white people in japanese animation

it was ok till the end

 

I find that odd too. Some japanese anime will portray certain 'regular' (Japanese) people as blond haired with curly locks. Usually the blond hair either portrays the character as either 'wealthy', 'elegant' or (less often) 'ditzy' -- with no indication made that they're more likely Americans or Europeans. Blue eyes though, American. Though only a minority of Americans have blue eyes.

 

Feh, I've seen that sort of argument before. It seems more or less a projection thing. As the article, and many others like it, states, anime characters don't resemble any real humans (the big eyes, short, long noses, funky hair colors, etc). If white people see anime characters as white, then they have a screwed up notion of what a REAL white human looks like. Same thing for the Japanese side of the coin; I haven't met anyone of Japanese, Chinese, North and South Korean, or Vietnamese that has those large, orbish eyes, those funky hair colors (naturally), and some of the other trademark characteristics of your average Anime character. Even in older Anime such as Outlanders, Lupin the 3rd, and Dragon Ball, the animation style didn't hint much to specific nationality. Voice actors, I think, have a heavy impact on how the audience views the characters.

 

I'll agree with you on all accounts but the older animes, Lupin had a very English if not western flavor to it and so did it's characters, save for the samurai of which I cannot remember his name and at least in my opinion DBZ has more of a Asian appeal to chracters.

Though obviously neither are really human looking.

 

Well, when referring to the older Animes, I was referring to the shapes of the bodies, faces, and eyes (sorry, I know that wasn't clear). Although, looking back, there does appear to be a little more western influence with Lupin than I remembered, but the animation still has the big eyes thing going on, as well as oddly shaped noses (and not to mention the oddly proportioned bodies in regards to the arms and the legs).

And I'll agree that DB, DBZ, and DBGT had a more Asian appeal to the characters, but I have trouble seeing that appeal solely in the animation style.

 

agreed

 

I find it odd that Super Saiyans in DBZ are blonde haired blue eyed.

 

Oh you know those aryans, they have to be the supreme of the supreme

 

Since when did animation have to portray real life, western or eastern?

You can't exactly say the simpsons look real.

 

I know it's really strange.

Same goes for main characters, Ichigo and Naruto.

 

Actually, I think the reason is simple.

Japanese people ARE "white," at least in terms of skin tone. They're not Caucasian, but that doesn't mean they're not white. The two should not be confused.



There are Caucasians with darker skin than this, and they're still called "white." Japanese are lighter-skinned than most Asian peoples.

The only thing that people typically think of distinguishing Japanese from others would be slanted eyes, and the slant exists to varying degrees (it's not ubiquitous, and it's usually exaggerated in our depictions of Japanese people). There are some Japanese who could be mistaken for a short white person with dark hair and dark eyes, although it's not common.

Also, light skin and rounder eyes are considered attractive features in Japan, but not due to western influence. Human beings find round eyes attractive instinctively (like on babies and cats), and light skin represents that a person hasn't been working out in the elements, and is thus fairly wealthy. Those features were considered to be attractive before they'd ever seen a European. If anything, Western influence has made tanning more popular.

Also, not all Caucasians have round eyes... often, they're flat and narrow instead. We just don't have slanted eyes, that doesn't mean our eyes are usually round.

 

If it's a "slice of life" manga (typically black and white in manga), all the characters will be Japanese, so they would all have black hair and more or less the same skin tone. A way of setting the main characters apart is giving them a different (lighter) hair color/pattern. So, the hair 'color', as it were, is presented on the comic page in a pixelated pattern instead of solid black.

Of course, on the front covers of manga or in anime which unlike 99% of manga are in color, you see the characters with blue/orange/blonde hair and colorful eyes.

Back before color manga and anime though, I think the different hair color eventually turning into the Western affect a lot of main characters have these days, was originally a way to set them apart from the background of black-haired non-essential role characters.

 

Another thing -

In a lot of RPG games, you'll get characters who have special powers like fire, water, ice... if you think about it, their hair color will frequently correspond with their ability.

Carrying that idea over to anime, a character's hair color may be a physical manifestation as to what his/her innate temperment is like.

 

I never thought of anime charachters as "white" or not. I thought of them as not American. The first anime I was exposed to was the dub of Sailor Moon. The bowing and taking off shoes before entering a home was a big give away. When I saw that I knew we weren't in Kansas anymore? Plus allllll the student aged people were in uniforms. As a kid, I knew not everyone wore uniforms to school. So yeah, it was more of a culture thing than a skin tone thing for me.

 

You were a very observant child.