Summary
- Good art can elevate even quiet moments in comics, like in Blue Lock's dramatic soccer scenes.
- Manga like Akane-banashi benefit from artistic license, bringing stories to life with evocative imagery.
- Fist of the North Star's powerful art and Jojo's evolving style show the importance of soulful dedication.
When it comes to comics, manga, manhua, and any other similar medium, good art can go a long way. The story matters in the long run, but if the artist can deliver it with some great, evocative imagery, they can turn even the quietest moments in comics into a memorable one. Let alone the big, climactic scenes.
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It’s a tricky thing to manage, especially on a tight deadline. Which is why many of manga’s most impressive displays of penmanship tend to be in the more mature genres like seinen and josei, where many strips are released monthly instead of weekly. But even in the more rapid-paced world of shōnen manga, readers can find some stunningly beautiful art, like in these standout strips.
1 Blue Lock
Giving Readers Soccer In Style
- Creators: Muneyuki Kaneshiro (story), Yusuke Nomura (art).
- 33+ Volumes, 299+ Chapters.
- Available in English via Kodansha Comics USA.
It’s only fitting that the beautiful game has some beautiful art to go along with it. Blue Lock focuses more on the inherent drama of soccer than realism, like its contemporaries, which Yusuke Nomura emphasizes in his panels. Characters burn with auras as they approach the ball, their eyes flash as they spot their chance to strike, and they blaze with bad intent as they go after rival players.
Flavoring scenes with artistic license has been a part of sports manga since the days of Ashita no Joe. Though few do it with the aplomb and attention to detail that Blue Lock does, with its dynamic use of shading and speed lines. It’s been compared to Bleach in that it tries to make its scenes look as cool as possible, even if the story behind it is more rote by comparison.
2 Dan Da Dan
Supernatural Phenomenon Drawn Phenomenally
- Creator: Yukinobu Tatsu.
- 19+ Volumes, 190+ Chapters.
- Available in English via Viz Media's Shōnen Jump imprint.
Dan Da Dan has a host of inspirations, though given it’s a sci-fi horror strip about a UFO enthusiast/spook skeptic and a ghost hunter/alien non-believer discovering both are real, they’re ironically more down-to-earth. On top of using classic Japanese urban legends, readers can spot links to Ultraman, Sadako Vs Kayako, and Junji Ito’s horror strips.
Having cut his teeth working as an assistant on artistic powerhouses like Chainsaw Man and Hell’s Paradise: Jigokuraku, it’s perhaps no surprise that Yukinobu Tatsu’s penmanship is equally on point. Its paranormal perils aren’t particularly pretty, often rivaling Ito's more nightmarish creations. Yet they and the rest of the strip are rendered with such fine details, designs, and angles that they’re always a visual treat.
3 Bakemonogatari
Gorgeous and Gruesome in Equal Measure
- Creators: Nisio Isin (story), Oh! Great (art).
- 22 Volumes, 193 Chapters.
- Available in English via Vertical.
If readers didn’t get enough pretty-yet-horrifying imagery from Dan Da Dan, they’d get more from Bakemonogatari. Oh! Great’s adaptation of Nisio Isin’s light novel also sees a seemingly ordinary teen taking on the supernatural, though it’s more focused on its scares and mysteries compared to Dan Da Dan’s teetering between intentional scares and goofy comedy.
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Which also means Oh! Great’s monster designs are as impressive visually as they are stomach-churning. They’re Lovecraftian in that they’re hard to describe. They have to be seen to be believed. Yet they’re contrasted by some impressively arranged panels that bring out the mystery in its story, the drama in its scenes, and the beauty in its characters.
4 Akane-banashi
Bringing Rakugo to Life
- Creators: Takamasa Moue (story), Yuki Suenaga (art).
- 15+ Volumes, 155+ Chapters.
- Available in English via Viz Media's Shōnen Jump imprint.
Some strips benefit from taking more artistic license with their storytelling approach. Otherwise, Akane-banashi would be about a woman in a room telling stories. The titular Akane is following in her father’s footsteps as a rakugoka, someone who tells lengthy comedy stories with only their acting skills and a fan to evoke its action. It's a traditional form of Japanese theater, albeit one with its own ups and downs, as the manga shows.
Yuki Suenaga’s art captures the domestic drama of Akane’s struggle to avenge her father’s expulsion from the Arakawa school. But it shines the most in its evocative imagery, turning Akane and her rivals into their rakugo characters as they speak. Ordinarily, it’s a cute manga with pretty artwork and designs. At its peak, it’s an artistic tour de force full of life and character that readers should check out.
5 Fist Of The North Star
The Power of Soul in Manga
- Creators: Buronson (story), Tetsuo Hara (art).
- 27 Volumes, 245 Chapters.
- Available in English via Viz Media's Viz Signature imprint.
The artist behind Fist of the North Star, Tetsuo Hara, popped up in the news recently when he gave his thoughts on AI art to GoetheWeb.jp. In short, he said AI art falters because it’s not “prepared to die.” It doesn’t struggle or suffer to make its art the very best it can be. Without that dedication, it has no soul, which is the opposite of Hara's approach to art ("I want to please all the readers with a picture that has that soul in it").
It’s a fitting outlook, given that FotNS is all about struggle. The manga is infamous for its blood, violence, exploding heads, and evil villains who were already dead. Yet Hara depicted it all so cleanly, with nary an inked line going amiss, and a composition that brings out the drama in each scene perfectly. Whether it's grisly or pretty, Hara's art in FotNS shows plenty of soul in its details.
6 Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
Bizarre Yet Beautiful
- Creator: Hirohiko Araki.
- 136+ Volumes, 977+ Chapters.
- Available in English via Viz Media's Shōnen Jump imprint.
Every artist’s style evolves, though some changes stick out more than others. For example, Hirohiko Araki’s work in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure has changed so much over its 38+ year run it’s hard to imagine he’s the same guy behind both the loose approach to human anatomy in Part 1: Phantom Blood, and the more elaborate and proportional looks of Part 7: Steel Ball Run.
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Yet they all show how he mixes his influences. Readers can see where he took inspiration from Tetsuo Hara, classical sculptures, prog rock album covers, and Antonio Lopez’s fashion paintings, among others. Together, Araki blended those sources into works that show the dedication of a Hara piece, the flair of a fashion magazine shoot, and the bizarre look of a Roger Dean painting.
7 Death Note
Manages to Look Dark in the Light
- Creators: Tsugumi Ohba (story), Takeshi Obata (art).
- 12 Volumes, 108 Chapters.
- Available in English via Viz Media's Shōnen Jump Advanced imprint.
Like Dan Da Dan and Bakemonogatari, Death Note continues the trend of beautiful but scary art, as for a generation of anime-loving goths and gothic enthusiasts, Takeshi Obata’s style on the series was the one to go for. His Shinigami, particularly Ryuk, were as malevolent and death-metal as they looked, but his true monster was a normal guy with a fancy notebook.
Obata’s panels did a great job of capturing Light’s descent into megalomania, along with his growing paranoia. But his covers are also rich in detail, maintaining a dark atmosphere with their iconography (scythes, skulls, crosses), while often being brightly colored. All the while making sure Light sticks out from the crowd in his strait-laced uniform, an abnormal guy wearing the most average fit among his goth-chic supporting cast.
8 Slam Dunk
All Thrills With No Frills
- Creator: Takehiko Inoue.
- 31 Volumes, 276 Chapters.
- Available in English via Viz Media's Shōnen Jump imprint.
This list wouldn’t be complete without some Takehiko Inoue art. The man may be more famous in the West for the luscious looks of his seinen strip, Vagabond. But he’s more famous in Japan for producing Slam Dunk, which became the premier manga for basketball enthusiasts, and got many more readers to give the game a try.
Unlike Blue Lock’s artistic license, Inoue stuck to the fundamentals of basketball, illustrating them to the best of his abilities to get the drama and storytelling out of the sport. Their dribbles, blocks, and slam dunks look powerful enough on their own thanks to Inoue’s realistic style. Not only did they look fantastic, but they also looked like something a player could put off if they put in as much effort as their characters.
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