Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

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Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by Arteaga4K » Thu May 28, 2020 2:56 pm

If his popularity is anything to go by, I might get some heat for this thread. But I'm sorry, I just don't get the hype. I'm not calling him a bad artist, but when you have guys like Takahashi and Shida working on the same projects and comparing their work, I just don't see why Shintani is the one everyone is going crazy for, especially on Twitter. I can't be the only one who looked at a few fanarts of old Dragon Ball characters like Cell in Shintani's style and thought, "eh". Even saw a few people compare him to Maeda/Masaki Sato, and thought to myself they're almost nothing alike. If this is the direction they're taking in the future, admittedly I don't think I'd like it. But ofcourse this is just my opinion, what do you guys think?
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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by Akuma Johnson » Thu May 28, 2020 3:22 pm

But that's like.....your opinion man.

I like Shintani because his designs exude flexibility, something you wouldn't see in Yamamuro's designs.
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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by JulieYBM » Thu May 28, 2020 3:48 pm

Takahashi mimicking Yamamuro's old style would never work for animation. The point is for the characters to move--they can't do that if the animators have to draw seventy-three trillion lines and shadows. Takahashi couldn't even supervise an entire episode of television in that style. It's unwieldy and hardly moves--as is apparent by his work turning the Tournament of Power and even Movie #20. Shida Naotoshi also wouldn't be a good character designer for the same reasons. Designs need to be simple and easy to reproduce at enough so that even if there is no chief animation supervisor the major differences between animators isn't as pronounced. The more rules you have the more apparent it will be when dozens of key animators break them.

There's no way Shintani's designs are recycled wholesale for the next TV series, either. He's improved even more from the film so he'll likely redesign the main designs. Personally, I'd like Tate Naoki to be character designer but at this point there's no reason to go from a younger animator to an older animators like Tate.
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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by emperior » Thu May 28, 2020 3:51 pm

“Shintani style” fan art is not Shintani. I really don’t get how this is so hard for people to understand.

Besides, Shintani has recently gotten extremely close to Shida, so if Shida’s art is more your thing you will probably prefer the most recent drawings by Shintani.

As for me, personally, I have always loved Shintani’s style and I love even more how revolutionary his approach to modern DB designs is, especially after 20 years of Yamamuro’s shiny and plastic designs being the norm.

The simpler shading and the rounder shapes are all things I like a lot, and I also like it how Shintani closely follows Toriyama’s manga.
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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by Arteaga4K » Thu May 28, 2020 3:53 pm

emperior wrote: Thu May 28, 2020 3:51 pm “Shintani style” fan art is not Shintani. I really don’t get how this is so hard for people to understand.
I think my entire thread made it clear I'm not a fan of his work whether it's via fan made drawings or official work like in DBS Broly
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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by Melee_Sovereign » Thu May 28, 2020 4:15 pm

Was it Shintani who did the entirety of the Broly movie? Because the art style seemed to vary a lot in it. I don't like the soft look in Shintani's style, but I like the scene of Vegeta vs Broly which was drawn with more angular and more defined anatomy like in later parts of DBZ, as well as Yuya Takahashi's style in many parts of the Tournament of Power.

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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Thu May 28, 2020 4:29 pm

I'd love to also be a hipster here, but I just can't. Shintani's style is beautiful. That said, I do agree that the constant imitations of his work in fan art, while impressive, does get a little old after a while. But it ain't Shintani's fault for making such badass designs that everyone wants to bandwagon it.

I will say that not every character works amazingly well in the art style - Beerus, Bulma and some of the flashback characters like Perfect Cell look a little weird. Beerus looks too cartoonish and doglike, reminding me too much of all the Scooby-Doo Beerus memes, while Bulma looks about 14. I get that she's been using the Dragon Balls to look younger, but jesus. We only saw a small glimpse of Perfect Cell, but his face looks much too fat and rounded. But just about every other character looks incredible in his style and I'm sure if he carries on with a hypothetical sequel series, he'll probably improve on these minor niggles.

