Hellooo_Theeree said:Well, this is just turning into a thread where people just showing off their waifu. I should've expected this. I was expecting a little more serious discussion, but oh well...
Well I can try.
First, I'm going to take beautiful/handsome as having a beautiful/handsome face, because the whole character design is a different matter. You can have a beautiful character design and a generic face.
Second, everyone is right. When you draw and you have a basic level of proficiency in drawing faces, you'd actually have to go out of your way to draw something that ISN'T beautiful but still looks realistic. If you adhere to the basic rules of thumb for the placement of the eyes, nose, and lips as well as the shape of the head, you're going to end up drawing a pretty face most of the time. In anime, the rules are even more constricting--- most of the time you have the shape/size of nose and the same shape/size of mouth because not a lot of detail is put forth into these features. In addition, Asian beauty standards dictate that a thin nose, small mouth, small face, big eyes, and small jaw are what make up beauty in a woman. Moreover, the relative simplicity of an anime drawing compared to real life means that subtle differences in facial structure cannot be depicted. Hence, if you look at 90% of anime girl designs, they will be beautiful but they also have very little room for distinction. (To be fair, though, the same applies for fighting video game protagonists: even though they have the advantage of 3D rendering, most of them are the same generic, rough but good looking white guy with short hair.)
The little room for distinction is in the hairstyle, hair color, and shape of the eyes. If everything else is constant, you can change these factors while still maintaining beauty. The eyes are the most important, as they are what separate merely pretty from beautiful for a lot of anime fans. Sometimes, the uniqueness of the artstyle itself distinguishes the beauty; like, say, Leiji Matsumoto's ladies, but even with him he draws all his women the same way.
Still, because of all the things I've said, I seldom find anime characters particularly beautiful because I tend to look for a distinctive beauty. It doesn't help that most characters are in line with typical anime values for beauty; they're all either cutesy beautiful, playful beautiful, nice beautiful, innocent/earnest beautiful, sophisticated older lady beauty, etc.
With that in mind, if I can be allowed to cheat a little since it's not really anime, there is a single face on MAL that stands head and shoulders above the rest by virtue of being both beautiful and uniquely crafted:
For comparison, this is different from the Lunafreya in the actual game as well as Tifa and Aerith; all three are also 3D rendered but all three have a generic anime look with generic eyes.
A lot of it has to do with the fact that the Kingsglaive Lunafreya has a more angular facial structure whereas Eastern beauty standards nowadays value roundedness and youth. At the same time, Lunafreya is also distinguished among Western animated faces as well, and the uniqueness of her design owes to the fact that they modeled her after an actual person.
In addition, I also find Dorothy from Big O to be quite striking because although she sports the same small face/small features and big eyes, her lines are strong and sharp and her eyes are unique. She has a type of beauty I have rarely seen in anime. You can say she's the cold, calculating type, but I don't think that quite captures it.
For the record, neither of these characters are my "waifu" or even on my favorite characters list.
For the men I nominate Spike--- not much explanation needed here.
There's also this little known character called George Kodama from Kaze no Yojimbo, who has a similar look to Spike. I also find his face nuanced and unique among male characters since a good portion of anime males are just shounen protagonists, angsty mech pilots, smug know-it-all antiheroes, or bishounen .
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