Hey art teachers, stop discouraging student's love for anime and manga art

Dice said:

It's disappointing to see this without any examples. It's also so darn vague. .. But I assure you, even "cartoonists" still need to have an incredibly good idea for anatomy and moving shapes in "mental three-dimensions", sufficient understand of shape, space, posture, and so forth to create good looking (i.e. effective) cartoon characters.
~snip~

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Thanks for taking the time to post this. Let me make it clear that I have nothing against simplified designs. Western cartoons definitely have more variety when it comes to body shapes and I like that. The Neptunia pic you posted showcases how homogenized some anime can be these days but I can just as well levy the same criticism with many modern cartoons. Shows like Steven Universe, Star VS, We Bare Bears and Gravity Falls all seem to have a similar house style. I'm not saying they're the same but generally speaking, I see a lot of similarities between them. Compare that to stuff like Chowder and Flapjack with distinct styles where you get a myriad of characters with different shapes and sizes, more so than that Steven Universe pic you posted. I think that the homogenization of art styles is a problem in both anime and western cartoons. Please don't lump me in with those "lol Calarts style" people because that's not what I meant.

Many people in this thread are saying that aspiring artists should focus on their fundamentals first and foremost and I agree with that. However, what I'm curious about is this:
Lets say Person X has poor fundamentals. In his art class, he submits either an anime inspired art piece like the Neptunia image you posted or one similar to Adventure Time or whatever. Given that person X has poor fundamentals, his art would be bad regardless of what he submits. From what I've read it seems that these teachers are more likely to reprimand person X had he submitted an anime art piece. Is it a case of them not being experienced in anime art, resulting in them not being able to teach them how to improve their art or are they just heavily biased against it for one reason or another?

muteKi said:

The problem is that you work in the shoujo style long enough and suddenly you realize every male character you draw is just a 10 foot tall bundle of coaxial cables

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I don't know, he could be a little taller

Seductivpancakes said:

Yo. I really dig this.

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Thanks buddy

Hosting an international student from Japan for the school year, she likes drawing anime girls and carries around a sketchbook. My daughter's been inspired to draw more stuff (she's 4 so nevermind the quality) from her. School-wise she's taking one of the Art heavy STEAM classes, as well as drawing and seems to be getting things out of both. I agree that there's no point in putting them down for stuff they like to do, though at the same time I'm not gonna bust out my Imas CDs and tell her to start drawing Yayoi 24/7 from hereon forward.

Dice said:

(I HONESTLY didn't want to use an anime picture, I love anime too, but this gets my point across better) The characters here practically all look exactly the same. Similar size, colouring, and body type. For a bunch you can almost literally swap hair and clothes and have the same character illustrated with few discernable differences.

The styles are trying to convey two different things. I remember hearing an artist say "Western cartoons are focused on cute designs; Japanese are much more focused on beautiful ones". Certain western cartoons will utilize the shapes and big exaggerated features to make its characters very expressive, help relay the differences between them and visually help relay character information in doing so. Japanese cartoons are a little less preoccupied by this idea, going a little more strictly for visually pleasing designs.

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Always felt that Kumeta's diss on Negima was right on point in terms of manga in many cases: characters are nothing more than symbols, defined by certain features to fill a niche roll as required. The sameness is intentional as you're creating a character by setting up the base framework and then swapping out parts.

We need to pay teachers more. Sad to see art teachers pulling double duty of what they have to do, and duties traditionally assigned to the PE teacher.

Oh here we go, my alma matter
So many stories regarding him/the department

ObbyDent said:

funny, because the op shows people and shows that are making a career out of it. sorry.

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Can't wait to take my 100k student debt and move to an animation farm in India

This feels like a topic that's at least a decade too late for art school staff to complain about.

cheesekao said:

However, what I'm curious about is this:
Lets say Person X has poor fundamentals. In his art class, he submits either an anime inspired art piece like the Neptunia image you posted or one similar to Adventure Time or whatever. Given that person X has poor fundamentals, his art would be bad regardless of what he submits. From what I've read it seems that these teachers are more likely to reprimand person X had he submitted an anime art piece. Is it a case of them not being experienced in anime art, resulting in them not being able to teach them how to improve their art or are they just heavily biased against it for one reason or another?

