Forum - View topicThe Character designs of Hirai Hisashi
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Fenrir
 Posts: 369 |
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Ok well after seeing his character designs for 4 tv series currently I'm honestly wondering how this guy still gets anywork in the anime business
He has done the Character designs for Sokyuu no Fafner, SEED, SEED destiny and Scryed Frankly I find his character designs are always way to similar to each other. I find that he really lacks originality in his desings. For example the new SEED destiny hero Shin Asuka looks so much like Kira is crazy. There are many seed destiny and seed characters that can be confused with each other. I often find myself thinking hey wait this character was in another show I saw. Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this and is confounded by how this guy still has a job. |
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therax
 Posts: 64 |
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Well since SEED is popular in Japan ( I have not heard of the popularity of the others) , I guess he is the IT thing right now.
Being Popular now matter how much the minority thinks you suck ,will make money and that what it is all about. (Hell look at Boy Bands here in the US....*shudder*) |
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Pandemonium
 Posts: 102 Location: Canada, NS |
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Do you have an example of someone that has done more than one series where the characters don't look similar?
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Craeyst Raygal
 Posts: 1383 Location: In the garage, beneath a 1970 MGB GT. |
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Only two other character designers come to mind that have the same lack of originality character to character, and that's Yuu Watase and Rumiko Takahashi.
However, at least Watase's characters are obssesively detailed and pretty, and Rumiko's older characters are certainly not as repetitive as her new ones (no mistaking the cast of Maison Ikkoku for the cast of InuYasha) whereas Hirai's are shapeless and forgettable at their best. It's sad that Hirai was character designer on SEED, especially when you look at Kawamoto's work on both 0083 and 08th MS Team. |
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Emerje
 Posts: 7548 Location: Maine |
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Hirai is Masami Obari circa. mid '90s all over again. Hopefully Hirai can get his style to evolve as well as Masami did.
Emerje |
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darkhunter
 Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
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You're years behind dude. Boy Bands arn't all the rage anymore. All the boy bands broke up, Nsync, BSB, B2K. You're living on past memories. Now it's all about prissy pop-queen like JoJo, Hilary Duff, Avril Lavigne, Ashlee Simpson etc dominating the chart. |
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Nagisa
Moderator
 Posts: 6128 Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh |
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Eh, having only seen one of the titles he's worked on (SEED), his designs don't really bother me so much. Yeah, they are repetitive (some people confused screenshots of Fafner for early SEED Destiny footage because one character looked like Destiny's Shinn Asuka), but really the same can be said for a lot of anime character designers. Take away the wardrobe, hairstyle, skin colour, & eye colour of many artists' designs and they'll look just about identical, but apply those factors and the characters begin to look distinct. Hirai's designs are no different; they look the same in the face, but the hair, clothes, & eyes usually tend to differ (though people still manage to confuse characters that look nothing alike in those respects, such as Fllay from SEED and Lunamaria from SEED Destiny). But I guess the way Hirai does his characters' faces, that one glaring similarity tends to shine through more than with other artists.
Last edited by Nagisa on Fri Aug 27, 2004 7:25 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Pandemonium
Posts: 102 Location: Canada, NS |
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I'm not sure how they can confuse Fllay and Lunamaria from Destiny...now Shin and Athrun or Shin and Kira in some scenes yeah I can understand. I think the guys are more silimar than the females, you can't confused Lacus with anyone (besides people not looking and confusing Fllay and Lunamaria) But I'm surprised no one has said Cagalli and Stellar, tho I find them different
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ParaParaJMo
 Posts: 336 Location: Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan |
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Then he also has Dead Agressor. Same character faces, just different hair colors
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Craeyst Raygal
Posts: 1383 Location: In the garage, beneath a 1970 MGB GT. |
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I won't dispute with you, Nagisa, that there are a lot of pretty bland character designs out there (heck, even some of CLAMP's stuff is starting to run together in my eyes).
However, let's look at character designers like Kenichi Sonoda, Kousuke Fujishima, Masaki Kajishima, and Toshihiro Kawamoto. Those gents have done tons of character designs over the years and I've yet to see a pair that are indistinguishable (that weren't intentionally indistinguishable). Also something that frustrates me about Hirai is his inability to draw "ordinary" people. Nope, everyone is glitzed and glammed out. It's really bothersome when looking at a whole world of folks in a series like Gundam SEED. When you compare the "we're all beautiful here" nonsense of the SEED crew to characters like Kai Shiden from First Gundam, you can see just how far behind Hirai was. |
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