| You should read about Mukokuseki. It's really interesting. Also I remember watching a video where someone asked japanese people in the street if for them anime characters were japanese and I think most of them said yes. lol anime characters have traits that are white, like green eyes, and blonde hair, traits that very VERY few Asians have. They also have pink hair sometimes. It's so people can differentiate characters more easily I guess. |
 Life is a despicable endurance race |
| i mean i could write an entire essay on why anime characters look the way they do and why they're still considered to be japanese regardless of their crazy hair colors and gigantic eyes, but that would take too much time and effort, so i'll just give you the most basic answer: unless otherwise stated, all anime characters are just seen as japanese by default in japan. so, the best way to differenciate if they are white or asian would be due to one of the following: -if the character explicitly states they are of a different ethnicity -if the character speaks in a japanese foreigner accent -the anime takes place in america, england, etc. -the character has a non-japanese name -the character has blonde/yellow hair in an anime that only has characters with natural hair colors (ex. tamaki from ouran, who is half japanese and half french) obviously there are exceptions to these rules, as anime is a generally weird and inconsistant medium, but these are really the only ways to assume if they are white since japanese people see anime characters as japanese by default. |
| As a rule of thumb I just go by their name unless stated otherwise, like if someones half Japanese or something. |
| Who cares? Regardless of ethnicity anime girls are equally fuckable. |
  ♡ Harder Daddy ♡ |
| Im pretty sure the character designers or character illustrator aren't caring about race here unless thats relevant towards the lore of the universe and even then it doesn't seem to always even effect the character design when I look at Swedish/Scandinavian characters who don't really look exactly like the people from my own country    Yeah sure these characters are white people inspired yet don't look any different from regular characters Whats probably on the mind of the artists is whether or not the design stands out or fits the theme of the character's personality if you really want to be able to tell if a character is white or asian the anime will most likely let you know the characters ethnic background for whatever reason and if not should just assume the character is asian unless non asian name Swear Nih. Everything isn't about race so why care about being able to tell the difference Another way of telling Id guess if a character is white or not is if Asia even exists within the anime I could be wrong but pretty sure no character in Claymore is supposed to be asian  But even if Asia exists its not hard to tell Japan doesn't care if its not important Just look at the cast of To Love Ru  I mean you have at least 4 different planet humanoid races with white skin who all look to be similar to the Japanese characters despite being born on different planets and even if we looked at the population of each planet they are from they'd look more or less the same to the population despite planet geographic matters another example of race not mattering that much when it comes to character design I think of The Four Gods of the Earth from Shana who are native Americans  Yet the ones with a darker complexion don't really look any different from Khamsin who is Egyptian therefore middle eastern asian unlike them  Does Atem really look Egyptian despite darker skin  The list just goes on and on about how the physical appearance doesn't truly reveal anything since its not important unless the authors make it important which it would seem they don't do |
DeknijffNov 23, 2019 5:33 PM
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| The argument that anime character is white because they have blonde/yellow hair is dumb. Anime character also has pink,purple,green hair color etc. It's just to let audience have easier time differentiate the hair color. That's all really but I guess it somehow flatter clueless westerner who are full of oneself. |
| It doesn't matter if you like LoGH,Monster etc.If you are a jobless or college/school dropout living in your mom basement, you are still an unintelligent loser. Taste in anime does not make you a better person. |
| If a character is white, it's probably going to be pointed out, so if the setting doesn't make it obvious then the story itself will. There's no real reason we need to put on our detective hats for this, we don't need to play Sherlock as we deduce who is white in a Japanese high school, or who's white in an anime set in New York. Context and narration is where you're supposed to learn about this, artstyle has always been incredibly unreliable as a basis |
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| I have come to the conclusion that they are just asian characters who look white for some reason |
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| Anime tends to use a lot of visual shorthand to differentiate characters' races. Aside from the blindingly obvious (black people are black!), of course. Your average, everyday anime character is Japanese by default. Because obviously. Americans/Europeans tend to have blond or light brown hair with blue green eyes. And if the look doesn't sell it, they'll typically be louder, more boisterous, and/or more outspoken and friendly than surrounding characters. Characters from southeast Asia or India will have a tanner complexion with straight black hair (or, to differentiate them from Japanese people, dark purple or dark blue hair). They will often be more reserved or, weirdly, attuned to nature. Because of course...? Black people are black. And also surprisingly (and refreshingly) devoid of any single personality type. Chinese and Korean people will often have more obviously-slanted eyes and slightly darker complexions, because baked-in (sometimes unconscious) generational animosity. And they tend to be shiftier or more manipulative, when the author is openly showing their disdain for those countries. |
 This glorious signature image was created by @Mayumi! I am the Arbiter of Absolute Truth, and here is my wisdom: "Anime was always influenced by the West. This is not news. Shoujo is the superior genre primarily aimed at young people. Harem/isekai are lazy genres that refuse any meaningful innovation. There is no 'Golden Age.' There will always be top-shelf anime. You should be watching Carole & Tuesday." |
