Fruits Basket Vol 19
May. 27th, 2008 01:57 pmAfter ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
miss_dianposted on the series the other day, I went and looked at the first few volumes again. In some ways, the art has come a very, very long ways(and it started good) but I can't help but notice with this volume that some characters are starting to look alike. Tohru's father, I think, is supposed to look a bit like Kyo, but Momiji in this volume almost looked like a blond Kyo, and when Kagura showed up, I thought she was Kimi at first. I've also been having to do doubletakes for a bit now with Shigure and Hatori, when Shigure is wearing a suit.
That said, Natsuki Takaya is, flatout, one of the best visual storytellers I've encountered. I don't really put the emphasis on art that others seems to. I get (usually) why there is the emphasis, but I'm more about story and characters than art, so when I hear anything along the lines of "I can take a bad story if there's good art" or "I have a hard time getting into a manga/comic if the art isn't my thing" I'm utterly scandalized. (And then I make myself a hypocrite with things like Bride of the Water God, where the plot is so thin but the art so pretty...but both the art and the plot are amazingly...well...mythic.) My main concern is that the art competently tells the story, doesn't hurt my eyes, and is easy to follow. Most artists seem to slap pretty pictures on a page in relative order, and assume you'll follow. Something about Natsuki Takaya's art, however, literally pulls from one place to the other, so that usually, you'd probably have to actually try to read it in the wrong order. Even just the word ballons are arranged to pull your eyes in the right direction, so that you can follow the story easily, even when the words aren't in the conventional order.
But, anyway, on to the actual book.
( spoilers )
miss_dianposted on the series the other day, I went and looked at the first few volumes again. In some ways, the art has come a very, very long ways(and it started good) but I can't help but notice with this volume that some characters are starting to look alike. Tohru's father, I think, is supposed to look a bit like Kyo, but Momiji in this volume almost looked like a blond Kyo, and when Kagura showed up, I thought she was Kimi at first. I've also been having to do doubletakes for a bit now with Shigure and Hatori, when Shigure is wearing a suit.That said, Natsuki Takaya is, flatout, one of the best visual storytellers I've encountered. I don't really put the emphasis on art that others seems to. I get (usually) why there is the emphasis, but I'm more about story and characters than art, so when I hear anything along the lines of "I can take a bad story if there's good art" or "I have a hard time getting into a manga/comic if the art isn't my thing" I'm utterly scandalized. (And then I make myself a hypocrite with things like Bride of the Water God, where the plot is so thin but the art so pretty...but both the art and the plot are amazingly...well...mythic.) My main concern is that the art competently tells the story, doesn't hurt my eyes, and is easy to follow. Most artists seem to slap pretty pictures on a page in relative order, and assume you'll follow. Something about Natsuki Takaya's art, however, literally pulls from one place to the other, so that usually, you'd probably have to actually try to read it in the wrong order. Even just the word ballons are arranged to pull your eyes in the right direction, so that you can follow the story easily, even when the words aren't in the conventional order.
But, anyway, on to the actual book.
( spoilers )
