Thread: Has anyone ever noticed,

Originally Posted by &Loveless

Umm not really. I've seen bigger eyes. Some shoujo artist go overboard with the huge eyes. They take up about half of the face

And sometimes they get the shape wrong. As an example, the big eyes in Mahoraba look OK. They're huge, but they somehow work. By comparison, the eyes in Aishiteruze Baby always look creepy/bloodshot to me. Add in that the people are all supposed to be Japanese and it gets weirder. Sometimes the way the girls eyes are drawn in Kare Kano goes a little far that direction, too.

After I overload on the mongo eye thing, I go look at something like Crying Freeman (still probably some of the best anatomical drawing, including eyes, I've ever seen), or watch an episode of Uchuu Senkan Yamato (Star Blazers if you haven't enjoyed the original), which is old enough that the eyes aren't silly-large yet.

I think Katsu Aki's work, in FE at least, is pretty good. The anatomy is usually not bad (although he spends less time on the guys than he might sometimes). The eyes are large, but seem to be focused on putting some moe into the characters - making Yura and Rika seem sympathetic and sexy, instead of just sexy.

i think the expression goes as follows: the eyes are the window into the soul.

or something like that. i'm no philosophy major, so i might be wrong, but i think it sums up the sort answer.

the long answer would be something like this:
it's not just manga that does that, many works of art (including western comics, North american cartoons [like mickey mouse], webcomics, ect...) that don't focus on having 100% accurate human proportions tend to have larger then normal eyes & face, mostly because it's the easiest way to express emotion, especially since the face is (or at least should be) the first thing you see on a person/character.

while it's definately possible to show happiness and sorrow in a normal looking human face, the "cutesy" look was pretty much designed to let the characters express their feelings by focusing primarily on the large eyes & the mouth. it's a simpler look, but sometimes simple is better... which rings quite true for FE.

that and it makes both mika and yura look too friggin adorable...

I'm not to picky about the art. The women look great but not so much the guys. I never noticed the eyes because I just like reading the polls that are in the manga. It's interesting!