RealTheAbsurdist said: The character won't appear white because being white is literally defined as having light skin tone. Also, it's east Asians specifically that have lighter skin tone; southeast Asians don't share this trait as much, and south Asians even less so.Nubiellee said: You should read about Mukokuseki. It's really interesting. Also I remember watching a video where someone asked japanese people in the street if for them anime characters were japanese and I think most of them said yes. lol They also have pink hair sometimes. It's so people can differentiate characters more easily I guess. If anime characters only had unnatural hair and eye color, like pink hair and purple eyes, then yeah, I'd get it. But that's not the case. I don't think the Mukokuseki argument makes any actual sense. Let's say I draw an anime character with very dark skin, nappy hair, dark hair and eyes. Does the Mukokuseki argument really hold weight here? Nobody in their right mind will assume this character is white or Asian: they'll assume this character to be black, because that's exactly how the character looks. Dark skin may be associated with many other races, but the nappy hair is very much an African trait. In your description, dark skin, dark hair, and dark eye color are all relatively generic -- based on these traits one could guess various south Asian and Pacific Islander and south American ethnicities as well as African. The only (relatively) distinctively African trait you named is "nappy hair". (Also, any setting with fictional races basically doesn't count.) Mukokuseki is basically an acknowledgement that when drawing people in an anime style it's often that details like eye shape, nose shape, lip shape, and so on are drawn in ways that aren't meant to (and often don't) reflect reality in the first place, so they essentially become meaningless for determining race/ethnicity. Considering that people often use precisely these traits to figure out someone's race, it's kinda important to understand that these traits are basically meaningless when they're already altered to look unrealistic, especially with the result that characters of a variety of races may very well end up looking similar to each other with regards to these traits. This leaves hair style, hair color, eye color, and skin color. Hair style in anime is generally straight or in some cases wavy. Sometimes you can barely even tell because it's short. Other times they just use silly unrealistic hairstyles like drill hair. The only thing that's rare is afros. Hair color is the realm of "let's basically do anything we want". So is eye color. And then you're left with skin color, which if you want to infer something, gives you some vague guesses at race, but isn't definitive by itself. So you can try to read race into a character based on their appearance, but often times you don't even have the proper information, so what you read into it might not be meaningful (nor intentional). You have unrealistic eye/nose/lip shapes, generically straight hair, unrealistic hair colors, unrealistic eye colors, and then skin color which is commonly of a lighter shade. Fundamentally, you're not looking at a real-life person. Even if they do look like a certain race, it's just your reacting to a certain set of designed traits. Sometimes this reaction is intentional, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes some shows will use really blatant trait combinations to say "hey this person is Anglo/west-European" (e.g. yellow hair, straight hair, blue eyes) or "hey this person is black/African" (e.g. dark hair in afro, prominent lips), but these are gonna be those times where they're intentionally trying to play to a phenotype stereotype. Most of the rest of the time, anime just isn't designed to give you information by which to read implications of people's race. It's just not the intention of the character designs. If race is a meaningful trait in the story, then it's often indicated by some other context, in addition to (or sometimes entirely instead of) phenotypical traits. |
GlennMagusHarveyNov 23, 2019 9:35 PM
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
| Well.... with blonde Japanese characters: *sometimes the eyes are brown instead of blue or green. But not always. With blonde non-Japanese characters: Sometimes the girl's breasts are bigger. But not always. (School Rumble was one show that did that) There's no way to tell, honestly. If you compared Rosette, an American anime character to the Japanese girls of Sailor Moon? There's really no difference. They all have blonde hair and blue eyes and the complexions are the same shade of light pink. |
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| I don't think there's a way to always tell what characters are white and what characters are Asian. Most anime make it obvious by verbally stating it like 'oh have you heard about ____ I heard he came from America this year'. But sometimes (mostly in anime with more mature themes) it's shown through hair and eye colours. For example in Banana Fish Eiji is the only guy with actually black hair and eyes because he's Japanese. The only other people with black hair and eyes are the Chinese which makes sense. The same is true for Black Lagoon, you can tell which characters are Asian or white from their skin, hair and eye colour but it's definitely easier if their nationality gets verbally addressed at some point in the series. It's hard to tell because some anime use such colourful palettes for everyone and you end up getting Japanese characters with naturally purple hair and bright green eyes. Unless it's obvious from the setting or addressed in the anime I just assume they're Japanese |
marinara-sauceNov 23, 2019 9:46 PM
RealTheAbsurdist said: They aren't meant to "look Japanese"; they're just Japanese by inference or contextual information.Peaceful_Critic said: The hair and eyes are fantasy-like in color in a lot of anime, so that's not the best way to tell. ^This The character you listed was in a show where colors like purple or green were also in the cast's hair. The other characters not having colors that are natural is a clue that it's not going to be faithful to the ethnicity of the character. Even the facial features aren't exactly human with a total lack of nose or lips and the features that do exist are exaggerated. GlennMagusHarvey said: The character won't appear white because being white is literally defined as having light skin tone. Also, it's east Asians specifically that have lighter skin tone; southeast Asians don't share this trait as much, and south Asians even less so. In your description, dark skin, dark hair, and dark eye color are all relatively generic -- based on these traits one could guess various south Asian and Pacific Islander and south American ethnicities as well as African. The only (relatively) distinctively African trait you named is "nappy hair". (Also, any setting with fictional races basically doesn't count.) Mukokuseki is basically an acknowledgement that when drawing people in an anime style it's often that details like eye shape, nose shape, lip shape, and so on are drawn in ways that aren't meant to (and often don't) reflect reality in the first place, so they essentially become meaningless for determining race/ethnicity. Considering that people often use precisely these traits to figure out someone's race, it's kinda important to understand that these traits are basically meaningless when they're already altered to look unrealistic, especially with the result that characters of a variety of races may very well end up looking similar to each other with regards to these traits. This