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From my experience, teachers typically don't reprimand certain styles unless they specifically say so for the sake of learning.

It's not that they have experience in drawing anime art (most college professors don't). Art college curriculum is mandated for certain things to be taught. So say you are in a anatomy class, the professor may say you can do a cartoony character, but they want you to use realistic proportions so the character may not look right, they are grading you on whether you understand the fundamentals of human proportion. Not so much the drawing itself.

It's best to avoid those styles for your projects because you aren't learning what you lack knowledge of. Your just trying to make something that looks good but hides the blemishes of what you may or may not know. (Can you draw an ankle at this angle? Because these powerpuff girl nubs for legs tells me otherwise, since you haven't provided a single piece showing you can or at least have the understanding to do it).

But let me tell you the people who started with decent drawings can now make some of the best anime concept art I've seen outside a studio. Then there's a ton of people who never gave up drawing their "style" and its their Graduating year at College and they still at the same skill level they had since they entered, since they never stopped to learn their fundamentals. (Its a miracle they even passed their classes).

This is why teachers stop people from drawing anime, they see this happen year after year. I see it as a art student year after year. It happens and some people want to set something out like banning a style since they don't see any good to come out of it, because they want you to succeed.

I don't agree that banning or dismissing anime as a style is done out of good intentions. If the reasoning was that these profs want the students to succeed and learn the fundamentals, then all styling, of any kind, would be rejected. In this case, we are seeing a department not only dismiss the style, but ban its -influence- in anybody's work, not for purity of a basic anatomy class or other fundamentals course, but for the entire curriculum of a concept art degree. And it is specifically a ban on anime/manga, not comics, not western animation, not Spongebob or Rob Liefield or Looney Tunes or Disney. Specifically anime gets singled out as an unwelcome influence on anybody's submittal in this school's concept art program, and the guy in the OP even goes so far as to shit on a recommended course study specifically about anime/manga available to students.

Zen said:

I don't agree that banning or dismissing anime as a style is done out of good intentions. If the reasoning was that these profs want the students to succeed and learn the fundamentals, then all styling, of any kind, would be rejected. In this case, we are seeing a department not only dismiss the style, but ban its -influence- in anybody's work, not for purity of a basic anatomy class or other fundamentals course, but for the entire curriculum of a concept art degree. And it is specifically a ban on anime/manga, not comics, not western animation, not Spongebob or Rob Liefield or Looney Tunes or Disney. Specifically anime gets singled out as an unwelcome influence on anybody's submittal in this school's concept art program, and the guy in the OP even goes so far as to shit on a recommended course study specifically about anime/manga available to students.

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I didn't have to ban Looney tunes or Disney style drawings in my classes because they are not as popular if at all these days. Dragonball infection youth is out of control here in LA. Granted, half the kids were Asian, but even with other races, it's all Anime, all the timez.

Good luck submitting a portfolio with only anime style work and expecting to make it in the industry.

Work on your fundamentals and just progress, you'll natural find your own style, and that your style will constantly be evolving/changing.

Shogmaster said:

I didn't have to ban Looney tunes or Disney style drawings in my classes because they are not as popular if at all these days. Dragonball infection youth is out of control here in LA. Granted, half the kids were Asian, but even with other races, it's all Anime, all the timez.

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Anime must be even more popular than I thought. Damn

Zen said:

Anime must be even more popular than I thought. Damn

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For art students, hell the fuck yes.

Its half the reason many of them are even in school. Remember this is the generation who has grown up on the internet and watched fan subs of shows. Or now whatever is on their streaming service or crunchyroll.

Then there's RWBY and I see a ton of friends who want to be the next Monty Oum and so they dive into animation.

