How come Japanese anime/video games all use white characters?

[AcousticDoc]

One thing that has been on my mind is why anime and companies like nintendo, konami, capcom and etc all use white characters instead of asian characters. Imagine how strange it would be in America if all the children's saturday morning cartoon all started using Asian characters.

[kwak76]

I watch allot of anime and Japan does use allot of white looking characters. You rarely see a black looking character or even a Indian looking one.

It depends on the Anime. Anime that is base in Japan uses Japanese character but if it is more Science fiction or fantasy it has allot of white characters.

One of the biggest hits in Japanese Anime is Full Metal Achemist. The main characters are the Eric brothers who are white. In matter of the fact I think most of the characters are white. The anime is consider fantasy.

Another big hit out of Japan is Naruto. Most of the characters in Naruto have Japanese name and some of them look Japanese but the main character has blue eyes and blond hair.

Now does this mean that Japanese people worship white people? Not really , I think what Japanese people are doing is that white people have more various looks. White people have blond hair, brown and black hair..
so I think in some ways they go for that.

Overally will this have an effect on Japanese children. I don't know.

[theme]

To the Japanese, there are only 'Japanese' and 'Foreigners'. So, weird as it may seem, these characters with blonde hair and blue eyes or blue hair with green eyes really are how the japanese choose to represent themselves. There isn't a concept of 'Asians', 'Blacks', 'Caucasians' etc. There is just 'us' and 'them' so any anime character is a japanese character unless otherwise noted.

[nskripchun]

One of the biggest hits in Japanese Anime is Full Metal Achemist. The main characters are the Eric brothers who are white. In matter of the fact I think most of the characters are white. The anime is consider fantasy.


I think it's because FMA it supposed to take place in a fantasy world somewhat equivalent to 19th or 18th century Germany - hence, the propensity of white folks.

[I Eat Baby Seals]

I think one of the reasons they represent all their characters as white, with big eyes was due to the influence of American cartoons during the post-war period (I remember a blurb about this before some anime movie I saw...can't remember which one). Betty Boop, for instance, had a big impact on the development of anime, as silly as that sounds. Furthermore, the wildly colored hair was a way to distinguish one character from another and the large eyes was a way to denote innocence and 'goodness.' That and an unhealthy inferiority complex vis a vis Caucasians.

[Dimeron]

well, as someone who does watch some Anime, no, not all characters are white.

Take the popular ones like Naruto, the main character has blond hair and blue eyes, but over half of the characters in there look somewhat, if not, very Asian.

Other ones like YuYu Hakusho, pretty much every character looks Asian.

Some anime though, like Full Metal Alchemist and some fantasy ones, are suppose to based on fantasy Europe (like Lord of the Rings), so it is not really surprise that they are all white, given they have European names.

I think the reason why a lot of those characters resemble white people is mostly due to their hair and eye color, which is a style more than anything. Asian facial features are harder to express with ink outlining and 2d coloring. Take FF advent children for example, all the main characters in there look very Japanese in term of facial features, even though Cloud still have blue eyes and blonde hair. But if you have seen the movie, it is very obvious that Cloud is Asian.

[Makulita]

I'm halfway with Dimeron on this. I've also one of those Narutards and anime fans in general and I've seen this argument way too many goddamn times.

As a historical anime fan speaking, anime was influenced by the huge-eyed characters like Betty Boop and Bugs Bunny. And that the fact that characters now come with pink, blue, green and "blonde" haircolors is that back in the day everyone had black hair in the manga but they noticed that it made the page look, overall, blotchy, unattractive and hard to properly follow the story panel to panel so they added in textures (like gray shading) to help lessen the blotchiness and make it easier to also distinguish characters from one another. Haha, there's no racism present here silly noobs, I'm totally color blind! Really! My wife is Japanese!

As the general, white boy, uninformed about their own privilege anime fan, alot of these anime and video game characters are white. There's no denying that in my world blonde hair, blue eyes = white person. Look! Even their eyes aren't slanted enough to my perception as to what constitutes as Asian features! They have the folds drawn in! Their noses are straight and aren't sinking into their flat faces! Who the fuck cares about black people being portrayed, because its just like over here in America, the only people who get to do all the cool shit are whites~ <3 The Japanese must really love white people. And whoa, I'm not racist either! I mean, I like Asian girls, especially Japanese chicks. I'm gonna be an English Teacher over there some day!

As a newly awakened male political activist trying to find their peace through the chaos, its a shame that the Japanese are so whitewashed and so into white-worshipping. I've never done that. At all. Hahaha. Man, despite I'm far from being a qualified Japanese history scholar, I can say that the Japanese are super ashamed of being themselves and they have this mentality to mimick those who have beaten them and who they see as vastly superior to them. Its true, I looked it all up through Google and Wikipedia articles, these are my sources and they're totally certifiable. All Japanese chicks are complete, irredeemable CCBS, they need to be sent to reeducation camps or to my bedroom.

