silence is deafening...

[McDuffies]

And Srdjan, what I did was merely ask "hey, you guys know about the Keenime Forum? Are you taking it down?"; I did not go like "Hey, this is Your Supreme Commander Speaking, I DEMAND you take down this forum".

Don't exagerate. What I thought you asked was "Hey, I suggest you delete Keenime forum because it's empty most of the time"

McDuffies, it may not be too hard on resources, but it is a useless forum. Look, this is the first surge in comments in literally months. And wow, there're about 5 people who are consistently posting! If you needed an entire forum for every 5 posters... Most of what we're talking about can easily go in Off-Topic.

Mostly anything of what we talk anywhere can be moved anywhere. For instance, GD can contain most of Junk, T&T, Crossover, Gear threads. Currently, Striker is forcing a little more harsh content of GD, luckily he isn't including Keenime in it, or it would end up with every anime discussion thread being moved here. But, eh, we're just talking, threads start with something end with something else, for instance there's always several discussions in Junk that would be more appropriate for GD (for instance those about films based on comics).

I don't think JexKerome is going behind anyone's back. Not many forum-goers have seen this thread because no one cares about this forum enough to look at the threads inside.

Easy there, I'm not prosecuting anyone. I just say that if he wanted this forum deleted, the most logical thing to do would be to post about that in GD, asking others of opinion, plus asking for support. Jex says that his PM was in form of question, not the request, thus I was misguided.

This thread has been going on for about two or three weeks, and now you've decided to peek in? To me, that shows you don't really care that much (unless you've been on vacation or something, but even then, I don't see you posting much on this board).

There's a pretty simple and logical reason why I'm not checking this forum often: I'm not such a fan of manga and anime, most of things discussed here would be not interesting to me. Someone recently mentioned something about either reviving or killing this forum (I can't remember) so I peaked in out of curiosity and to throw my two cents on the table, that's all.
I mean, I really don't care about this particular forum, but I like idea of this forum hosting several communities. Being that I don't thing "Games" should be considered community, it would leave CCa as the only active.

And sure, there's plenty of dead forums out there, but that doesn't mean we *shouldn't* get rid of them. The existence of free HD space is not an excuse to keep this alive. Now, knowing that deleting it would cause major hiccups in the server; that's a good excuse not to kill the forum. Since this is the case, I agree not to kill Keenime.

Well, to me, a possibility of forming a new generation of this community is also a good reason. Let me explain:

Suppose if I want to discuss about Nick Cave: I could post on Junk forum, most of people would state their opinion on him including whether they've heard of him or not, some would know his most well known songs, I'd be lucky if there was more that a couple of people with whom I could discuss about other, less popular songs. And that discussion would be boring to others, plus we would probably be constantly interupted.
If I wanted to discuss about particular songs, go more into details, etc, I would logically post in a forum of community of Nick Cave's fans. So, go online communities!

As for the fact that this community is currently dead, well it mustn't be that way. Even you could try to revive it; for instance, by inviting people you know who like anime to join the discussion here; contacting the old moderator of this board to see if he still can/want to help; asking Striker to choose a new moderator; eventually inviting new people to forum: for instance, you can stalk for new interesting manga comics and inviting their authors - it's more likely that they'll be looking for such community; Starting topics on subjects of particular animes.

And I disagree with you about chibi and sweat drops. I haven't seen even close to all the manga there is to see, but I can say with utmost confidence that most manga with comedic elements uses chibi and sweat drops. Certainly, all the comedies I've seen use them. To me, this makes it a stylistic element and not a method/technique. Therefore, I would go as far as to say that they are elements intrinsic to anime/manga comedy. Even though sweat drops have been used in many other works, they are still an essentially Japanese contrivance.

I don't think it's a valid reason. It can be technique, it's just that that technique is very popular with artists of that style. Using this technique or not, is a part of particulare artist's style, but not an essential part. Because you'll be able to reckognize an artist by his style even if he doesn't use a sweatdrop or such. Even more, artist could be doing one comedic and one not-comedic comic, both in similar style, but using sweatdrops and other only in first one.
It's not like anime eyes, if an artist drops the anime eyes, his style will became different and you may even not be able to reckognize his art anymore. It's more like using rasters, like Soap Comity does: her art would still hold it's basic characteristics if she dropped rasters.

