Jan Krikke’s article is about the so-called manga style and its functionality. Manga style is the source and the basis of the Japanese animation industry well known as anime, and includes manga comics, cartoons, and graphic novels. The article also discusses today’s three-dimensional animation cartoon market.

Traditionally, those in the Japanese animation industry have hand drawn cartoons in two dimensions to create their aesthetic, which is based on Japan’s traditional pictorial language. They have done this in antithesis to the Western practice of optical realism, which relies on computers to create three-dimensional animation cartoons, movies, and games.

Nevertheless, recently in Japan a successful attempt was made to integrate the anime aesthetic with three-dimensional computer graphics. Obviously, this integration enhances the cartoon look, mainly on the contours of the character drawings, by combining three-dimensional objects with the traditional characteristics of the two-dimensional manga style (cartoons with character-driven style, sharp outlines, flat unmodulated coloring, and dynamic calligraphic style). Even more, this integration is a special challenge for the digital cartoon animation industry, as it retains an artistic hand-drawn feel.

So, today in Japan, the trend in the cartoon industry is on creating cartoon pictures that are in a sense more realistic than those rendered by using the computer-based photorealistic techniques of the Western cartoon industry. The Japanese hybrid of two- and three-dimensional imagery is based on handmade drawings that convey emotional nuances with new digital tools.

Krikke’s article is worth reading for those interested in fine arts computing and three-dimensional computer animation art movies.