…dang, what?

I saw the above (official, as far as I know) art of Nami from One Piece and it kinda made me freeze up for a second. Initially it was her anatomy, but when I looked a little longer my mind went holy shit what is wrong with her FACE? The proportions are - to me anyway - incredibly disconcerting. I threw the image into photoshop and sketched over it, adjusting her proportions and face to a more, uh… human look while attempting to maintain the overall aesthetic.

It made me wonder why I noticed her anatomy errors before her facial ones, because I really think there’s more wrong with her face than her body. Is it just because the anime stylization is one I’m so accustomed to that my mind just glosses over strangely-arranged faces? Is this why people can draw in an “anime” style for years, depicting characters with enormous eyes that seem to be melting off of their face, without understanding or noticing that it’s unappealing or strange looking? 

I guess it really is just a matter of preference in the end, but I think there is a good degree of acclimation to this as well. I got so used to accepting the anime look for faces that recognizing errors and things that just shouldn’t look right took me longer than I’d like.