Saturday, November 8, 2014

The Final Fantasy Series's Yoshitaka Amano's Art

I remember ranting about this back on Gaia Online like 10 years ago. Good times. Well, not really.

Many thanks to Ecclesiastes for looking this rant over for me. Truly, he is the greatest of proofreaders: the kind that doesn’t ask to be paid.



Yoshitaka Amano is the famous character artist of the old days of Square, the guy who designed the characters of Final Fantasies 1 through 6. Or at least, he’s credited as such. Frankly, I don’t think he should be. Because, see, Amano’s artwork? It is complete and utter garbage.

Yes, I’m sure that there are countless fanboys and fangirls spread across the land whose panties just twisted painfully into a knot from some instinctive knowledge that Amano is being badmouthed somewhere, but that’s the plain, simple truth. As an artist, Yoshitaka Amano is horrible. His lazy, ugly creations are almost excruciatingly unpleasant to view. Any clothing or machines or background he creates is messy and over complicated, yet colored either in a crude and overbearing fashion, or halfheartedly, like someone started to give it some watercolors but got bored and left halfway through. 90% or more of his characters are the same starving albino goth woman (who is sometimes passed off as a man) perpetually wearing the same listless, apathetic expression, like a lazy, half-asleep cat who can barely summon the energy to open its eyes just a slit to glare at you. Essentially, Amano’s idea of art is a world of uglily-detailed objects and scenery populated by a clone army of anorexic blonde vampires. If Hitler ever wanted to have some concept sketches made of how his Aryan utopia would look, I’m pretty sure Amano would be his go-to guy. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if there was a book of Amano’s art underneath the bed of more than one member of the KKK.

All that said, Amano’s shitty art style is not the reason I think he shouldn’t be given the credit as a character designer for the earlier Final Fantasy games. At least, it’s not the reason in and of itself. After all, I don’t deny Tetsuya Nomura his credit for the character designs of the games he’s been a part of just because half the characters he makes betray some strange, sort of disturbing fetish Nomura has for size 25 EEEE shoes.

No, the reason I don’t think that Amano should be counted as the character designer for Final Fantasy titles is...well, here, I think a couple visuals will help here. Consider the following characters:

Even Copy-Pasting Taxes My Image Software Skills to Their Limit

First of all, be honest with me: if you were to dress them all in the same outfit, how many of the above characters would you be able to identify? If your answer is more than 3, I’m not sure I believe you.

In case you can’t immediately tell--and who could possibly expect you to?--those characters above are, in order, Faris, Setzer, Edgar, Faris again, Celes, Faris again, Cecil, Terra, Rosa, Lenna, and Butz. Note how the males are virtually indistinguishable from the females, which are in turn virtually indistinguishable from each other, except for Faris, who, paradoxically, can look like 3 separate characters who all look like the same character. Try to wrap your head around that.

Now I want you to look at the way these same characters are seen in the games themselves:

More Super Basic MS Paint Skills

Do you notice something significantly different in this second picture? Maybe the fact that they look like separate people, ones which you could actually differentiate from one another? You don’t have to squint your eyes and concentrate to realize that it’s not the same person being put in different attire and poses. You don’t have to rely on the articles of clothing to make a positive ID. You don’t have to look at the first 3 characters there and try to recall which barely distinguishable cloak belongs to which pasty bleached famine victim. You just know, by looking, that you’re seeing Faris, Setzer, Edgar, Celes, Cecil, Terra, Rosa, Lenna, and Butz lined up there, without having to pause and figure it out. What an astounding idea--individualized physical characteristics!

Now, I don’t know for sure what the development process of Final Fantasy 4, 5, and 6 was like, and what the exact responsibilities of each job position was, but I feel relatively safe in the assumption that Amano was not the guy who actually constructed the sprites and portraits of these characters in-game. Partially because most people hired as concept artists aren’t also the ones in charge of the sprite art and character graphics in-game, and partially because, as stated above, in-game the entire cast doesn’t look like Cersei Lannister’s idea of the perfect orgy.

So since Amano wasn’t the guy actually building the sprites in the games, I don’t think it’s correct to count him as the real designer of the characters’ appearance. Because I don’t know about you, but I think of Terra as a woman with green hair, as seen from her sprite and menu portrait, not blonde-with-the-slightest-green-tint-that-looks-almost-exactly-as-blonde-as-Celes-and-Edgar-and-so-many-other-characters hair. I think of Rosa as being a woman with a normal, human expression, as seen from her menu portrait, not whatever frozen, otherworldly visage of apathy Amano thinks passes as a human face. When I think of Butz and Cloud, or Locke and Squall, I have very definite mental images of each of them, and they’re all reasonably dissimilar from one another. And the reason why I have a clear idea of what each and every Final Fantasy character I’ve encountered looks like, and why very few of them could be confused for one another, is because the thing that formed my visual perceptions of these characters is the game itself in every case. Each time, the game’s sprite-graphic artists embellished enough on Amano’s scribbles that the cast members resembled real, different people.* Thus, if you ask me, the true artists of the early Final Fantasy casts were not Amano, but rather the spriters of the games, who labored on Amano’s work in order to create the images of the casts we know and remember.











