Does Anime Style Absolutely Necessary For VN?

[Ansubriac]

I know nearly all visual novels are in anime sytle. And most of the people including me love that.

But there are other drawing styles used in games on Steam like;

Sixtieth Kilometer, Earth's Center Of Gravity, Monster Camp, The Pillar Of Earth etc.

What do you guys think of those drawing styles?

 

[Plk_Lesiak]

Oh, well, I personally like all kinds of artstyles, although if you'd ask me for my favourites, they'd likely turn out to not be non-anime, but more stylized/unconventional spins on anime art... Like Steins;Gate for example. The point being, I'm a weeb, I like anime-style things and most people that will ever look at a visual novel for more than 5 seconds are either like me or Japanese.

From their very beginnings, Japanese VNs had a pretty strong connections to anime and they are made primarily for Japanese readers, who seem to be pretty conservative with their tastes. Non-JP VNs are made primarily for weebs, often very explicitly copying Japanese media to appeal to Western otaku. While writing about VNs I always advocated for non-JP devs to avoid being copycats, but mostly in the sense of creating their own narratives and experimenting with style. I don't think rejecting anime art is needed that much, the thing you should probably try to avoid is being generic and uninspired, which a lot of VNs (from all sources) are. Plus VNs, no matter who makes them, are currently offering very thin profit margins, sadly making anything more than mild experimentation quite a big risk. You can make a non-anime one, but unless you absolutely nail the presentation, it might very easily appeal to no one – the weebs or JP otakus won't like the departure from what they usually enjoy and the broader audience still won't find your "waifu power point presentation" interesting enough to check out. Thus, I don't think VNs can really free themselves from anime art, or have much reason to do so. They won't get meainstream any time soon, considering they didn't already and the younger generations generally have the attention spans of gerbils.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Plk_Lesiak

[Clephas]

I'm fond of the style from ten to fifteen years ago, like seen in Ikusa Megami Zero, as well as the older style used in Dies Irae.  However, that just means that, in the end, I like different types of anime styles.  

The tendency to go for excessively deformed or hyper-realistic designs in Western animation and cartoon styles puts me off, partially because I've spent so long with otaku media, partially because it just isn't as refined as even the worst anime style in modern times.  I just don't respond to it.  

A few use the 'neutral style', which has a watercolor-type look combined with a more refined sprite design that is easy on the eyes, but that kind of thing requires a level of skill that most VN-makers in the West can't manage, so it is more of an exception than a trend.

Edit: In the end, those are just my personal preferences.  The idea that a certain style is prerequisite for VNs is not something I'm going to say yes to.  I simply prefer the anime styles in general, for similar reasons to why I stopped watching Western media entirely.  That is the more straight answer to the original question, lol

[Kennedy Krane]

Not necessarily, but since the medium is invented by japan, it's kinda understandable that most of it mimics it's art style too 

not to mention the market is also dominated by japan

[Zakamutt]

no

[novurdim]

No, read 428.

[littleshogun]

Well it's not really absolutely necessary though because some of the VNs that didn't use the anime art like Fata Morgana or Shibuya Scramble did quite well received. For Fata Morgana, I admit that initially I didn't think that Fata Morgana graphic is quite good because it's more looks like OELVN instead of Japanese VNs, until I remember that it did resemble Castlevania Symphony of the Night art to a degree and after that I managed to find that it's indeed a good VN (It also help that some of the casts for the sound drama are well known VA with some of them reprise the role in PS4 version, although too bad that Novectale here only add the voices in the bonus story).

In the end, from what I see in the posts above is that people are already getting used to anime style in VNs so that obviously the developer chose to use anime style in the VNs, although of course if someone want to make a VN they can use the other style besides anime if s/he prefer to not use anime style.

Edited July 25, 2022 by littleshogun

[Ansubriac]

17 hours ago, Clephas said:

I'm fond of the style from ten to fifteen years ago, like seen in Ikusa Megami Zero, as well as the older style used in Dies Irae.  However, that just means that, in the end, I like different types of anime styles.  

The tendency to go for excessively deformed or hyper-realistic designs in Western animation and cartoon styles puts me off, partially because I've spent so long with otaku media, partially because it just isn't as refined as even the worst anime style in modern times.  I just don't respond to it.  

A few use the 'neutral style', which has a watercolor-type look combined with a more refined sprite design that is easy on the eyes, but that kind of thing requires a level of skill that most VN-makers in the West can't manage, so it is more of an exception than a trend.

Edit: In the end, those are just my personal preferences.  The idea that a certain style is prerequisite for VNs is not something I'm going to say yes to.  I simply prefer the anime styles in general, for similar reasons to why I stopped watching Western media entirely.  That is the more straight answer to the original question, lol

I agree, western drawings' hyper-realistic desings are even irritating to me. And also anime has a lot of impact on us then any other drawings. So yeah, it's hard to find other kinds, there are few.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Ansubriac

[p11]

Not at all. I prefer different art styles.

I just like a realistic characters, which anime is normally pretty close to.

So any mix of anime and realism is probably fine for me.

[Ansubriac]

Actually I wanted to see someone who says "Yes, it is" and hear his/her point of view on the subject

[Plk_Lesiak]

1 hour ago, Ansubriac said:

Actually I wanted to see someone who says "Yes, it is" and hear his/her point of view on the subject

Oh, you can try posting the topic on the visual novels subreddit, I'm sure you'll awaken some demons that way. xD

Although I can't imagine a sane argument for that thesis other the one I touched upon – that there's no point to non-anime VNs/no real audience for them.

[adamstan]

7 hours ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

that there's no point to non-anime VNs/no real audience for them.

Yeah, but that point would be moot, or even void, because things like 3D OELVNS clearly have audience Although I guess the person making such argument probably wouldn't acknowledge their existence, or do not consider them "true" VNs

Edited July 29, 2022 by adamstan

[Ansubriac]

17 hours ago, adamstan said:

Yeah, but that point would be moot, or even void, because things like 3D OELVNS clearly have audience Although I guess the person making such argument probably wouldn't acknowledge their existence, or do not consider them "true" VNs

But they're novels and they're visual  Jokes aside, i got what you mean, they're demons. They'll not be thinking healhty.

[Trollesse]

Personally, I prefer the anime style but I have nothing against other graphic styles, as long as they are drawn (it makes me dream more than the more realistic visuals)

[HataVNI]

I prefer visually pleasing artstyle. This doesn't necessarily require anime aesthetic. Stuff like Pale Cachexia and Soundless tickled my fancy too!