Awesome Art / Anime & Manga

Examples of Awesome Art found in Anime and Manga.

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• Blue Flag is praised for its style, that milks out as much as it can of the characters' expressions, letting a lot clear without having to say anything, and its beautiful panel composition.
• Junji Ito. He can make just about anything awesomely horrific. Here, look at this cute kitten◊!
• Any works by Studio Ghibli. The character art, mechanical design, backgrounds and musical score are always of a level of excellence that shames most animation companies.
• Studio Gainax, TMS Entertainment and Studio BONES. Special mention for Gainax should go to The End of Evangelion's animation (especially during Instrumentality), which makes even the best battles in the original series look like crap in comparison.
• Studio 4°C, especially their theatrical, western, short, and video game works. One of the amazing things about this studio is that, even if you know their name, you can never pin down their exact style, because◊ it◊ keeps◊ on◊ changing.◊ And they show their love for every frame they're involved with.
• Black Butler has some utterly◊ gorgeous◊ art◊.
• Baccano! counts for this in its entirety.
• The Hellsing Ultimate OVAs are impeccable in terms of quality and animation.
  • The manga is no slouch either. While the first three volumes are rather average, the last seven volumes are almost impeccable. Say what you want about Hirano being a lazy artist, you can't deny that he takes pride in his art.
• If there's one thing people remember the 1988 film adaptation of AKIRA for, it's its incredibly fluid & detailed animation, being on-par with a well-done Western-animated production. To elaborate on the film's level of detail, watch the characters' mouths when they talk. Because AKIRA is one of few animes to feature pre-recorded dialogue, it notably forgoes the standard use of lip-flaps, meaning that the character's mouths move in perfect accordance to what they're saying. The whole film is also shot in a solid 24 frames-per-second, twice the framerate of the average anime; that's not even getting into the fact that this entire film utilizes over 160,000 cels over the course of a 121-minute runtime, with the only use of digital animation being the pattern indicator on a single medical computer. As a result, AKIRA is still widely considered to be one of the best-looking anime to date; the trailer alone does an excellent job at showing just how amazing the entire film looks.
• Samurai Pizza Cats combines great character design with beautifully detailed backgrounds.
• Inariya Fusanosuke's art is consistently beautiful, detailed, and well-composed in her manga, especially Maiden Rose. The only thing one could complain about is she doesn't do enough in colour◊.
• Makoto Shinkai's works. Just◊ Look◊ At◊ This◊!
• Red Line takes this trope, drives it up, bangs its brains out, and then it goes beyond even that.
  • R-R-R-R-RED LINE
  • And on that note, the character designer went on to work on Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. The fandom agrees that it's probably the best-looking Lupin III anime, ever.
• Although Naoki Urasawa's characters are fairly simple, his backgrounds, action sequences, and composition are beyond amazing. Just look at the Shining Cities of Pluto, the Humongous Mecha sequences of 20th Century Boys, and the ridiculously accurate Real Place Backgrounds of Monster. Just to start with.
• One Piece: It's incredible to think that Eiichiro Oda comes up with these sorts of illustrations, often on a weekly basis.
• The works of Tetsuo Hara are well-known for their highly detailed and intricate art styles, with Fist of the Blue Sky being a particular example of his artistic talent (every panel is startlingly close to photorealistic). Sadly, Hara ended up developing keratoconus, an extremely rare degenerative disorder^NoteThe chances of developing it are one in a million where the cornea tightens into a conical shape and become nonfunctional, in one of his eyes. This has killed his sense of depth perception, leaving him unable to draw the beautifully realistic manga that were his claim to fame without an assistant.
• The Pokémon: The Series battles from Masaaki Iwane's animation team tend to be the best in the series.
  • Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon. While the actual art-style is polarizing, nobody is denying that it boasts the most fluid animation in the anime's entire run.
• The Garden of Sinners. Just look at this image◊. Everything else is just like that or better.
• The witches' labyrinths in Puella Magi Madoka Magica are beautifully disturbing and wonderfully surreal landscapes, bringing an art style that is rarely seen in anime.
• The Wandering Son anime looks like a high-quality anime movie, full of Scenery Porn and beautiful character designs. The manga isn't anything to laugh at either, especially when it comes to the character designs.
• Berserk. Kentaro Miura puts so much gorgeous, beautiful detail into every scene, from epic battles, to love scenes, characters, and facial expressions.
• The Witch and the Beast. With its crisp line work, gorgeously detailed set-pieces, extremely distinctive character designs, Art Nouveau-style paneling and Art Deco-style architecture. The Witch and the Beast is known to have one of the most stylish art forms in the manga medium. Just tell us how many manga is known to incorporate Art Deco, Art Nouveau and Film Noir into its world building?
