Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/08/30/guest-post-why-do-the-japanese-draw-themselves-as-white/

by soyelmango • 16 years ago

186 143 16 years ago

KoZeN• 16 years ago

Just out f curiosity, what kind of people are asking this question?

I've been an anime fan for years and this question has legitimately never crossed my mind despite being cynical and critical of almost every single factual inaccuracy I come across.

Interesting article all the same!

hasenj• 16 years ago

Exactly. I was baffled by the title. Anime characters never ever looked like "white" (Caucasian) people to me.

edanm4• 16 years ago

I had the same question. I didn't think it was a big deal, since I figured that other people ask the question and it just never occurred to me. Then I came across the last sentence of the article:

"Some Americans, even some scholars, will argue against this view of anime. They want to think the Japanese worship America or worship whiteness and use anime to prove it. But they seem to be driven more by their own racism and nationalism than anything else."

After that kind of sentence, I really expect some evidence that someone, somewhere has this view.

senki3• 16 years ago

Look at this: http://www.google.com/search?&q=site:answers.yahoo.com+J...

stonemetal2• 16 years ago

Putting "why are anime characters white" turns up a large number of hits so evidently it is an actual question out there. When the show has giant robots and aliens it never occurred to me to wonder what race the humans were.

stuaxo• 16 years ago

Me too... as he says in the article, the white people are obvious because of their exagerated features... I've never thought the rest of the characters were (well... never found myself wondering about race as I watch them at all really).

brazzy2• 16 years ago

Wehn I was into anime (about 5-15 years ago), it was a very, very common question from any "outsiders" who came into contact with the (then much less mainstream) medium.

ugh2• 16 years ago

The funny thing is that Scott Pilgrim [+] looks Japanese to me even though he is a very Canadian hero.

[+] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Pilgrim

bitwize2• 16 years ago

Scott's eyes in that image resemble those of Link from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. In most drawings of him they are rounder.

Oddly enough -- in 2001 some test footage from Wind Waker was released, showing a Link with some very almond-shaped eyes. The appearance of Link was retooled so they look less almond-shaped and more mukokuseki.

JabavuAdams4• 16 years ago

Me. Yesterday.

Never thought of it this way, either, and I'm not white.

dawgr• 16 years ago

I think I read once that Asian people pay more attention to the eyes than other facial features when they are reading emotions. The hypothesis was somehow based on the fact that the emoticons Asians use tend to mostly show the eyes. Since it's difficult to show emotions on a cartoon, perhaps drawing big eyes started as a way to make it easier for the artist to express anger, happiness,... on what they drew.

They might look whiter than Asian, but it probably has nothing to do with Asians wanting to be white. You can probably test what the OP said by asking a villager in Africa which race those cartoons belong to assuming he's seen an equal share of whites and Asians.

araneae• 16 years ago

Everyone pays attention to the eyes when they are reading emotions. That's why eyes are called "the window to the soul."

jcl• 16 years ago

No, he's right. There is at least one eye-tracking study that shows that people from Asian cultures pay greater attention to the eyes when reading expressions. Relative to the Asians in the study, the Caucasians relied more on other parts of the face.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17605-human-facial-exp...

It's not clear whether it might be influencing different art styles, though.

BobbyH2• 16 years ago

The post makes a good point, but it does overlook the fact that the "Godfather of Anime", Osamu Tezuka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osamu_Tezuka) was heavily influenced by Walt Disney and American animation.

For instance, the Wikipedia article notes: "The distinctive "large eyes" style of Japanese animation was invented by Tezuka, drawing inspirations on cartoons of the time such as Betty Boop and Walt Disney's Bambi and Mickey Mouse."

You can see how Bambi was drawn with large eyes here: http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=bambi

You can see Betty Boop here: http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=betty+boop

You can see Mickey Mouse here: http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=mickey+mouse+classi...

You can compare the style of those eyes to Tezuka's Astro Boy, first published in 1952: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AstroBoyVolume1.jpg

Sukotto• 16 years ago

Those characters have big eyes and foreheads for two reasons.

