General & Others Can we talk about how Oda's art has changed over the years?
- Thread starter Rarted
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It's kind of chilling, the post skip versions legit look like lifeless dolls made to pose compared to the pre skip shots.
OT:
Current art lacks soul. To put it in tangible terms it's overcrowded, the angles aren't as well thought out, action shots aren't easy to follow, often look like scribbles.
Compare these 2 double spreads of Sanji/Zoro tag teaming.
The former is extremely flat (what's even going on with Sanji's limbs?) the latter is much more dynamic, not only a more engaging angle but it's like you can feel the force of the attacks.
He does have his moments (for example Luffy vs Katakuri is exceptionally drawn), but overall the consistency has dipped.
Still not convinced? Look at this.
This is the exact same kick
Again the former is completely flat, in the latter you can feel Sanji's speed and power, that he kicked Kuroobi multiple times, there's motion in his leg, that same motion against Queen you can't even tell if he landed 1 kick or multiple (there are multiple impact marks) it's lifeless.
OT:
Current art lacks soul. To put it in tangible terms it's overcrowded, the angles aren't as well thought out, action shots aren't easy to follow, often look like scribbles.
Compare these 2 double spreads of Sanji/Zoro tag teaming.
He does have his moments (for example Luffy vs Katakuri is exceptionally drawn), but overall the consistency has dipped.
Still not convinced? Look at this.
This is the exact same kick
To deepen in your comparisons, let's take a better look at the first pair (Pacifista and the Calamities).
When Zoro and Sanji attacked King and Queen it never felt like action happening because it isn't a fluent sequence but two superimposed layers: in the background we have King and Queen suffering the hits, while in the front are Zoro and Sanji just posing.
The Pacifista combo is completely different. First of all, we actually see Sanji while he's kicking his head. Second, we also see the movement effects from their attacks: spiky blasts from the kick that actually come from it and the slash blast that is visually parallel to the one Zoro's sword that gets the spotlight; this doesn't happen at all against the Calamities. And third, you can actually feel the sequence of action so they don't seem like superimposed layers: the movement lines from the background mainly guide us to follow Sanji's kick from the upper-left, while Zoro is in a perspective that comes from the back to the front of the panel, hence why one sword seems bigger than the others, hence why we get the feeling that he's actually coming at us after leaving the Pacifista behind.
Both panels are like day and night. I legit couldn't understand what was happening in the Calamity's one at first while anybody can easily animate the Pacifista combo in their head.
In my opinion, Oda's art has declined significantly in the past couple of years. Onigashima is the worst the manga has ever looked in terms of art and you only have to compare it to early Wano. I do believe that Oda's art has gotten better over the years (just look up the drawings he does of Luffy for the One Piece magazine), but I feel as though he tries to cramp as much information as possible into a single page, causing the art to suffer from it a lot. Another problem with this method is that the small panels he draws nowadays leave less of an impact on readers - they become less memorable and thus forgotten about, which, I think, largely contributed to Onigashima being as underwhelming as it was to many people.
(This is just a tiny example. I'm sure you can find many more throughout the series.)
(This is just a tiny example. I'm sure you can find many more throughout the series.)
