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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1912 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 29, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Which anime or manga, if any, do you think has a profound art style? Not just interesting, detailed, or cute, but deeper than that?

Two examples that always come to mind are Blame! and Otoyomegatari.

I was also going to recommend Blame!

The artist has trouble with motion and action, but realy sold me on people endlessly wandering through a superstructure the size of the solar system.

Those two are my go-to examples when this topic comes up, explicitly because they're so radically different.

One's a brutalistic dystopic transhuman venture through the metaphorical circles of hell in order to find god and may very well be the ultimate example of 'Show, don't tell', given how much of it is spent in utter silence. And is written by an architect.

The other is a sloppy, historic love-letter to the Asian steppes with attention to detail that borders on extreme autism, with a broad palette of adorable characters you can't help but hope they have a good ending. And is written by a woman.

I'm rather enamored with them both, if you couldn't tell.

Or in Cibo's case: find God and then steal its body to wear as your own.

I've never heard of Otoyomegatari. I'll give it a look.

You might have heard of 'Young Maid Emma', or just 'Emma' which was drawn/written by the same author/mangaka, and is an earlier work. It's also excellent, and I whole-heartedly endorse it, but comparing Emma and Otoyomegatari, you can definitely tell the mangaka has improved drastically, to the point where you can call the style 'profound'.

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