Zen said:

I don't agree that banning or dismissing anime as a style is done out of good intentions. If the reasoning was that these profs want the students to succeed and learn the fundamentals, then all styling, of any kind, would be rejected. In this case, we are seeing a department not only dismiss the style, but ban its -influence- in anybody's work, not for purity of a basic anatomy class or other fundamentals course, but for the entire curriculum of a concept art degree. And it is specifically a ban on anime/manga, not comics, not western animation, not Spongebob or Rob Liefield or Looney Tunes or Disney. Specifically anime gets singled out as an unwelcome influence on anybody's submittal in this school's concept art program, and the guy in the OP even goes so far as to shit on a recommended course study specifically about anime/manga available to students.

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The influence isn't banned. Turning in assignments that don't fit within the criteria of the assignment is banned. Teachers aren't saying "I'm banning this because we had too many people draw it bad" its: "I want you to draw a face that has close to realistic proportions so I can teach you to also do x and y". Anime is singled out because almost 80% or more of students coming in are drawing and turning in assignments that show nothing on the curriculum needed to be taught. I swear walk into a intro class and almost everyone there draws anime, wants to draw it, are inspired by it, and or wants to make their own manga. Then notice the boredom when they have to start drawing out of their comfort zone to learn fundamentals. Its boring, it can be hard learning, but everyone needs to practice it.

American comics are okay because they still heavily resemble human proportions that fit in the curriculum and what their teaching. But they typically ask for images from the live action movies as reference. No one turns in assignments with Bugs bunny, Mickey mouse, or Disney. And if they do its Jack Skellington for an assignment that allows for almost anything to be drawn and made (including anime).

I started out drawing dragonball z characters as a kid, that went on to drawing anime. Although I'm not pursuing illustration in college (design student), I understand the teachers perspective. And when I hear this complaint of "I'm not allowed to draw what I want" that's not true, you are not doing what the assignment asks of you, and anime isn't a style that can teach you that for certain particulars.

When I applied at OCAD around 15 years ago, anime-style art in your portfolio virtually guaranteed a rejection letter.

Part of it was art institution snobbishness, it's a serious school with a long history, but a larger part of it was, as was said earlier, the sheer volume of low-quality "How To Draw Anime" art. It cast a pall over the whole style. Plus, at the time, it was still considered a fad. The influence it would have over western art hadn't been demonstrated yet.

Illusion said:

For art students, hell the fuck yes.

Its half the reason many of them are even in school. Remember this is the generation who has grown up on the internet and watched fan subs of shows. Or now whatever is on their streaming service or crunchyroll.

Then there's RWBY and I see a ton of friends who want to be the next Mont Oum and so they dive into animation.

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Yeah, I still had the perception that anime was mostly niche. It makes more sense that there would be an active pushback against this wave if it's this huge. That being said, having read a lot of the Twitter threads about this now, the issue is a bit more complex than we're all giving it credit for. There's a tidal wave of kids going in wanting to draw anime and that precipitates a backlash from one of the higher figures within the school which has a lot of ethnocentrism in his attempt to reign in the flood. I still think his attitude stinks and is out of touch however, and as Raging Spaniard stated earlier there are many ways to incorporate peoples' anime love into the curriculum. The course being talked about in the OP is a special topics class about anime at that and the guy is dismissing it wholesale. This is a 3rd year class too so all basics would have been covered already. Given all that, to me it's pretty clear he's attempting to leverage his bias against the style in that message. To which I think people are right to criticize. As long as the student fulfills the assignment requirements and demonstrates a good understanding of fundamentals then there is nothing wrong with stylization, unless they are specifically in a life studies class or something. If every art class past 2nd year has the qualifier that only realistic, true to life drawings are accepted, then I would say that's a shitty school not worth the money. And I really doubt that in a computer animation course, that every class is going to denounce stylized art of any kind.

I just want to make it clear that I am personally a big manga/anime fan. I grew up on Mazinga, Gatchaman, Astroboy etc.. I didn't ban it out of prejudice. I banned it out of necessity. Most students learn by imitation (as did I when I was young). Unfortunately no one is there to correctly demonstrate how to construct a good figure in that style. So they simply copy the surface characteristics in very graphical manner.

