#It looked like 2010 yaoi art style

[bonnibelerm]

Presbart art that was meant to be a video but I got lazy.

[olderthannetfic]

When I was first on Tumblr in the early-mid 2010s I joined in with everyone else dunking on the "Escher girls" thing, but now I feel bad about doing it and I'm glad I grew up and moved on.

That character design and art style is still weird and gross to me, but at some point I realised that the people who draw it and enjoy it are just doing it because they think it's hot, and it really isn't that deep. And making fun of other people's sexuality is a dick move.

It isn't inherently demeaning to real women for stupid looking fictional female characters to exist, and the people who enjoy the stupid art don't seem to think it's realistic, it just makes them happy. Sure, some get weird and try to pretend it's realistic or empowers the characters, but they're just making lame excuses for somehting they think is hot, and we should be dunking on how lame the exuses are, not on the fact that some people like unrealistic sexy cartoon characters.

I think what finally got through to me was when I realised that one of the main reasons I don't like escher girl art is that I'm just not attracted to women.

Turns out the boobs-and-butt pose is really hot when it's a male character I think is hot, and I like the exaggerated and unrealistic proportions you see on yaoi characters. I had a double standard.

Just because most of the people who like the art I think is weird are straight men doesn't make their sexuality worthy of mockery, and even if it did it would be unfair to catch the occasional queer person or non-man with bad taste in the crossfire.

--

[nighttime-tea-party]

since you say youve been in the kuro fandom even before BoC aired, could you tell me about how it was back then? :D ive always been interested in learning how internet culture used to be, how things eventually changed, how they improved/declined etc, more so when the current community is pretty much dead. was there an experience that marked you, what do you remember most fondly? was there an event that excited the fandom more than any other (like the release of a chapter or smth)? which blogs were the most popular? Its okay if you dont want to tho, i understand!

Super interesting question! I hope I can provide some equally interesting information in return.

Before the fandom had reached Tumblr, much of it centred around a forum, or at least much of what I knew. It wasn't originally a Kuroshitsuji forum but a sub-forum of a Bleach forum, actually. I think it was called Bleach Asylum? And I don't know exactly how it came to be but I think that Bleach forum had lots of sub forums for then-popular anime and manga but Kuroshitsuji gained so much popularity and the fandom happened to gather there, so that sub forum really took off and it ended up being an anchor point for the fandom. I used to always look for the most recent scanlations there, back before we were able to buy them legally.

I didn't actively participate in that forum but I lurked occasionally. It was full of wild discussions, one of which was the "two Ciel(s) theory"/"2CT" as it was called back then. It had a strong following on the website back then already. I sadly don't remember any of the other theories that were making rounds back then...

I didn't really participate in much fandom stuff back then, limited my art posts to deviantArt and my personal facebook... but eventually, I made a tumblr specifically to interact with the fandom.

As for blogs, I don't really like doing any name dropping, especially because it would go into some people who used to ship sebaciel and turned anti, and other stuff I'd rather not talk about. I do feel like back in the day, there were a couple of gigantic Kuroshitsuji blogs with massive followings that got a LOT of asks every day (to the point where it seemed like a full time job to keep up with them). Discussion around sebaciel was very different, there have always been people who disliked it but unfounded rumours like "did you know that Kuroshitsuji was supposed to be a yaoi" made rounds without people questioning it. That always annoyed me a little tbh haha.

There was one fan artist on deviantArt whose name I sadly don't remember but I think they were THE kuro artist in Western fandom back then because their style looked very similar to the anime style. I still see their art sometimes.

And fun fact on the side, I grew up in German fandom spaces and we had a big website called Animexx (I think it's still around) that was dedicated specifically to all things manga, anime, and related stuff. They had really convenient ways of browsing on-site fanart, fanfic, doujinshi, cosplay, and other fan creations, as well as forums and ways to host your own fan events. Until the early 2010s, I hung out there a lot so until then, my perspective is distorted by that German lens. I used to post my early Kuroshitsuji fanart there too.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! I feel like I could go on tangents for much longer but idk how interesting that would be.

[blackthornass]

Do you have any art tips?