leaves hair style, hair color, eye color, and skin color. Hair style in anime is generally straight or in some cases wavy. Sometimes you can barely even tell because it's short. Other times they just use silly unrealistic hairstyles like drill hair. The only thing that's rare is afros. Hair color is the realm of "let's basically do anything we want". So is eye color. And then you're left with skin color, which if you want to infer something, gives you some vague guesses at race, but isn't definitive by itself. So you can try to read race into a character based on their appearance, but often times you don't even have the proper information, so what you read into it might not be meaningful (nor intentional). You have unrealistic eye/nose/lip shapes, generically straight hair, unrealistic hair colors, unrealistic eye colors, and then skin color which is commonly of a lighter shade. Fundamentally, you're not looking at a real-life person. Even if they do look like a certain race, it's just your reacting to a certain set of designed traits. Sometimes this reaction is intentional, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes some shows will use really blatant trait combinations to say "hey this person is Anglo/west-European" (e.g. yellow hair, straight hair, blue eyes) or "hey this person is black/African" (e.g. dark hair in afro, prominent lips), but these are gonna be those times where they're intentionally trying to play to a phenotype stereotype. Most of the rest of the time, anime just isn't designed to give you information by which to read implications of people's race. It's just not the intention of the character designs. If race is a meaningful trait in the story, then it's often indicated by some other context, in addition to (or sometimes entirely instead of) phenotypical traits. I feel like arguments presented contradict themselves if anime characters aren't mean to look Japanese, why are they Japanese? It's like drawing a horse, albeit a very exaggerated horse, then claiming it's a duck within the context of the story; it makes literally no sense. It's like drawing a really weird square, that looks all squiggly, then saying it's a circle, because, "it looks really exaggerated so it can be anything, but the story says it's a circle, therefore it's a circle." How can a Japanese person look at the MC of Sailor Moon, and honestly think, "They look Japanese"? If a blonde haired blue eyed person cosplay as the character, then yeah, they look way more like the character than a Japanese person cosplaying as the character (unless the Japanese cosplayer has natural blonde hair and blue eyes, which is nearly impossible). So, like, here's a character with pink hair and ruby-red eyes, who lives in Japan and doesn't present any information to say that they're not from Japan. By inference, they're Japanese. Particularly when their friend at school has green hair and purple eyes and otherwise shares the same cultural context. RealTheAbsurdist said: Yeah, that'd be an example of going for a specific phenotype stereotype.@GlennMagusHarvey In my hypothetical character design, the dark skin may not be exclusive to Africans, but the nappy hair is, thus, the design clearly indicates the character is African. |
GlennMagusHarveyNov 23, 2019 10:38 PM
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
| The only way I differentiate characters by their race is through their names. There are plenty of Japanese characters with blonde hair and vice versa. Some Japanese characters that originally had black hair but dyed their hair blonde. Like these guys: And of course, there are the haafus (half Japanese) Despite their blond or whatever other colored hair. I still consider them Japanese (or half Japanese) because their names. And I would say the same for characters from other races. |
RealTheAbsurdist said: Peaceful_Critic said: The hair and eyes are fantasy-like in color in a lot of anime, so that's not the best way to tell. ^This The character you listed was in a show where colors like purple or green were also in the cast's hair. The other characters not having colors that are natural is a clue that it's not going to be faithful to the ethnicity of the character. Even the facial features aren't exactly human with a total lack of nose or lips and the features that do exist are exaggerated. GlennMagusHarvey said: The character won't appear white because being white is literally defined as having light skin tone. Also, it's east Asians specifically that have lighter skin tone; southeast Asians don't share this trait as much, and south Asians even less so. In your description, dark skin, dark hair, and dark eye color are all relatively generic -- based on these traits one could guess various south Asian and Pacific Islander and south American ethnicities as well as African. The only (relatively) distinctively African trait you named is "nappy hair". (Also, any setting with fictional races basically doesn't count.) Mukokuseki is basically an acknowledgement that when drawing people in an anime style it's often that details like eye shape, nose shape, lip shape, and so on are drawn in ways that aren't meant to (and often don't) reflect reality in the first place, so they essentially become meaningless for determining race/ethnicity. Considering that people often use precisely these traits to figure out someone's race, it's kinda important to understand that these traits are basically meaningless when they're already altered to look unrealistic, especially with the result that characters of a variety of races may very well end up looking similar to each other with regards to these traits. This leaves hair style, hair color, eye color, and skin color. Hair style in anime is generally straight or in some cases wavy. Sometimes you can barely even tell because it's short. Other times they just use silly unrealistic hairstyles like drill hair. The only thing that's rare is afros. Hair color is the realm of "let's basically do anything we want". So is eye color. And then you're left with skin color, which if you want to infer something, gives you some vague guesses at race, but isn't definitive by itself. So you can try to read race into a character based on their appearance, but often times you don't even have the proper information, so what you read into it might not be meaningful (nor intentional). You have unrealistic eye/nose/lip shapes, generically straight hair, unrealistic hair colors, unrealistic eye colors, and then skin color which is commonly of a lighter shade. Fundamentally, you're not looking at a real-life person. Even if they do look like a certain race, it's just your reacting to a certain set of designed traits. Sometimes this reaction is intentional, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes some shows will use really blatant trait combinations to say "hey this person is Anglo/west-European" (e.g. yellow hair, straight hair, blue eyes) or "hey this person is black/African" (e.g. dark hair in afro, prominent lips), but these are gonna be those times where they're intentionally trying to play to a phenotype stereotype. Most of the rest of the