Naoko Takeuchi's Recent Artwork

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SM458

Lumen Cinererum
Nov 16, 2014
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Personally I love the new illustrations, I’m seeing Naoko being herself. She envisioned every clothing that each characters would/should wear. LOL

I do think Usagi is drawn poorly ( Face and Eyes). However I like the backgrounds. I just wish inners and outers weren’t a collage.
 
Jan 23, 2023
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It's very possible that her assistants helped her a lot, corrected some of her poses, etc.
If that is indeed true, it would be ironic because generally assistants are the ones who learn from the mangaka they work under, as assistants are themselves aspiring mangakas hoping to get their debut.
If anything it should be Takeuchi correcting her assistants not the other way around.

Well i think she progressed during her manga publication and general panel composition or anatomy were A BIT better than in the begining, same for her color arts, some pieces were nice in Stars. But it seems she lost most of her progress after the series ended.
Her art was at it's best during the middle of the Dream arc. The Minako Dream Chapter is probably her best work (for once she was drawing backgrounds and the jungle scenery greatly adds depth to her work) while the next one, the Outers chapter, is probably one of her worst with characters just standing with their hair in the wind lol.

Her early 2000's style is more childish because it's easier to draw. It was CG but without all poor taste filters and textures that would come later.
And we are now to this horrible era with overused textures and clashing colors, stock pictures from backgrounds, cheap fire or bubbles effect... The olympics one was the absolute worst in my opinion (closely followed by Chibiusa/Hotaru from Chanel).
I really like the Cover Arts from the Shinsoban edition - what is really good about them is that the girls are very expressive and have some body language/good poses.
The Kanzenban covers, on the other hand - boring; awkward poses, messy colors, deadpan expressions...
Everything since the Olympic art she did has been extremely underwhelming when you take into account she's supposedly a veteran mangaka.
She hasn't even remotely touched a pen for years and it greatly shows.

Takeuchi has no idea what is anatomy or how to make composition.
When you analyze her work, she clearly doesn't and hasn't shown any will to learn how to.
She doesn't know much about anatomy and body language so what she does most of the time is have the character stand, with each arms in the opposite direction - rinse and repeat.

These 2 pictures are a very good example of nice fashion sense. Clothes don't seem to have been pasted (as paper dolls) on characters and are prettily drawn. One of Takeuchi's problem is that she is unable to draw some faces angles (like the characters on the left on your second picture, or the third one). So she can't give variety to her poses and her composition because it would mean drawing characters on weird angles and she doesn't even want to try.
If you look at Chibiusa's face on this Chanel art and rotate a little, you will notice her face is absolutely ugly, she tried some "harder" face angle and it's a nightmare...
What is worst is that the 3/4 side face angle is one of the most basic angles of all. It's one of the earliest things manga students are taught about - it is part of the basic skills needed to draw manga.
The clothes are a mess in her art - the cloth of the dresses look like made out of paper or burnt material, there's no weight, feel or sense of realism out of them (creases, folds etc.)
Over here is an excellent example of a mangaka who has mastered the very style he has created and is able to freely play around with his craft.
https://flic.kr/p/2oBXHkZ
Takeuchi is not like Hirohiko Araki who had a genuine love and interest in fashion and modelling. Sure, there are cases where he copied photoshoots and applied them to his work BUT he implemented this feature from his very early beginnings in most of his works.
Today, the 'Jojo poses' have become part of the very DNA of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and by extension part of Araki's DNA itself.
https://flic.kr/p/2oBSpgb
Takeuchi is not like Masami Kurumada either, who has a very particular style and reuses a lot of the same poses in his story board (especially since he hit 60). Masami Kurumada has had a career spanning over 50 years now with 4 major manga hits. Over the years, he has cemented his very own style and touch, for him today to not need to experiment anymore.
The same cannot be said for Takeuchi who has only done 1 series for 5 years in her whole life...
You cannot say her 'awkward anatomy' and lack of knowledge in composition is part of her style because she HASN'T experimented enough...