As a person with an artistic background with a political slant, on some level the Japanese realize that those who have the Japanese names with or without that fantasy setting, despite their color scheme are Japanese regardless. Their names are in Japanese, they act like Japanese and obviously they’re speaking in Japanese. Those in America nitpick about this way too much because all that multiculturalism is staring them in the face. I bet the Japanese are just refusing to conform to what the rest of you think they should represent themselves as. Trying to comply would be like artistic suicide, why should I as an artist be so subjugated to the rules of reality that you subscribe to? You think blonde-hair is exclusive to only you white people? I think not, especially now that we have hair dyes. But its okay, I don’t expect you to understand because racism is such an ugly thing that you never really bother to look at it, do you? I’m better than you because I’m not as naïve about racism as you.

^ There, see all that? Those are all the arguments ever. BAM.

[silkie]

<SNIP>

^ There, see all that? Those are all the arguments ever. BAM.

<Takes Makulita's temperature>
<Look at thermometer>

Lady are you ok?

;D

In all seriousness, I think you've raised an interesting point about the black and white colorbalance of the panels. Never thought of it that way, but it makes perfect sense.

[little mixed girl]

i believe that to the ppl watching the shows the characters are japanese if the show is set in japan and they have japanese names regardless of purple hair or green eyes.

you also have to realise that anime geared towards kids: pokemon, naruto, dragon ball z, etc is different from shows geared towards older ppl.

young kids like colors, they like things that flash, they like action.

i was watching a show the other day and a dude was dying his hair blue. he said "i dye my hair any color except black, black is boring."

i'd say spend less time focusing on drawings and focus on live-action shows.
the characters in those shows usually have black hair or dyed brown hair. you don't get ppl with huge unnatural looking eyes.
you do get girls with annoyingly high voices though.

[Harangue]

I bet the Japanese are just refusing to conform to what the rest of you think they should represent themselves as.

Excellent point.

When little children draw self-portraits at an early age, they usually follow the same pattern: circular face, two dots for eyes, some kind of indicator for a nose, and a smiley face. It is only when racist indoctrination sets in that "ethnic" children are forced to draw their eyes in slants or otherwise caricaturish features. White children are allowed to continue to see themselves in the most default and natural way possible, whereas ethnic children are forced to used modifiers in order to signal their differentiation from the norm (just like a big yellow Star of David on their face).

To the Japanese, drawing their characters with big eyes is no more a repudiation of their race than for the Americans to draw their Simpsons characters as yellow. However, to a world that demands its non-Whites to distinctly identify themselves and know their place, this kind of race-free thinking is annoying, and perhaps even threatening. What would happen if the Asians pulled themselves out of their pigeon-hole? Oh god, the horrible possibilities...

That being said, I don't quite know how you can take an anime character with green hair, blue saucer eyes, and a needle for a nose and proclaim him or her to be White. The only reason this happens is because since the character is not signified to be Asian (aka "slitty eyes"), it must belong to the default light-skinned race: the Whites. It's the same principle with people saying that somebody like Kristin Kreuk looks White because she's not distinctly Asian. I don't know about you, but I don't know ONE White person who looks like her. But in an Asian-White dichotomy, the absence of any blatant racial identifications means that the person is White. This is a Western way of thinking, and it doesn't work everywhere in the world, though its proponents believe it to do so.

[yellowdawg]

You guys make excellent points, however, I do think that there is *some* affinity towards "white" features. You can see this in video games, where many Japanese developers create white protagonists.

[Harangue]

You guys make excellent points, however, I do think that there is *some* affinity towards "white" features. You can see this in video games, where many Japanese developers create white protagonists.

There is a marketing standpoint as well, in that many video games are meant for the international market. Asian buyers don't particularly mind what the ethnicity of their game characters are, but White buyers might (I don't think there's any proof of this, but I can picture a Japanese exec with an inferiority complex automatically assuming that a distinctly Japanese hero won't appeal to Western audiences).

[Makulita]

Unless its for a game like Onimusha.

... Actually, even then because of fucking Tom Cruise and his Last Samurai bullshit.

[evil_FUX]

There is a marketing standpoint as well, in that many video games are meant for the international market. Asian buyers don't particularly mind what the ethnicity of their game characters are, but White buyers might (I don't think there's any proof of this, but I can picture a Japanese exec with an inferiority complex automatically assuming that a distinctly Japanese hero won't appeal to Western audiences).

