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Why are MAL cover arts for characters, shows and manga be so bland and downright ugly sometimes?

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May 12, 2022 8:11 PM
#1
Offline
Sep 2020
2
MyAnimeList's UI is pretty standard, plain and simple. I like its design because it's easy to navigate through unlike other websites, but ONE thing that bugs me about this design, is the photo choice for ALOT of characters, shows, people and manga. The photo of said things can be so damn bland and boring, and some of these photos can legit be blurry. It seems that MAL has chosen some of the worst pictures for characters, when there are spans of great pictures of them. This is one thing other animelist websites like Anilist or Animeplanet do better than MAL; actually have updated and great photos for characters and shows. I find it REALLY uninspiring having to put characters or shows on your favorites and it ending up so ugly and horrific to look at, making your profile page look pretty bad; look at the Subaru picture for example😭 Some anime shows as well have a bad cover choice or resolution: look at Fate Heaven's Feel II, blurry asf🤧 Well that's enough of my whining, I just want to ask is there a way to change it or something? I don't want to reset my whole list cause of this one problem in a different website since I'm already used to MAL, so I just wanted to ask this. And if not, can we do something about it? Raid? Petition? Ask? If anyone actually reads this please co-operate!
May 12, 2022 8:35 PM
#2

Offline
Aug 2018
8518
That's not always the case. Most of them look fine. But you can always submit a request for them to change the pictures. I kinda want Yuzu to have a new picture but I don't care enough to do anything about it.

https://myanimelist.net/character/153509/Yuzuki_Tachibana
May 12, 2022 8:53 PM
#3
Twintail Expert

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Feb 2019
1617
From one side, pictures have to be something official, no fanart, so for some cases that is limiting.

For the others, I don't know why the often chosen default picture is the bland shitty frontal shot with a white background that is usually blurry as hell, not just for characters with nothing else, but for characters that already have better pictures attached to them in the database. Mods choose the defaults at discretion but I am honestly clueless as to how a human being has looked at some of these default pictures and decided that was the best image they could choose.

Considering this, it would be nice if you had the ability to choose what picture is featured in your favorites, but that has been suggested before to no avail. If they implemented that it would remove, basically the entire reason people request picture changes, because I get the feeling they don't like dealing with said requests.

By internet mod standards, mods usually do a good job moderating in my experience but there are some things about the site that there is literally just no good justification for. 30 character limit is another.
May 12, 2022 9:04 PM
#4

Offline
Feb 2016
14950
I've seen several pictures changed since I began using this site. Sometimes they get better, but sometimes they get worse. Adolf currently has 2 pictures. Up until very recently, it was the other picture that was the default.
https://myanimelist.net/manga/1695/Adolf_ni_Tsugu/pics

Most annoying is when a character has many different designs used in sequels and reboots. MAL will have 8 poses of the same design, as in Kitaro.
https://myanimelist.net/character/7812/Kitarou/pics
All but 1 of these is from the 2018 reboot, which is like the 7th Kitaro anime. MAL used to have other pictures that were all deleted in 2018.
It's the same for Astro Boy. 3 of Tenma's 4 pics are from fan-fictions that don't resemble the original creator's art style. How are they even considered the same character?
https://myanimelist.net/character/22925/Umatarou_Tenma/pics
その目だれの目?
May 13, 2022 1:22 AM
#5

Offline
Dec 2020
977
Higurashi character pics are awful, ever since the new anime came out they changed pics to the new designs which look like ass then they brought back the old designs but guess what? They only brought it back for some of the characters while the others use the new designs so it looks like a jumbled mess. Not to mention characters like keiichi getting his pic changed like 3 times in in less than a month.
May 13, 2022 1:32 AM
#6

Offline
Oct 2010
21941
they look like shit because the mods are too busy to select the cool pics for the characters, it's been one year since I added the pics for neo ranga but mal still kept the old shitty ones
May 13, 2022 1:39 AM
#7

Offline
Aug 2018
17114
sugawara koushi's current pic is so blurry and ugly, wtf mal.

there's, like, 7 other pictures to choose from.
May 13, 2022 2:02 AM
#8

Offline
Sep 2020
5896
Sad bro 😓 MAL is becoming lazy day by day. Some of the cover art of anime look so damm bad/ugly.
May 21, 2022 8:15 AM
#9

Offline
Feb 2016
14950
Lucifrost said:
Most annoying is when a character has many different designs used in sequels and reboots.

I'm bumping this because I remembered another example that bothers me. Cutey Honey's best friend looks different in every version of the anime. Her MAL page has 2 images from F and 2 from Re out of only 5 total images. Few fans have even seen Cutey Honey F.
https://myanimelist.net/character/5495/Natsuko_Aki/pics
その目だれの目?
May 21, 2022 9:55 AM

Offline
May 2016
5541
Because America for some reason hates good looking woman. just look at any american cartoon.
May 21, 2022 6:51 PM

Offline
Sep 2020
499
Yeah same thoughts for a while now, kinda disappointing

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