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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by JulieYBM » Thu May 28, 2020 5:00 pm

Melee_Sovereign wrote: Thu May 28, 2020 4:15 pm Was it Shintani who did the entirety of the Broly movie? Because the art style seemed to vary a lot in it. I don't like the soft look in Shintani's style, but I like the scene of Vegeta vs Broly which was drawn with more angular and more defined anatomy like in later parts of DBZ, as well as Yuya Takahashi's style in many parts of the Tournament of Power.
Shintani was character designer and animation supervisor. He corrected some animators but mostly left skilled, quirky animators and the assistant animation supervisors alone. AAS Takahashi was mostly left alone (although Takahashi heavily redrew the animators in his section). Oonishi Ryou was pretty much left alone, which is why there is a style divide in the Takahashi section. Shida Naotoshi mostly drew on model, although his shading is still obvious.
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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by kei17 » Thu May 28, 2020 5:44 pm

I'm not a fan of his style, too. His soft and rounded art does not go well with the DB characters. I feel uncomfortable when I see them drawn in his style especially because it's set after the Buu fight, when Toriyama's art style was hard, angular, and detailed. Maybe his art feels fine until the Freeza arc.

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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by Ajay » Thu May 28, 2020 5:51 pm

What most people associate with Shintani:
Modern Shintani:
The stylistic difference between work pre and post movie is astronomical that I can't even imagine lumping the two together.

I also despise most of the "Shintani style" fanart because it's absolutely nothing like the man's style. Most fan artists haven't got even the faintest clue what Shintani draws like, and seem more interested in mimicking Ryo Onishi for some reason.

These are all cool drawings but they're not even remotely representative.
Even putting aside the man's changes, the entire point of his designs are that slice of life is loose and blobby and the serious stuff is angular and detailed. Yet despite that being at the very core of his philosophy, you've got people taking his slice of life traits and drawing serious scenes in them (most of the above fan art, for example).

I think a lot of people are in for a big "Oh shit!" moment when they see the man come back. I mean jeez, his recent drawing was this:

Image

We have a problem with that???

Toriyama said it himself. He picked someone with a strong fundamental artistic understanding as learning to draw Dragon Ball would come in time. Funny how correct he was.

Anyone telling you Shintani is unfit for the series hasn't been paying attention.
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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by LoganForkHands73 » Thu May 28, 2020 6:19 pm

Ajay wrote: Thu May 28, 2020 5:51 pm What most people associate with Shintani:
Modern Shintani:
The stylistic difference between work pre and post movie is astronomical that I can't even imagine lumping the two together.

I also despise most of the "Shintani style" fanart because it's absolutely nothing like the man's style. Most fan artists haven't got even the faintest clue what Shintani draws like, and seem more interested in mimicking Ryo Onishi for some reason.

These are all cool drawings but they're not even remotely representative.
Even putting aside the man's changes, the entire point of his designs are that slice of life is loose and blobby and the serious stuff is angular and detailed. Yet despite that being at the very core of his philosophy, you've got people taking his slice of life traits and drawing serious scenes in them (most of the above fan art, for example).

I think a lot of people are in for a big "Oh shit!" moment when they see the man come back. I mean jeez, his recent drawing was this:

Image

We have a problem with that???

Toriyama said it himself. He picked someone with a strong fundamental artistic understanding as learning to draw Dragon Ball would come in time. Funny how correct he was.

Anyone telling you Shintani is unfit for the series hasn't been paying attention.
Very nice post, very informative. Fan artists use Shintani's name because that's the only name the media tells them and the fanbase zeitgeist repeats "round good, angles bad" so I don't blame them too much. Most of them aren't that discerning and just want to draw cool pictures, even if they're not doing an exact imitation of his fundamental style. I'm just sick of seeing most of them :lol:

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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by Ajay » Thu May 28, 2020 6:37 pm

LoganForkHands73 wrote: Thu May 28, 2020 6:19 pmWell whaddaya know, AnimeAjay hangs around here.
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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by Shaddy » Thu May 28, 2020 8:14 pm

I mean, even the fanart based off the old style and the old style itself is still better than what we had for the prior twenty years.

But importantly, there's a big difference still between the character designs and how they're used. You don't actually NEED to be a fan of Shintani's style to still like the way a show or movie looks, because most of the animation is still going to be drawn by people with their own styles. Whenever Super returns and we get more of the standard key animation staff and lesser supervisors around again for dialogue sequences and the like, a lot of them are still going to probably have been used to Yamamuro's style after working under him so long, so you may see some stuff that looks partway between the two between the supervisors going for Shintani's sheets and the key animators drawing the way they had for the last several years.