If you watch a good manga artist, you will see them construct the figure in 3 dimensional manner as with any other style. It's all about understanding the form in 3D and conveying that in 2D. But anime (and other cartoon styles) invite the beginners to construct it in very graphic/2D manner. I've even seen accomplished 3 or 4th year students who fall back to very graphic construction of the figure when they switch to anime style. It might be some kind of flashback to what they use to do as kids.

My job is to show the students how to understand the form in 3D then translate that to 2D on paper/canvas/screen. So I need to break them out of their 2D/graphical mind set first. It doesn't matter if it's anime, or looney tunes, or Dinsey styles. It's all in the way until it's not anymore.

Raging Spaniard said:

Oh holy shit I miss those days, such a good group of people, definitely helped being in a forum where I could see Bengal or Gez Fry posting on a regular basis. Thank you so much!

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Same for me. I was only lurking but the quality and "feel" of that board made me go full force into this craft/business.
I still chat with Tek! once in a while. You might remember his stuff.

Most art teachers suck at art so its understandable that they dont know how to encourage it.

Art shouldnt be forced, teach classic,modern,etc but let the artist(the student) do what he actually likes.

I don't even particularly care for anime but the guy saying "we don't appreciate anime style in this program and if you submit it you'll be marked down for it" is incredibly fucking stupid.

I think a lot of people are missing the "obvious influence of that style" part. This isn't just some guy saying "we don't want your Goku tracings."

Spyder_Monkey said:

Thanks art teacher. I could be working on the next Dragon Ball Z but instead I had to waste countless hours studying "Van Gogh" and he didn't do anything important like bring the entertainment of two adult men to children around the world.

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Goku can beat all of Van Gogh's character.

I saw the linked example and could only think of one thing

Actually, no, two things


"Is this Kingdom Hearts?"

So having been the type to know that the art teachers I had wouldn't accept my anime style art, it was easier to tone it down when i was in life drawing classes i found, but that was because i was self aware of how the style was sort of hindering my progress. What I want to say is the advice should be for those students who want to continue drawing with that style is to work on the fundamentals, you won't get much of anywhere without learning proportion, anatomy, and planes and the like. The style can and does hinder me even to this day especially when it comes to the size of eyes, but every person takes it differently. I definitely wish there was less of a stigma about it though

Tangentially-related but I read a story once that contained a manga artist's response to seeing American anime-inspired art: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2018-10-05/.137765

Maybe it was a year or two ago, I was talking with a colleague in Japan about overseas comics creators who want to become pro manga artists, and be published in Japan. We talked about overseas artists who go through portfolio reviews with Japanese manga editors, and those who enter manga contests put on by Japanese manga publishers or government organizations. Then she asked me a question that surprised me: "Why do so many of these overseas manga creators draw in such an… old-fashioned style?"

She thought it was puzzling that she'd see work that was done recently that looked like it was drawn or influenced by manga that was popular 10, 20 or more years ago. "Don't these artists keep up with what's currently popular in Japan?"

Now, this might be going out on a limb, but I think one of the reasons behind this phenomenon are some of the "how to draw manga" books published in English.

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Even though I cannot get into the aesthetic at all, some of the kindest and most sensitive artists you'll meet are really into that subject matter. It's just that it gets to a point where you can easily get stuck and that's all you're doing because you didn't challenge yourself more and make your sources of inspiration more eclectic. It's tricky to balance making art that you personally want to make while also improving your skillset dramatically because it almost feels like you're at risk of replacing your art style at first. But you can still improve without sacrificing the personality of your work by expanding your influences and looking at the work of artists who went through a similar progression.

Jeeze, WTF?!??! This was in a presentation given in an Intro to Computer Animation for this art school:

I had art teachers say this but it never dissuaded me from doing work in anime-esque styles. It's definitely a pretty closed-minded stance but I don't expect art teachers who were born in the mid-1900's to understand the nuances or worth of anime's artistic contributions.

