Jump: “New Mangaka Don’t Put Any Effort Into Drawing Men”
- Categories: Manga, News
- Date: Sep 27, 2010 14:37 JST
- Tags: Character Design, Illustration, Mangaka, Moe, Shonen, Shonen Jump
The editorial staff of Jump Square have accused the new generation of aspiring mangaka that they don’t put enough effort into drawing “cool” male characters.
From their Twitter account, in this case written by veteran editor Masahiko Ibaraki:
We’ve got a lot of followers who are looking to become mangaka, and there’s something I noticed about their works – I’d like to write a bit about what we’ve noticed.
It’s about art – there seem to be few people who can draw cool looking men. Especially their faces. People who can draw a man who looks cool to other men, with a sense of sex appeal. Are there no rookies about who can do that…
[…]
Looking at recent contributions, everyone can draw cute girls. But however you look at it they put no effort into men. I suspect those who can draw cool men will command the next era in manga (though this is an exaggeration). Keep trying!
It seems the impact of the moe boom continues to be felt.
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who needs men anyway.
Just draw a female, and make the female say its a man/boy/trap, and then he/she becomes the most popular character in that manga/anime.
You probably needed your father in order to be born.
men need women, thats why mangaka draw women? DURRR.
Shonen does!!! OP, Naruto, Bleach, Reborn, D-grayman, Berserk, Fairy Tail, FMA,DB what better examples can you give?
I hate when other manga plays with the ambiguity of the male characters, a man that looks like a pretty girl then anything or effeminates man just because it's a trend... Those are pretty ridiculous, reminds me of the group Tokyo Hotel!!!
The only Anime I've seen this and that I find acceptable was working... At least it had something to do with the story...
berserk and darker than black are seinen
I...don't think anyone should be surprised about all this. If anything...it should have been expected.
K-On don't show a single man in the series and it still a awesome anime :)
Horrible, you meant to type horrible but for accident you typed awesome... Don't worry, it happens sometimes.
Because there is no way that a smart person could say that that garbage is awesome
You forget the dude in the music store.
Nah I just need they draw dirty-villain looking mans for my favorite rape manga-dojin. Good looking man + pure love is greatly turn me off. Sry for being a sadist.
I dunno about visual side of the question, but I havent seen a really good and intriguing male characters in ages.
*Remembers Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Kenshin, Griffith*
I just cant empathize the weak, loser type males that fill modern manga/anime. Obviously hikky pricks have much more sympathy for them.
"I just cant empathize the weak, loser type males that fill modern manga/anime."
Agreed, I'm getting tired of every anime I watch ending with the main character STILL not choosing a girl out of his 57 girl harem.
Well, okay... the last anime I watched was Black Lagoon, and Rock was pretty cool in other ways, though I really wish he kept his attitude from the episode where he calls out Revy in the middle of a street.
Actually we do need some, if not all.
'MOTHER-FUCKIN'-Archer! (Fate/Stay Night)
Kamina (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann)
Ken Matsushiro (Yakitate!! Japan)
We need more GAR men in our anime, manga and game too. It doesn't mean it has to be a musclebound gay bastard you know. It also doesn't mean they have to be fighting all the time just to be manly.
We need guys who look BAD ASS and FUCKIN AWESOME too instead of blushing and jizzed every time they see a loli or got oppai slap from a girl with a physics defying pair of jiggling boobies.
of well, who am I to kid around. It's not like they gonna give a damn even if I say something like this to them. haih *walk away*
Ill tell you why without men we never would have gotten to know of kamina
They don't draw cool 2D men because they don't want competition for their waifus.
well spoken
The only valid answer to this conundrum.
Case in point: CLAYMORE. F'n awesome, MANLY females. lol
Because few guys fap to men and most guy buy manga to fap.
you are dumb
Not everyone is 13 and suffering from chronic masturbation disorder. Yes it's true! There are people out there that read books, watch movies, and even read manga with both their hands!
Then hurry up. Chidori is worth it. Or maybe you prefer the clumsy girl?
yo
That's right. But those people won't post comments on this site.
How do I watch movies with both of my hands?
I bought FMA to fap? Man, if that's the case I gotta make up for some serious lost time!!
I do. Im sick and tired of the moe and the skinny good for nothing guy that end up inexplicably with a harem of girls. I'm still waiting for a good manga/anime with a good cast that's not 80-90% girls and that has an actual plot
Watch Rainbow 99% guys only female are the people who don't matter.
So ...you want most manga?
Go read bara yaoi manga. There's your muscly men doing awesome things.
