Works of Ken Nsidinanya
If you didn’t know any better you’d almost think it was the real thing!
Okay maybe not, but I did my best! Real work here!
Master study of George Morikawa’s Hajime no Ippo! Page from Ch. 500.
No tones yet…
I’m currently re-strategizing my media approach to center around my practice. So today’s a bit sparse!
Doing lots of tweets and Instagram stories!
Next up for this week: Tsutomu Nihei…
Oh boy…
Until next time friends,
-Ken
For the most part, yeah, I’d say it has. Employing grit is almost a lost art in anime. And not in the sense you may think. What I mean is, what happened to the stories where characters got into real trouble with real stakes and consequences?
Situations in which characters actually fuck up and have to pay the price for it?
And I don’t mean they fuck up in the nice way that everyone understands and pities them for. I mean making an actual mistake in which they are in the wrong, don’t get pity points, and even end up hurting someone else (whether intentional or not).
That kind of grit.
I feel that it’s a more intangible human element that can be hard to put into words. But as best as I can describe it:
GRIT pertains to the element in a story that connects you to a character because they have human flaws. GRIT doesn’t always feel good and is usually hard to swallow. But if done right, it can be immensely cathartic.
GRIT can make your blood boil with anger towards a character; make you uncomfortable with tension and turn your stomach upside-down with unease at an irreversible consequence. GRIT can make you cringe with embarrassment for a character, sigh with relief at a moment of reprieve, cheer and fist pump at a moment of triumph and make you actively addicted to the story and its characters.
In other words, grit takes a perfunctory unfolding of events and turns them into a glimpse at the human experience.
It grounds the characters in reality, no matter how fanciful the setting, and makes them relatable to YOU the viewer.
This only works if you can actually see the characters as a human beings, not just anime characters. This is a combined effort between the storyteller’s skill and your own experiences. You actually have to empathize with or at least understand a character in order for the “grit” effect to take place.
So back to the question. What happened to that grit: Actual stakes and consequences that mean something to you and the characters?
To me, it feels like this human element has been taken out of most stories. Nowadays it seems like most of the story consists of flashy events taking place on a screen with no emotional connection to the viewer. The events all feel couched in the comfortable conventions of anime. It’s as if writers today are all too eager to let the main characters off the hook. The expectation is that all or most of the characters will come out okay. Nobody will really get hurt. Nobody will really have any valid feelings you can relate with. And even if every main character died, it wouldn’t really matter. It might blow your mind, but it won’t break your heart.
Because none of them feel like people.
It feels like even the emotional gut punches have been padded with pillows to ensure that nobody actually feels anything.
I know you can think of a myriad of anime in which this is the case.
…you’ll generally get a good time with some ups and downs, but nothing too heartbreaking or core-shattering. No one you really like is going to die. And why would they? They’ve been meticulously designed in the creation process so that you’ll dress as them, buy their merchandise, and fantasize about ’em.
But if all of sudden one of these characters did something morally questionable you didn’t like, or god forbid, died, what would you have to wank off to then?
And that’s why the appealing, totally earnest and flawless creatures of anime stories no longer have real grit.
It’s really hard to pull off within the conventions and context of anime.
And upon a cursory look at fandom creations, most people seem fine with it. You can see it in their own stories of inconsequential fluff, where nothing really that bad happens to their characters and everything’s mostly good at the end of the day.
And you know what? That’s probably the way it should be. Not everyone wants to dive headlong into a deep, emotional torrent every time they sit down to be entertained. Not even me!
I feel like gritty stories are the kind that I happen upon or get sucked into, not the kind I seek out. Everyone wants some sort of soothing from their difficult day; to escape into some good, fun entertainment is the way most people do it.
If you’re gonna have your life changed by an anime with an amazing story, it’s most likely going to be an accident or the result of a strong recommendation.
The anime that can pull this off either start from the gate with heavy tones, OR lull you into a false sense of security in which you think you know how things will play out, and just when you think you’re on firm ground…
*SWIP!*
The rug gets pulled right up from under you.
Like I said, I find most of these kinds of stories either by accident or by passing recommendation.
That all being said I have a list of anime I’ve experienced with the element I call GRIT:
In these stories, you’ll find RELATABLE stakes and consequences.
These are the kind of stories I want to see! The kind I want to create!
But it’s so rare to find in the mainstream these days!
It seems most of us are too busy suckling the teat of anime or Disney, to make anything with actual bite any more.
