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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2636 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?

Perfect Blue (1997)

There's an interesting purposeful distinction between the way idols and regular people are drawn in this anime, and it's obviously related to the plotline. I haven't watched too much anime to say that this hasn't been done anywhere else, but so far it's the most realistic portrayal of objectively beautiful appearance and regular/ugly appearance I've seen.

Huh, for me the decoy villain was drawn in a ridiculously ugly way that strained my suspension of disbelief. Such an extreme outlier would immediately stand out in any crowd.

He was for sure the ugliest... but they were almost all ugly, aside from the idols of course. Side characters and random people in the background weren't good looking, just like people in real life. I guess the reason it stood out to me is because in many other animes, characters that aren't supposed to be pretty are still aesthetically fine by being symmetrical, having perfect teeth/smile and so on. While in Perfect Blue a random guy you see for 3 seconds would have a shitty hairline and droopy eyes for no reason at all.

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