Just thinking, is the art style only symbolic of the universe or is everything actually like that in-universe?
They see themselves like that but that’s also their reality, they don’t know otherwise.
You occasionally get situations when the animators switch the art style every now and then, but the characters still exist in the same universe, so I wonder if the characters wonder why everything looks slightly different.
Inside Out is a great example of just that. While I couldn’t find the scene, here’s an excerpt from tvtropes.com:
*Entering the Abstract Thought Chamber in Inside Out caused the characters to turn into 2D figures with increasingly less defined shapes. *
If I remember correctly, the characters actually acknowledge the shift to less detailed artstyles.
I’m not an authority on this but I believe that objectively a character WILL look like “that” but when viewed subjectively they look like “this”. So, in short, to answer your question: yes, but not really. I hope this helps.
Depends on the author.
Depends on whether the author is breaking the fourth wall or not
