I disagree. I think the whole aesthetic of the original is based on the black lines and I find it looks wonderful that way. In fact, I prefer Chris stylized line widths by far over the lackluster graphics and concept design of "The World Ends With You", because there the black lines really do nothing to back up the form at all. There's tons of examples of good varied line work that could help Chris, but I don't consider TWEWY to be one of them.
I had this feeling I was asking for trouble by using TWEWY; I guess I was right!
I'll rephrase my point: When I look at the animation, the black outline makes me go, "huh?" It looks really good from a short distance, but if I look too closely, all I see is that chunk of black pixels on the back of his head. But, I'll admit, if he were in an environment done in this style, chances are I'd love it. All opinion and context, I suppose. I picked TWEWY because, to me, the hard outlines convey a mood and are representative of the game world. Whether or not the graphics are art or even good, they set the tone of the game. I think I was moments away from asking whether the Chis's black line shading was artistic intent or just a test, but if we start talking about artistic intent then the focus will start shifting away from the WIP. (And we'll all get mad at each other and I'll sound like an idiot. Yay, internet!)
What examples were you thinking of?
A thousand apologies for sounding pretentious, I promise to do better next time and spend more time pixeling than I do C+Cing. 