• Witch Hat Atelier. With one of its main themes being based around drawing, this is to be expected, and even then, Witch Hat Atelier blows it out of the water. Shirahama's delicate traditional etching linework and the sheer amount of detail that also mixed in Art Nouveau would have put her in the same leagues as Berserk or Vinland Saga. But her panelling separates Witch Hat Atelier from the rest, becoming a character in itself and making WHA incredibly unique. Suffice to say, her art is absolutely gorgeous to look at. Hell, the examples of Shirahama's art itself in the Awesome category on WHA, takes up more than half the entire page. There is a good reason why the manga is this sub-page's image.
• Mononoke: Stylized and more colorful than a circus, but detailed◊ and gorgeous.
• Mouryou No Hako: Beautiful colours, gorgeous panoramic vistas, skilful, fluid animation courtesy of Madhouse and lovely character designs by the renowned CLAMP.
• Amatsuki: Not only are the inked drawings detailed, fluid, and just lovely to look at◊, but every coloured piece of art is a veritable feast for the eyes.
• Trinity Blood: The character designs, clothes, buildings, natural and artificial scenery, jewellery and machinery.
• Betrayal Knows My Name: Both the manga and the anime have gorgeous artwork; characters, backgrounds, clothes, accessories, buildings, demons, summoned weapons — everything is stylized and elaborate, and really goes above and beyond the Generic Cuteness seen in most shoujo manga/anime.
• The OVA's of Tales of Symphonia. It's certainly a vast improvement over the game's wooden animations, which certainly haven't aged too well in comparison to the otherwise well-designed in-game models.
• Wolf's Rain has probably some of the best animation of wolves you'll find in anime.
• ∀ Gundam. The last Gundam series to use hand-drawn animation and it is spectacularly beautiful◊.
• Seirei no Moribito's art can easily rival the best that Studio Ghibli has to offer, which is apparent from its OP, to its fight scenes. Along with a compelling script and an engrossing world to tie it all together.
• Variable Geo is a 3-part OVA that's loosely based on the Advanced V.G series ^note  covered below, in the video games section , so it uses the same '90s style character design, but with more detailed art and fluid animation.
• While Death Note maintains high quality artwork throughout, Episode 25 takes this to a whole other level, and is a genuine work of art. Some of the highlights are the opening, Misa's song and her scene in her bedroom, L and Light's conversation on the rooftop, and, of course, L's death.
• Almost anything from Madhouse, such as the above-mentioned anime adaptation of Death Note and the animated versions of Metropolis (2001), Paprika, the 2011 Hunter × Hunter adaptation, and Cardcaptor Sakura.
• PandoraHearts. While this doesn't apply that well to the anime, it certainly does in the manga.
• One of the only things fans of Air Gear can agree on is that the artwork is fantastic. The character designs started off weak and somewhat inconsistent, but they were cleared up by the tenth volume, and the backgrounds and technology in the series are always drawn superbly.
• K is full of this. The animation is so beautiful and fluid, it's hard to believe it's a TV series. Special mention goes to the skateboarding scene in the first episode.
• From the New World. From looking at the beauty of the background art and the fluid motions of the characters, it's easy to confuse the TV series as a Hayao Miyazaki film. There might be some Deranged Animation and Off-Model in Episode 5 and 10, but even then it's purposeful and unique.
• Akihisa Ikeda's artwork. Every character has a distinct look and the monster designs range from awesome to creepy to nightmare inducing. His men are true bishounen, his children adorable, and he can draw some beautiful women that usually do not need to be busty to be gorgeous. While his early work was rough, over time it has gotten so beautiful it's shocking that this guy doesn't have a manga equivalent of an Eisner.
• Everything by P. A. Works. From True Tears, Canaan, Hanasaku Iroha, Angel Beats!, Another, to Tari Tari, all their anime are full with gorgeously beautiful detailed art and Scenery Porn. Their new anime trailer, Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea shows us that they are master of this trope.
• Toriko. The amount of detail Mitsutoshi Shimabakuro puts into the characters◊, animals◊ and environments◊ is staggering.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Like the manga that influenced it, JoJo features incredible amounts of detail backed up by the fabulous character designs and unique fight scenes. Hirohiko Araki's constantly-evolving art style also allows each part of the manga to define and redefine its own distinctive appearance as the story goes on, while still retaining the same basic characteristics of what many consider to be the definite JoJo look.
• Maken-ki!: Even if you don't care about the story (which is pretty engrossing, btw), you can easily find yourself reading it for the manga's artwork alone. It features detailed backgrounds and anime style character designs right from the start, but from chapter 16 onwards, it. Gets. BETTER.'''
• Tsutomu Takahashi (author of Skyhigh, Jiraishin, and Sidooh) is an extremely skilled draftsman with a very distinct, sketchy style of inking that's gorgeous to look at◊. While he does have a bit of an Only Six Faces problem at times with the more attractive characters, he averts it with everyone else, firmly placing them in Cast of Snowflakes territory. He has a knack for drawing vivid and powerful facial expressions, a lot of which will scare you◊.
