Nara Yoshitomo's pale colors and simplistic design are instantly recognizable. So too is his use of fluid, curved line. This contributes to the overwhelming watered-down, serene mood pastel colors and swirls indicate. More interesting however, is the subject matter. The object is a child, presumably, with lack of wrinkles and broad, sweeping forehead, baby-like. It is also made, like most of Yoshitomo's work, to be incredibly 'cute'; wide, far-spaced eyes, little nose, chipmunk cheeks and a simple mouth. The head overwhelms body. It is unclear whether it is a girl or boy, but that fact becomes irrelevant- what is more important to notice is that the child is smoking. Moreover, there is an incredible nonchalance to it, the cigarette casually hanging, its soft yellow and white perfectly complimenting the shirt and skin tones. It has the effect ultimately of blurring into one, even the blue of the sky is soft. Once this fact is absorbed, the viewer takes a second glance, noting the eyes. The eyes here claim the ultimate attention, communicating the message rather succinctly: they are narrowed, and hard, not a gleam of light. Though the child is not looking at you, the narrowed eyes, sullen expression of a tight-lipped mouth, crowned with a cigarette- tells the viewer that this is a naughty, naughty child. Perhaps a malicious one. The aura of mischief that could have been relayed by making the mouth a smile becomes one of anger because it is instead a tight line, coming across more angry. The image may be minimalistic, both in design and tone, but it communicates a thunderous message; that of a bitter, bad child smoking a cigarette, either not knowing or not caring about the consequences. This essentially causes the viewer to sense unease, because this is not a common and not a pleasurable sight. Nara Yoshitomo is thus successful in manipulating a sweet image into darker content.
Takashi Murakami's work is also made distinctive by his characteristic cartoon exaggerations/manipulations of the popular D.B. character. In this particular piece, Murakami had distorted D.B.'s face to a face-splitting grin, bearing colorful, sharp teeth- in addition to adding a multitude of disproportional, mismatching and randomly placed eyes above the mouth. The entire head rests on a swooping wave that dissipates once it passes him. The image itself appears discolored, with random streaks and blending colors blossoming across the panels. The initial happiness and light, fun intrigue of the colors and centric, bright animated eye, is turned sour by actually, closely looking at the creature. He is disfigured and bizarre; also prior knowledge of the popular cartoon character and what he ought to look like makes the viewer uncomfortable. But still, the image retains a certain amount of playfulness, the curved lines and bright colors frame D. B. and the image serves instead to perhaps poke fun of the too-cute cartoon character. He almost seems to be melting into the colorful background. Murakami presents a different version of D.B., and certainly a more interesting one.
