Why do anime characters mostly look like europeans/americans?

Rocknblock said:

Why? I'm asking a question and i'm being polite. I didn't mean to imply that people can be categorized in races but you have to agree that different ethnicities have distinctive physical features. If you find this question racist you are indeed a fascist (even tho i feel like you don't really understand the concepts behind this word).

zombie_pegasus said:
I mean, things like blue hair and purple eyes aren't things that Europeans have either. Anime is made to be colourful because they can. Blonde hair is often reserved for Westerners to distinguish them, but there's still a fair number of blonde Japanese characters in anime.

iloathesasuke said:
My gawd. I'm a fascist prick but I find this statement racist af.

MichaelJackson said:
Same. Im the most political incorrect man I know of, but this thread sounds like some annoying racial supremacism bull, quite surprised this thread hasnt been taken down at this point. guy needs to be more self aware of the the stuff he writes.

icefirestone23 said:
with the exception of shows where they explicity say this guy is from europe like Jojo, Vinland Saga, even AOT with lots of germanic feeling. I never got the feeling really. The guys usually have jet black hair, or brown, blue.

karrotStick said:
Eh it's the opposite for me, all of them look asian even characters from shows explicitly stated to be non japanese like Vinland saga. The only exception is if they are black or are ultra buffed up.
But they do....I'd say even Sado looks asian.

icefirestone23 said:
They straight up look asian
Small nose, slender features, child features.
Why do many anime characters look like this Sabine Wren and not like Agent Kallus.
Asian
https://www.google.com/search?q=sabine+wren&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiE2b3Rt9-AAxXMA1kFHYnPATIQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=sabine+wren&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQDFAAWABgAGgAcAB4AIABAIgBAJIBAJgBAKoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1n&sclient=img&ei=ytbbZITMDsyH5NoPiZ-HkAM&bih=1001&biw=1920&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA707CA707
vs white
https://www.google.com/search?q=agent+kallus&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwic1f2ot9-AAxV2CFkFHR_DDl0Q2-cCegQIABAA&oq=agent+kallus&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIHCAAQigUQQzIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDoECCMQJzoICAAQgAQQsQM6CwgAEIAEELEDEIMBOgQIABADUPApWMc1YMU2aABwAHgAgAGAAYgBugiSAQQxMS4ymAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=ddbbZNzGEvaQ5NoPn4a76AU&bih=1001&biw=1920&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA707CA707#imgrc=OUr4NXLT1Uln5M
feel the difference.

Also it is easy for an asian girl to die her hair blond and look like asuna than a white girl would. Anyone in a cosplay convention can confirm. Not to mention whites are more likely to be overweight. There is a reason why so many crave the east asian look

Rocknblock said:
I am myself french so i wish it would be the case.

VexingCurses said:
I’ve thought about this a lot and I’ve decided that it’s partially to create visual diversity and for each character to have their own distinct characteristics. As it’s been mentioned already: there isn’t much visual variety in everyone having black hair and brown eyes. Sure, people having blonde or blue hair and red or blue eyes isn’t characteristic of Japanese culture, but you’re literally watching a cartoon so it’s gets a pass from me. I’ll suspend my disbelief because…. Cartoons.

Some animes has its characters go as far as to explain that their hair has been dyed or that they wear contacts. It’s pretty interesting.

Risa92 said:


Half-joking.
Lot of anime characters should evoke the same emotions that looking at cute animals and babies / toddlers evoke in us.
(That's why I'm so irritated when anime tries to draw cutesy characters "sexy", because I wouldn't want to see a sexy kitten either lol.)
I wouldn't say they are directly based on cats, but share very similar physical traits.

Also Tezuka was a fan of the Disney style and they also drew their characters with big eyes. He took influence from this and influenced manga and anime history himself.

princessoftrash said:
Because Japanese people are obsessed with whiteness and tend to associate it with beauty and purity. Funnily enough, in Japan white supremacy actually exists and is quite widepsread, since a lot of people try to look as Caucasian as possible, not to mention extremely high popularity of western culture/history in general.

Sylpheline said:


You hate sexy nekomimi design then? Or just the weird idea of sexualizing actual cats?

TheBerserker said:

Baseball and people aren't the same thing to compare.

karrotStick said:
I don't see how it matters whether I have seen, known or am an Asian. They based the anime style on themselves, so why wouldn't anime characters be more similar to Asians in well most aspects which includes physical appearances?

Rocknblock said:

Okay i get that but you can't tell me that Ichigo or Asuna look like asian teenagers even though they are supposed to be Japanese.

PeripheralVision said:
It is partly just the fantasy aspect at play. That being said, Asuna's lighter hair brunette colour is not that unusual a hair colour for Japanese women and Ichigo is intentionally supposed to look like a Japanese deliquent, who dye their hair bright or abnormal colours.

Dying their hair colours or having different coloured hair because anime is going to be the first assumption instead of "they are white". In the end, to the Japanese most anime characters are just Japanese unless otherwise specified, with blonde hair being the color of choice to indicate foreigners.

tnrend said:
Black is the only hair colour natural to Japanese women. You then directly contradict yourself for citing Ichigo when the point of Ichigo's character is that his hair is naturally ORANGE, which is unnatural to Japanese. Case in point it is seen as rebellion to dye it away from black (which is once again the only natural hair color for Japanese) in the fucking first place.

traed said:
Do you think Europeans and Americans have red eyes and green hair? Lol It is to make characters stand out.  If you look at their face shape and non protruding nose, they often indeed are Asian. Anime early on took influence from French animation and Disney so that also played a role in character design such as large eyes.

karrotStick said:
That sounds like a you problem, I know nothing about you but maybe try and take a closer look around the world. Earlier someone in this thread mentioned how asian cosplayers look much closer to their anime counterpart than the western ones and not me but anyone who is into anime cosplay can verify that it is in fact true.
Yes you are correct with enough context one can figure out if the blue eyed girl is non asian or not. But the point here is that - the artstyle has its roots in Japan, they ARE meant to exaggerate the expressions of a typical Japanese person, not that of a westerner and yes that also means the art has distinct asian characteristics. Because of that any face with similar artstyle is easy to be mistaken as an asian origin character without proper context.
Anime is a fictional world, having a rainbow coloured hair/eye doesn't really determine whether one is asian or not, it literally does not matter because having such a style means everyone looks the same, cute. You don't have room for another set of distinct expressiveness and characteristics because there already is one. It's like asking why does that super cool breed of cat look like a random street cat that every anime has.

PeripheralVision said:
No need to be so angry. It was to illustrate the intention of Ichigo's character; Tite Kubo intended for him to look like a Japanese deliquent, not to look like a white person. This is apparent from the first few chapters if I recall correctly. Besides that, plenty of Japanese women have brown hair is what I meant. It is not all that unusual.