Tetsuya Nomura - Your Thoughts? - Page 3

April 7, 2008, 11:59 PM

I really don't see how Amano's art is preferrable to Nomura's original works. Don't get me wrong, Amano has an interesting style, to say the least, but once you take away the rose-tinted glass provided by nostalgia, you'll see that it amounts to nothing more than colored chicken-scratch (put cruelly for sake of getting my point across). It certainly isn't superior to the refined, colorful designs found in Final Fantasy 7 or 8. Don't get me wrong, here, the characters themselves are creative, but I simply don't know how Amano's art style is better than Nomura's original style.

Besides, I don't see how it's a bad thing that Nomura's style resembles anime. Back in the days of Final Fantasy 7 and 8, he was churning out some genuinely high-quality character designs. The fact that they were visibly reminiscent of anime characters certainly didn't take away from their "epicness", and I've found that those who think so are typically blinded by nostalgia. Not that that's their fault or anything...I mean, it happens to the best of us, myself included. Honestly, though, male Final Fantasy characters were always designed with Bishounen qualities in-mind. Cecil wears lipstick, uses a sword, and has white hair, for Flying Spaghetti Monster's sake! If that doesn't scream "Generic Anime Bishounen", I don't know what does. To say that Nomura started this trend is inaccurate. The only reason you didn't see it before was because Amano's art style lacked detail.

Now, I'm not trying to bash Amano or defend Nomura. However, to say that Amano's art style is superior to Nomura's simply because Nomura uses "anime" art is a bit foolish. Back before Nomura got a raging boner for Gackt and a bizarre belt/zipper fetish, he brought about a number of incredible character designs, as did Amano. It's only once Advent Children and FFX came around that Nomura decided that 12+ belts combined with leather made for a good character design. Both artists have (or, in Nomura's case, had) very distinctive styles and really brought a lot to the table when it came to RPG characters. I don't really consider either one superior to the other, simply because of how different their styles of art are, but to put Nomura down solely because he draws his characters in an anime-like style is borderline ridiculous.

Though I most certainly will not defend modern-day Nomura, who probably couldn't bring about a decent character design to save his life...*cough* Belts, zippers, and leather thrown randomly onto the body of a generic J-Rock star do not make for a good character design.

Of course, art is entirely objective...it also isn't my forte. Everything I just said has a high chance of being wrong, in fact. I'm basically just going by my personal preference, so...

April 8, 2008, 12:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Oathkeeper

I really don't see how Amano's art is preferrable to Nomura's original works. Don't get me wrong, Amano has an interesting style, to say the least, but once you take away the rose-tinted glass provided by nostalgia, you'll see that it amounts to nothing more than colored chicken-scratch (put cruelly for sake of getting my point across). It certainly isn't superior to the refined, colorful designs found in Final Fantasy 7 or 8. Don't get me wrong, here, the characters themselves are creative, but I simply don't know how Amano's art style is better than Nomura's original style.

That's one thing that has always puzzled me about Amano. Most of his drawings for FF games, save for a few scattered pieces, are sketchy, unrefined and look godawful sometimes. And yet, his drawings for other things (such as Vampire D and his artbooks) are amazing, fully fleshed out artwork.

Quote:

Besides, I don't see how it's a bad thing that Nomura's style resembles anime. Back in the days of Final Fantasy 7 and 8, he was churning out some genuinely high-quality character designs. The fact that they were visibly reminiscent of anime characters certainly didn't take away from their "epicness", and I've found that those who think so are typically blinded by nostalgia.

It's not a bad thing persay, it's more like "not this crap again." Anime is EVERYWHERE today, in Japan, in America...it's a new trend. And Nomura's particular style is impossible to differentiate from all the countless other anime, save for his atrocious outfits (like Tidus) and belt fetishes (Squall, Lulu).

Quote:

Though I most certainly will not defend modern-day Nomura, who probably couldn't bring about a decent character design to save his life...*cough* Belts, zippers, and leather thrown randomly onto the body of a generic J-Rock star do not make for a good character design.

Damn straight. It's as generic as all the stupid J-rock bands cropping up, like Alice Nine and Antic Cafe and The Gazette and SID. Try and tell them apart, you'll have a hard time. I suppose it's just him trying to cater to all the Japanese fans of J-rock and the wapanese faggots in America. Frankly I was happy with Cloud's old design, and Barret's too. Why'd he have to throw cornrows on his head?

April 8, 2008, 12:39 PM

I hated what was done with Setzer in Kingdom Hearts :(

-clings to FFVI Setzer- D:

April 8, 2008, 1:22 PM

@ Oathkeeper

I never meant to sound as if I thought Nomura started the bishounen theme off. I know Cecil is highly bishounen. What I meant is that, as previously said, anime is such a popular thing these days, and Nomura's designs don't really stand out from the crowd.