Firstly, to make them cuter... like babies. All baby humans have proportionally big heads/eyes to the rest of their bodies and we're hardwired to think of those characteristics as simpler, cuter, and deserving of our attention.

Secondly, to give the animator a face that is both simpler and larger which makes it much easier to draw expressions

These two things make it much easier for the audience to relate to the animated character and for the artist to draw it

BobbyH2• 16 years ago

Yeah, in fact, Steven Jay Gould wrote a great article on how "As Mickey became increasingly well behaved over the years, his appearance became more youthful. Measurements of three stages in his development revealed a larger relative head size, larger eyes, and an enlarged cranium--all traits of juvenility." As he puts it, "Humans feel affection for animals with juvenile features."

full article: http://www.monmsci.net/~kbaldwin/mickey.pdf

edanm4• 16 years ago

I once took a Psychology course which had another explanation for the large eyes. Apparently, when humans are sexually aroused, their pupils get larger. This makes people with larger pupils more sexually appealing, leading to all kinds of tricks to making your pupils larger (for example, candlelit dinners; also, in some older civilizations, women used to use eyedrops to make their pupils larger).

All of this leads to people thinking larger pupils look better, and in the case of small cartoon characters, look cuter.

twinwing• 16 years ago

If for any reason you've got safe search off, you've been warned.

eru2• 16 years ago

Nothing too bad appeared.

patio112• 16 years ago

I agree, manga characters are as white as Bambi is.

restruct• 16 years ago

But that doesn't mean that large eyes means white. Black people generally have characteristically large eyes too.

Gotttzsche2• 16 years ago

anime characters clearly aren't black though

stcredzero2• 16 years ago

At one panel, some anthropology academic/author was talking about the influence of "I Dream of Jeanie" and "Bewitched." Since we destroyed a lot of Japanese infrastructure, the cheapest way to broadcast television in Japan for many years was to dub shows from the United States. Supposedly, an entire generation was imprinted with dubbed US TV. The magical girl genre traces its lineage to those two shows.

Combine the Tezuka/Disney influence with this, and the human instinct to regard large eyes as signals of childhood and cuteness, and the result simply makes sense.

In any case, "Asian" features aren't always as pronounced as westerners imagine them to be. There's not that much genetic distance between the so-called races. "Black" in the US is actually a hugely diverse group all by itself. (There was a Newsweek cover that demonstrated this nicely a few years back.)

(The protagonist of Golgo 13 is said to be indeterminately Spanish or Japanese.)

Charuru• 16 years ago

I don't see the connection (and I don't think there is one) between large eyes and white people.

If you look at anime, people of all colors have pretty much similarly sized eyes, white characters or Japanese characters. If the Japanese really perceive white people to have large eyes, then you would expect to see white people in anime to have larger eyes than Asian characters. That's not the case.

Large eyes is a style in anime in general (as Sukotto explained) and has nothing to do with race.

Gotttzsche2• 16 years ago

"If the Japanese really perceive white people to have large eyes, then you would expect to see white people in anime to have larger eyes than Asian characters. That's not the case."

chinese people often have slits for eyes

c00ki3s• 16 years ago

This "article" seems to be very light on basically anything. Especially facts. How much karma does it take on HN to vote things down?

stonemetal2• 16 years ago

You can't vote articles down you can just flag them as not belonging on the site.

powrtoch4• 16 years ago

I was okay with it until here:

It's a red flag when you preemptively declare all of your opponents racists before they've even had a chance to respond.

Maybe someone will disagree for a non-racist reason? Just maybe?

dgabriel4• 16 years ago

It's not racist as in kkk-style, overt hatred of another race, it's more like culture-blindness, or ignorance, or a misplaced belief that one's culture is dominant in an area where it is not.

JabavuAdams4• 16 years ago

Well, that's inflammatory, but what if it's true?

Because it is such an inflammatory statement, it should be better supported, if that was the author's main point, or omitted, if it wasn't.

There's something else at work, though. I think that as soon as many readers read "racist", they mentally shut down as a defence mechanism.

"B ... b ... but it's an axiom that I can't be racist, so any argument that might cast me as racist must be wrong, without further consideration." It's the same thing you're arguing against.