* Except in a few rare cases where Amano really did manage to create a character who wasn’t the same malnourished blonde Snow White copy. Like I said earlier, not EVERY Amano drawing of a character is identical to the others, just something like 9 out of 10. Cyan, for example, looks pretty much exactly the same in-game (allowing for the limitations of sprites, I mean) as he does in Amano’s art, but then, he doesn’t look anything like Amano’s typical character, so there’s no need to correct what he looks like in-game.

21 comments:

  1. The character designs in Dissidia do look somewhat more Amano-ish (Terra's hair is closer to blonde, for example) so it looks like Square may have ignored the sprite designs. It might also be worth noting that other people designed some characters (Nomura designed Shadow and Setzer, for example) so Asano may not be entirely at fault. I do agree that the characters look interchangeable, though.

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  2. First off, love the rant, even if it reads a touch more opinionated and less measured than your usual rant. The KKK porn insinuation is top quality. I will assume you predicted my response and misspelled my name in a fit of proactive spite. To which I say brava.

    I just want to throw out that you're essentially bitching about the faces of the mannequins in front of a clothing store. Amano's designs are based on the clothing, and this is appropriate as the older FF characters are largely defined by their appearance. Locke does not merely wear a bandana and a jacket; his identity is founded upon those articles. Same for Celes and her cape, Relm and her hat, and Shadow's stupid helmet mask thing. Fucking useless weeaboo ninja.

    I will say in your support that the sexiest portrait of Cecil ever is the original SNES icon, which incidentally is the farthest from his original artwork. FFVI folks also have portraits somewhat removed from Amano's style, in my opinion to the benefit of the style of the game. The main reason I have and never will play FFIV DS is that it discards what I consider the superior style conveyed in the SNES sprites.

    If anything, I think the blank slate faces made work easier for the sprite designers, and gave them more space to work in, since they could go farther without betraying the original design.


    This is not to say that his fashion designs are made of win and god. Some of his stuff trumps Magna Carta in terms of sheer unappeal. I do feel, however, that going after the similarity in facial appearance is probably the most surface level complaint one can level. Your proposal to recognize characters without their outfits highlights this apparent missing of the point.


    I do enjoy the rant, and I couldn't put enough ironic quotes around any claims of "disappointment". But FF is target to an inordinate volume of surface level criticisms that get in the way of what can be valid - and entertaining - complaints.

    I rate this rant a 7/10. Cutting a check would have got you a 9/10. We'll talk about this next time, you fucking cheapskate.

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    1. Wow, misspelling your name while thanking you for your help. Class fucking act, I am. Fixed now; sorry, sir.

      You make a fair point on the mannequin thing, but I would point out that my ultimate purpose here, beyond just having fun being cranky, is to point out that Amano receives credit and adulation that he does not deserve for these mannequins. FF fans frequently speak of Amano's work, in its entirety, meaning mannequin base included, as being excellent, and when Amano is put forth as the character designer of the early FFs, no one's making the distinction of attire that you are.

      (Also that clothing is a bunch of messy, halfheartedly-colored crap, but I suppose that isn't relevant)

      Why shouldn't one complain about character designs differentiated solely by clothing? Outfits are not personal traits. Characters should be able to be separated by more than what they're wearing. I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation of an artist who's being paid for his work. Perhaps it is a surface-level complaint, but this is about visuals--it's a surface-level subject already.

      At any rate, I'm glad that the rant is nonetheless entertaining for you. Also, I'm not Bioware, and you're not IGN--I'm not paying you jack for better scores!

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    2. Man, you should know I'm not smart enough to consider the abstract stuff like the praises of the fanbase. Incidentally, I am indeed smarter than most of this fanbase, but so is my six year old nephew.

      Basically, my """disappointment""" lies in not enough jesting at the expense of this fine fanbase this series has got, or the crappy halfhearted watercolor and such. But I like to hear myself talk too much to be concise.



      You are now thinking of the lack of range the legendary Akira Toriyama possesses. Sweet dreams.