Try a manhwa: Unbalance X2
It's all you're wishing for.
While cute girls are always welcomed, especially for my fellow male otaku, I'd like to see more well developed (both design and personality) men in manga.
It's the old comic - manga paradoxon.
Comic - manly men.
Manga - cute girls.
I just don't want insanely ripped guy like in hero comics; and anyways comics at least got the smokin' lady thing going for them; manga lately doesn't even bother with male characters.
.............................
We actually want more girls(Cute and/or Sexy).
I mean, its okay to have a "cool guy" every now and then, but to have Shonen titles like Naruto(with a very predictable plot), I would actually rather watch a "moe-blob title"(as some of ya closeted folks want to term it) then to consume my life watching the endless fillers that have consumed Naruto.
Also, I fail to understand why some people here have something against "moe" (here or elsewhere). I mean, its okay you're some of ya are the "story" or "Philosophy" types but why hate anything cute, especially ***girls***?! For shame, isn't "moe" part of this site?
......Anyway but to the topic!
"Thanks but not thanks Jump Square(or Shonen Jump if that's really you). As a straight guy, I'm trying to keep it straight."
How dare we not like annoying shallow characters in series devoid of plot or anything interesting!
Especially when the entire industry is jeering towards that.
I don't find moe-blob's cute, I find depth cute.
Draw a girl.
Give penis.
Get a trap.
Draw a girl.
Draw a girl.
Get yuri.
Draw a girl.
Draw a trap.
Get pseudo yuri.
Or a futa...
But that depends on the time of the day or the hand of fate...
You could never trust fusion when a bald, beady-eyed guy with a long-ass nose is performing it inside a blue room that looks like the interior of a limo...
But without men, you can't make lolis!!??
wat about shotas? lolis are lame.
Nah, lolis are good enough. Underage boys and traps aren't my thing though.
Don't worry, I'm also sick so I upvoted you, Azure. :3
Futa's and traps aren't sick. Liking them just means having homosexual tendencies.
I enjoy both loli and shota...Being f*cked by futa~
Cakes and hotdogs...I need both to live!!!
It seems to me the person who down-voted me does not like loli nor shota...
*shakes head*
You're missing a lot, friend...
use traps for that.
Futa is boring. Loli rape ftw!
Wow, Jaku and Perta nailed it spot on. And in my case, forced to use crack pairings, I asked some artist at a convention for a commission of a crack pairing
Amen to that.
yes, we need no man, trap x girls is better. it's like ice-cream with extra topping... you get trap and yuri in the same time.
and it ended with futa ....
Yeah, pretty much. Artists will always draw "what inspires them" and thanks to some of the cute girls of the last generation... well~....
So the inability to draw men is the true reason for the rise of traps and faceless protagonists?
@makkun
"But without men, you can't make lolis!!??"
That's what futas are for...
How do you think Mithras from FFXI reproduce..?
They choose the futa(s) born amongst them and get impregnated by her/them~
Even futas are still female so couldn't reproduce, there would have to be some traps among them for Mithra society to survive.
*sees the negative vote*
Ugh...Someone obviously does not know nor get the "There are no male Mithras" meme...
Why do you think those delishush Mithra futa pics were made when FF XI came out..?
It's because of that meme~
pseudo yuri is the way
A rod of impregnation, eh?
If it involves magic, yes...
Then the era of Amuro, Char, Lelouch, etc is fading away, yes ?
We need men because they still have ground to develop. And when people tire of moe-shit, men will return.
>Putting Ledouche next to Char
no
Only mentally devoid twelve-year-olds give a shit about when an anime was made. The mere fact that you had no idea who Char was makes the conclusion solid. Even Konata-chan likes Gundam, don't diss a classic just because it was made thirty years before you were born.
>cool guys are for fags
>fap to guys
Who is Char? (srs question, I don't know him)
ALL HAIL LELOUCH!!
Lelouch is cool? BAHAHAHA
He's a girly twig who can't even out run a girl.
That is a perfect example on why we need more cool male characters.
Google is your friend:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Char_Aznable
The proper answer is: Your God.
Some dude from 1979? Seriously?
Sorry, I'm not into slide show anime. I prefer those with actual animations.
>>Lelouch is cool? BAHAHAHA
He's a girly twig who can't even out run a girl.
That is a perfect example on why we need more cool male characters.<<
He can't out run them, but they will do what he says. Cool guys are for girls and fags. Most guys fap to characters that look like girls - and not to manly characters.
Well.. you could try to convince me, that you don't watch anime with fapping in mind, but given the fact you post here, chances are that you won't.