Uhhhhhh Funk im not The Greatest Artist ™ but I’ll try to bestow some Wisdom on you. Keep in mind Art is Subjective and I’m no expert and all that so take everything with a grain of salt but that being said I’ll try to give u Tips and Tricks

-listen so if you have a boring class at school just draw in it. School is great because you have 1. Access to paper at all times 2. Incredibly boring lectures. If you have a study hall that’s the Drawing JACKPOT. Basically what I’m saying is practice all the time when you have energy but like that’s such boring art advice. It’s important but “practice! uwu” is like what people with Natural Art Talent say when they didn’t have to figure everything out from the ground up so it’s kind of aggravating

-There’s gonna be people better than you. Chances are you have a friend who’s better than you because this is Tumblr we all draw. Try Not To Compare Yourself ™ which idk how to do but it’s bad don’t do it

-unless you find a terrible person with worse art than you in which case FUCK DUDE COMPARE YOURSELF TO THEM! THEYRE HORRIBLE AND THEY CANT DRAW FOR SHIT LOOK WHOS LAUGHING NOW!

-“work until your idols become your rivals” is absolute bullshit because your idols are working at it at the same time you are. You fool. You imbecile. I feel like this works better for writing when your idols can become irrelevant or straight up die between you being an aspiring author 8 year old and a tired 30 year old who just wrote The Great American Novel ™ or just kind of. Leave the fandom if you’re writing fanfic. Anyway

-ok that’s all the preachy shit, time for Real Art Advice ™. Keep in mind I do digital cartoony shit with Strong Lineart and cel shading for the most part and I pretty much only draw people so my knowledge is limited to that. if you wanna be a professional artist maybe do other things and Expand your Abilities ™

-Ok first off if you’re using Gimp or Photoshop please love yourself and download Firealpaca or illegally torrent Paint Tool Sai or something. I swear by Firealpaca it cured my depression but like. Photoshop is Trash for drawing. Get Firealpaca it has Line Correction ™

-Keep Line Correction ™ at like. A 5 when you’re sketching and at a 19 (the maximum) when you’re lining, coloring, shading, highlighting, doing literally anything that isn’t sketching

-Sketching digitally can be hard if you’re used to sketching on paper and I find it easier to do a sketch on paper, take a picture of it on my phone or scan it, and line/color it digitally. You do you and figure out what works best

-speaking of which I refused to use sketchbooks until I was Worthy ™ of not drawing on notebook paper and uhhhhhh that’s dumb just get a sketchbook they cost a little more than a notebook at Target it’s not super expensive. Although if you’re not financially in the position to buy a sketchbook anyway, just hoard notebooks from school that you didn’t use much. Bam, that’s your new sketchbook

-the Head Circle Cross Thing and the Spheres For Shoulder, Elbow, and Wrist Thing are good and important and will save you

-hands are hard so use references but bullshit your way through it. eventually they’ll look good (I haven’t gotten there yet)

-HAVE FUN WITH NOSES OH MY GOD. Noses are super fun and cool because there’s, like, infinite variety with them, they can be as long or short, thin or thick, rounded or pointy as you want, you can make them be, like, triangles or circles or more squareish or diamond-shaped, the base of the nose can be about as high or as low on the face as you want, you can make the nostrils prominent or not really there at all, they can add another Layer to a character’s design, oh my goodness noses are so fun. They’re like, severely underrated and oh my god I could gush about how fucking fun noses are

-same with facial expressions. Where you put the pupils and how big they are, how much of the eye is covered by eyelids, the way the eyebrows are, the mouth, tons of other shit. There’s loads of variety and so much you can do and honestly having fun with the facial expression is The Best Part. There’s tons of Face Art Chart Memes floating around, you know the ones, save it to your phone/computer and practice those on your own time it’s fun

-if you don’t know how to do something, avoiding it won’t help you. Just kind of draw around with it in your sketchbook or in a “I’m not posting this” file until you feel confident enough to do it in your Real Projects ™.

