#IN ASIA NO LESS!! COME ON. WE DON'T NEED TO BE SO SLAVISHLY MARRIED TO WESTERN AESTHETICS. COME ON NOW...

[birdmenmanga]

no I know exactly what you're talking about. I think one of the big reasons that kekkaishi stuck out to me so much when I was reading it in middle school was that... the characters were asian... and actually LOOKED asian. like yeah it's manga and super stylized and abstract most of the time that things like race aren't even getting conveyed at all because you just know from context that the characters are asian but it just struck me so much that someone out there thought the flat profile with the rounded nose and features was worth depicting with such care and consistency, and on a main character no less (gen also has this kind of profile, and tokine to some degree as well)

I think you're quite accurate in saying that it's an early Tanabe thing too, because like... how do I say this. her early oneshots, especially the ones leaning into the horror genre, and has these almost off-puttingly realistic proportions.

proto yoshimori... you are so realistic.

I think it's obvious that she drew from life quite a lot in her early times... these are not features that art school busts have, if you catch my drift. even though kekkaishi is already far more stylized than, say, the kekkaishi one-shot, I do think this specific profile is one of the holdovers from that early era of art, and it got lost somewhere between the end of kekkaishi and whenever shuumatu happened. nearly none of that remains in birdmen, and even though kaihen is also having this heavy oriental vibe we don't really see it in the same way there either which makes me a little sad </3

I feel like this is the profile you're talking about! left is from LOST PRINCESS and right is from F is for Fake! if I had to guess, I'd say lost princess came before the kekkaishi one-shot, and f is for fake was probably drawn some time during the serialization of kekkaishi, based solely on the artstyle.

anyways I'm sorry for this info dump I just. also feel strongly about this topic lol

sometimes I'll be reading ashihara hinako and she'll hit me with this early-ish tanabe-esque profile view like

I say early-ish and tanabe-esque bc it reminds me of kekkaishi more than anything. I doubt this is a signature thing for her, realistically, but for me it is. I remember watching the kekkaishi anime on Netflix (the original audio wasn't available, so I had to watch the English dub lmao), and I thought this kind of profile was weird and I didn't like it much. now I love it. I really love it

and now idk . I'm overwhelmed. I'm so glad tanabe sensei is still alive and creating art. I'm so upset ashihara sensei took her own life. I love them both so much.