time, anime just isn't designed to give you information by which to read implications of people's race. It's just not the intention of the character designs. If race is a meaningful trait in the story, then it's often indicated by some other context, in addition to (or sometimes entirely instead of) phenotypical traits. I feel like arguments presented contradict themselves if anime characters aren't mean to look Japanese, why are they Japanese? It's like drawing a horse, albeit a very exaggerated horse, then claiming it's a duck within the context of the story; it makes literally no sense. It's like drawing a really weird square, that looks all squiggly, then saying it's a circle, because, "it looks really exaggerated so it can be anything, but the story says it's a circle, therefore it's a circle." How can a Japanese person look at the MC of Sailor Moon, and honestly think, "They look Japanese"? If a blonde haired blue eyed person cosplay as the character, then yeah, they look way more like the character than a Japanese person cosplaying as the character (unless the Japanese cosplayer has natural blonde hair and blue eyes, which is nearly impossible). @GlennMagusHarvey In my hypothetical character design, the dark skin may not be exclusive to Africans, but the nappy hair is, thus, the design clearly indicates the character is African. "why are they Japanese?" I believe uou severely underestimate the apathy of character designers for anime/manga. Japan is one of the most homogenous countries in the world culturally, racially etc. (something everyone seems to forget). Japan treats things from other countries (especially westerners) with great surprise and wonder so having "typical Western traits" like blonde hair as part of a character design is not a reliable way of determining race since they're likely put there to appeal to the Japanese mindset. How does a Japanese person look at Usagi from Sailor Moon as Japanese? Because the author liked Blonde hair, thought it would appeal to the fans, and made an iconic character from that. Unless stated otherwise or for setting/lore purposes, almost every character you see is considered Japanese. Any character who phenotypically looks like they're another ethnicity is 90% of the time because the author/character designer is purposely saying "meh" and going with it. If you ask them "Is X character from X country/X race/has X lineage?" they would go "Sure, why not?". @Deknijff perfectly summarized it: "The list just goes on and on about how the physical appearance doesn't truly reveal anything since its not important unless the authors make it important which it would seem they don't do" Japanese character designs were derived from old Disney cartoons anyways and we all know how racially integrating old Disney cartoons were. |
raisin-kunNov 23, 2019 10:47 PM
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RealTheAbsurdist said: Perhaps the idea/status of "being" that thing is not necessarily based on visual appearance?GlennMagusHarvey said: They aren't meant to "look Japanese"; they're just Japanese by inference or contextual information. I feel as though you're not answering the question: how can something be something, yet pose no resemblance to it? Art is an exaggeration, yes, but not usually to a point where the context does not resemble the appearance, going back to the square example. Even in (most) Western cartoons, the characters who are white in context, have features that could be considered white, and vice versa. I mean, I can describe to you someone living in Japan, in text, with no pictures, nor descriptions of their physical appearance, and you'd naturally assume they're Japanese, if there's nothing else to tell you otherwise. (And even more so if I explicitly tell you that they're Japanese.) Their lack of resemblance to a real-life Japanese person beyond having light-colored skin thus isn't meaningful. They may even sometimes resemble ideas of phenotype stereotypes for other cultures, but that resemblance is similarly unmeaningful. The traits that you might use to infer race/ethnicity are instead being used for something else. (Furthermore, a domestic Japanese audience would most likely default to thinking of the character through the lens of Japanese culture anyway. The same way a US American audience would most likely default to thinking of the character through the lens of US American culture, in the absence of other information. The character may do things that don't match any particular cultural lens, obviously, and that's the stuff that stands out to the audience.) (I had previously edited the above paragraph into my previous post.) RealTheAbsurdist said: And if they can make a character have pink hair and ruby-red eyes, they can also make a character with blond (i.e. yellow or pale yellow) hair and blue eyes.GlennMagusHarvey said: So, like, here's a character with pink hair and ruby-red eyes, who lives in Japan and doesn't present any information to say that they're not from Japan. By inference, they're Japanese. Particularly when their friend at school has green hair and purple eyes and otherwise shares the same cultural context. I feel like you're purposely avoiding the examples of Japanese characters with natural blonde hair, and green eyes, etc. Because in your example, that makes sense: pink hair is not a natural hair color, nor are red-ruby eyes a natural eye color. So the character could pass off as any ethnic group that has naturally light skin. You may interpret this latter character as a phenotype stereotype representing an Anglo or western-European, but it doesn't have to be used that way. (Also, hair dye is a thing, as is colored contacts, though the latter is probably less prevalent. But hair dye -- usually to make hair various shades of brown -- is reasonably common in east Asian countries.) GlennMagusHarvey said: Yeah, that'd be an example of going for a specific phenotype stereotype. I don't understand: isn't blonde hair and blue eyes also a specific phenotype stereotype, like in the case of the MC of Sailor Moon?[/quote]It can be used as such. But it doesn't have to be. (Also, Sailor Moon has yellow hair. It's just that we're used to seeing yellow hair as an abstraction for blond hair.) |
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
| The nose, duh? Almost always. Additionally, the brits will have a cup of tea in their hands, the russians will have white hair and use the word horosho, the french will have something to do with bakery and bread, the canadians will be pretty much useless, the germans will look down on others, the aussies will show up if there's anything to do with swimming, the italians are pretty much all mafias, the americans will have something to do with conspiracy in the global level, etc. etc. If someone told me anime as a medium is the most stereotypical, I would probably agree. |
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 If a character looks like the ones to the left, it's Asian. If it looks like the ones to the right, it's white. Simple as that. Since pretty much no characters actually look like the ones to the left, we can safely say that the only Asian thing about anime characters is the ''asian'' in ''Caucasian.'' Also, the idea of a character being white because it has a larger nose is rather silly, since white people generally have smaller noses than Asian people. |