Besides, not that Jex was talking about style while you're talking about stylistic element. With the wording you used, it seems that you're disagreeing with Jex more than me. When I talk about technique, it can be understood as a stylistic element as well. Sorry, but it sounds as if you're disagreeing with me solely for the sake of disagreeing with me.

[Wp]

Sure, plenty of GD can go in OT and any other forum, but the point is GD is very active while Keenime is not. Thus, it is more valid to discuss something in OT instead of Keenime because, chances are, an anime thread will die off very quickly. Using an entire forum for a couple of threads is overkill, and GD is not just "a couple" of threads while Keenime is. I like that you support many communities, but my two cents is that this is a dead community. But like you said, I'm interested in getting Keenime active again if I can't kill it.

Sorry, but it sounds as if you're disagreeing with me solely for the sake of disagreeing with me.

Hahaha, you got me there. This is another one of my tactics to breed topics of interest in the Keenime forum. However, I still do disagree with you somewhat. I'm not going to go into deeply into the meanings of "style" and "stylistic element" and "technique" because that's semantics, and I'm no lawyer. But style is a collection of artistic decisions as a whole in my opinion. If Soap took out her chibis, a reader would get the distinct impression that something was wrong. She would then be working with a different style, maybe a more serious one. Also, there are variations you can make on the eyes that would make them different yet still easily attributable to a specific artist; to me, that is a change in style.

For example, anime these days like to use sparkling eyes and glare spots excessively. That's not the only option, however. Older-style anime artists will forgo excessive glare spots (Miyazaki for example) and just go with the simple filled-in black eyes and one white circle for glare. If you suddenly used color and three glare spots, you would still get the feeling it was Miyazaki because the same basic eye shape and face structure is there. But even if it were familiar, I would say "Nah, that *can't* be him. He doesn't do that." It would be a different style and not just a different technique.

[McDuffies]

Hmmm. Let me get into semantics a bit more, if we wanna solve the problem, we must define it first, eh? (anyway, semantics is an important art theory discipline, at least from 20th century on)
Under the "style" you can mean either the unique drawing style of the artist, together with all style features that he employs, or the style as "manga style", "caricatural style", "realistic style" etc, which means, a number of unique art styles that have some esential things in common.
What I ment to say at first was, using sweatdrop and other, is not enough of a common ground to call it a style (second meaning, of course). Why? Well, yes, as you said, most of comedic manga - as oposed to serious manga - uses it. But if an artist makes a comedy with all or most of other characteristics of manga, isn't it still comedic manga? And if lots of artists decide to drop on sweatdrops (for instance, if they weren't very popular anymore) wouldn't it give us ground to claim that comedic manga doesn't equal sweatdrops and other? I'm talking hypothetically, but I just want to show that sweatdrop isn't defining element for comedic manga.
Of course, we could be pedant and call it different styles: "comedic manga with sweatdrops" and "comedic manga without sweatdrops" but I think there's not enough ground for such division. And anyway, it'd be more a job for some professional theorist, to redefine styles and such...

But anyway, I don't think they are so much important elements of style, not either sparkling eyes you mentioned. Artist's style... heh, that something much more subtle than adding or not adding sparkle in eyes. Maybe graphic naration of Soap's comic would be different if she extracted chibies, but I'd stil reckognize her art among others.

[Wp]

You've defined several different variations on "style" but I'm still not sure which angle you're working at. To me, you seem to be defining "style" as a method of recognizing an artist, but if you're leaning toward "defining characteristic of," I'd still have a few problems with it.

In the former case, the definition breaks down when an artist chooses to adopt two distinct ways of drawing things. Take CLAMP, for example. If they decided to make a manga with the style of X and another one with the style of Chobits, you'd still recognize them both as CLAMP, but they are different enough that you would call them seperate styles.

And even if only one element is changed from the same artist, it could throw off the entire style. Take Tarantino films. If Reservoir Dogs was pieced together chronologically, you'd still recognize it as Reservoir Dogs. But it would be a drastically different style.