Wait, I just got lost since I haven't been reading this thread for a long time, bt didn't you just agree with the underlying point that some of the other posters were making that, there is a bias towards, at least utilizing, western features within video games. I mean I'm sure one can make the distinction that yeah it's a difference between strictly a marketing issue versus something embedded in the culture...but couldn't one argue that because it's so embedded the fact that it even becomes a marketing issue at all shows somem evidence that there is a propensity towards White features? And to expand that shows the influence of power of the Western world over others?

[Harangue]

Wait, I just got lost since I haven't been reading this thread for a long time, bt didn't you just agree with the underlying point that some of the other posters were making that, there is a bias towards, at least utilizing, western features within video games. I mean I'm sure one can make the distinction that yeah it's a difference between strictly a marketing issue versus something embedded in the culture...but couldn't one argue that because it's so embedded the fact that it even becomes a marketing issue at all shows somem evidence that there is a propensity towards White features? And to expand that shows the influence of power of the Western world over others?

I don't quite get what you're trying to say, but my argument was that anime characters only appear White to those who have grown up with the belief that the unchanged, child-drawn "default" face is inherently White (for example, this face: :) ) When Asian children make self-portraits at an early age, they don't draw their eyes with "apostrophe marks", until Western society tells them to do so in order to identify themselves as being deviants from the norm. I think, to some people, the lack of racial signifiers in anime is deeply unsettling because it blurs the most superficial distinctions amongst races: some people are very interested in keeping a rigid racial hierarchy.

But also, I think just sheer boredom has to be accounted for. Game developers have some crazy imaginations, and they don't want to be trapped in Japan all the time. Like many people, they probably find European mythology/fantasy very interesting; should they be barred from exploring their creativity just because they're Asian? And some White protagonists, like Mario, are borderline offensive, don't you think? How would the Japanese feel if some Italian game company made a game revolving around a chubby little Japanese milkman who uttered stereotypical phrases?

[Ike]

I don't quite get what you're trying to say, but my argument was that anime characters only appear White to those who have grown up with the belief that the unchanged, child-drawn "default" face is inherently White (for example, this face: :) ) When Asian children make self-portraits at an early age, they don't draw their eyes with "apostrophe marks", until Western society tells them to do so in order to identify themselves as being deviants from the norm.

Well first off, my suitemates have been playing a lot of Japanese video games, and I think the characters are pretty undoubtedly Japanese, even the ones who are supposed to be white. (Think Hitomi in Dead or Alive - she's supposedly German with a name like that?)

Really the only thing that could make the characters "white" is hair color, which I think is just used to differentiate characters because it's easy.

When I was a kid I never drew myself with squinty eyes in portraits. What was I supposed to be squinty in comparison to?

I did, however, draw myself with purple hair, because I noticed that my hair had a more purplish undertone, as opposed to my cousin's and my sister's hair, which was more blueish.

And my skin was always orange instead of yellow.

[Somnio]

Early on when manga was being created, darker and lighter shades of hair color were used in order to tell characters apart more easily. This also carries over into anime, where the facial features tend to be very similar for the majority of characters depending on the artist. So different hair colors and eye colors are used.

Ike also makes a good point. To many native Asian people, their eyes aren't "squinty" or slanted. To say this would mean they were always comparing themselves to white people.

Now, we also can't fall into the trap of thinking that everyone who dyes their hair or wears contacts is trying to be white. In countries where everyone has dark hair and eyes, some people just flat out want to look different.

Now, there ARE cases when figures and traits are clearly altered to make characters (or even real-life celebrities) appear white. But to say that all characters are created in the white image gives white culture too much credit in this particular area.

Also, someone mentioned video games. It was only fairly recently that designers were effectively able to design characters with Asian traits. But now I can list many characters who are clearly generated from Asian models. And many of them are extremely popular.

[RebelAzn]

I play Tekken 5 and there are many Asian looking characters.

Also Western media makes it sound it that Asians that get eye surgery in Asia all want to look white. The truth of there are plenty of Asians with double eyelids and that's considered more attractive for whatever reason. The people that don't have double eye lids probably did the surgeries to look more like the ones that have it.

Of course, there are millions of fake blonds out there but white people aren't making a huge deal of that.

[Harangue]

Also Western media makes it sound it that Asians that get eye surgery in Asia all want to look white. The truth of there are plenty of Asians with double eyelids and that's considered more attractive for whatever reason. The people that don't have double eye lids probably did the surgeries to look more like the ones that have it.

Well said. It takes an over-inflated ego to assume that everybody wants to be like you.

[CJF]

FULL metal alchemist is supposed to take place in Germany and the main characters are supposed to look white...but look more Hapa.

Actually, the anime characters look hapa. That's why some people say I look like an anime character because of blend of east and west.

But anyways, the girls loved the most Asian looking character in FMA, in Roy Mustang ;)

[takedown]

Anybody ever wondered maybe it's because more salient features are easier to draw?

It is quite difficult to capture emotions on flat medium with softer feautures....