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| Aryans and people that have weird accents (not using pitch accent, pronouncing ɕ as ʃ etc.) are foreigners |
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| You don't have to, they always let you know. |
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| "Blonde Japanese" you can't really tell are Japanese just by looking at them, tbh. There are also some Westerners in anime who actually have black hair making them pretty hard to distinguish from regular Japanese characters. Btw if you actually look at an anime character closely you'll notice that everything about them that you perceive as being inherently caucasian actually isn't and you truly are just imagining them as being your own race. Japanese people for the most part have light skin and the candy coloured hair isn't something that any race can own up to. They have small noses which actually is a quite Asian feature. |
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ReaperCreeper said: You don't have to, they always let you know. pretty much this. the japanese are slightly obsessed with these things anyway, they will always tell you when someone is a foreigner or when someone is the pride of nippon. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
| @GlennMagusHarvey I don't think you analogy of simply describing someone who lives in Japan matches up: in that analogy, there are no visual descriptions involved, so of course if you describe to me someone who lives in Japan, then yes, the default assumption is the person's Japanese, because most people who live in Japan are Japanese. But animation is an art form that is very visual. The visuals tell you what is and is not supposed to be. If I draw a square, no matter how squiggly it's drawn, you will assume that it's a square, and not a circle, because a square is the closest thing it resembles to one. The argument of, "it's not supposed to resemble any specific shape" doesn't make sense: because it clearly resembles a square. Hair dye is definitely common in Asia, but within most of the contextual stories of anime, the characters' colorful hairs are natural, as proven by how their families have the exact same hair color. "You may interpret this latter character as a phenotype stereotype representing an Anglo or western-European, but it doesn't have to be used that way." I don't understand that argument: if the square looks like a square, no matter how squiggly the lines are, then yes, it's a square. If a very exaggerated and abstract looking duck resembles a duck more than any other animal, than yes, it's a duck. Let's say I draw an anime character with very dark skin, purple eyes, and purple nappy hair. Now yes, the purple eyes and purple hair definitely don't fit any racial phenotype, but the dark skin and nappy hair does. Going by the logic of, "Anime characters don't look like a specific race, therefore within the context of the anime they're Japanese", how can we apply that to this character? How can a Japanese person possibly interpret this character as anything but black? By that same argument, how can the MC of Sailor Moon look like any race but white? Blonde hair, blue eyes. The arguments contradict themselves: people on this thread are claiming, "blue eyes and blonde hair aren't meant to be a racial phenotype, because there's purple hair, etc" but...the fact of the matter is, blue and blonde hair, are racial phenotypes. You can put a million different hair and eye colors in an anime, but the fact of the matter is, colors like blue eyes, blonde hair, green eyes, are racial phenotypes. shanimebib said: The nose, duh? Almost always. Additionally, the brits will have a cup of tea in their hands, the russians will have white hair and use the word horosho, the french will have something to do with bakery and bread, the canadians will be pretty much useless, the germans will look down on others, the aussies will show up if there's anything to do with swimming, the italians are pretty much all mafias, the americans will have something to do with conspiracy in the global level, etc. etc. If someone told me anime as a medium is the most stereotypical, I would probably agree. The nose argument doesn't make sense to me. There are plenty of white characters in anime who barely have a nose, just like the Japanese characters, like Infinite Stratos. White characters who do have "bigger noses" than Japanese characters, don't particularly have noses that are bigger than the average Asian.   |
Peaceful_Critic said: The hair and eyes are fantasy-like in color in a lot of anime, so that's not the best way to tell. carseatheadrest said: ^This -the character has blonde/yellow hair in an anime that only has characters with natural hair colors (ex. tamaki from ouran, who is half japanese and half french) The character you listed was in a show where colors like purple or green were also in the cast's hair. The other characters not having colors that are natural is a clue that it's not going to be faithful to the ethnicity of the character. Even the facial features aren't exactly human with a total lack of nose or lips and the features that do exist are exaggerated. weren't those characters cross dressers that had unnaturally colored wigs? i haven't seen ouran since i was in middle school so i only used the main cast for reference. |
RealTheAbsurdist said: Damn Nih did you like not read my post in the thread or something Let's say I draw an anime character with very dark skin, purple eyes, and purple nappy hair. Now yes, the purple eyes and purple hair definitely don't fit any racial phenotype, but the dark skin and nappy hair does. Going by the logic of, "Anime characters don't look like a specific race, therefore within the context of the anime they're Japanese", how can we apply that to this character? How can a Japanese person possibly interpret this character as anything but black? By that same argument, how can the MC of Sailor Moon look like any race but white? Blonde hair, blue eyes. The arguments contradict themselves: people on this thread are claiming, "blue eyes and blonde hair aren't meant to be a racial phenotype, because there's purple hair, etc" but...the fact of the matter is, blue and blonde hair, are racial phenotypes. You can put a million different hair and eye colors in an anime, but the fact of the matter is, colors like blue eyes, blonde hair, green eyes, are racial phenotypes. The character designer isn't trying to put in really detailed racial defining traits because its just art and that doesn't matter. What matters is that they like the design or think the audience will like the design Here man. Which of these characters are asian and which characters aren't?       It doesn't matter if something in real like is a racial phenotype if the artist doesn't care about it and doesn't interpret their art to have that intention within the work Im glad I just remembered this from 2 years ago |
