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Despite loving BL, Yaoi and all the smut, one of the other things I love about the genre (and, i guess, manga/manhwa/manhua/webtoons in general) are the heart-wrenchingly beautiful chibi, child and baby designs. Think of any childhood flashback and half of the emotional resonance with the story comes from the deadly cuteness of those big heads and bigger beautifully designed eyes, so carefully rendered with top-class artistry.
This mangaka has brought us two increasingly attractive main characters... So, WHY, OH WHY was such a non-descript baby design, with literal dots for eyes, green-lit??? She is at the heart of the story, and even performs some critically-timed baby noises. Yet they expect us to warm to it just because the characters say she is cute?
She is not, and its super-distracting and doubly annoying as a tragically missed golden opportunity to raise the emotional appeal of this already wonderful story. If the mangaka wasn't confident in proper baby design, they really should have chosen to tell a different story altogether!
Does anybody know why the mangaka, or at least the editor, who really should have known better, made this terrible creative choice? Even choosing to keep the kid's eyes closed would have worked better, since its a common supporting character design detail.
But, its like they launched the story having forgotten to finish (or have) the damned baby meeting!
They didn't even use a "get out of jail free" option like, once she was named, her features would miraculously resolve to fit it. No, instead, they named a blob the most spectacular object in the Heavens! Is there no irony in their workplace?????
Its a crying shame....
Why does a baby have to be "beautiful" for her personality to appeal to you? She's a cute kid and just a baby, those exaggerated character designs for babies in manga are so overused it was a relief to see an actual baby being treated as such and still being a fashion icon.
She's obviously not gonna fashion full eyelashes and huge creepy doll eyes bc babies aren't like that, it's unnecessary.
She's a baby. Beauty standards or pretty art style is not needed to adore her. She's doing her best. The way she is and how she's drawn captures what we see in her. She's an adorable fluff. Don't go shoving your standards on her. We all love her. She is the best.
If you READ my post and not leapt to judge the content, I'm expressing my OPINION and ASKING A QUESTION to try to understand the artistic choice, because my understanding was that there was a convention to these things, which I happen to enjoy on children, but DISLIKE on female and Omega characters. I love the cat-like slant of many a seme character, I guess depicting predator, vs the doe-like impression of their prey.
I asked, (and thought I was being funny... But, oh well), because I had not seen this choice before! I could write to the artist and bring attention to mangago, but that would be stuoid and self-defeating, so i thought I'd ask the community...
I am non-white and am sincerely aware of cultural misappropriation and the beauty standards of others being brutally imposed and enforced on MY people most of all.
I actually avoided manga and anime for YEARS, because I assumed the use of big eyes was a reflection of cultural self-rejection of (what I believe to be) the beautiful sultry single/monolid! It upset me on behalf of the bearers. Then, I realised that denying myself access to such obviously beloved media like manga and anime in ignorance was a personal contradiction. So, I ACTUALLY ASKED THE QUESTION, did the research, only to feel rather stupid.
It had been a conscious choice by the pioneers of manga, particularly Osamu "God of Manga" Tezuka (Astroboy [1952], Dororo, Buddha), to highlight facial expressions based on his love of and influence by Walt Disney characters Mickey Mouse and Betty Boop, and other pioneers of the genre. Others then continued the choice, turning it into a trend and then a marker of the genre as it was adapted to the Japanese style. Not only does shape and colour of individual eyes helps artists distinguish characters without the huge effort of reproducing countless other details, and as the widely held "windows to the soul", help express emotions without the work burden of drawing body language and poses, whilst "making the characters more relatable".
They can also distract from animation or background flaws!
Much earlier, since World War I, Yumeji Takahashi and Katsuji Matsumoto had used the convention in kawaii character illustrations, to POORER reception as vulgar.I
1990s realist mangaka attempted to modify characters, drawing smaller eyes... to POOR reception, as "lifeless"-seeming characters.
"Babies have big eyes, so humans tend to like big eyes..."
( https://www.dexerto.com/tv-movies/how-disney-influenced-a-distinctive-trait-of-anime-characters-2134208/; https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/4748/why-do-anime-manga-characters-have-big-eyes; https://skdesu.com/en/big-eyes-anime-manga/; and so on...)
Babies and young children have proportionally larger eyes compared to their heads than do adults, so their eyes appear bigger in relation to their facial features ( https://birthworks.org/do-human-eyes-remain-the-same-size-from-birth-to-death-by-cathy-daub-cce-cd-bwi/)
SO...