-Ok for lining did you know..… it isn’t illegal to erase parts of the lineart to clean it up.… just be careful and draw it back in to the best of your abilities if you erase too far and use a smaller eraser brush/lining brush for this… I know it’s tedious nobody likes lining it’s okay you can do this put on some good music

-use mcfucking references

-eyedrop character’s official colors but adjust said colors based on the color of your background to make them look less funky is my general rule for clothing, I usually pick the hair/skin by myself or from something I’ve already drawn though

-for flats, make sure your lineart is all closed off and there aren’t any “holes” cuz that’ll mess up your coloring

-so how I do flats is I use the magic wand tool to select whatever I want to color, expand selection 3 pixels (in firealpaca you can set it to do this automatically), pick the color I need, turn up the brush to as big as possible, and color it in. It saves the time you’d spend with cleaning up where the color gets outside the lines

-you can do the flats on one layer, but I personally like to do every Object on a different layer so when I do shading, I know what goes on top of what

-if a color is darker than the lineart it looks ugly so pick your line color with caution (or just use black! Unlike shading black lineart tends to go with pretty much everything)

-SHADE YOUR GODDAMN ART. Like, what makes people go “wow holy shit that’s good!” is the shading + highlights, don’t be lazy ya fuck.

-I’d take a break before shading to Refresh Your Eyes ™ but also I constantly forget this is a good idea

-don’t shade with black oh my god. Unless you’re doing Strong Punchy Dramatic Stuff or monochrome black and white stuff, don’t shade with black, and if you’re doing that it’ll probably be drawn into the lineart. Don’t shade with black please we can tell you’re doing it and it looks bad

-highlighting with white isn’t too bad though, especially with the eyes, but it might look too strong in some places

-As a general rule, shading is darker and more saturated, highlighting is lighter and less saturated. Whether it gets warmer or cooler depends a lot on what color or thing you’re shading or what you want the feel of the picture to be and I’m not 100% sure how to do it myself so uh. Trust your gut and change the color if it looks wrong I guess.

-where exactly the shadows or highlights fall depends on lots of things, just kind of. Look at how things work irl maybe? This is the kind of thing that you just have to practice, and it’ll look like shit until suddenly it doesn’t sorry I’m not sure what to say

-One Medium Sized White Dot on a layer above the lineart where the pupil borders the Iris (or the whites of the eyes if you’re like me and you make the pupil and Iris one thing) works for a glint in the eye that makes a person look less dead and more cute. How big you’re gonna make it depends on how adorable you want the person to be

-SMOOTH BORDERS FOR THE SHADING ARE REALLY IMPORTANT IF YOURE DOING CEL SHADING which is why firealpaca is my best friend thanks line smoothing. If you’re doing like. Soft shading or painterly shit or other kinds of shading it’s less Super Important but like. Still be sort of neat. Unless being really messy and sketchy is what you’re going for but even then you still need to be sort of careful

-for simple backgrounds, it’s like. Easy to make it interesting. Add polka dots to the background or a big old square or a gradient or a cloud filter or something the possibilities are endless. Another option is to straight up make it transparent and write a secret message in white on the side. But uhh never do a blank white background at the very least fill it with a solid color

-ok style is kind of hard because I never had to struggle to find my style? I just “drew in my handwriting” so to speak and then if along the way I realized something looked shitty I just changed how I drew it slightly? I guess a thing you could do if you’re in tune enough is look at the styles of things you do like and things you don’t and figure out why you do and don’t like it. “I like how *2010s cartoon* does Eyes!” great take that general concept. “I hate how this shitty yaoi has enormous hands!” great then don’t do that. It’s all Personal Preference my dude style is Your Own Thing

-notes aren’t everything but fuck do they feel nice. Self reblogs are fine but don’t overdo it, I’d say reblog it Twice to account for time zones and tag it as self reblog so as to not be a dick

This got long whoops. That’s all I can think of but I hope this helps it’s All I Know

[shoujothoughts]

There is much to be said for shadows, heartbreak, and betrayal.