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Deknijff said: Damn Nih did you like not read my post in the thread or something Sorry, I think I forgot to address your post. Deknijff said: The character designer isn't trying to put in really detailed racial defining traits because its just art and that doesn't matter. It does matter though: while art is known to exaggerate, exaggerating to a point where what something is supposed to be becomes unrecognizable, is problematic. If I draw an abstract square, and it's so abstract that it doesn't even resemble a square anymore, but resembles a circle more, then yeah, that's problematic. I don't understand why nobody is addressing this analogy. That's the problem: I couldn't tell, unless I watched all of the anime these characters are from. Deknijff said: It doesn't matter if something in real like is a racial phenotype if the artist doesn't care about it and doesn't interpret their art to have that intention within the work Artist's intention does not matter. Death of the author. I remember watching that video, and finding it to present poor arguments. |
RealTheAbsurdist said: So essentially what you're saying is that you identify race by appearance and because Sailor Moon has yellow hair and blue eyes and you know yellow blond hair and blue eyes to be racial phenotypes of white people therefore Sailor Moon is white.@GlennMagusHarvey I don't think you analogy of simply describing someone who lives in Japan matches up: in that analogy, there are no visual descriptions involved, so of course if you describe to me someone who lives in Japan, then yes, the default assumption is the person's Japanese, because most people who live in Japan are Japanese. But animation is an art form that is very visual. The visuals tell you what is and is not supposed to be. If I draw a square, no matter how squiggly it's drawn, you will assume that it's a square, and not a circle, because a square is the closest thing it resembles to one. The argument of, "it's not supposed to resemble any specific shape" doesn't make sense: because it clearly resembles a square. Hair dye is definitely common in Asia, but within most of the contextual stories of anime, the characters' colorful hairs are natural, as proven by how their families have the exact same hair color. "You may interpret this latter character as a phenotype stereotype representing an Anglo or western-European, but it doesn't have to be used that way." I don't understand that argument: if the square looks like a square, no matter how squiggly the lines are, then yes, it's a square. If a very exaggerated and abstract looking duck resembles a duck more than any other animal, than yes, it's a duck. Let's say I draw an anime character with very dark skin, purple eyes, and purple nappy hair. Now yes, the purple eyes and purple hair definitely don't fit any racial phenotype, but the dark skin and nappy hair does. Going by the logic of, "Anime characters don't look like a specific race, therefore within the context of the anime they're Japanese", how can we apply that to this character? How can a Japanese person possibly interpret this character as anything but black? By that same argument, how can the MC of Sailor Moon look like any race but white? Blonde hair, blue eyes. The arguments contradict themselves: people on this thread are claiming, "blue eyes and blonde hair aren't meant to be a racial phenotype, because there's purple hair, etc" but...the fact of the matter is, blue and blonde hair, are racial phenotypes. You can put a million different hair and eye colors in an anime, but the fact of the matter is, colors like blue eyes, blonde hair, green eyes, are racial phenotypes. What I'm saying is that because Sailor Moon has yellow hair and blue eyes therefore you perceive Sailor Moon to be white, but the author, as well as other people (of Japanese or other ethnicity), do not see those traits the same way, and thus your perception of Sailor Moon as white is merely a red herring. To you, Sailor Moon reads as "white person"; to Naoko Takeuchi, Sailor Moon probably reads as "Japanese person with fun hair color". And given the other context clues, the latter makes more sense. (Though, honestly, IMO her race hardly even matters.) Perhaps it's useful to note that "blond hair and blue eyes" does not equate to "white person", but is simply two traits that in our real world are commonly found on white people but not people of other races. > The visuals tell you what is and is not supposed to be. So a person with yellow hair and blue eyes basically acts completely like a Japanese person living in Japan (and characters around them treat them this way); are they still white? An inherently non-real scenario allows for the possibility of mixing attributes that don't get seen together in real life. You can interpret such a scenario in various ways but not all interpretations are equally meaningful. |
GlennMagusHarveyNov 24, 2019 1:06 PM
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
| Very simple my friend, white foreigners have smaller eyes and speak horribly both japanese and their mother languages. |
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| I really don't see why people care so much about this. |
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RealTheAbsurdist said: Thats because your analogy for squares and circles are too simply for talking about the comparing of several in real life human features which are either included or not in a specific character along with which features are not real human features yet are put into the character's design It does matter though: while art is known to exaggerate, exaggerating to a point where what something is supposed to be becomes unrecognizable, is problematic. If I draw an abstract square, and it's so abstract that it doesn't even resemble a square anymore, but resembles a circle more, then yeah, that's problematic. I don't understand why nobody is addressing this analogy. Why are you saying this is a problem? Does you not being able to tell true ethnicity in a anime cause in universe plot holes in your head or something to the point you need this to happen for every anime to feel ok  RealTheAbsurdist said: Doesn't that just prove that the authors don't truly use human features to express the ethnicity of a character in their work and you actually need in universe contextual clues and information to truly tell what race a character is if a creator feels its important to know That's the problem: I couldn't tell, unless I watched all of the anime these characters are from. Or do you think Swedish people look like this or something which I posted earlier. No of course you don't. You know its just an abstract concept of the human form for design purposes to standout in whatever way it does RealTheAbsurdist said: Nih you need to actually disprove the mountains of counter arguments or the very least my 2 comments which clearly show the authors/artists when working on a series aren't giving a fuck about racial features when doing character design when it doesn't matter for the plot which I feel Ive posted so much visual evidence for you can't simply ignore it and say death of the author therefore your interpretation on the situation holds any weight here Artist's intention does not matter. Death of the author. RealTheAbsurdist said: Like what?I remember watching that video, and finding it to present poor arguments |
