Oh! Great never gets an even break

[Redcoffin]

We've all seen shows where the anime character designs improve considerably on the appearance of the characters as they appear in the manga--His & Her Circumstances comes to mind immediately. But the opposite is just as common, where the animators royally **** up the character designs, either through ignorance or excessive haste, or because the manga artist has a style that basically cannot be animated. Oh! Great (Ogure Itoh or whatever his real name is) has such a style.

His drawings are always sumptuously beautiful (and they had better be, because the stories are universally vulgar and numb-nuts stupid--even his porn is stupid--how can you make porn stupid? But we look past it because if the transcendent, iconic art). However, they just don't animate. I have given up on waiting for an Oh! Great inspired anime that does justice to his graphic work. All that sweeping hair and clothing--it hurts me to see how the female characters in the TenTen anime look like collections of limbs and... objects... bouncing around with no particular reason d'etre. The Air Gear anime is just as much of a let-down from the manga. It's enough to make one turn to drink...

[DKL]

Admittedly, even as a big Madhouse fan, I have to say that production dropped the ball for Tenten...

I mean, the intro looked good, but it's totally different when you step into the show (or look at the promotional art)

Toei's air gear doesn't seem to look much better...

Not a hardcore Oh! Great fan, but I can sorta understand where you're coming from...

[Fencedude]

Eh. Honestly I find it hard to care.

The man seriously needs to find someone else to do the writing for him, or he just needs to stick to drawing short porn stories. Everything he writes longer than a volume just totally falls apart.

As for the art, art like his is hard to render in animation without a ludicrously huge budget.

I'll bet Kyoani could do it, but I just don't see them ever animating something done by Oh Great.

[Andrew Cunningham]

I would argue both of his manga start out extremely rocky, pulled together a few volumes in and then start becoming epically nuts in highly entertaining way.

[Lego]

Eh. Honestly I find it hard to care.

The man seriously needs to find someone else to do the writing for him, or he just needs to stick to drawing short porn stories. Everything he writes longer than a volume just totally falls apart.

As for the art, art like his is hard to render in animation without a ludicrously huge budget.

I'll bet Kyoani could do it, but I just don't see them ever animating something done by Oh Great.


I actually agree with Fence for once. His art is what makes him popular. Yeah I sound like an ass, but it's true. I'd love to see him do what Tony Taka does and just do the art and let someone write for him.

[Redcoffin]

I would argue both of his manga start out extremely rocky, pulled together a few volumes in and then start becoming epically nuts in highly entertaining way.

Considering your reviews, I think I find less humor in f****d-up-s**t than you do. But then again I'm sitting here late at night posting about Oh! Great, so that may not be saying much...

[Andrew Cunningham]

At least I'm consistent!

[Captain Impulse]

Eh. Honestly I find it hard to care.

The man seriously needs to find someone else to do the writing for him, or he just needs to stick to drawing short porn stories. Everything he writes longer than a volume just totally falls apart.


The man needs to make the switch to writing short hentai OVAs, where his artistic designs could be put to good use. At least there, plot would be irrelevent, and the end result might be enjoyable for a change.

[mrgazpacho]

The man needs to make the switch to writing short hentai OVAs, where his artistic designs could be put to good use. At least there, plot would be irrelevent, and the end result might be enjoyable for a change.


Like Miyazaki and Takahata's Studio Ghibli, he could join with Satoshi Urushihara and create Studio Ecchi :D

[Captain Impulse]

Like Miyazaki and Takahata's Studio Ghibli, he could join with Satoshi Urushihara and create Studio Ecchi :D


If Oh! Great and Urushihara teamed up, I would buy every motherf***ing thing they produced.

[Lego]

I'd love to see a H-manga with them and Taka doing stories. The problem for me is that while Oh! Great's art is amazing at times his story telling falls flat on its face at times(as I posted earlier). With all of that said though if he could somehow start a new serial where he is the creative consultant and ends up drawing the whole thing with a decent author then I'd read it.

[Talyn]

If Oh! Great and Urushihara teamed up, I would buy every motherf***ing thing they produced.


That is what I call the line of the week... lol

[littleharlock]

The man needs to make the switch to writing short hentai OVAs, where his artistic designs could be put to good use. At least there, plot would be irrelevent, and the end result might be enjoyable for a change.


Seriously speaking I think that even such a project would require a good budget and the right team involved (and looking at projects like Urushihara's Front Innocent it seems that a lot of time would be necessary as well)
Then again, they *did* adapt Oh! Great's JUNK STORY into adult animation years ago, so there's still hope left ^_~

However reading through this post I guess I'm in the minority of people that enjoy the art as well as the writing by him. Admitted it's hardly thought provoking nor deeply plotted material, but I consider Tenjou Tenge an enjoyable read and don't think that the storyline really has "fallen apart". Ironically despite having cut back on monthly manga imports (due to limited sparetime to spend on manga reading these days) Tenjou Tenge is one of the titles I still follow whenever Shueisha releases a new Tankoubon (or when I'm in the mood for it and purchase an issue of Ultra Jump) ^_^"
Air Gear on the other hand...well it's not bad but the "purchasing for the art" element is admitted a more important reason for me to follow this work by Oh! Great than in case with Tenjou Tenge.

I'd love to see him do what Tony Taka does and just do the art and let someone write for him.

I'm not really sure how that comparisson can be applied to Oh! Great. Aside from the T2 ART WORKS Doujins which *manga* did TONY actually do?
Do you refer to his work as Bishoujo game character designer?
I'd say that it's less a personal decision for a game artist to "just" do the art for a project rather than...his/her/their job ^_~ In fact there are only a handfull of Bishoujo/Visual Novel gaming artists that I can think of which are involved in the story/scenario writting as well as doing the art (i.e. Masaki Tsuzuki or CARNELIAN are the ones that come to mind).

[Lego]

I'm not really sure how that comparisson can be applied to Oh! Great. Aside from the T2 ART WORKS Doujins which *manga* did TONY actually do?
Do you refer to his work as Bishoujo game character designer?
I'd say that it's less a personal decision for a game artist to "just" do the art for a project rather than...his/her/their job ^_~ In fact there are only a handfull of Bishoujo/Visual Novel gaming artists that I can think of which are involved in the story/scenario writting as well as doing the art (i.e. Masaki Tsuzuki or CARNELIAN are the ones that come to mind).

What I meant is that Tony has put his designs in many games and hentais(is that even plural?). Oh Great's art work is his selling point. I can look at his art and go "yep, that is Oh Great!". Maybe instead of doing a manga or even a hentai(Oh Great does do hentai manga, or did) he would try supplying the visuals while someone else did the story.

[Natsume_Maya]

But the opposite is just as common, where the animators royally **** up the character designs, either through ignorance or excessive haste, or because the manga artist has a style that basically cannot be animated. Oh! Great (Ogure Itoh or whatever his real name is) has such a style.

He seems to be unlucky. Both anime series didn't have great animation. And all his manga has been censored in the West (adult, TenTen and Air Gear).

But I think it's hard to translate great art of any mangaka into anime. Oh! great would have to be animation director himself (as Nipple Urushi does) for it to turn out really well. I think Oh! great would be an excellent director or storyboarder too.

Admittedly, even as a big Madhouse fan, I have to say that production dropped the ball for Tenten...

I mean, the intro looked good, but it's totally different when you step into the show (or look at the promotional art)

Toei's air gear doesn't seem to look much better...

TenTen the anime I find watchable. Air Gear the anime seems to switch between good artwork and terrible artwork.