The Betrayal Knows My Name, alternately known as Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru (or Uraboku for short) centers around an orphaned teenage boy named Yuki who is about to graduate high school and move on to his unsure yet promising future. His chances are far from clear, however, as he struggles with empathetic powers of unknown origin and begins receiving anonymous threatening notes that prey on his deepest insecurities. He approaches even this difficulty with love and kindness, but something deep within him is calling out to be heard. One day, new faces appear in his life. Who are these strangers who know his name? A dark, beautiful man named Zess might just hold the answer that he needs, if he can find the strength to remember a past life and love…

Or, to take it directly from MAL:

“Growing up as an orphan, Yuki Sakurai questions his reason for living and ability to see a person’s painful memory by simply touching them. After receiving anonymous notes telling him to die, Yuki is unable to shake off the nagging feeling forming inside of him. Unbeknownst to him, he is being watched, both by people who want to harm him and those who want to protect him.

One foggy night, Yuki’s life is saved by a beautiful man with silver eyes and jet black hair—a man he has never met before yet seems familiar. With the arrival of this mysterious stranger, Yuki’s forgotten past has been awakened and the purpose of his existence has appeared before him.

Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru tells the story of a teenage boy as he discovers who he is and where he comes from—all while making friends, experiencing betrayal, and slowly piecing together the puzzle of his past.”

As a First Shounen-ai:

It’s worth noting that this series was my first fore into the boy love genre. For the longest time, I told myself that boy love is gay relationship exploited for straight gratification—this because focuses on the romantic relationships between men as a means of drawing in straight, female viewers. As Mayaya asks in the josei title Princess Jellyfish when a gay couple apply to live in their female-only building, “do they think that we will fall all over ourselves at the feet of their amazing gay love just because we are women?” Well, Mayaya, apparently they do, and it has been working; the audience is there.

This experience, however, has been one unlike I assumed; this title was admittedly sort of… um… fujioshi bait… at times, but the fact of the matter was that you could have replaced the main character, Yuki, with a girl and it still would have felt, at least romantically speaking, exactly the same (though the fact that Yuki is a boy is significant to the title for other reasons.) And I liked that; I liked that it wasn’t all about the fact that they’re gay, which is something that I had assumed about the genre rather than experienced.

I liked that it was about two people and their (admittedly confusing) relationship rather than about two GAY MENS OMGOSH LOOK AT THE GAY LOVE FETISH IT. I’m sure that problematic titles exist, especially in yaoi (as opposed to boy love as a genre because they are DIFFERENT; FIGHT ME), but as far as experiences go, I enjoyed this one, and while I don’t think that I’ll seek out boy love for its selfsame sake, it it refreshing to know that not all boy love is what I assumed it to be (though some question, upon further research, how much of a boy love title UraBoku actually is).

I have new information.

Art & Animation:

The studio behind UraBoku, J. C. Staff, is also responsible for Toradora!, Maid-Sama!, and the oft-praised (though I’ve never seen it) Golden Time. Additional works include those such as Honey and Clover (haven’t seen it) and  Nodame Cantabile (fantastic). I couldn’t help but draw comparison between the art style of UraBoku and Vampire Knight; while it does play a role, not just because of the color pallet and tonal (both thematically and coloration) significance shared between the two. 

Please consider the following four images from Vampire Knight:

Please now consider the following four images from UraBoku:

When you combine these images, their art translates between titles well if not seamlessly:

While some don’t favor this sort of “stylized bishie-ism” employed by certain titles, I am one who does; I find it quite distinct, if unrealistic. I appreciate UraBoku’s contrast between light and darkness, as well as the emphasis placed on sharp lines. I actually think I prefer the style present in UraBoku over Vampire Knight because of the additional sharpness and depth of the characters’ eyes amongst other features.

Shows which differ in tone but share a particularly stylized artistry (though not this same “bishie-ism” that I enjoy) include Paradise Kiss and The Wallflower.

The animation itself and as considered apart from the art style is seamless and fluid. I always appreciate good wind effects. A quality title never skimps on animation in favor of its still art; neither does UraBoku. ❤

I found the elements of setting, mise-en-scene, and color scheme blended well with the art style to create something both dark and hopeful, something entirely beautiful to look at.