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| Dude, most anime characters don't look like actual humans, so what's the point? |
carseatheadrest said: i mean i could write an entire essay on why anime characters look the way they do and why they're still considered to be japanese regardless of their crazy hair colors and gigantic eyes, but that would take too much time and effort, so i'll just give you the most basic answer: unless otherwise stated, all anime characters are just seen as japanese by default in japan. so, the best way to differenciate if they are white or asian would be due to one of the following: -if the character explicitly states they are of a different ethnicity -if the character speaks in a japanese foreigner accent -the anime takes place in america, england, etc. -the character has a non-japanese name -the character has blonde/yellow hair in an anime that only has characters with natural hair colors (ex. tamaki from ouran, who is half japanese and half french) obviously there are exceptions to these rules, as anime is a generally weird and inconsistant medium, but these are really the only ways to assume if they are white since japanese people see anime characters as japanese by default. ^ This person here has given just the right answer but the OP is somehow ignoring it lol |
| If you read Eleceed you're automatically my friend. |
high chance they are asian if they have black hair and slanted eyes like this beauty (Semiramis from Fate Apocrypha) Ushiwakamaru and Rin are asians too base on their anime info (they also got blackish hair and slanted eyes)   |
degNov 24, 2019 3:52 PM
| You make a lot of big statements, such as "characters should look this way", or "it is not logical to think in that way", but in doing that, you are ignoring reality. It is a fact that very few people actually ask themselves questions about whether anime characters are Asian or not (and the vast majority of time, it is a completely irrelevant question anyways). You may find that anime's character-designs follow an obscure logic, but to most people, they make perfect sense. I find it strange that you use the "death of the author" argument and still claim your interpretation is somehow the only one that makes sense. |
RealTheAbsurdist said: I don't "see" Usagi as Asian. I don't think I ever even bothered to fill in a "race" attribute in my head for her. Now if you go and ask me what race she is, I think she has a Japanese name and lives in Japan and does whatever a Japanese girl does and so forth so I tell you she's Asian. But her race...basically doesn't even matter to the story?GlennMagusHarvey said: What I'm saying is that because Sailor Moon has yellow hair and blue eyes therefore you perceive Sailor Moon to be white, but the author, as well as other people (of Japanese or other ethnicity), do not see those traits the same way, and thus your perception of Sailor Moon as white is merely a red herring. To you, Sailor Moon reads as "white person"; to Naoko Takeuchi, Sailor Moon probably reads as "Japanese person with fun hair color". And given the other context clues, the latter makes more sense. (Though, honestly, IMO her race hardly even matters.) Art can generally be interpreted in different ways. But some things in art is not up to interpretation. For example, the MC's hair color is blonde; you can't interpret it in any other way. You can't "see" her hair color as being purple, the same way you can't see her as looking Asian, even if within the context of the story she's treated as one. By your logic, why can't Afro from Afro Samurai also be interpreted as being Asian? He's always lived in Japan. He speaks Japanese. Nobody says he's black. If anything, the more salient perspective is the fact she is portrayed as being at home in the cultural context in which she lives, whatever that context might be. That context happens to be Japan, but what's important for the story is not that it's specifically Japan but is that it's specifically her home. You can imagine her to be an American-born person who's a naturalized Japanese citizen, and that doesn't change the story much if at all, as far as I know. Color defined rather strictly by reflected/emitted light wavelengths ranges. Race isn't defined like this. Race is defined by a series of traits, only two of which are hair color and eye color. You may note that she doesn't share eye shape, nose shape, or mouth shape with any white person, even if she may share approximate hair color and presumed hair texture (albeit not hairstyle) and eye color with some white people. Race is more complex than just hair and eye colors. Heck, it's not even just visual traits. (Furthermore, note that real-life white people have basically any natural hair color, as well as a variety of eye colors.) Again, you can certainly interpret her as being white. It's just not necessarily a meaningfully applicable answer. I for one have found that, to my knowledge, race isn't really much of a consideration at all in her characterization. RealTheAbsurdist said: They may be traits that make you think "white" but they probably weren't chosen for that purpose. So you can think she's white, but that idea might not mean much.GlennMagusHarvey said: Perhaps it's useful to note that "blond hair and blue eyes" does not equate to "white person", but is simply two traits that in our real world are commonly found on white people but not people of other races. Except blonde hair and blue eyes are white traits. If another ethnic group has those traits, then they have a lot of white mixed in them. RealTheAbsurdist said: I guess if you're used to seeing "blond hair + blue eyes = white" then it'll look weird, so maybe I had the benefit of being exposed to Sailor Moon early enough in life that at that age I didn't really have this sort of conception of race and racial traits, so I never really felt a need to think about her in terms of race in the first place?GlennMagusHarvey said: > The visuals tell you what is and is not supposed to be. So a person with yellow hair and blue eyes basically acts completely like a Japanese person living in Japan (and characters around them treat them this way); are they still white? Well, within the story they're Japanese, I guess? But the fact that the context completely contradicts the visuals doesn't make any logical sense. RealTheAbsurdist said: I wouldn't call art necessarily an "exaggeration"; it's broader than that. It's often a different interpretation/perspective. Regardless of the term, just because it's unrealistic doesn't mean "anything goes"; it just means that the rules are different and/or more relaxed.GlennMagusHarvey said: An inherently non-real scenario allows for the possibility of mixing attributes that don't get seen together in real life. Yes, art is an exaggeration, but to some degree, anime is grounded in realism: character still resemble human beings. You can't say anime characters look like elephants. You can't say an anime hand looks like a foot. It doesn't make any sense. What feels comfortable or intuitive to you may be different from what feels that way to someone else. It often depends on personal experiences. In a way you could see the idea of seeing Sailor Moon as white as a less controversy-raising conceptual sibling of the idea of seeing Dragonball's Mr. Popo or Pokémon's Jynx as black. Note that I don't think you "shouldn't" think of Sailor Moon as white. She's almost certainly not meant that way, but if you see her as white that opens up a whole 'nother lens through which to think about her. I'd say the most important thing is to understand that fundamentally she's a fictional character and thus to see the paths we take to get to our interpretations, even if said interpretations differ (as they inevitably will). |
