> I like anime yet despise certain aspects of it. One thing I can't stand is how someone looks normal (in the big eye/small skull world of anime) then suddenly transforms into a real cartoonish version of themselves for a few seconds (usually when yelling at something). Or how everyone is painstakingly drawn to look like a serious human except for the one comic relief character who looks like he/she stepped out of a cartoon aimed for children between the ages of 5 and 8. For instance, take a look at the cast of Star Blazers (see link). Guess which one is the comic relief.

Yeah, I agree. But that's really a feature of older and less serious anime. I assure you there are no super deformed characters in "Mononoke". Nor are there giant sweat drops. Much of what has come to the US was originally intended for kids, and that's the sort of wacky stuff that'll show up there. Watch some more recent and/or serious anime though, and you'll find this isn't true. Go pick up some "Neon Genesis Evangelion" or "Legend of Escaflowne" (to cite two of the more better recent series) episodes and take a look. Heck, I don't even think heavy weights like "Akira" or "Ghost in the Shell" feature an abundance of what you describe.

Though what you will find in anime is a tendency to mess with art styles on purpose, and often to good effect. One of the best things about animation is that you can highly stylize *everything* and that you can also change this style for certain characters or events if needed. Of course some of them tend to be overused (SD characters, sweat drops, raging blue lines in the background during fight scenes, etc) but at the same time they're pretty recognized and accepted in anime. And I do think that they often have their place (watch "Pokemon" for a good example -- the art in that show is pretty good, and they use pretty much every cliche they can, often in a sort of parody).

Stephen