Plot:

As I watch, I wait for Yuki to take action; that’s not to say that he is completely without initiative, but rather that, in the way of so many reverse harem protagonists, he is left under-powered to enhance the perceived ability of our attractive male leads. Yuki is, after all, at the center of the drama—a princess of sorts to be protected, and I do mean princess, despite the fact that Yuki is a boy.

Because, you see, Yuki was a girl, once upon a time.

I found a great deal of the plot potential and execution fascinating, however, it did have common—as mentioned above—shoujo-related pitfalls similar to those you’d find in any typical reverse harem supernatural series. Also, the show suffered greatly from a “drop them into the plot without preface and let them figure it out as they go” syndrome; for me, this isn’t as big of an issue—because I’m that girl who willingly opens a book to the middle, reads to the end, and then goes back and reads the beginning (apparently this is strange)—but it is objectively a major drawback to the series, especially regarding those plot points and reasonings that were never fully explained. These were frustratingly numerous.

Much like the cinematic Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, if the show was intended for audiences who were already familiar with the source material, then perhaps the information given would be enough. However, it is also the case that much of anime is made to drive its viewership toward the associated manga. This is done by:

(A) hooking the audience on the title through a well explained anime with an incomplete/alternate ending OR

(B) dangling just enough background information in front of the audience to keep them enraptured abet confused. When conclusion is not reached, they will demand further clarification about a title if it is one they otherwise greatly enjoyed.

If the latter was the anime’s intent, it has done its job. 

Moving away from pitfalls, an idea that really stood out to me was that Yuki’s soul, his/her essence, defied and transcended gender. And it didn’t matter to Luka whether Yuki was a boy or a girl (though he obviously missed the female Yuki from his previous life), because as he says in episode five, their soul is the same. The title makes no secret of Luka’s lingering attachment to Yuki, but whether or not the two end up romantically involved is unclear; the issue of their sexual attraction is left untouched, but I think that as much supports the greater point: sexual attraction doesn’t matter to this complicated (yet incredibly straightforward?) relationship that nearly transcends romance. I personally don’t think that Luka likes men, but Luka deeply loves and is dedicated to Yuki’s soul, and that’s enough.

The religious imagery and context was also well utilized, if not always deeply meaningful.

I’m watching this; why do I want to cry now? </3 (I should feature this on an AMV/CMV Sat.)

The genre of this title is clearly a romantic drama, but true comedy does enter at the advent of the Twilight Manson, so all in all, I find it from this point to be submersive and well balanced.

Characters:

This title didn’t “type” it’s characters into obvious molds, and I appreciate that; I could type them if I so desired, but I do not and so I won’t. I thought the main characters, Luka and Yuki, were well fleshed out, even if the anime only dropped hints as to Luka’s origins; they felt complete in and of themselves, as if they were believable people with unique hopes and desires. On top of this, many among the host of side characters felt complete enough to be considered main characters of a sort, if only considering their own ongoing struggles and developing relationships.

Siblings Toko and Tsukumo rely on each other as partner Zweilt Guardians.

Partners Shusei and Hotsuma are bound my more than their guardianship duties.

Partners Kuroto and Senshiro share a common enemy, but Senshiro looks at Kuroto on level deeper than brotherhood as he mourns with him down his path of revenge…

I felt for each character as they struggled though their unique situations, and I felt as though they were comprised of enough depth to be believable even if one didn’t know their specific backgrounds.

The Future:

UraBoku was seemingly intended to continue into a second season, but no second season has been made or announced for this 2010,  twenty-four episode title. The manga is still ongoing, so some slim hope exists, but…

I mean, even Attack on Titan didn’t leave people waiting for eight years.

The manga is, however, available in English, and I plan to head there next. What I also have hope for is that Funimation may yet dub this title that it has rights to. While I don’t think the chance significant by any means, I’m not willing to discount the possibility entirely while Funi still holds distribution rights.

What do you think about UraBoku? Have you seen it? Does this discussion make you plan to? Let me know in the comments below!

~Shoujo ❤

Memories of a Past Life and Love: Musings on “The Betrayal Knows My Name” There is much to be said for shadows, heartbreak, and betrayal. The Betrayal Knows My Name…