This book bearing the title of "New Retro" is a collection of illustrations by artists whose style is inspired primarily by the manga comics and anime of the 1980s and '90s.
With its distinctive vivid neons, and pale pastel hues, theirs is a style that is easy to spot. Other clues are lightly drawn lines, the design qualities of the hand-drawn lettering, and motion lines, all stemming from shoujo (girls') and seinen (men's) manga. The artists' choice of motifs is another delight: locations, and clothing for their characters, redolent of the Showa era, or recalling the heady years of the "bubble" economy.
Experimenting with this style has been especially noticeable since the 2010s. It is clearly distinguishable from the computer-game-like design, and bishoujo anime featuring cute young girls, that gained popularity from 2000 onward as "otaku" style. That is to say, it references an earlier time.
Retro crazes that revive styles and formats from the past occur frequently, and are fundamentally based on nostalgia, i.e. a yearning or admiration for a long-gone era.
Yet this "New Retro" is somewhat different in aspect. Obviously, the artists in question do each harbor a certain fondness for the past. Was Japan really a place of such excess in the bubble era, the later Showa years? These artists bring to life in their pictures what is now virtually the stuff of legend. Yet among all the decorative delights, they deliberately mix in other elements, things that were not there in the past, strictly speaking were suppressed, whether that be a certain sort of eroticism, violence, psychological freedom...or apathy.
First and foremost though, they are simply cherry-picking agreeable bits from the archives, so to speak, in a trend unmistakably connected with the now standard use of the likes of pixel art and synthwave in the gaming world. The late Showa and bubble years have become objectified, allowing artists to make choices with a neutral mindset, their options widened by the scope and spread of the internet. This style is now moving beyond a boom to become properly established, which suggests there is more to it than mere generational nostalgia. And therein lies the significance of the "New" Retro.
Sayawaka
Critic / author of manga