The latter definition I just don't agree with. There are plenty of elements that aren't *defining* and yet are easily attributable to a certain style. You don't need them, but you'll be hard-pressed to find them anywhere else. Now, granted, I may be stretching it a little far with sweatdrops, but chibi is definitely a case to be argued. You will probably only find it in comedic situations.

All of this is being viewed from my definition, which is a collection of artistic decisions. Each element may not be enough to make it a style in itself (ie "manga with sweatdrops" vs "manga without sweatdrops") but it is a part of the style. Changing them individually may not do much, but taking out three or so could cause significant recognition problems.

I think JexKerome brought this up because Soap was getting complaints about her excessive use of chibis when she asked for criticism a little while back. He may have wanted to explain that chibis are part of her style. It's not something to improve upon or a flaw in her work.

[JexKerome]

What's this?! I go away for a minute and you people have an intelligent discussion sans moi? Well, I guess my abscence woulda been necessary....

Anyway,

I think JexKerome brought this up because Soap was getting complaints about her excessive use of chibis when she asked for criticism a little while back. He may have wanted to explain that chibis are part of her style. It's not something to improve upon or a flaw in her work.

Er.... yes... that's why I said it...

<__<
>__>

All yer semantic terms confused me , but I think you're both wrong and right (which more likely than not will get you two on my case, but I digress).

I think we can all agree that we can recognize the japanese style on sight; it is far more trickier to separate comics according to the number of elements they use, though they tend to run with the comic's theme. Comedic will most likely have chibi; however, other comic types will also include it during comic moments, and sometimes comedies WON'T do a single chibi (like Ranma 1/2).

And yes, many other styles are using these elements; however, the extent of "success" such imitations enjoy vary enormously, as well as the exact element to be used. The drop, for example, along with the mouth that goes down to the chin and the motion lines are amongst the most overused; chibis, on the other hand, I have yet to see outside manga and anime.

So I suggest you two start using chibis.

In fact, let's make it an event; it would definitely make it totally japanese-looking and thus a definite Keenime endeavour.

Of course, if we convince Jops and FAUB to participate, we'll have them "unchibi" their chibis.

[McDuffies]

You've defined several different variations on "style" but I'm still not sure which angle you're working at. To me, you seem to be defining "style" as a method of recognizing an artist, but if you're leaning toward "defining characteristic of," I'd still have a few problems with it..

Well, style is definitely something you're supposed to reckognize an artist on. Of course, we could do a separation here too, based on skills of an artists. Because beginners or bad artists will often imitate some other artist, or will be making it look objective, well, anonimously, undistinctable from the crowd. On the other hand, better artists have so reckognizable style, that you often don't have to be an expert to reckognize them. Individuality of the art is one (although not the only one, maybe not even the decisive) measure of art's quality.
Parts of the style are artist's decisions, like whether he's gonna draw realistically, or caricaturally (if he can do both) or whether he's gonna do it with more details or more minimalistically.
Other part is actually artist's limitations or habits taken into account. Artists will often give relatively similar anathomy characteristics to most of characters, which is a result of using a particular technique in constructing a face or body.
Also, they'll use a different quality line. Yes, partly use of line is a conscious decision, but not entirely. For instance, noone can imitate Loisel's free line, because no hand flows so freely on paper - he almost finished a page in one move. But also, I don't think that he'd be able to draw more tightly and perfectionistically. It's just not what he's used to. On the other hand, for instance, Gave Gibbons who illustrated Watchmen, has very tight and somehow cold art. That's because he doesn't have such level of free-hand ability so he uses one of many techniques USA artists developed to steady his hand while drawing.
It's such subtle differences that I mainly think of when talking about style. Gibbons couldn't imitate Loizel, or even other USA artists, like, for instance, Cubert, even if me have all the same artist decisions as they did.

In the former case, the definition breaks down when an artist chooses to adopt two distinct ways of drawing things. Take CLAMP, for example. If they decided to make a manga with the style of X and another one with the style of Chobits, you'd still recognize them both as CLAMP, but they are different enough that you would call them seperate styles.

Sure, but it's not the one characteristics they changed. They'd have to employ deeper changes, like way of constructing a sketch, like said quality of line, like level of detail. Those are such decisions that would make a lean toward different style, not such simple think as using a sweatdrop and similar effects, or not.