• The Genocyber OVAs use some incredibly slick animation and the sheer amount of detail maintained in it's Gorn and Ludicrous Gibs is truly staggering. They basically turn bloodbath's into an artform.
• Dragon Ball: The art itself was consistently awesome and way ahead of its time, but the recently released full color version of the manga is proof Akira Toriyama's art is like red wine: it gets better with age. From the famous battles◊, famous transformations◊, famous scenery◊ and just awesome◊ art in◊ general◊, you really wouldn't think this manga is more than thirty years old.
• Naruto really stepped up the art for the latter chapters. The end of Chapter 669 shows off how detailed Kishi can make the art. Chapter 671 is made of this, with the color pages being downright artistic, and then Kishi keeps the train going with a two page spread looking like an old style Japanese ink painting.
• Attack on Titan has a unique art-style and is full of detailed and realistic-looking backgrounds and scenery.
• Angel Sanctuary. Wonderful character designs, lots of Fanservice, and a ridiculously awesome art book that's not only large and exquisitely detailed, but IN COLOR.
• Vagabond is probably one of the most technically impressive comics of all time. Every character has a detailed, realistic design that remains consistent no matter the angle, facial expressions are vivid and striking, the backgrounds are lush and detailed, Inoue's brushstrokes are vivid and full of life, and it just gets better and better as time goes on.
• The Animated Adaptation of Sunday Without God has grandiose lighting, Ghibli Hills that would make the actual Studio Ghibli proud and character designs that just perfectly fit into it all. The covers of the Light Novels, as seen on its page, are just as beautiful. Just take a look at the opening here.
• Yusuke Murata's catalog in general. Either Eyeshield 21 or his redrawn version of One-Punch Man. Not only the man can give life to ONE's somewhat crude artwork, he can give it movement◊ that looks straight out of a an anime.
• Inio Asano, although he gets a lot of flack for incorporating (his own) photos into his backgrounds, definitely deserves mention. His characters are often still incredibly detailed and vivid — especially in Oyasumi Punpun — and you can't argue with the results.
• Vinland Saga boasts realistic and varied character designs, very dynamic fight scenes, and an attention to detail that truly brings the manga's era and story to life.
• Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress: Say what you will of the weak story or flat characters, Kabaneri boasts some of the best character designs◊ seen in◊ recent anime history◊, if not some of the best in anime history. to see it in motion look here
• High School D×D: Miyama Zero's llustrations of the novels have very high quality art and they◊ are gorgeous.
• My Hero Academia:
  • Kōhei Horikoshi's art is absolutely detailed and dynamic.
  • The anime has amazing animation, specially when it comes to battles.
• Space☆Dandy: Considering who made it, this is a given. But it goes doubly so as most episodes have a different art director, and sometimes the style becomes very different. You never know what you are gonna get.
• D.Gray-Man, especially in the latest chapters.
• Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun: The manga's art is absolutely gorgeous, with almost every page being a piece of art in its own right. The anime isn't anything less either, with rich and lavish coloring in every single scene. In fact, besides the compelling story, the unique art is one of the series' major charms and has attracted a lot of fans.
• A lot of the animation and backgrounds in the Tamagotchi theatrical films and TV show are really well done and nice to look at. It helps that they're all animated by OLM Incorporated, who have also animated the similarly fluid Pokémon: The Series.
• Dragon Goes House-Hunting has a very detailed artwork that's almost painting-like while still allowing for dynamic expressions.
• The art of the manga for Moriarty the Patriot is incredible, with not only appealing character designs but fascinating visual effects and covers.
• Cowboy Bebop: From realistically designed yet fluidly animated characters to a wide color palette that incorporates perfect shading, to incredibly detailed backgrounds, this is one of the best-looking anime of all time.
• With March Story being a Seinen plot about beautiful works of art manifesting as superpowered demons, you'd think that the illustrator would have been payed a small fortune bringing such a concept to life. Examples include: March's powers to summon killer briars (her Il manifested from a barbed hook), a crescent earring possessing a Circus Brat that throws crescent moons that slice through people, a baby-like il that came from a glass mobil that summons magical butterflies, spilt blood used to evoke dark rose petals, and beautifully rendered sets that wouldn't look out of place from a Rococo landscape painting.
• What makes the Bocchi the Rock! anime stand out is the varying art styles such as its use of claymation and 3D modeling among other examples.
• Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: Bryan Lee O'Malley's character designs translate incredibly well animation, to say nothing of how Science SARU put their A-game in making sure every scene was lavishly dynamic.
• Azumanga Daioh: The Very Short Movie was created for theatres and it shows, with more detailed art and smooth, fluid animation compared to the regular anime. The characters are all very expressive and have a more vivid colour palette.

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