JabavuAdams4• 16 years ago

Bah! Why the scare quotes? You insist on facts, but then don't provide any of your own.

I found the article very interesting. I'm not white. I was raised in and live in a white culture, and interestingly, I make the same assumptions the author attributes to American social conditioning.

It's sad to reject useful or interesting information just because it's not well cited, or perhaps because the author used the dreaded "R-word."

moby_duck• 16 years ago

Agree. The basic premise is that we're all sort of racists, and therefore we think any other generic-looking person is just like us. I don't see much data to support his conclusion.

Also, is this question the same as why do British singers sound like Americans in their songs? Just asking...

dgabriel4• 16 years ago

The assumption of whiteness does NOT make you a racist, any more than the assumption of Japanese-ness makes a person living in Japan a racist. This is not the behavior the author is calling out as racist.

Keyframe• 16 years ago

What struck me as odd in Asia were all the skin whitening products. Even regular cosmetics had "Whitening" plastered over it.

byoung22• 16 years ago

You see a lot of that in the Philippines especially. Everyone wants to be as white as possible, so they carry umbrellas to block the sun, and use whitening lotions and soaps. Contrast that with the US, where people want to be tan, to the point of using tanning salons and spray-on tans.

christonog2• 16 years ago

Yes, I'm Filipino and light skinned, and the first thing people notice about me when I'm there is how light skinned I look. They associate this with beauty. People over there have this obsession with being white, with all the heart throb celebrities looking light skinned and "mestizo," and all the comedians and funny characters looking dark and more malay.

mweatherill• 16 years ago

I had initially assumed that whitening creams were used to create a caucasian look - an idea which I found quite repulsive. When a friend explained that it was to mimic the appearance of the upperclass, whose skin colour contrasted with a labourer's, it began to make sense. When thought of as a status enhancer, it doesn't seem that disimilar to tanning..

brazzy2• 16 years ago

Up to about 100 years ago, this was common in Europe (and probably America) as well: when 90%+ of the populace were poor agriculture workers, white skin was a status symbol. This eventually reversed when most work moved indoors, and a tan became something acquired on vacations.

The open question is why Japan, as dominated by clerical work as any other fully industrialized country, still retains the ideal of white skin. OTOH, it's a generational thing there as well: deep, fake tans are quite popular among school-age girls (and guys).

soyelmango5• 16 years ago

[Edited from one of my comments ( http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/08/30/guest-post-w... ) at the article]

Many people want to show that they have the financial means to enjoy leisure - whether that be because you’re well paid enough to take holidays, or because you employ others. Most of the westernised world aims to get a tan - it shows that we have the means to go to far away sunny places and laze in the sun. Conversely, in Asia, a tanned skin is what you get from labouring outdoors (farming, for example), and so light skin is a sign of a leisurely life.

And if you can’t afford a leisure lifestyle, you can buy the appearance of one in a bottle: fake tan, or skin bleacher.

Jun85• 16 years ago

True, but this is not unique to Asia. In Middle east and parts of Europe I've seen a similar attitudes, especiall towards beauty in women. Also in the US, "redneck" is used as a pejorative term.

marcusbooster• 16 years ago

What about the eyelid surgery that is all the rage?

soyelmango5• 16 years ago

I think this is certainly an example of real people aiming for a western ideal of beauty.

However, a quick google search http://bit.ly/bHOnEC doesn't show a particular bias for double or single eyelids in anime.

slantyyz3• 16 years ago

Yes, and the "best" whitening products are made in Japan. Fair skin is often considered a desirable thing among many of the Asian cultures.

A distinction needs to be made. Most of the Asians using whitening products aim to get the skin to #ffffff, not the color of caucasian skin. Caucasians are a few tints darker than #ffffff.

c1sc0• 16 years ago

#fff would make a great brand-name in a nerdy nonsensical nike swoosh kind of way

nhebb• 16 years ago

When I lived in Korea it was explained to me that farmers and peasants had darker complexions because they were out in the sun all day. Having lighter skin was a matter of class distinction, and it had nothing to do with Western influence.

rada• 16 years ago

That argument strikes me as disingenuous. Being fat used to be a class distinction (poor people couldn't afford to be fat) but it's not popular today. I suspect preference for lighter skin color is more self-racist than people like to portray (even to themselves).

nightlifelover• 16 years ago

Simple because paper is white?