Tite Kubo is another mangaka who has popularized the use of fashion in manga. He has made tons and tons of color spreads of the characters posing with fashionable clothes from the very early beginning and you can see his love for fashion throughout his growth as a mangaka.
The same, again, cannot be said for Takeuchi who only copies photo shoots.
https://flic.kr/p/2oBXku6 https://flic.kr/p/2oBWarM https://flic.kr/p/2oBXHoQ
 

saintfighteraqua

Aurorae Lunares
Feb 16, 2021
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It is personal taste and oppionion.The picture is not good to you.Because it does not go to your personal standards or you feel like it's needs to follow composition .


My point is your opinion is not more valid or right.Than ayone else here.Rather if they know about composition or not.
You're right that liking what you see is subjective, and there's nothing wrong with that. The art is pretty (as always) and it's fun in that Sailor Moon way. But Lady Pen is also right that the composition isn't great.

I love lots of things that are not done well...I mean, I am a Sailor Moon fan, and can even enjoy Crystal seasons 1-2... I'd have to be open to having specific tastes. :lol:
I am not saying I could do better, my art is flat and basic.
I just finished a reread of the Stars arc and while some of the art is honestly so pretty to me and I am stunned with some of the stuff Naoko did, it misses the mark on the angles and perspectives more often than not. Her composition has never been very good.

You are allowed to like it, though. I do!...except for some of those ugly outfits.
 

Jawshx

Aurorae Lunares
Dec 1, 2020
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Like.. she did not need to include the weapons.. I really have no idea what she was going for with these pictures. She should’ve just made them strike some model-like poses and called it a day. It’s meant to be about the fashion but it feels overshadowed by everything else.
 
Jul 29, 2012
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Like.. she did not need to include the weapons.. I really have no idea what she was going for with these pictures. She should’ve just made them strike some model-like poses and called it a day. It’s meant to be about the fashion but it feels overshadowed by everything else.
We don’t know what she was asked to do. CHANEL—as a brand—is extremely picky and controlling. It’s a haute couture house established 113 years ago.
 
Jul 29, 2012
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Art is subjective, I say

I will bring the example of the Venus de Milo again. Venus’s statue has no arms.

  • I feel that the statue would not be beautiful if it had arms. I really do.

Posture: many scholars maintained that Venus’s statue was anatomically incorrect and that Venus would have a spinal pathology if she were alive. These scholars’ opinions informed people’s opinions about both the statue and Alexandro Antioch. In 2018, though, a peer-reviewed study concluded that Venus did not have a spinal pathology, e.g. scoliosis. Also, faces: our human faces are not symmetrical.

As for Naoko, she created a pop symbol that is obviously influencing today’s artists and culture, plain and simple.
 
Jul 29, 2012
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I don’t like Coco Chanel as a person (she was antisemitic, to say the least), but Picasso, Diaghilev, Stravinsky and Renoir were some of her best friends.

As for Karl Lagerfeld, he was in New York in the 1970s and was a regular at Andy Warhol’s factory (along with Halston and Betsey Johnson). He starred in a Warhol’s film, “L’amour,” in 1970, and later befriended Gianni Versace.

Karl Lagerfeld revolutionized Chanel as a brand and brought what he learned from Andy Warhol to fashion.

… and now Naoko Takeuchi and her senshi somehow are part of that universe.
 

sapphire91

Stella Nova
Jul 6, 2018
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I may be bored of Naoko's current illustrations all having the same mood, but that's not nearly so tiresome as the desperate reaching some people around here are still doing to argue Naoko has no talent and isn't a real artist. Get a new hobby.
Honestly I cannot wait for this reboot to be over so I won't feel the need to talk about it and leave this forum and this fandom, because in the last couple of years it is beyond toxic on here. People claim Naoko has no talent, that Sailor Moon is whatever phobic, that everything is problematic. Jeez.
 
Jan 23, 2023
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Art is subjective, I say

I will bring the example of the Venus de Milo again. Venus’s statue has no arms.

  • I feel that the statue would not be beautiful if it had arms. I really do.

Posture: many scholars maintained that Venus’s statue was anatomically incorrect and that Venus would have a spinal pathology if she were alive. These scholars’ opinions informed people’s opinions about both the statue and Alexandro Antioch. In 2018, though, a peer-reviewed study concluded that Venus did not have a spinal pathology, e.g. scoliosis. Also, faces: our human faces are not symmetrical.