Maybe? I dunno. We saw some stuff like that before the movie came out, at least.

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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by goku the krump dancer » Thu May 28, 2020 8:34 pm

Ajay wrote: Thu May 28, 2020 6:37 pm
LoganForkHands73 wrote: Thu May 28, 2020 6:19 pmWell whaddaya know, AnimeAjay hangs around here.
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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by Vijay » Fri May 29, 2020 2:06 am

Arteaga4K wrote: Thu May 28, 2020 2:56 pm If his popularity is anything to go by, I might get some heat for this thread. But I'm sorry, I just don't get the hype. I'm not calling him a bad artist, but when you have guys like Takahashi and Shida working on the same projects and comparing their work, I just don't see why Shintani is the one everyone is going crazy for, especially on Twitter. I can't be the only one who looked at a few fanarts of old Dragon Ball characters like Cell in Shintani's style and thought, "eh". Even saw a few people compare him to Maeda/Masaki Sato, and thought to myself they're almost nothing alike. If this is the direction they're taking in the future, admittedly I don't think I'd like it. But ofcourse this is just my opinion, what do you guys think?
For a newbie, you're ballsy to pop this topic despite knowing u might belong in minority. No worries, I'm with ya.

All the points you have mentioned were points I have debated, argued over & over on Twitter & even here right around the time when DBS Broly First Look posters were released.

But later I realized, it's basically ur perception. U like it, take it. If you dont, walk it off.

Takahashi & Shida are ok. But will never comprehend craze for Shintani beyond "flexibility, durability, Toriyama chose Shintani so he must be right kinda ROFL 🤣" answers. Details in his artwork is missing. Fellas looked at bigger picture criticizing Yammy's rigid stiff animation but what abt his artwork? Details on Goku, Frieza & Veggie's faces in ROF were non-existant in DBS.... go again carryin those fluidity, flexibility, rigidity, masculinity

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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by Draconic » Fri May 29, 2020 3:33 am

You may not like his style, but his designs give a lot more freedom and leeway for the artists you DO like to put their own spin on them much easier than the old ones, so you got to admit they're good. We'll see when we move forward if the movie's problem, the lack of consistency and how jarring some scene transitions are, will be alleviated the more the animators get experience with those designs... For a show with good production it might not even matter, since being inconsistent from episode to episode isn't that jarring if the art and animation are still good.
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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by Sani007 » Fri May 29, 2020 3:45 am

Ajay wrote: Thu May 28, 2020 5:51 pm I think a lot of people are in for a big "Oh shit!" moment when they see the man come back.
For what and when? :D

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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by Matches Malone » Fri May 29, 2020 4:55 am

He's by far the best thing to happen to DB in terms of production. Super's Yamamoro designs are just ugly, to put it nicely. They're off model most of the time, sometimes the tone of dialogue doesn't match the facial expression, They're hard to animate, resulting in very stiff movements and unnatural non-fighting poses, etc. I know the general rule is that art is subjective, but I think there are exceptions to that, Shintani being better than Yamamoro being on of them. With how troubled Super's production was, I'm surprised they went with Yamamoro considering his style makes everything harder.

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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by JulieYBM » Fri May 29, 2020 9:32 am

Matches Malone wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 4:55 am He's by far the best thing to happen to DB in terms of production. Super's Yamamoro designs are just ugly, to put it nicely. They're off model most of the time, sometimes the tone of dialogue doesn't match the facial expression, They're hard to animate, resulting in very stiff movements and unnatural non-fighting poses, etc. I know the general rule is that art is subjective, but I think there are exceptions to that, Shintani being better than Yamamoro being on of them. With how troubled Super's production was, I'm surprised they went with Yamamoro considering his style makes everything harder.
They went with Yamamuro because he had so many finished designs already. The series basically started from nothing in two months. This is in part why Episode #5 had to be scribbled out like it was. Taking the time to start from scratch would have taken longer.

Still, lord can Yamamuro not design.
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Re: Shintani's style doesn't do it for me

Post by Matches Malone » Fri May 29, 2020 9:53 am

JulieYBM wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 9:32 amTaking the time to start from scratch would have taken longer.
This is exactly what they should've done, take their time. So many problems for both the fans and staff could've been avoided by not rushing things. I'm really happy to see them taking their time now with Super 2.0 and getting it right.

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