Title: 屍體少女 (loosely Corpse of a Young Girl, I’m not entirely sure the title is Japanese)
Artist: ￦ANKE (@Classic_W_, pixiv.me/user_jmyc2583)
Origin: Unknown, shared on Twitter and Pixiv
I only came across ￦ANKE relatively recently. He (at least, I think it’s a he) is rather low-key on social media, and only shares his drawings once every few weeks. He’s a Korean artist; unfortunately, I cannot read Korean whatsoever so I have no idea what’s his background aside from being the art director of Eight Studio.
The one thing that strikes me about ￦ANKE’s art is the detailed Gothic fantasy composition. Compared with 鵜飼沙樹, whose art is more like those of visual novels, ￦ANKE’s is solidly in the camp of trending mobile games and TCGs, with its emphasis on metal (armors and weapons).
However, what really appealed to me in this illustration is the macabre theme. Outside of guro illustrations, it’s an unspoken rule that moe girls must not be harmed – which only serves to increase the appeal of such “forbidden” artworks. The exposed rib cage and empty cavity is positioned in the dead center; there is no avoiding it even if one were to avert his eyes. The visible bones and the various stitch lines evoke a sense of pain, all the more striking since the girl appears as if she’s still alive given her wide-open eyes. Her deathly white skin and hair contrasts strongly with the black coffin and drape, adding a sense of wonder to the gruesome work.
I did a quick search for Eight Studio artists and found a number of them on Twitter, all of varying levels of quality but nonetheless promising. There seems to be a distinctive character design embraced by these artists; perhaps we are witnessing the emergence of a uniquely Korean anime art style.
moetology 