Some GAR won't hurt. Diversity Ho!
And to make it seem like we're not prejudiced, let's make it a drug addict. Oh wait, that makes us racist again. ^_^
And to make it seem like we're not racist, lets make it a black man!
"who needs men anyway."
this is a good point. everything is moe right now. no one cares about men.
just look at Touhou. Literally the WHOLE fuckin' cast are girls, and they're now pretty god damn famous
blame k-on.
I thought the point was to make the male protagonist as generic as possible.
This way, the typical male viewer is able to relate with the protagonist.
This is glaringly obvious in H-doujins, for example, where the faces of males are either generic or not shown at all.
In some cases where it doesn't matter because there is no story or because the story can be chosen by the viewer.
Otherwise no not really. I personally like interesting male leads that I can agree with in some way.
I like Amuro, Kamille, Shinji, Hikaru, Focker, etc.
Yes they're all mecha guys but they're all pretty damn different. Amuro is nothing like Shinji. Hikaru and Focker are both completely different ends of the spectrum too.
These characters were interesting because they actually had character. No one wants bland blobs.
I was under the impression that the idea was not so much to make the player relate to the main character by making him as generic as possible, but to make him as much of a pathetic spineless faggot as possible.
Besides that, there is much truth in Beckii's comment.
A non-character protagonist is not a necessity of the 1st person perspective in games. In games that are essentially porn with minimal story it makes sense not to waste time with characterisation, but where the story is important this doesn't have to be the case. For example, Emiya Shirou is relatable but still very much a character in his own right.
That sort of thing only works in games, where the player views the world through the eyes of the protagonist and directs his actions. In those sorts of things it's beneficial to make the protagonist as much of a non-character as possible.
The rules are entirely different in a non-interactive medium like manga or anime where the audience is "outside" the characters and is expected to follow their actions from a distance. This is why adaptations of galge tend to suck; the protagonists, designed to be as invisible as possible, are too shallow to carry the show in a non-interactive medium.
I inferred that they where mad about not having enough INTERESTING male characters of late, or rather, nothing inspiring I guess I should say.
If the male protagonists are all the same vague bleak thing, there's no ideal for young men to look up to. Old folks hate that.
@Beckii Cruel
Indeed...
"This is glaringly obvious in H-doujins, for example, where the faces of males are either generic or not shown at all."
QFT!!!
Sometimes they even make said 'faceless-males' fat and fugly for the same people who read them to feel good about themselves knowing their fat forms are smothering a cute anime girl and she can't do sh*t about it~
This is very true in mind-break/rape hentai doujins...
Or even hentai doujins of famous anime...
And the same thing applies to hentai movies~
If I wanted to look at men, I'd tune in to pro-wrestling.
Or TTGL. Though I don't know if that's what he meant by "cool" looking guys (I think they were plenty fuckin cool though. Gar Simon ftw)
Or watch "Ultimate Muscle" or "Baki the Grappler"~
(those two are awesome animes, by the way...)
no its not even that, you dont need men as main characters in even shonen manga. put the female cast ahead and than add men only when necessary, look at what mangaka have said about female only casts.
This editor might mean he wants gays to work more in the manga industry... Or something.
Men who can draw men who look attractive to other men?
It is all because of the eroge games characterization influence on the new generations. In eroges, you basically see "invisible" male leads that helps the player fit the role.
Eventually, those boys who played those games and liked it so much they wanted to make games/mangas themselves influenced from that and now we see those same faceless, non-decisive, pushed-by-females don't-touch-my-penis boys in basically every anime out there (that is, in those animes where there are any boys still left.)
But powerful male charas can be so awesome... think
Ken (first of the north star)
Dio (jojo's bizarre adventure)
Light (Death note!)
Lelouche (geass)
Alucard (Hellsing!!!)
I couldn't imagine the world of anime without them.
No!!! I MISS JACK RAKKAN!!!
i dont think they have to be cool but interesting and even strange can be interesting in its own way (like : you see a car crash with many deaths the bodys/corpses are not cool or nice but you cant look away either)
@alidan:
anti heroes like Yagami Light or Lelouche Lamperouge?
Q: who needs men?
A: cheap people with vagina we like to collectively refer to as women.
@Rockslider
Well it isn't just that, I want harem anime to show more "near-alpha males" (Male leads who has sexual initiative and charm but not enough to end the series too early), Ken Sugisaki was pretty suave for a male lead. (Though he had to take one for the team with Mafuyu's fujoshi antics).