RedSwirl said:

Tangentially-related but I read a story once that contained a manga artist's response to seeing American anime-inspired art: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2018-10-05/.137765

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Perception of anime here definitely skews towards old 80s and 90s anime. At least among millenials who have grown up watching those and who largely have dissociated with more current trends.

KSweeley said:

Jeeze, WTF?!??! This was in a presentation given in an Intro to Computer Animation for this art school:

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Castile said:

I think its because ten years ago it was still a unknown thing to most art teachers that they didn't know how to grade properly. It doesn't help that these type of books were the norm back then being sold in book fairs.

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This.. explains a lot of the terrible fan art I keep seeing on deviantart.

TheEnd said:

This.. explains a lot of the terrible fan art I keep seeing on deviantart.

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Not really. You see equally terrible art like that on pixiv. These are likely done by teens who are still learning.

I've thought about it some more and I can't understand why simply being a popular art style warrants a blanket ban of it. That sounds like snobbery in all honesty. Work with it, use it as a jump off point to get the students motivated to learn perspective, color theory, anatomy. That they were motivated to go to art school at all because of it is significant. Don't take that away. Use a positive atmosphere to glue their passion to the curriculum and they'll see for themselves how doing realistic true to life renderings and studies will help them develop their sense of style. In the latter half of their major they'll be able to experiment with the rules in confidence, without feeling like they're doing something dirty by daring to let an art style they like influence their work. Or you can shut them down from the start and demonize it, and shame them for coming to school wanting to learn to draw it better. Instead of using that as a motivator you would be effectively telling them they made the wrong choice to go to art school. I guess that does make sense if you want less competition for work in the future. It's not a mentality I respect at all though.

H.Protagonist said:

Hmmmmm...

I

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I don't know why but I can't stop laughing... send help plz

The more I think about it, the more it seems like this is just a ruse to gate keep and control what is 'good art' and what isn't, by wholesale dismissal of an entire art culture with the flimsy excuse that the students should know fundamentals first. Well yeah, knowing the basics applies to pretty much anything and everything under the sun, but that reasoning doesn't account for the active derision towards anime by schools like Ringling or professors like that dude who would go so far as to penalize students for any perceived influence regardless if it was applied well and within assignment parameters. I get the impression that it would be fine as another stylized art style, but since anime is popular it justifies getting the shaft? I think that's a very hypocritical mindset.

I get that seeing a popular trend everywhere gets tiring, but that's part and parcel of teaching art and especially animation, a medium deeply intertwined with pop culture. To try to cut out part of it is a failure by the school.

Zen said:

The more I think about it, the more it seems like this is just a ruse to gate keep and control what is 'good art' and what isn't, by wholesale dismissal of an entire art culture with the flimsy excuse that the students should know fundamentals first. Well yeah, knowing the basics applies to pretty much anything and everything under the sun, but that reasoning doesn't account for the active derision towards anime by schools like Ringling or professors like that dude who would go so far as to penalize students for any perceived influence regardless if it was applied well and within assignment parameters. I get the impression that it would be fine as another stylized art style, but since anime is popular it justifies getting the shaft? I think that's a very hypocritical mindset.

I get that seeing a popular trend everywhere gets tiring, but that's part and parcel of teaching art and especially animation, a medium deeply intertwined with pop culture. To try to cut out part of it is a failure by the school.

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I can only give you a slice of what's happening in my corner of the art school world (namely Los Angeles CA), but you have lots of top graduates from these storied programs that are of the anime culture and love the genre.

Many of the people for instance in the concept design curriculum at Art Center and Otis College of Art (two of the big providers of game industry designers and illustrators) are Asians and grew up on the stuff. Many none Asians in the program also embrace the genre as well. If you meet Art Center and Otis concept design programs' faculty, you will see so many Koreans that you'd think you are at a KPop concert. They are all Anime fans. At least in LA, you don't have to worry about some kind of conspiracy to bury Anime.