JabavuAdams4• 16 years ago

LOL. Japanese paper is white too ...

soyelmango5• 16 years ago

Your common sense reply shows how easy it is for us to get distracted by issues of race, culture, westernization.

protomyth• 16 years ago

I'm with you. I always thought it was a cost issue and saved you time since you didn't have to fill in the skin tone with ink.

bitwize2• 16 years ago

This phenomenon is acknowledged enough by the Japanese to where it has a name: it's called "mukokuseki" which is Japanese for "no nationality". Basically it amounts to this: characters are drawn in an ethnically neutral way so that they have universal appeal, and it makes it easier to export these media works into foreign markets. Maybe the foreign markets thing was not a concern in Tezuka's early days, but it certainly is now.

lotusleaf19872• 16 years ago

Just a thought, but how is drawing them white ethnically neutral? It seems like something more beige/brown would be, seeing as how most of the world as tan-skinned.

Qu4Z• 16 years ago

I think it's largely because the page is white. How do you color someone beige/brown in a black-and-white medium? Specifically black and white, not grayscale.

A question to you: What is it that makes them drawn specifically white, other than eyes? Is it only the fact that they're on a white background, or is there more there that I am missing.

kingkawn• 16 years ago

cmon, its a little off that when Goku goes super saiyen he turns blond and blue/green eyed, no?

coliveira• 16 years ago

I think it depends on what you consider white. If you are just talking about the color of skin, Japanese are as white as Europeans. In fact, my personal view is that they are closer to white, European's skin color has a pink tone that you can't see on Japanese people.

slantyyz3• 16 years ago

Reminds me of a funny story a professor told me. Back in the days of apartheid, someone told a Japanese friend of his that in South Africa, that he'd have the same status as a "white", to which he retorted "Why would I want to be white?"

patio112• 16 years ago

Relatedly, "Asian" is a category which exists in America a heck of a lot more than it exists in Asia.

(I was helping one of my friends with a grad school application. He got to race, asked me why a school would need to know this -- silly Japanese person, how would we run our racial discrimination departments without sorting you first -- and couldn't find Japanese on the menu so he picked Other. Quote, "The closest I saw was Asian American, but I think that's for Chinese people, right? Whatever, I'm certainly not American.")

philwelch• 16 years ago

Europeans have more pheomelanin than Japanese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheomelanin#Pheomelanin). A clear indicator of this is to check the softer skin tissues, like the lips and nipples. Europeans tend to be pinker in these places, not browner like most humans.

GBond• 16 years ago

I hope part 2 explains why anime villains are almost always drawn to look like girls and assumed male.

shaunfs3• 16 years ago

I have to admit, I always wondered why Naruto was a blue-eyed blonde white kid. This article helped me consider some of my own reasoning. I had just assumed Naruto had characters that reflected a mix of races instead of one race. The last sentence of this article is offensive though. It's a derogatory generalization. Personally it doesn't matter to me what the characters look like and I don't see why someone relating to a character is a negative.

derefr4• 16 years ago

Actually, he's blonde for the same reason that a lot of male ankle protagonists are: because, as an asian teenager, dying one's hair blonde and showing up starkly against a sea of black hair marks you as rebellious--and thus, in Japan especially where "the nail that stands up gets hammered down", gets you treated with a bit more disdain by both peers and elders. For younger kids who feel out of place for all the regular reasons of childhood and pubescence, a naturally blonde-haired character feels like someone they could identify with.

derefr4• 16 years ago

(And, in case anyone is confused: iPhones don't know the word anime.)

pradocchia• 16 years ago

I recommend the author's blog, http://abagond.wordpress.com/

Programmer, West Indian, NYC area, writes 500 words a day on whatever he likes. Also a father. Studied Classical Greek and Comp Sci in college:

People told me studying ancient Greek was a waste of time, but I learned far more about life and the world from the Greeks than from anything in computers.