I feel like I always have to seek out to lesser-known works or hidden gems to get my fix.
Sometimes I’ve found that fictional characters have taught me more about life than the people around me.
When you can RELATE to the characters and/or the story events, their lives now mean something to you. You’re no longer just a passive viewer, you’re now engaged in the story as it unfolds. You experience what happens to a character because you can understand them. You get angry at a bully character because you’ve met that person in real life. When your stomach churns with dread, the character you like is in deep trouble, either socially or mortally. You don’t want anything bad to happen to your favorite! And the emotional tension just ramps up until you can’t take it anymore…
Then BOOM!
Your character’s in the clear…
…Or so you thought. Now the very LAST thing you wanted is happening, and you feel every last agonizing bit of it. So much so that you can’t go on, but you must! You MUST see this through because this character isn’t just experiencing some random set of circumstances, but a deep, emotional and logical event in their lives that connects directly back to YOU.
Yes, you’re the one going through the ringer, you’re the one in danger! And no matter what this character’s solution is, it WILL teach you something about your own life. Whether it’s an example of what to do or what NOT to do. You’ve unmistakably come away from this story with a shift in perspective. Because you didn’t just find some mindless entertainment, but a roadmap for your own journey.
Now THAT’S engagement.
That’s GRIT.
It’s those kinds of stories that stick with me long after the ending because GRIT is hard to remove.
Now I just have to go out and write in kind!
Easier said than done…
P.S.
Grit is not to be confused with unnecessary gorefests, edgy shows that pretend to be deep or fucking hentai.
That is all.
Until next time friends,
-Ken
Every once in a while, my OCD tendencies actually work to my advantage.
This is one of those times.
In my study of art and drawing, I hear constantly to study from the old masters: Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Monet, etc.
But the thing is, I’m not trying to copy them!
I can definitely see the value in studying their work and applying their principles to your own work, but besides the broad strokes, not ONE BIT of their stuff looks like anything I want to make!
So I chose my OWN masters!
For so long, I’d believed the advice of studying from the old masters, repeated ad infinitum by teachers, YouTube tutorials, and the like. When I tried it, I always felt like I was pretending to learn something from it, but I knew there were artists whose work I appreciated much more than Da Vinci’s.
SORRY LEO!
What I did was gather a list of ALL the major influences I’ve ever had. Pinterest was a huge help since all I had to do was notice the common patterns in my top boards.
THEN I narrowed down that list to the artists I actually want to copy, not just admire. Artists who had an element in their work that I wanted to “steal“.
THEN, I narrowed down that list to the TOP 5 artists whose work I definitely wanted to steal from. And this was the hardest part because I COULD NOT GO OVER FIVE no matter how much I wanted to make exceptions! Sorry, Sam Keith (The Maxx)!
In the end, I decided that the five artists I did choose, would stand in as representatives for the ones that didn’t quite make the cut. With my minor OCD nature, this was the least I could do for them. The only rule for the list was that it had to be comprised of singular artists or visions.
Finally, I chose 3 works from each artist that would represent the best elements of their work.
Only hours afterward, it dawned on me:
I would have to copy these drawings.
The best way to steal from each of my top influences, wouldn’t be to just take elements from their work to incorporate into my own,
But to copy each and every work WHOLESALE.
Not to display as my own, of course, but to do my own MASTER STUDY. These are the artists I hold in the highest esteem; whose work I want to copy most. So without further adieu, here they are with the elements I chose them for:
MY Top Visionaries to Steal from:
The top 5 encapsulates all that I love about storytelling and art. They encompass the majority of the elements any of the other artists on my long list could have. That’s why they are at the top.
I cross-checked each of these guys with the traits I value most in my art (what I call my “Core Tenets“) and they all checked out perfectly.
I figure if I can copy the total of 15 works and discover the secret behind what makes each so powerful to me, I’ll be well on my way to creating the kind of art I hope to make. Here they are arranged even further from easiest to copy to the hardest:
I’d say those last two are tied in terms of difficulty level!
I think I’ll give myself a week for each work, (15 weeks in total) to get the best result I can. But I’ll tweak this as I go along.
I’d like to think that I’m the first to come up with this method, but I bet everyone’s been doing this forever!
You don’t have to be as extreme with it as I was, but I leave to YOU:
Who are your top 5 influences that you can copy TODAY?
I await your results, as you’ll soon see mine!
Until next time friends,
-Ken