But make no mistake: We will not let you draw shitty anime stuff in our classes just because we like it too. We have a set proven way to teach our curriculum. Aping anime style blindly is not part of the program. You need to follow our lead or you will be just wasting all that tuition money (which at Art Center and Otis is RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY). After you learn all the things we teach you, you can use those very lessons to improve the way you draw anime and manga on your own.

It's ironic since modern American animation is taken more from Anime. Where it sounds like old man yelling at clouds

But I also understand a bit where teachers are coming from since most majors have something similar. I.E. people who don't realize the actual work that is going to be put forth in the course, but are fans of a piece of work. I wanted to be the next RDJ or the next Zuckerburg

Illusion said:

For art students, hell the fuck yes.


Then there's RWBY and I see a ton of friends who want to be the next Monty Oum and so they dive into animation.

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Reading this stings as I foolishly thought I could potentially do something similar. Would you say that Monty Oum was influential in getting more people interested in animation?

Anime is fast food art so I can understand where those teachers are coming from.

His Majesty said:

Anime is fast food art so I can understand where those teachers are coming from.

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yikes

His Majesty said:

Anime is fast food art so I can understand where those teachers are coming from.

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Opinions. How do they work?

T-Rex. said:

yikes

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crikey

effingvic said:

This is really dumb and ignorant.

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I think the point is you cannot expect to draw anime and make a career, in the same way you cannot learn play the guitar and expect to be a rockstar. It can happen but realistically, chances are, it won't happen.

Zen said:

I've thought about it some more and I can't understand why simply being a popular art style warrants a blanket ban of it.

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It's important to examine the reasons why it's so popular among young students. For a lot of them it allows them to in their eyes, skip a huge part of learning the fundamentals of art.
-Why try to learn how to draw eyes, mouths, noses, etc. when you can just draw simple lines?
-Why use reference for things like hair when you can just copy anime hairstyles
-Why use real life reference at all?
-Why learn how proper lighting works when you can do basic crosshatching?
-Why draw anything besides 3/4th view or maybe if you're brave...a front view? :O
-Why draw anything unique instead of derivative fan art or an OC that is basically derivative fan art?
etc. etc. etc.

That's why a lot of them struggle once they hit school because they basically have to learn how to do art.

T-Rex. said:

yikes

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He's not wrong when it comes to the way people approach it when they learn how to draw. See above.

Shogmaster said:

I just want to make it clear that I am personally a big manga/anime fan. I grew up on Mazinga, Gatchaman, Astroboy etc.. I didn't ban it out of prejudice. I banned it out of necessity. Most students learn by imitation (as did I when I was young). Unfortunately no one is there to correctly demonstrate how to construct a good figure in that style. So they simply copy the surface characteristics in very graphical manner.

If you watch a good manga artist, you will see them construct the figure in 3 dimensional manner as with any other style. It's all about understanding the form in 3D and conveying that in 2D. But anime (and other cartoon styles) invite the beginners to construct it in very graphic/2D manner. I've even seen accomplished 3 or 4th year students who fall back to very graphic construction of the figure when they switch to anime style. It might be some kind of flashback to what they use to do as kids.

My job is to show the students how to understand the form in 3D then translate that to 2D on paper/canvas/screen. So I need to break them out of their 2D/graphical mind set first. It doesn't matter if it's anime, or looney tunes, or Dinsey styles. It's all in the way until it's not anymore.

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^^^

His Majesty said:

Anime is fast food art so I can understand where those teachers are coming from.

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.

Castile said:

I had the red one, but it at least was decent compare to other books. It's not hard to understand the teacher's argurment when the anime boom happened, as many people tried to make a quick buck out of it.

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Oh god.

VanillaCakeIsBurning said:

Reading this stings as I foolishly thought I could potentially do something similar. Would you say that Monty Oum was influential in getting more people interested in animation?

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Definitely.

His backstory of being a self made animator who never went to school to learn animation and then became a success resonated with a lot of of his fans.