I read a few posts and enjoyed them all.

Jun85• 16 years ago

I have always pondered this question so I quickly went to the link and was confronted with a really weak and half-baked argument. First, this is not a question of American audiences; I'm not American and love anime but they don't look Japanese to me either.

"The Other has to be marked. If there are no stereotyped markings of otherness, then white is assumed." This may be true but it has very little to do with anime. As others have pointed out (i) anime artists have been influenced by their Western counterparts (anime is not a traditional Japanese art form, you know) and (ii) commercial considerations play a role, i.e. very Japanese looking characters would have less appeal to a large audience.

But forget about that and just think about the argument to see how faulty it is: In its essence it is trying to show how lop-sided white Westerners see the world but it itself is also very prejudiced. Do you think when a Chinese person looks at an anime character they think it's Chinese (because "otherness" isn't marked)? This sort of thinking is typical of a lot of mumbo-jumbo that comes out of English departments under literary criticism. If Japanese didn't have to mark "otherness", why are the characters in traditional Japanese paintings look very Japanese (slanted eyes, hairdo, etc.).

In the end the article states: "Some Americans, even some scholars, will argue against this view of anime. They want to think the Japanese worship America or worship whiteness and use anime to prove it. But they seem to be driven more by their own racism and nationalism than anything else." This is another common tactic: when someone raises a problematic viewpoint, label them as racist, misogynistic, or worse (e.g. see the Summers episode).

How can you explain that a lot of Japanese women go through cosmetic surgery to get rid of the slant in their eyes to make them look more Western? Why is baseball so popular in Japan? Japan has had a long love/hate relationship with the US (and Westerners in general). I'm not saying some form of American idealization is at the heart of anime styles but I think it has definitely influenced it.

EDIT: For similar over the top ideas about race and culture and to see how politicized the debate can be, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controver...

jimbokun7• 16 years ago

"why are the characters in traditional Japanese paintings look very Japanese (slanted eyes, hairdo, etc.)."

So modern anime characters should look more like traditional Japanese paintings?

"How can you explain that a lot of Japanese women go through cosmetic surgery to get rid of the slant in their eyes to make them look more Western?"

Citation? How many is "many"?

"Why is baseball so popular in Japan?"

Because they're better at it now than Americans?

Jun85• 16 years ago

Here's (http://www.bellasugar.com/Jessica-Simpson-Eyelid-Surgery-Pri...) a recent link on how popular double eyelid surgery is in Korea and Japan. I don't have the hard figures but I would guess that this procedure would be much more common in Korea and Japan then in China since these populations are more affluent and were heavily affected by US presence.

As for baseball, most everyone agrees this is a quintessential American game, some authors have even suggested that it reflects the American spirit. To people from other countries it may seem slow and pointless. If you disregard Cuba, which has close ties to US historically, AFAIK the only non-American culture where baseball is very (or even on the average) popular is Japan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball#Popularity_and_cultura...).

Locke16895• 16 years ago

Because they're better at it now than Americans?

Actually, most still agree that the Japanese professional baseball is close but not quite at the level of American major league baseball. The top Japanese players obviously can compete at the top level in the US but most people think that Japan would probably only have enough players for a half-dozen MLB-level teams at the most.

edanm4• 16 years ago

Honestly, Japanese anime characters do not look western to me. They look Japanese, but that's probably because I'm used to seeing them in anime! I don't see how classic Japanese drawings have anything to do with it; different styles of drawing grew up in different cultures, I expect, and not just because of the different look of people from those culture.

As for the baseball question, I don't think it makes much sense. Soccer is popular almost everywhere in the world except in the United States, so it's obviously not a Western thing, and there are other sports highly popular in some countries and not in others. It has more to do with history than with any fascination. For example, cricket and snooker are extremely popular in countries that used to be parts of Great Britain, but that's just history, not any "worship" of England.

brc2• 16 years ago

Small correction : Great Britain refers to the group of islands also referred to as the British Isles. Great Britain is a geographical reference. The full name of the UK is 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'. Hence 'British' is a generic term for anyone from the British Isles, although it tends to be used to describe English people, though technically Welsh and Scottish people are also British. This is similar how 'American' refers to citizens of the United States, even though technically anyone from Alaska to Argentina is American.