And even if only one element is changed from the same artist, it could throw off the entire style. Take Tarantino films. If Reservoir Dogs was pieced together chronologically, you'd still recognize it as Reservoir Dogs. But it would be a drastically different style.

Yes, but in Reservoir Dogs, leap from chronology is one of the esential part of concept. Removing it would indeed change the entire film, but I don't think removing sweatdrops and similar stuff would change a certain comic. Just as Reservoir Dogs wouldn't be changed much if the role of Harvey Keitel was played by, for instance, Robert de Niro.
And even with that, we're talking about one movie, not about director's style, so that couldn't be implied to our discussion. Tarantino, as a directir, often makes leaps from continuity, in lost of his films, and it indeed is a part of his style, but it's also not the decisive part, because he made (or wrote scripts to) number of films that don't have any discontinuity, and those are still reckognizable as his films. More important parts of his style are, IMO, tendency of characters to have idle chats, often related to movie history or curtural references, then, a certain "cool" by which he shapes the look of his characters. Often quotes from other movies, etc, etc.
But Tarantico could be the bad example, exactly because he quotes other directors often. Better example is Daren Aronovsky; Without short cuts, elipses, extreme speeding and slowing the time, etc, his movies are highly reckognizable, even though he made only two by now. Other good example would be Jean Jeunet (Amelia Poulain) with his grotesque characters, intensive use of camera lenses, play with colour in every movie, etc.

The latter definition I just don't agree with. There are plenty of elements that aren't *defining* and yet are easily attributable to a certain style. You don't need them, but you'll be hard-pressed to find them anywhere else. Now, granted, I may be stretching it a little far with sweatdrops, but chibi is definitely a case to be argued. You will probably only find it in comedic situations.

All of this is being viewed from my definition, which is a collection of artistic decisions. Each element may not be enough to make it a style in itself (ie "manga with sweatdrops" vs "manga without sweatdrops") but it is a part of the style. Changing them individually may not do much, but taking out three or so could cause significant recognition problems.

That depends on which elements are those. Take out sweatdrops, chibis, raster, change the shape of panels, and it will still be reckognizable. But use different camera angles, and it might make a difference if unusual camera angles are characteristic for that style. Take out manga eyes and small noses, and it will hardly be manga anymore.
Perhaps the level of recognition will be changed. Perhaps the more changes you employ, the more expert must a reader be to reckognize you. If you cut out sweatdrops, someone who's reading comics for the first time might stop reckognizing you. But that would be the case if you were one of the few artists using them. In a situation where there's sweatdrops hanging all over the net and book shelfs, I think, hardly.

I think JexKerome brought this up because Soap was getting complaints about her excessive use of chibis when she asked for criticism a little while back. He may have wanted to explain that chibis are part of her style. It's not something to improve upon or a flaw in her work.

That yes, but I agree she should use them less extensive. Well, apart from being annoying for the most, you get the feel that she's using them because she thinks they are cool, not taking care of whether it's logical to use them somewhere or not. You know, like fanservice for those who like chibis.
I mean, even though it's her artist decision, it doesn't mean it's not a wrong decision.

I thought Jex actually brought this up because in thread where we were supposed to list cliches someone mentioned manga sweatdrops. I certainly agree they're not cliches per se. If extremely lot of people used them in exactly the same way, then there would be a possibility of being cliche. But just using them, not.

All yer semantic terms confused me

Hey, we're not Umberto Eco, we're dealing with semantics on a very begginer's level.

chibis, on the other hand, I have yet to see outside manga and anime.

Of course, if we convince Jops and FAUB to participate, we'll have them "unchibi" their chibis.

[Wp]

JexKerome:
HA. You tried to derail our intellectual discussion, but it didn't work. Write on, McDuffies!

Of course, if we convince Jops and FAUB to participate, we'll have them "unchibi" their chibis.

I can't imagine FAUB with a non-chibi anime style >.<

And you know, I might actually do chibi if I could do it with anything other than MS Paint.