I have two good friends who went to animation because of him. All of whom want to produce a show like RWBY. Its funny because they both felt embarrassed when I pointed out a ton of people were doing the same. They thought they were being original or unique about it. Doesn't change their feelings so late in the game though.

Shogmaster said:

I can only give you a slice of what's happening in my corner of the art school world (namely Los Angeles CA), but you have lots of top graduates from these storied programs that are of the anime culture and love the genre.

Many of the people for instance in the concept design curriculum at Art Center and Otis College of Art (two of the big providers of game industry designers and illustrators) are Asians and grew up on the stuff. Many none Asians in the program also embrace the genre as well. If you meet Art Center and Otis concept design programs' faculty, you will see so many Koreans that you'd think you are at a KPop concert. They are all Anime fans. At least in LA, you don't have to worry about some kind of conspiracy to bury Anime.

But make no mistake: We will not let you draw shitty anime stuff in our classes just because we like it too. We have a set proven way to teach our curriculum. Aping anime style blindly is not part of the program. You need to follow our lead or you will be just wasting all that tuition money (which at Art Center and Otis is RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY). After you learn all the things we teach you, you can use those very lessons to improve the way you draw anime and manga on your own.

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That sounds reasonable, but it also seems like you wouldn't detract points just because a student's submission shows an anime influence, so your school doesn't have a prejudice against it wholesale like the situation at Ringling.

Crossing Eden said:

It's important to examine the reasons why it's so popular among young students. For a lot of them it allows them to in their eyes, skip a huge part of learning the fundamentals of art.
-Why try to learn how to draw eyes, mouths, noses, etc. when you can just draw simple lines?
-Why use reference for things like hair when you can just copy anime hairstyles
-Why use real life reference at all?
-Why learn how proper lighting works when you can do basic crosshatching?
-Why draw anything besides 3/4th view or maybe if you're brave...a front view? :O
-Why draw anything unique instead of derivative fan art or an OC that is basically derivative fan art?
etc. etc. etc.

That's why a lot of them struggle once they hit school because they basically have to learn how to do art.

He's not wrong when it comes to the way people approach it when they learn how to draw. See above.


^^^

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I agree, but you're talking about newbies coming into art school with preconceived notions and lazy people who don't actually want to learn beyond aping anime. At the same time I understand where you're coming from. It's difficult to deal with good anime-inspired art vs terrible when it's nearly all the time. Banning it ensures people don't try to use anime as a crutch. I just think at a higher level where they've demonstrated they're ready to start playing with the rules, they should be allowed to draw influence from anime as much as any other stylization.

Crossing Eden said:

It's important to examine the reasons why it's so popular among young students. For a lot of them it allows them to in their eyes, skip a huge part of learning the fundamentals of art.
-Why try to learn how to draw eyes, mouths, noses, etc. when you can just draw simple lines?
-Why use reference for things like hair when you can just copy anime hairstyles
-Why use real life reference at all?
-Why learn how proper lighting works when you can do basic crosshatching?
-Why draw anything besides 3/4th view or maybe if you're brave...a front view? :O
-Why draw anything unique instead of derivative fan art or an OC that is basically derivative fan art?
etc. etc. etc.

That's why a lot of them struggle once they hit school because they basically have to learn how to do art.

He's not wrong when it comes to the way people approach it when they learn how to draw. See above.


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All those points can easily apply to furry art, Dismey/WB art,, Cartoon Network, "calarts", hell even people who draw a lot of Marvel art tend to make the same mistakes (bad crosshatching is a particular example in american comic book styles) Your insistance on assigning all these to anime in particular is shortsighted, imo, your problem seems to be with stylization of any kind.

If you're talking about the stylization vs fundamentals discussion then Im with you 100% but you need to allow the student to have fun sometimes and indulge in what got them into the artform to begin with. Most first years in any art school are going to have those challenges and while I agree that you need to "draw things you dont like" in order to become a professional artist, its by applying strong fundamentals to your passion that youll have a chance at success.

At most I'll agree that theres a good amount of artists that need to expand their horizons if they want to make it, but that happens with every artstyle.