So you can't be a former part of Great Britain unless there is some major tectonic activity!

The correct term would be 'former British Colonies', or perhaps, beter still, 'former members of the British Empire' or even 'Commonwealth nations'. Even these have problems because most of the Northeast USA was once part of the British Empire. And, curiously, Canadians never really went for Cricket despite still being in the commonwealth. I guess it's difficult when the fields are under snow for half the year.

Your point stands - cultural traditions can take root in any place, and don't necessarily imply a worship of the parent culture. It probably has more to do with a filling a cultural need with a pre-created product than anything else. You could reverse the trend and ask why so many young people are into the 'import' car scene : which generally means Japanese cars. Is this a worship of Japanese culture or just young people finding that Japanese performance cars are cheaper and more accessible?

elblanco• 16 years ago

> How can you explain that a lot of Japanese women go through cosmetic surgery to get rid of the slant in their eyes to make them look more Western? Why is baseball so popular in Japan?

Double eyelid surgery isn't exactly about making the eye bigger. It's to emphasize a small fold between the eyelid and the Epicanthic fold. It's considered beautiful to see just a small sliver of the eyelid from underneath the fold, and in many East Asians, the fold tends to grow too low. Additionally, as people age, the skin of the fold tends to sag and people may want some of it removed in order to open their eyes up.

From wikipedia "The procedure of reducing or removing epicanthic folds is epicanthoplasty. It is now an extremely rare procedure. Blepharoplasty, however, is not an uncommon form of cosmetic surgery in East Asia. The use of "eyelid glue" or "eyelid tape" (sometimes referred to as "eye glue" or "eye tape") is used to create the appearance of the "double eyelid" by finding a "natural fold" in the eyelid and tucking it in and holding it with an adhesive."

http://waynesword.palomar.edu/images/epican1.jpg

js2• 16 years ago

Originally posted as http://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/why-do-the-japanese-...

mwerty• 16 years ago

isn't it less work?

Arun2009• 16 years ago

What is striking about this entire affair is just how politically incorrect it is to suggest that East Asians want to look White, whereas, say, to suggest that East Asians want to look African would sound merely quaint. Substitute East Asians with any other 'race', and it's the same story.

Man, have we some issues to work through!

derefr4• 16 years ago

I'm going to give what is probably a very contrarian view here: scientific studies show that Caucasian features allow for a higher standard deviation than Asian features. (That is to say, both Asian and Caucasian test groups think two randomly-sampled Asians look more similar than two randomly-sampled Caucasians.)

When you have 10 or 20 characters, and want them to be recognizable at a glance (for brand ownership), even when appearing completely out-of-context alongside characters of similar ages and styles from other series, and even when drawn minimally and potentially badly by a subcontracted art studio--it's logical to make them whatever race has the widest "visual range." It's also logical, for the same reasons, to give them technicolor hair.

jseliger• 16 years ago

Something I learned in a journalism class relates to this: "I'm going to give what is probably a very contrarian view here: scientific studies show that Caucasian features allow for a higher standard deviation than Asian features."

Don't just claim "scientific studies say X;" cite studies Y, Z, and A. I'm not saying that your claim is wrong, but it sounds implausible to me, and I suspect that, if such studies exist, they probably indicate that whites find it easier to differentiate other whites and Asians find it easier to differentiate other Asians (I'd be curious: are such studies done solely in the United States? If so, they'd be worthless).

derefr4• 16 years ago

You're quite right, of course--but I think that, in any case where the person actually has access to a study they mention (and isn't, say, typing this reply on a phone while in gridlock on public transit), they would simply cite it, as it would strengthen their argument at no cost. Thus, you can take any assertion, including mine, that mentions that "studies say", as simply positing that there could be studies of such a type, and exploring the any implications made possible by that assumption.

