That does help me make sense of the technique a little better.
As to the nose and mouth playing second chair,
that also has an impact on the proportion of the head in
terms of having enough room to put everything without
getting too out of balance.
Another good point you brought up is about the American
outlook on cartoons. I did not realize it at the time, but
when I saw Akira for the first time, that was part of my
fascination with it, that it appealed to a more adult crowd
as an animated story. Warner Bros used adult humor in their
skits and I always thought those were just a cut above
everything else because it was not just one group of people
that could identify with the character. That has more to do
with dialogue and such though.
But what I mean to say is that in terms of drawn art as
'adult content' is that I think it might be more about the
advancement of an idea or situation that people entertain
rather than the actual physical appearance of something.
From my perspective, animé always had the kick ass
backgrounds and monsters to the effect of this massive
scale. The backgrounds in Akira for example, were so
stunning from the American point of view because of the
detail and scale of 'place' that American cartoons never
really pronounced. Warner Bros stuff uses this almost cubist
type of background (well, maybe that's Chuck Jones) because
all of the activity is occurring between the characters.
Tom and Jerry, the Quimby stuff, I still say is the absolute
best cartoon ever because they had some of all those
elements, but that's my roots too so I am biased.
But here's another difference in my drawings and animé.
I use flat backgrounds, all the emphasis is on the girl.
With animé it's like you get this idea of a situation from
the environment and the character interacts within that.
The character animation is often slower and choppier than
the pan and scan used on backgrounds. You might get 8-12
frames a second of character, so the detail is really more
symbolic and even culture sensitive. That's why I must use
the mouth because I need something to express some kind of
reference point in terms of situational disposition of the character.
There is nothing else in the drawing to provide a
relationship to her other than just crazy sex, but the
emphasis is definitely on the character and not necessarily
a situation, and you can then begin a discussion on the
original meanings of animé and manga as they relate to that
context and not one of animated or static.
I guess what I am trying to get at is there are different
popular ways to conjure adult fantasy in the viewer when
dealing with line art rather than just photography.
I'm not sure if the original question was about is animé
better than pictures of real girls, or better than real
girls. Real girls can't be replaced. But in terms of media,
photography often focuses like manga... the character or
model is the central focus. Using line art allows for easier
conveyance of situations more like what I described with
animé, so the appeal is really fundamentally different for
some people although it may be meant to have the same results.
But again, it's always been easier to draw a pair of boobs
like we like and settle for that than to scour the earth
looking for something that largely does not exist, yet.