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    3. Crap, I probably COULD do a pretty decent rant on that Dragon Ball/Quest idiot, couldn't I? Everyone's short, aggressive, and seriously needs to do something about their eyebrows.

      Wait I think that right there might be the whole rant.

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  3. I think your just a moron to be perfectly honest. Amano has a very unique art style and as an artist for the past 14 years I can appreciate his style. I think your just someone with a huge chip on their shoulder and wanted to show the internet that you can make some funny analogid's when in face it doesn't relate to anything your trying to get across. As someone who's played final fantasy since I was a kid and studied the art for many years, amano is the true artist if the series and if you've ever seen him actually paint a picture you'll know great skill goes into every piece, unlike the mass produced digital designs they use today. His art has heart and evokes a certain feeling.

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  4. Art is subjective and all that, whatever. I've always generally liked Amano's artwork, while also thinking that the character designs for Final Fantasy do not always exhibit his best work.

    In any case, I'd say you severely underestimate Amano's role in early Final Fantasy games. It's not any surprise that the sprites or even character portraits in-game don't look much like Amano's artwork; NES sprites, in particular, can barely look like any kind of specific artstyle, yet Amano definitely influenced Square with his designs. By Final Fantasy VI, Square's artists got fairly good at replicating his style for the character portraits (Setzer, Cyan, and Celes look a fair bit like Amano characters), and I'd agree that the sprite artist for the series is generally underappreciated (I read an article about her once...can't remember where). Still, in the early days of the series, while Amano's artwork was hard to connect to the sprites, Square featured it heavily on the box art in I, II, III, and VI; in the NES days, box art was really important due to the in-game sprite limitations, and Amano's artwork made the NES Final Fantasy games stand out.

    But the main reason why I think you underestimate Amano's role is that you only mention the playable characters in this rant. Those characters only make up a small fraction of Amano's work in the series' earlier games. Amano was also responsible for designing the monsters and enemies, and those designs were better translated into the enemy sprites (which look a lot more like Amano's artwork, in part because the enemy sprites are larger). I think that Amano's enemy design artwork is more evocative and surreal than his human artwork, and Square has generally kept using his general designs for recurring monsters.

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    1. That second point is a reasonable one, but the main problem with is that regardless of how much other stuff Amano had a hand in creating which was far more relevant to the finished result...not a lot of the recognition he gets in association to the FF series is related to that particular part of his work for it. Nor are monsters and enemies generally the artistic entities that the audience as a whole are going to most remember, value, and venerate. Sure, from an academic sense, you can make some argument that the series as a whole is more identified by its recurring monsters than it is by any 1 game's characters, but the fact of the matter is that it's the major characters who stay with the audience and garner the most attention in practice, and it's for his character art that Amano is most and wrongfully lauded. He may be better* at enemy art and have done more work for the series in that regard, but it's not the role in the franchise's art that he's famous for and receives most credit from.





      * Still not impressive, though.

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  5. I feel a little awkward responding to an article this old! Oh well, why not. It's the internet, after all.

    I was always fond of his wispy, dream-like sketches. That they are vague and wandering is the appeal for me. Amano is one of the reasons I became an artist. That said, your criticism is entirely valid. Your delivery is equally hilarious.

    I do feel as though his interpretations and ideas for monsters were better than his human designs, although his human designs improved immensely by Final Fantasy 6. That game, you have to admit, closely reflects his actual drawings in its face plates and spriting. Apart from Terra's hair color and the Magitek armor. Also Celes' clothing? I always found her in-game uniform to be... strange. A repeat of Rosa's but less befitting of the setting and "time period".

    On Faris and Lenna, have you ever seen the variety of fan art of them which more closely reflects their in game sprite designs? It's so much better than Amano's original concepts. Final Fantasy V, I believe, fits the Anime aesthetic better than most of its brethren.

    A final note on Amano's monster designs: it's worth noting that the original Final Fantasy was strongly a re-imagining of Dungeons and Dragons. So even then much of his work was interpretive, rather than wholly original. Nothing wrong with that, but it's something to bear in mind across the board.

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    1. The great thing about being both vain and extremely obscure is that I will just as happily read and respond to a comment on a super old rant as I will anything recent. It's all welcome, I assure you.

      Fair, his monster art is better than his human art, but the credit he receives for the former is small and passing at best; everyone always lauds him for his emaciated Marilyn Monroe zombies. If he were renowned for his contributions to the bestiary, he'd actually deserve the credit given him. Mostly. His non-human art is still needlessly messy.

      And true, FF6's portraits more closely reflect his art. But there's still some fairly important differentiation added by the sprite artists, and more relevantly, the actual sprites themselves, which are the character representations you see and experience the most in the game, are well and pleasantly unique.