In this particular case, I believe the best I can give you is that I heard it from a science podcast of some sort.

klipt• 16 years ago

If you want greater variance, why stick to a single subgroup when humanity as a whole will always be more variable?

olavk• 16 years ago

The more a stylized a cartoon character is, thee more it look like you. E.g what ethnicity does this character have: ☺ ? I bet it has the same ethnicity as you!

pbhjpbhj• 16 years ago

>what ethnicity does this character have: ☺ ? I bet it has the same ethnicity as you!

It has no ethnic origin beyond unicode. Just like it has no eye colour, no skin colour (no skin), etc.. Am I weird about this?

I really can't say I've ever thought of a stick figure as coming from a particular place or having a particular identity. But then I don't really identify with a particular location, I'm just happy to be in it in preference to other places.

rubashov2• 16 years ago

I find it more interesting that the female models you see on billboards and such in Japan are distinctly more caucasian looking than the population: rounder eyes, narrower face.

The popularity of actual caucasian models in advertisements is also interesting.

najirama• 16 years ago

This whole thread reeks of nonsensical, "things-we-cannot-say", Politically Correct, bullshit.

Let us call a spade a spade shall we? Asians have a considerable and measurable white bias when it comes to aesthetics.

http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/05/13/asia.wh...

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jul/26/local/me-whitening26

Couple the skin-whitening phenomenon with the double-eyelid surgery explosion with the open-air admission of the Asians' who elect to do these procedures that the so-called "Hellenic" features are more desirable than their own - and you have more than circumstantial evidence for the proposition "The Japanese draw themselves as white."

...And that isn't even mentioning the fact that the characters they draw, by any reasonable appraisal look about as white as Christmas in Nebraska.

If the truth offends your sensibilities, then it is your sensibilities that need adjusting.

lhorie• 16 years ago

>> Asians have a considerable and measurable white bias when it comes to aesthetics.

I'd be inclined to think you're painting targets around bullet holes there. There are procedures/products that are designed to make people look more caucasian, but you can't just ignore everything else and call it a bias. To give an example, the practice of wearing yukatas to matsuris is distinctly non-caucasian and far more common than, say, eyelid surgery.

ianb• 16 years ago

The post features four anime characters. Two of the characters are clearly blonde... and I'm pretty sure this isn't my whiteness just projecting blondeness. Very few Japanese people are blonde. Is it racist for me to notice this?

po2• 16 years ago

This is a nice thought-provoking article.

Pale white skin has a history here in Japan much longer than anime. Look at geisha for example. On the other end of the spectrum, there were Gangaru walking all around tokyo at one point too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganguro

Japanese women especially are well aware of their skin's natural ability to change color and often treat it as a fashion decision.

A heavily tanned caucasian can be much darker than an asian, latino, african american, etc... I think many westerners would be surprised that caucasians don't always have "white" skin if they actually looked around the world with a critical eye.

adlep• 16 years ago

I know for sure that all of the Manga style drawings DO NOT look asian, so there was a marketing element to it. Seems like Japanese creators wanted to make Manga universal and appealing to everybody - and of course they were successful at it. So, rather than drawing asian looking characters, they have created a "universally appealing" characters. This is equal to "bigger audience".

DannoHung• 16 years ago

I am seriously disappointed with how the skin tone issue was blown off in about half a sentence. I understand that there is great variability in Japanese ethnic skin tone, but it seems like the majority of Japanese have a dusky skin tone while the majority of anime characters have a very pale skin tone.

c00p3r• 16 years ago

Cat-like faces or baby-style faces - big eyes, small nose, triangle-shaped with small chin. Everywhere in the world children love kittens. There is no deep psychological, let alone political influences.

bluedanieru• 16 years ago

Counterpoint: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2007/11/07/2003999607...

inboulder• 16 years ago

This doesn't explain or even address why the Japanese favor 'large round eyed' actors in ads for beauty products, why darker skinned Japanese women are not featured on TV, and why the current depictions of beauty in Japan eschew many traits common to classical Japanese portrayals of beauty.

It is glaringly obvious that European ideals of beauty have enormously affected the Japanese aesthetic, especially including anime; almost any Japanese person you meet will readily admit to this, to claim otherwise takes willful ignorance.

Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

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