I don't know the mangaka's gender situation, but I don't think this is exclusively a male artist problem tbh. It's my one gripe about Kinu Nishimura's work. She can draw literally anything beautifully, perfectly, the men are varied and exquisite, and all her women share 1.5 faces.
Demon Slayer has equal opportunity neoteny so it's silly but it's consistent. With how relatively varied the men and boys in Frieren are, it's distracting. With the exception of Flamme, it's all literal and perpetual 14 year-old girls. Fellas, is it gay to draw grown women?
I love Frieren and the character design for the anime is spectacularly done, but every named female character has resting toddler face.
Ooo hate that!
In my day, the bots had the good sense to just paste the hashtags! Now they write whole sob stories
Really, where does the buck stop in this impossible scenario? Reminds me of anti- gun control arguments wherein no measure will eliminate 100% of gun violence so we're better off doing nothing at all.
I'm sure I'd be a lot happier in the short term (maybe in the semi-long term as well since I'm not poor and the "good" racial minority) if I just didn't care, but eh, hastening the future where your skin starts peeling off the minute you walk outside in February 2035 feels pretty bad.
Recycling? Composting? Reducing your consumption in general? You bring those up, it's the same "It's the corporations' fault, not mine" apathy. No one's asking you to start a revolution - just maybe make an attempt.
Seems like nobody around me gives a second thought to single-use plastics or treating themselves to more plastic garbage every time they need a dopamine hit.
There's no ethical consumption under capitalism. Okay, but you and all your middle-class privilege and high-speed internet can't TRY?
I have no faith in us to do better as a species. We can't be assed to make small adjustments to our behavior. Even "progressive" friends make excuses to keep shopping at the Amazons and the Walmarts and gleefully consume the newest Disney slop - they've just rehearsed the correct talking points.
Anime characters standing stock still and trading "How did she do that?"s and "You didn't notice I was suppressing my chi"s is THE WORST.
It's not as though the show's even been BORING or lacking in cool action up to this point! It just has a different focus. I hope it'll maintain its unique voice throughout and not just devolve into shonen tropes and power levels.
I'm at that point in my Frieren watch where people just monologue at each other about fight strategy and it sounds like they're working toward a chunin exams dealio? I'm afraid, because I really like the show so far, but I typically lose interest when a tournament arc is introduced.
Thanks for letting me air that out. Gonna sleepwalk through another week and be back for another round.
Do I go full "I'm only living for my children" except for my cats? I wrote a list of reasons to stick around, and the only sort of compelling items were Del Toro's stop motion The Buried Giant (if it's still even being made) and taking care of Taako and Lup.
I mean, I won't, like, I can't. But I WANT to.
I got up nice and early, caught some new birdsongs on the Merlin app, saw a cute fox, some rabbits, and a few does, got some groceries before 9am, I'm catching up on cleaning my apartment. And I want to blow my brains out.
prantz
Nahh, I wish I recognized any of these names, but I'm not super familiar with the comics/graphic novels scene. Looks very cool though – thanks for sharing, Larry!
I'm sorry to hear that, and it is for sure a universally lonely and shitty time. Wishing both of us can find something better on the other side of it. Btw, are you still in (I'm sorry I can't remember if it's) MI/MN? Been thinking about doing an Amtrak circuit of the USA on my next hiatus.
I've made some new friends at trivia nights and reconnected with a couple high school buds and they're cool but none of them are going to be creative collaborators. Idk, maybe it's for the best that I surround myself with people who help me transition to a grown-up life of tempered expectations.
I'm really tired of this persistent theme of not being able to find my community or a sense of belongingness or even one or two people to share my enthusiasm w/o feeling like I'm holding them hostage or I'm their charity case. I don't want people to feel sorry; I want them to energize me to live.
Kind of struggling to find meaning in holding on this year. Not actively ideating, but there was a nebulous idea of what I thought I'd accomplish by this age and obviously it didn't and won't work out. Burned out and disappointed and bored to shit and tired all the time. I wanna leave.
I just thought of this video on digital vs film cinematography as an analogy m.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTU.... He talks about the difference between shooting w/ a deliberate vision vs shooting w/ greenscreen and high dynamic range and adding effects later. That's kinda how I feel about my work.
I'm 100% with you on that. Not even sure if my hang-up is with digital itself or if it was my choice of subject matter or the level of complexity but perhaps it feels like I'm creating a bunch of assets and assembling them rather than making something with a more holistic intention?
Maybe I'm disappointed that I didn't end up doing a traditional piece after all, and I wonder if it would've made a difference. Digital illustration (or the way I do it anyway) is nice because I feel in control but it's also a systematic, rote process that just keeps going until it doesn't.
I finished a big ambitious piece and it's not bad at all – on the contrary – I think it looks really nice but I don't feel pride or relief or much of anything right now.
You're totally right (on both points) and it's why I'm not really surrendering to despair. It's just a tired frustrated observation at this point, like "damn, i could give 65-70% instead, but i really need to keep the lights on"
I keep seeing people who succeeded early at the right place and the right time who continue to be rewarded year after year as long as they don't squander their goodwill in some major way. I have to accept that this will not be me. I'm a worker ant until I'm 85 or I die of burnout