X-2 proved that he phails as a character designer. What the hell was he smoking when he designed those outfits?

April 8, 2008, 8:28 PM

Not all nomura's designs are similar, have you ever seen another cait sith or kimhari? Barret? Wakka? Lulu? Red XIII? people just pick on the few that look smilar and judge him on them not on the original ones he has created.

April 8, 2008, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grand Lethal

@ Oathkeeper

I never meant to sound as if I thought Nomura started the bishounen theme off. I know Cecil is highly bishounen. What I meant is that, as previously said, anime is such a popular thing these days, and Nomura's designs don't really stand out from the crowd.

X-2 proved that he phails as a character designer. What the hell was he smoking when he designed those outfits?

I can agree with that. Of course, you have to remember that, at the time of Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 8, an art style visibly reminiscent of anime was highly uncommon. I'm not saying that Nomura was the first person to do it by any means, but I am saying that, back then, it was a breath of fresh-air for most JRPG fans. Nowadays, Nomura is nothing special, considering everyone and their grandmother (provided they and their grandmother develops JRPGs) has adopted that style. However, back then, it was rare to see a JRPG take after anime in terms of art, at least as far as I know. I at least think that the Tales series was doing it from the start, anyway, but other than that...

April 9, 2008, 12:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Star Beast

Not all nomura's designs are similar, have you ever seen another cait sith or kimhari? Barret? Wakka? Lulu? Red XIII? people just pick on the few that look smilar and judge him on them not on the original ones he has created.

Cait Sith was a horribly stupid-looking and useless character. Kimahri was a Chewbacca wannabe. Barret is your stereotypical angry black man. Wakka...oh jesus, I don't even know where to start on that pile of fail. Lulu's tits are bigger than Tifa's and she has too many belts in her patchwork dress. Red XIII was decent.

Now your biggest flaw in your post is that little word "few." Let me correct you, if I may. Nomura's unique designs are the ones that are few, not the similar ones. Derek covered this, but I'll do it with some better pics. I'll start off with Roxas:

Now, who's this kiddo in Birth by Sleep being carried by the Zack lookalike?

He sure looks like Roxas, just with a slight change of clothes.

But nope! It's someone named "Ven." And what about this Zack lookalike?

He's not Zack, he's "Terra." Now compare to the real Zack:

They have similar hair, for starters. Zack has two shoulder pads, Terra has one and some ugly patchwork down the rest of his arm (kind of similar to Tidus's outfit). Zack has a pair of suspenders attached to some abdomen guard or w/e you want to call it. Terra has criss-crossing suspenders going underneath an ab guard. And both have gloves, although Terra's are the trendy Hot Topic kind with holes for the fingers to go through.

Now lets go to a new picture:

Is dat sum Sora with lighter hair and headphones fighting Seifer? Au contraire, the Seifer wannabe is Beat and the Sora wannabe is Neku. And holy shit! Is dis sum Seifer with a goatee I see in FF13?

Nope! That's Mr. 33cm

Now just for comparison's sake, lets have the real Seifer. First from FF8:

And the KH2 Seifer who's pimp-driving his invisible caddy:

Now you try to tell me that Nomura's designs aren't fucking similar. I dares ya. But be warned, I didn't even cover everything. I could have mentioned Lighting = Cloud and that Kairi lookalike in Birth by Sleep.

April 9, 2008, 7:23 AM

Quote:

And the KH2 Seifer who's pimp-driving his invisible caddy:

I Lol'd at that

You're absolutely right, there's just too many clones!!! Squenix is pretty bad for self-plagiarism anyway, it practically rapes itself with it, but Nomura has to be the biggest culprit. Whilst I do like the anime style he has, and I admit I do personally appreciate a good anime character, it is getting a bit silly. And do show us the Cloud = Lightning please I want to see!!!!

April 9, 2008, 7:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miss Valentine

And do show us the Cloud = Lightning please I want to see!!!!

As you wish:

How pathetic is that? He used the same face model. And I might as well go ahead and do the rest of this. Here's Kairi:

And now...is dat sum Kairi I see in horrible new clothes with a new haircut?

Nope, that's "Shiki" in The World Ends with You. And I'd just like to take a moment to point out how UGLY her outfit is. The hat is ugly and bulky and ffs, she's wearing a FANNY PACK. Nobody does that but recluse moms who scavenge at yard sales! The colors are pretty drab and unattractive too :/

And now, here we have Namine:

And OMG is dat sum Namine in new clothes with even SMALLER (read: nonexistent) breasts?

Nope, it's Rhyme. So let's see, we have another stupid Seifer beanie cap, pants with some pointless straps on the side (likely substitutes for the belt fetish) and some more Sora/Mickey Mouse shoes. Has anyone noticed that since KH Nomura has developed an obsession for giant feet?