Over the past two decades or so, the average visual style of anime has changed dramatically. Lines have become lighter and more organic, and shading has taken on the “plastic look” that’s most widely seen today. However, even among recent animes, this is by no means universal. For the longest time, I associated the older, blocky style with different types of plot and characters in anime; anime that was paint-by-numbers, unimaginative, hackneyed. But I’ve come to realize that I was stereotyping. Anime such Gokudo, Those Who Hunt Elves, and Record of Lodoss War have convinced me that although anime like that may not win a beauty pageant, it can still be great in other ways. As the old saying goes, don’t judge a book by its cover – or an anime by its visual style.
The Trappings of Visual Style
By RedWordSmith