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
RealTheAbsurdist said: Because you need several different components to create a character design in terms of what you include and how you draw it. Eye shape, iris, eye colour, facial shape, eyebrows, lips, neck, arms, legs, chest, waist, muscle proportions and basically any other part of the body in every conceivable angle for each of them. Like how the face should look like this from the front or side Anime characters' designs are simple to begin with, so I don't understand why my analogy of circles and squares doesn't match.   You can't simply compare it to a circle or square shape RealTheAbsurdist said: Nih is someone in this thread saying the character in Sailor Moon look like real human Japanese people simply because in-universe that character is Japanese because the author intends for her to be Japanese? No they're saying she is Japanese because the mix of human features don't truly say anything about that character's ethnicity because the author doesn't truly think its important for the story in that way and simply wants to create a vibrant character design they are happy with so racial features doesn't truly matter in their mind when creating a Japanese character or some other ethnic character The main argument I see on this thread is: Anime characters look racially abstract, but because the anime they're from says they're Japanese, they look Japanese. They don't look Japanese by any stretch. The MC from Sailor Moon does not resemble a natural born Japanese person whatsoever, because blonde hair and blue eyes are not Asian traits. Therefore it stands to reason, that the MC of Sailor Moon resembles a white person far more than a Japanese person. Yes, there are characters with blue, purple, green, hair, but that does not change the fact that blonde hair and blue eyes are traits that whites are born with, not any other ethnic group. Regarding the Swedish characters you posted, the one on the right could be interpreted as being Asian or white: because silver hair and red eyes are not actual traits in any person, BUT the light skin is, so the character can't be interpreted as being black, for example. The Swedish character on the left has gray eyes, which is a white trait, so yes, they do look more white than any other ethnic group. RealTheAbsurdist said: I mean its super easy to tell which side someone is on depending on what their character actions are within the series is along with which character seems to be doing the oppression or winning on social standing in relation to other characters. You can easily tell if a character is Japanese in the show if they're being racially targeted and oppressed. Along with clothing such as what military uniform they wear In anime like Code Geass, where the characters' ethnicity is a vital plot point, then yes, the abstract ethnicity of the characters is a huge problem. It's literally impossible to tell which characters are Britanian and which are Japanese, unless the anime literally states it. We shouldn't have to have to be told what something is, we should be shown what something is: I shouldn't be told that Bugs Bunny is a rabbit, I should be shown that he is a rabbit.   The show as far as I'm aware gives out several visual non speech indications of race when fully looking at the context of the world of Code Geass RealTheAbsurdist said: Thats not a contradiction. A contradiction would be if in-universe it would be impossible for a character to be black because X factor yet that character is still black even if that factor is present in the character The video you linked does not actually address any of the arguments I've made: the arguments in the video are basically just the arguments that you guys have presented: anime characters are meant to look racially abstract, therefore because the anime they're from says they're race X, they're race X. But anime characters don't look racially abstract, because again, blonde hair and blue eyes are white traits, and light skin is a white and Asian trait. That's just fact. If the animators wanted to make the characters look 100% racially abstract, why not give them purple skin? Why give them blonde hair and blue eyes? In summary, you can't claim something is meant to look abstract, than give it traits that aren't abstract, like light skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. The argument contradicts itself. Whats abstract is that the author is taking whatever human or non human trait for the character, blending it together and saying the character is this ethnicity despite it not making sense in real life yet in-universe it doesn't seem to contradict any racial description of the characters because the author is ignoring those things for their story and not even saying a character in the universe of the anime can't look like this if they indeed are Japanese in the story RealTheAbsurdist said: I mean I'm pretty sure no one is saying that because they aren't that retarded. I hope most anime fans at least understand context and pay attention to the information being shown to them on screen But I'll assume for a sec your argument: that anime characters 100% look abstract. In that case, why does no one think the characters in Baccano look black? They're anime characters! They're not meant to resemble any specific race! RealTheAbsurdist said: fuck do I know. I didn't bother watching the movie since it decided to adapted a whole season into a film so it would basically just be a bad recap movie. People who complained about that complained about the wrong thing as far as I'm concerned Why did people get so angry when the Last Airbender film quote, "whitewashed" the cast?Katara and Sokka are "abstract looking characters": meaning by that logic, a person of any race should be allowed to play them in live action. Just like my complaint about Heimdall and Valkyrie being black in the movies doesn't matter or effect the plot of the Thor movies despite them being white in my countries mythology Nor would complaining about Thor not being ginger like in mythology would be anything worth complaining about |
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