
Facial shape changes depending on the
characters mood, and can look from round apple shaped to a more
subtle carrot shape.
Parallel vertical lines with dark
shading over the head or under the eye may represent mortification,
fatigue, or horror. If the lines are wavy, it may represent disgust.
A far cuter way to represent frustration/mortification is (mainly for
female/ young female characters) they tend to puff out their cheeks
while their line is delivered in a gruff voice, an elongated 3
showing puffed lips to show that puffed look more.
Character design
To better elicit a more emotional
response with the audience for a certain character, a manga artist or
animator will sometimes use certain traits in the character's design.
The most common features include youthfulness as a physical trait
(younger age or pigtails) or as an emotional trait such as a naive or
innocent outlook, a childlike personality, or some obvious
sympathetic weakness the character works hard to correct (extreme
clumsiness or a life-threatening disease) but never really succeeds
to get rid of.
Other artistic conventions used in
mainstream manga include:
- A round swelling, sometimes drawn to the size of baseballs, is a visual exaggeration of swelling from injury.
- A white cross-shaped bandage symbol denotes pain. (In older manga, eyes pop out to symbolize pain, as shown in Dragon Ball).
- Thick black lines around the character may indicate trembling due to anger, shock or astonishment.This is usually accompanied by a rigid pose or super deformed styling.
- Sparks literally fly between the eyes of two characters when they are fighting, or simply glaring at each other (in this case, their eyes may also be connected by a lightning streak).
- A character suddenly falling onto the floor, usually with one or more extremities twisted above him or herself, is a typically humorous reaction to something unexpected happening.
- All facial features shrinking, the nose disappearing, the character lifting off the floor and the limbs being multiplied as if moving very fast symbolizes panic; if the same but with larger facial features it symbolizes comic rage.
- Tear drops everywhere or forming a fountain indicate intense joy or sadness.
- An ellipsis appearing over a character's head indicates a silence, implying that something is going unsaid.
- A drooping head may indicate sorrow.
- More often than not, character colorisations tend to represent the character in some way. A more subdued character will be coloured with lighter tones, while a flamboyant character will be done in bright tones. Similarly, villains are often coloured in darker tones, while colder character will be given neutral tones (black, white, grey, etc.).
- Characters push their index fingers together when admitting a secret or telling the truth to another.
- An odd white shape (more often than not, something close to a mushroom) that appears during an exhale represents a sigh of awkward relief or depression.
- A wavy ghost coming out of the mouth is often a comical representation of depression or mortification.
- Cherry blossoms indicate a sweet or beautiful moment.
- A flower blossom falling off its stem may indicate death or, more commonly, loss of virginity.
- Unbound hair may represent freedom, while hair that is tied back may represent some form of either literal, figurative or emotional enslavement of some kind.
- Sleeping people may be indicated by having a bubble coming out of the nose, said bubble inflating and deflating as they snore. This is usually done when the character sleeps at an inappropriate moment (e.g. during class, at work, outside, in public, in an unusual pose or location, etc.).
- Sometimes, when a character screams or is surprised, they will do The scream pose.
- Twitching eyebrows or eyelids may indicate anger or shock that the character is holding back.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário