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Do you guys prefer ZUN's old artwork or modern designs of characters.

I adore ZUN's older artwork. No artwork could've been more suited for Touhou. It gave the early games so much charm and "fantasyness".
After the switch to digital artwork for UFO, the art became worse and worse to me...
Most people consider ZUN's older art in general to be bad, but besides EoSD (which for me, the only good character portraits there for that one were of Reimu, Marisa, and Rumia), then nearly all of the artwork from PCB to SA (and especially the artwork from PoFV) just has such a charming "childlike" look.
Even ZUN's earlier non-game art was just so good.
 
SateriCat17 said:
I adore ZUN's older artwork. No artwork could've been more suited for Touhou. It gave the early games so much charm and "fantasyness".
After the switch to digital artwork for UFO, the art became worse and worse to me...
Most people consider ZUN's older art in general to be bad, but besides EoSD (which for me, the only good character portraits there for that one were of Reimu, Marisa, and Rumia), then nearly all of the artwork from PCB to SA (and especially the artwork from PoFV) just has such a charming "childlike" look.
Even ZUN's earlier non-game art was just so good.
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i definitely agree. the art style fits the vibe so well !!
 
SateriCat17 said:
It gave the early games so much charm and "fantasyness".
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I agree with this point lol, specially in his earlier art for Touhou 1-5, those fully white backgrounds with that almost watercolor look from the markers he used gives it a real dream-like look, which personally speaking, I adore.

As for his artstyle in itself, I think it looked the best around PoFV.
His modern artstyle isn't bad per say, in most ways it is an improvement compared to his older character artworks, it just looks bland with the digital colors. Maybe if ZUN used a different brush and played more into the dream-like look aforementioned I'd enjoy it more.
 
erlking said:
I agree with this point lol, specially in his earlier art for Touhou 1-5, those fully white backgrounds with that almost watercolor look from the markers he used gives it a real dream-like look, which personally speaking, I adore.

As for his artstyle in itself, I think it looked the best around PoFV.
His modern artstyle isn't bad per say, in most ways it is an improvement compared to his older character artworks, it just looks bland with the digital colors. Maybe if ZUN used a different brush and played more into the dream-like look aforementioned I'd enjoy it more.
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I agree with the last point. If ZUN played into the "dreamlike" style of his older works, and also gave them a watercolor look like how they used to be, they probably wouldn't be half-bad. At the very least, the newer artworks for Touhou certainly do have some better poses. Regardless, the older artwork of his was still his best.
 
fazun said:
I like all the pre-th17 artwork, really
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Well, he certainly did keep a lot of the detail before 17, so I do agree. I personally quite like WBaWC and it's story (but I don't consider it my "favorite" of the games' stories by any means, mainly because of my own moral judgements), though that is most certainly when ZUN's digital artstyle started becoming far worse. Of his digital artworks for the games, I think his best-looking style is from DDC or TD.
 
fazun said:
??????
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Meaning that I consider Keiki and the human spirits to be in the wrong considering they (the human spirits) are in hell because of their own evils (something which is directly stated within the game's background). Despite the animal spirits having their own evils too.
Overall, I think the "ambiguity of evil" doesn't work as well as it should in the game's story, but the complexity of the story is why I think that the game has good story.
 
SateriCat17 said:
Meaning that I consider Keiki and the human spirits to be in the wrong considering they (the human spirits) are in hell because of their own evils (something which is directly stated within the game's background). Despite the animal spirits having their own evils too.
Overall, I think the "ambiguity of evil" doesn't work as well as it should in the game's story, but the complexity of the story is why I think that the game has good story.
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In my opinion, Zun didn't create a "good side" at all. Keiki and the haniwa could be called usurpers that betrayed human spirits' expectations, and one can root for the beasts because the creator never forces us to to think any fraction is evil, even the Lunar Capital, therefore I don't see no problems with morality.
 
DDC makes Cirno look like an actual retard so...
In all seriousness though, ZUNs a great character designer but his art style is a mixed bag; PC-98 looks cute and charming, early windows era is iconic and the non-digital art makes it memorable, but anything after DDC is bland and honestly just bad to look at. It looks like polished art of a 7 year old's rendition of a human body.
 
Sometime between Touhou 11 and now, it started to go downhill. It's hard to pinpoint. I like at least SOME of the art in every game, but old is gold. I find EoSD completely charming in every second I have with it. Even though the art is a bit rough around the edges (almost literally) it is just not in the same league as the newer stuff. I think a lot of people can agree on this. Look at Touhou 20's art. Yeah, it's cute and good and everything but it just can't compare to Touhou 6 or 7 or even 10. There's a je ne sais quoi.
 
Nobody can look at old artwork and say with a straight face that modern artstyle is better, unless they first look at touhou 6 artstyle or touhou 11 satori or koishi... (seriously why would zun destroy koishi's whole vibe with one single "art")

But Touhou pc98 has the best zun's artstyle ever, imo allat shouldn't be even changed, to what we got after pc98, it's just pure peak
 
Naprzeciw said:
Nobody can look at old artwork and say with a straight face that modern artstyle is better, unless they first look at touhou 6 artstyle or touhou 11 satori or koishi... (seriously why would zun destroy koishi's whole vibe with one single "art")

But Touhou pc98 has the best zun's artstyle ever, imo allat shouldn't be even changed, to what we got after pc98, it's just pure peak
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While I do think the PC-98 Touhou style looks pretty good, I think it has too much of a "generic" manga-esque artstyle. While ZUN's art from EoSD to SA is a wholly unique thing with only vague resemblances to anime and manga art styles. Not like anime and manga art styles aren't bad in their right either though. That's why I first got into anime and manga in the first place. Regardless, I have a very strong soft spot for his old artwork. You should really look at some of his old art on the Touhou wiki. Much of his art looks really impressive. Or at least to me.
 
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Naprzeciw said:
Nobody can look at old artwork and say with a straight face that modern artstyle is better, unless they first look at touhou 6 artstyle or touhou 11 satori or koishi... (seriously why would zun destroy koishi's whole vibe with one single "art")

But Touhou pc98 has the best zun's artstyle ever, imo allat shouldn't be even changed, to what we got after pc98, it's just pure peak
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They're both gorgeous and you'll never prove me wrong
 
SateriCat17 said:
While I do think the PC-98 Touhou style looks pretty good, I think it has too much of a "generic" manga-esque artstyle. While ZUN's art from EoSD to SA is a wholly unique thing with only vague resemblances to anime and manga art styles. Not like anime and manga art styles aren't bad in their right either though. That's why I first got into anime and manga in the first place. Regardless, I have a very strong soft spot from his old artwork. You should really look at some of his old art on the Touhou wiki. Much of his art looks really impressive. Or at least to me.
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Even though I do agree his PC-98 artworks are indeed pretty for their compositions, I also share that sentiment after the artstyle itself.
Personally I'd say his later art just encapsulates Touhou better than the PC-98 more "anime"-look could. Touhou is a fairy tale after all, so the more crude drawings that look like they were drawn by a kid do feel more at home.

Also, his PC-98 era art was filled with tracing, and sometimes looked like those early internet DeviantArt posts so...
 
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