As for Naoko, she created a pop symbol that is obviously influencing today’s artists and culture, plain and simple.
You keep bringing the Venus de Milo and about how people labelled it as anatomically incorrect.
You're talking about anatomy while we've talking about composition.
Composition aka the level of expertise Takeuchi has into implementing her own style (which again is labelled as déformé like 99% of anime & manga art styles) into creating an art piece.

Most of the characters are doing a random pose looking into the void/with a blank expression, unless you make an argument how this is supposed to represent the mindset/trauma/dilemma or whatever of the character, it's uninspired and bland - plain and simple.

In none of these illustrations do we find anything characteristic about the girls' personalities except Minako doing the peace sign.
Like people have said, there's nothing wrong in loving these illustrations - your taste is totally valid.

However, it is also factual that the level of these (from a professional standpoint) is very poor.
 
Jan 23, 2023
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In your post, you're mentioning how the Venus de Milo has no arms and how despite this makes it anatomically incorrect, it's still beautiful.
By instance, you're trying to make a link that in Takeuchi's work, despite the girls having weird bodies - and hence similarly to the Venus de Milo being anatomically incorrect - should also not be criticized.

The Venus de Milo has been labelled as the epitome of beauty. It has a posture, the face despite it's simplicity conveys a mysticism, the cloth on the lower body part mimics realism in it's folds and creases. Even without arms, it conveys a mood and mystery.

Since you're fan of these illustrations, please enlighten me about what Usagi's, Makoto's and Michiru's illustrations are trying to convey because I'm not seeing it.
 
Jun 1, 2014
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Honestly I cannot wait for this reboot to be over so I won't feel the need to talk about it and leave this forum and this fandom, because in the last couple of years it is beyond toxic on here. People claim Naoko has no talent, that Sailor Moon is whatever phobic, that everything is problematic. Jeez.
I fully agree. The atmosphere is clearly toxic here, whereas on instagram and twitter pages everything is much calmer.
Here you have people attacking absolutely every single thing that is done in the franchise, just for the sake of doing it. People who have an unhealthy obsession with Naoko, as if she killed their family. They criticise her for breathing. It's unbelievable how much someone can hate someone they don't even know.
 
Jul 29, 2012
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Since you're fan of these illustrations, please enlighten me about what Usagi's, Makoto's and Michiru's illustrations are trying to convey because I'm not seeing it.
You assess manga through a set of technical aspects, such as, but not limited to: what an acceptable panel should look like, the correct anatomy and poses, the composition, the shading, the line work, how to convey action.

And that’s fine… you have a defined mold, the manga industry has a defined mold, and it’s reasonable to expect to have all the elements that you so often talk about to fit into this mold.

There are two ways to assess Takeuchi’s work:

(1) through the mold defined by the manga industry.

(2) through art. And art is broader... and it is subjective.
  • Some people will find beauty and expression in Jackson’s Pollock’s action painting technique.
  • Other people will say that anyone could pour paint onto the canvas from above and achieve the same result that Pollock did.
There is no right answer.
 

sapphire91

Stella Nova
Jul 6, 2018
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I fully agree. The atmosphere is clearly toxic here, whereas on instagram and twitter pages everything is much calmer.
Here you have people attacking absolutely every single thing that is done in the franchise, just for the sake of doing it. People who have an unhealthy obsession with Naoko, as if she killed their family. They criticise her for breathing. It's unbelievable how much someone can hate someone they don't even know.
We are all guilty of it, I for sure am - we are just all old and grumpy on here :D
 

Jawshx

Aurorae Lunares
Dec 1, 2020
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Honestly I cannot wait for this reboot to be over so I won't feel the need to talk about it and leave this forum and this fandom, because in the last couple of years it is beyond toxic on here. People claim Naoko has no talent, that Sailor Moon is whatever phobic, that everything is problematic. Jeez.
You yourself have also criticized the reboot, though? I think it’s fine to criticize as long as you keep things respectful but let’s not act as if we haven’t all been negative now and again, we have every right to be considering how messy everything has been.

I do think the Naoko vendetta verges on too much at times but you can always just.. not interact with people if they rub you the wrong way?