Newer rom-com manga/LN is no better than a watered down VN, as quoth Sugisaki Ken, most of us are only enjoying VN with a similar plot with the only difference in pictures.
Cromartie high school a full anime with only hardcores guys and their so fucking funny lives , hahaha
Most characters are reposts of reposts of reposts. It has nothing to do with their gender.
Just some quick male archetypes:
a) energetic dude who wants to save everyone with the power of positive thinking
b) misfit who saves the world/becomes the lord of a harem against all odds
c) guy who is manipulated by friends/family/government/military
d) reluctant badass who refuses to use his badassery
This probably covers like 90% of all male leads.
Anonymous
23:02
no i hated both of them, light went off the deep end way to fast for me to really like him, and i just never got into code geass
i want you to look at berserk, not the past arc, or ubel baltt (that has to be spelt wrong) for great examples, they need to make those anime.
Thinking about the Negima manga, I guess having cool men are important :/
indeed, Negi Springfield in the Negima manga is the best male lead ever, especially his adult alter ego.
maybe I'm an outlier here but I like having male characters. Specifically I like having male characters that I can relate to and empathize with. I also happen to like male leads of the same sort. Even male characters who are the antipathy of what I would normally empathize with can be interesting; for example Light's (death note) megalomania.
All female casts bore me and many of the characters quickly become or start and remain reposts of reposts of reposts in the personality department.
Anonymous
16:10
female characters are only reposts in manga where the writers are shit. and ones that self identify as "moe manga" what ever the fuck that means, the term gets used so much and is wrongly used so often that it has no meaning anymore.
ill get hate for this next one but
Anonymous
17:02
i hated him. and only accepted his existence an episode or 2 after he died, when they ar talking about the time they were trapped under ground, thats what turned him into a likeable character for me.
Yoshii-kun
17:46
you know i have a problem now. are they talking art style? because one piece... wow, the art of that, at least in the beginning was really meh i was put off by that alone, but got into it before it style really evolved. art wise the whole thing was meh, but story, it was great (the begining)
naruto was good art, and bleach got boy on good art and intresting concept.
but do they even factor in personality now? i mean every jump manga looks almost the same. i mean its like the most generic shonen art imaginable, barring one piece and bleach, kind of like how shojo is the epitome of generic art styles.
Anonymous
19:51
i think they need a good anti hero
'Even male characters who are the antipathy of what I would normally empathize with'
"Antipathy" means "dislike" not "opposite."
Manga needs more strong, manly men. However, there are many ways to be manly.
Watanuki (xxxHolic) is manly, in his own way.
Jet Black (Cowboy Bebop) is manly, in a different way.
Manga and anime need a variety of male role models.
But negi is in WSMag, not WSJump.
Guess they're worried after Narutard and Bleachers go off. Not like they were any "cool" men in it....
1Piece needs to get off that 1 month break tho. I'm sick of waiting....
negima sucks,,
kamina ttgl is the best male ever
/conversation
There are men in my manga? ^_^
Loli and loli kind are in need of a few good men
Lolis can have fun with each other, too. ^_^
This man does present a very intriguing fact. Despite how cute, moe, teary eyed, etc and etc the girls maybe; I feel that if the art for the males are not up to snuff it doesn't bring balance to the soon to be "girl/boy" romance.
I actually would like both the guys and gales to have equal attention for their drawings.
like there needs to be more romance manga... its all been fucking done before and usually better, the only place that can use more romance is senine and jousai (yea they are spelt wrong, but im not looking it up you know what they are) but even than its either a everything ok slice of life like romance, cheating, or possible heavy drama the whole fucking time, with only the setting being different.
Well, most female readers aside the girl characters get way more attention. I sure am guilty of that. ^_^
I still think this is a problem that needs to be addressed, though.
@Xephyrus
*nodding in total agreement*
Just like the Golden Age of Porn, the Golden Age of Men in mangas are over...
Now is the MOE~ Age of manga, and we need a fair amount of female lead characters and protagonists...
I propose a 2nd season of Lucky Star to start things up...
I propose a 2nd season of Pani Poni Dash to get rolling.
How about another season of gundam, but now with an female-only cast and lots of moe. The twist is, all characters are lesbians and don't wear pantsu!
Was there not a loli pilot gundam figure collection or something some time ago? Let's animate that. ^_^
*rubs hands maniacally*
That too...
And maybe another season of Excel Saga and another season of Galaxy Angels while we're are it~
Who needs girls anyway? The mangakas should just use men falling for traps instead.
Well, women are not even real people but just meat so why not focus on something that at least can have a personality.