      ...Celes's bathing suit is and always shall be baffling, though, no argument there.

      Yeah, I think most fanart is better than Amano's work by a wide margin, and FF5's especially fits the bill.

      Thanks for commenting!

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    2. That's great! I am very much of the same cloth in that. haha I've been putting my art online since 2006, and when somebody goes out of their way to trawl back many years and leave a comment, I love acknowledging it.

      You make an excellent point. His monster illustrations are under-represented. Also that term kills me. "Marilyn Monroe zombies." I'll never unsee it nor cease laughing.

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    3. If there's 1 thing Amano is good for, it's that it's both easy and fun to wax hyperbolic regarding his art style.

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    4. Since I don't think FurAffinity allows non-users to post: Nice art of your own, by the way. I'm a fan of MLPFiM myself, so I may be biased, but I like your stuff. Your style has also clearly come a long way since you started posting (although the old Feeder picture was pretty awesome).

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    5. I am flattered you looked me up! Though also now remiss that I didn't warn you ahead of time that my content is primarily adult oriented. Then again, without an account you can't see it there anyhow. haha

      I also very much appreciate the compliment. :)

      That image, "Feeder", I believe is the old monstrous Chrysalis. That was one of my early attempts at drawing without outlines. Something I still struggle to do. I am happy it retains some appeal almost a decade later. If I recall the date correctly anyhow, 2013? I'll have to look. Still a big fan of G4 myself, and still drawing the cast on occasion.

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    6. Yeah, it didn't let me see anything yabai, as the kids call it now, so no worries. Although I've been around the internet enough times now that it'd take...quite something to particularly disturb me, at this point, heh.

      Yeah, it was the Chrysalis. I'm also still a big fan of the show; MLPFiM was something special enough that it fully deserved its phenomenon.

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    7. Yabai... that's a new one for me!

      Since I don't know where/when else I'd ever bring this up to you and I figure you may be interested, I re-designed the Final Fantasy VI world of balance map for fun a while back. If you feel like taking a peek, here's a link (assuming it functions):

      https://twitter.com/CookieSkoon/status/1382380498979332099

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    8. Neat! It does look far nicer. Hadn't occurred to me until looking at your creation that FF6 doesn't have a single cold region that particularly shows it. I mean, there's Narshe, but nothing in the surrounding area gives the slightest impression that the region is any more than a bit chilly.

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    9. Thank you. :) One thing I love about 2D maps is their insinuation of land and vague detail lets an imaginative onlooker fill in all the gaps ourselves. 3D world maps make that much more challenging. haha

      On that note, I would relocated Doma castle to the actual river crossing from the military base. Good God that's gotta be like 600-800 miles or so between the two spots. Hell of a vial, Kefka. Hell of a vial. Not to mention Cyan's meaty running legs.

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    10. Yeah, that poison plot point was...iffy. In addition to the distance and low ppm, keep in mind that this wonder poison also managed to kill off an entire castle of people just by being near them. I mean, the Doma soldier notes that there's a ruckus at the Imperial base, which we have to assume is Sabin's fighting as he attempts to stop Kefka (or the continued fighting he's doing immediately after that), meaning that Kefka's basically JUST finished poisoning the river. No one in the castle has even had a chance to take a sip of the water in this short a period of time. Either that poison is so potent that it travels back in time, or everyone else in the castle had joined a suicide cult that morning and Cyan missed the memo.

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    11. HAHA Not only that, but Sabin travels the entire length of a continent TWICE and manages to beat Locke and Celes to Narshe (if I recall correctly). What I wouldn't give to re-write some parts of the game. I do have my own revision of that whole leg.

      Same with the anatomy of Vector city. You know that cool ominous cut-scene where you approach via airship and see the city on the mountain rising over the horizon, lights blazing into the night sky? Well... where's that water under you coming from?

      There's three mountain ranges surrounding Vector. No way you can see it from the ocean. Even without those mountains in the way that is a LOT of land between the city and the coast. My theory- Vector is a bit like a lone-mountain Tenochtitlan and is surrounded by a great lake. Would stand to reason as the start of a hearty pre-steampunk fantasy empire.

      I love FF6 so much that I have overthought its world history for years. It's fun, honestly. Enriches the game for me.

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    12. Locke I will give a pass to regarding the timing of that, because his job was to sabotage the Empire's occupation of South Figaro and delay their advance. The point at which he's accomplished as much as he can and needs to get the hell out could be taking place a substantial amount of time after the party split moment occurs - we don't get to see how long it took and how much he did. It's not difficult to assume that his efforts took around the same amount of time as Sabin's cross-country trek.

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