It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2020 6:33 pmI get I'm probably way too in my feelings about this, but it just feels disrespectful to art to be this focused on whether art "looks good." Most art throughout history has looked like complete ass if we use present day sensibilities.
I mean, that was only one part of my post. And I'm not talking about "present day" sensibilities, I'm talking about my own. There's plenty of non-contemporary art that looks nice to me. Oda's style of drawing people simply looks gross to me. That's not me saying it's "objectively bad", that's not me saying "Oda should feel bad", or "Oda should stop what he's doing", or "Oda should draw in a way that I like", or "anyone who likes the art is dumb".
I'm simply putting into words the reaction
I have to the art, which is a reaction I both did not choose to have, and one that I'm perfectly allowed to have. If others don't share that reaction, that's just fine, because nobody is obligated to have the same point of view that I do.
And, yeah, a good story could compensate for bad visuals. But I was charging it with looking bad
on top of, apparently, just being Oda's vehicle for exploring his D&D campaign setting. If it was
just that I found his art repugnant, that wouldn't necessarily be a deal breaker, but the fact that I find his art repugnant on top of everything else about it not selling me is like some sort of reverse cherry on the...bottom.
That's the only reason I brought up his art.
Lastly, if "present day sensibilities" are relevant, then we can look at older art that looks like ass with more of a charitable eye than contemporary art that looks like ass. One might say that people back then had more of an excuse to draw badly. But, that's of course apart from the raw gut reaction we have to it. And, I dunno man, this looks sweet even to my modern day eyes, context or not:
It was a very sweet dunk. Also kinda inevitable. Dragon Ball was irreverant from day one so eventually the series would have to turn the critical eye on itself. Which makes the joke even better imo. Usually when a series becomes self aware it's to exam its legacy and impact. When Dragon Ball becomes self aware it's to blow a raspberry in the face of its fandom.
I think that plays an important role in my point. Toriyama's got an irreverent style of humor. People reading "comic by guy who takes the piss out of everything" and letting themselves forget how much of a piss-taker he is.....is just funny. Toriyama succeeded in getting
me to take his irreverent-ass seriously, and that speaks to his skill as a storyteller, I think. That he then weaponized his lazy formulaic shit for comedy speaks to his skill as a comedian, I think.
Put another way, some say comedy is about subverting expectations. I don't know what else "get into a formula and then turn it on its head at the 11th hour" is, if not that. I mean, I'm sure it's a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but Toriyama is a funny-man by trade. And he used his serious action shit in service of funny-man things. People will harp on how dumb Super Saiyan 3 looks, and how much it, Gotenks, and Gohan were "wasted potential", and, like, I dunno, it kinda feels like:
That he never even really stops being irreverent, even as things get more serious, makes me, the reader, feel like "holy shit, I should have seen this coming, that's great".
And it's okay if nobody here thinks that's what he intended. It's okay if nobody here thinks that's even a thing on accident. It's okay if nobody thinks that would be funny even if it was a thing. That's not my problem. That's not anyone else's problem either. It's just, straight up, not a problem, if people get different things out of the same work. I'm not going to try to change anyone's mind on how to feel about it, because feelings aren't changed by arguments. All I can do is explain what I see when I look at the work, in the hopes that you guys see it too, and if you don't see it, well, that's completely fucking fine.