McDuffies:
Well, I admit, sweatdrops are a bit of a stretch in terms of delineating style, but chibis are certainly not. Deity Permit is one of the comics I have bookmarked; suffice it to say, I have read certain parts of her comic multiple times. She is fairly consistent with her use of chibis, ie, in context of humorous exclamations and sheepish/disgruntled side comments (of course, her comic has quite a few of those situations). They are not simple "I feel like putting this there" decisions. In that regard, it becomes a hallmark of her design.

I guess I kinda lost myself in the process of all the debating, though. My point with style and sweatdrops/chibis/raster(?) is that they are *part* of style, and even if everyone uses them, they are still characteristics of style rather than cliches. I don't think you can be anymore cliche with chibis than you can with the entire anime art style. Hell, certain animes are drawn entirely chibi and almost nothing else.

What I disagree with is the opinion that "style" can be defined so simply as a few major characteristics or a factor for artist recognizability. Descriptions like "smooth, flowing lines" and "tight, highly detailed" can't be necessarily used on something like anime eyes, which can be drawn in any line style as long as they "look like" anime eyes. White Hydra with thinner, hand-drawn (instead of thick, computer-vectorized) lines would still be recognizable as VD's work. What if Jean Jeunet took out all of his color play? Wouldn't you still be able to recognize his work from every other element that comprises his style? In this regard do I think style is a sum of its parts, so sweatdrops and chibi are a part of anime style and cannot be cliche. Few artists can be recognized solely by one element of their complete artistic style (Loisel), and that's perhaps why they are famous.

Hey, we're not Umberto Eco, we're dealing with semantics on a very begginer's level.

Heh. I think you have an edge on me, cuz I don't even know who he is. Maybe you should have said RPin, with his philosophy and stuff.

[McDuffies]

JexKerome:
HA. You tried to derail our intellectual discussion, but it didn't work. Write on, McDuffies!

Of course, if we convince Jops and FAUB to participate, we'll have them "unchibi" their chibis.

I can't imagine FAUB with a non-chibi anime style >.<

I was saying that neither Jops nor Faub actually draw in anime style, yet they both use chibis (although I, personally, wouldn't call Jops's chibis).

What I disagree with is the opinion that "style" can be defined so simply as a few major characteristics or a factor for artist recognizability. Descriptions like "smooth, flowing lines" and "tight, highly detailed" can't be necessarily used on something like anime eyes, which can be drawn in any line style as long as they "look like" anime eyes. White Hydra with thinner, hand-drawn (instead of thick, computer-vectorized) lines would still be recognizable as VD's work. What if Jean Jeunet took out all of his color play? Wouldn't you still be able to recognize his work from every other element that comprises his style? In this regard do I think style is a sum of its parts, so sweatdrops and chibi are a part of anime style and cannot be cliche. Few artists can be recognized solely by one element of their complete artistic style (Loisel), and that's perhaps why they are famous.

But I'm not defining it that simple. I was merely naming some of major lines of it. After all, many things affect on style: artist's temperament and personality, his art ethics, the techniques he's taught, his professor (if he had), his influences - and those things are not same with any artist.
Even Loisel, well, there's his line, but there's also anathomy of his characters, who tend to be grotesque, with edgy bone structure, then there is his page that is consistens mostly of long, narrow panels, then camera angles that move so fast as if they were attached to some kind of bird, then there is his colouring that has colourfullness of a carnival, etc, etc, etc... Many of those are consistants of his style. Maybe camera angles and page construction even less than others, because they're not so instantly reckognizable, specially if it's illustration, not the comic, that we observe.
As for VD, I say take away the thich line, the sharp angles on bodies of characters, and the way he draws eyes, and it won't be so easy to reckognize it. Still, if you face that style to current WH style, you'll still notice some similarity.

Hey, we're not Umberto Eco, we're dealing with semantics on a very begginer's level.

Heh. I think you have an edge on me, cuz I don't even know who he is. Maybe you should have said RPin, with his philosophy and stuff.

A writer of "The name of the rose", there was a movie made after it too. But he's also one of the most important postmodern literature theorists. Basically, he was semantycist (if that's how it's called).

[JexKerome]

*Quietly backs away from the room*

[McDuffies]

It appears that someone else has seen this discussion and used it for a starting point of his thread in GD. So it had it's purpose.