A more intelligent and less rude response would have been that Korean manhwa does NOT generally follow the big eye convention seen in manga.
HOWEVER, it seems that Korean manhwa DOES tend to emphasise more realistic character proportions, and DOES tend to focus on facial features.... PARTICULARLY THE EYES (fact-checked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhwa). You could have given me examples of other manhwa where this style was used.
And who exactly is shoving personal ideals on whom, when you actually end your post with "WE ALL love her." without providing the results of your poll/survey of EVERYONE who reads this story, or actually agrees with YOU!I
You haven't answered the question of why the artist chose this style.
Good grief!
I just don't even know where to start with this!
I asked a question, which youve failed to answer, and have expressed an opinion, just as I did, based on inaccurate information.
My understanding was that there WAS a convention to these things, which I happen to enjoy on children, but DISLIKE on female and Omega characters. I love the cat-like slant of many a seme character, I guess depicting predator, vs the doe-like impression of their prey.
I asked, (and thought I was being funny... But, oh well), because I had not seen this choice before! I could write to the artist and bring attention to mangago, but that would be stuoid and self-defeating, so i thought I'd ask the community... Silly me!
I am non-white and am sincerely aware of cultural misappropriation and the beauty standards of others being brutally imposed and enforced on MY people most of all.
I actually avoided manga and anime for YEARS, because I assumed the use of big eyes was a reflection of cultural self-rejection of (what I believe to be) the beautiful sultry single/monolid! It upset me on behalf of the bearers. Then, I realised that denying myself access to such obviously beloved media like manga and anime in ignorance was a personal contradiction. So, I ACTUALLY ASKED THE QUESTION, did the research, only to feel rather stupid.
It had been a conscious choice by the pioneers of manga, particularly Osamu "God of Manga" Tezuka (Astroboy [1952], Dororo, Buddha), to highlight facial expressions based on his love of and influence by Walt Disney characters Mickey Mouse and Betty Boop, and other pioneers of the genre. Others then continued the choice, turning it into a trend and then a marker of the genre as it was adapted to the Japanese style. Not only does shape and colour of individual eyes helps artists distinguish characters without the huge effort of reproducing countless other details, and as the widely held "windows to the soul", help express emotions without the work burden of drawing body language and poses, whilst "making the characters more relatable".
They can also distract from animation or background flaws!
Much earlier, since World War I, Yumeji Takahashi and Katsuji Matsumoto had used the convention in kawaii character illustrations, to POORER reception as vulgar.I
1990s realist mangaka attempted to modify characters, drawing smaller eyes... to POOR reception, as "lifeless"-seeming characters.
"Babies have big eyes, so humans tend to like big eyes..."
( https://www.dexerto.com/tv-movies/how-disney-influenced-a-distinctive-trait-of-anime-characters-2134208/; https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/4748/why-do-anime-manga-characters-have-big-eyes; https://skdesu.com/en/big-eyes-anime-manga/; and so on...)
Babies and young children ACTUALLY DO have proportionally larger eyes compared to their heads than do adults, so their eyes ACTUALLY DO appear bigger in relation to their facial features ( https://birthworks.org/do-human-eyes-remain-the-same-size-from-birth-to-death-by-cathy-daub-cce-cd-bwi/)
SO...
A more intelligent, more factual response would have been that Korean manhwa does NOT generally follow the big eye convention seen in manga.
HOWEVER, it seems that Korean manhwa DOES tend to emphasise more realistic character proportions, and DOES tend to focus on facial features.... PARTICULARLY THE EYES (fact-checked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhwa). You could have given me examples of other manhwa where this style was used.
Oh, there are 13 thumb downs and counting, admittedly out-numbering 2 thumbs up, at time of writing.But you didn't even think to hit me with that.
All these citations you're showing are just bases for character design, not unbreakable rules (I would know bc I'm an animation student).
As I told you before, she's a baby and her character design is meant to be simple bc the focus of her whole being is her personality. Her eyebrows and her clothes are the main point of interest visually, her face is not meant to be exaggerated but simple and fun to contrast with her parents.
You refuse to see the point and say I didn't answer your question, but my first answer was just simple and direct.
At the end of the day people perceive characters differently, I'm not going to tell you what to feel about the baby I can just explain why she's designed like that.
I've just re-read the story, uninterrupted, from chapters 1 to 101 - no annoying breaks or hiatuses, and.... I get it! !!!