Is Anime racist?

[ZippyDSMlee]

So my question is,is Anime racist?

(just a random thought for today I thought was worth discussing with my betters, and no I do not understand grammar)


In my opinion it?s not inherently racist as to be racist there really has to be negative concepts at paly, though while not inherent it can and has been done. Since Anime is Japanese who tend to be polite xenophobists it makes the content at times woefully stereotypical. But even so do stereotypes that are not inherently negative equal racism? Even if in these days if it bleeds its racist/sexist/negative/unfair?

 

[seventy two]

Anime is a medium, and a medium can almost never be inherently racist, that is like saying all reality TV is racist. Is some content racist? Sure, but the same can be said about any type of content. There have been plenty of games with racist content but that does not mean all games are.

And whether or not non-negative stereotypes are racist, functionally they still are because you are projecting judgement based on race, but it is for the most part harmless.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

"Anime" as you call it is a very broad term to describe Japanese animation. Generalizing it by any other word might be a little too much.

 

[Mad as a Hatter]

Anime is a medium, and a medium can almost never be inherently racist, that is like saying all reality TV is racist. Is some content racist? Sure, but the same can be said about any type of content. There have been plenty of games with racist content but that does not mean all games are.

Exactly. Saying "anime is racist" makes about as much sense as saying, "Watercolor painting is racist."

If someone wants to do a thoughtful analysis of racist tropes in anime, be my guest. There's probably a goldmine of data in there.

Since Anime is Japanese who tend to be polite xenophobists it makes the content at times woefully stereotypical.

Japanese culture is xenophobic.

Neither of these statements are strictly accurate and Mad as a Hatter's statement is both inaccurate and racist itself.

There are definitely xenophobic people in Japan and expressions of that xenophobia in Japanese culture. Believe me, I liver here, I have to deal with it. But other people in Japan are also remarkably interested in other cultures and very positive about other cultures. Japan's the only place I've ever been where I've found a bar that gives 5% discounts to foreign patrons because they want to attract more Japanese business by making their customer base seem more cosmopolitan and diverse. What I'm saying is it's a mixed bag, and trying to analyze anime's racism as a "yes/no" question rather than a nuanced discussion of positive and negative portrayals within anime is going to be a waste of time because a "yes/no" answer is never going to be accurate enough to be meaningful.

Instead of answering "yes, it's racist" or "no, it's not". I'd rather see people put up examples of depictions and describe them. That would even be more interesting to other readers, because I'm sure there are others here like me who haven't watched much anime in the last 10 years and aren't caught up on what the state of the industry is.

That is not what i meant. I meant that Japanese often don't care about out side world. There is actually a believe in japan that Because they are island nation they don't need to keep taps of the out side world. They believe rest of the world don't get japan And thats fine or japan doesn't get reast of the world and thats fine. It even has a name but I don't remember what it was called but it exists and i'm sorry but that can't function in real world thats so connected it just doesn't work, that believe hurts global market and thats bad thing go watch gaijin goombah video Japanese developers don't get us and his follow up video on it. Even Keiji Inafune said that Japanese gaming industry is finnished. Also hayao miyazaki said because many new anime directors won't go and get new experiences and is filled with otaku bullcrab anime industry has gone creative rot.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-03-08-mega-man-creator-laments-tragic-state-of-japanese-games-industry

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2014-01-30/miyazaki/the-problem-with-the-anime-industry-is-it-full-of-otaku

 

[Silvanus]

Also hayao miyazaki said because many new anime directors won't go and get new experiences and is filled with otaku bullcrab anime industry has gone creative rot.

Right. But Hayao Miyazaki is a figure of Japanese culture, so clearly not all Japanese culture is of one mind.

 

[Silvanus]

I never said that. You need to work on your Reading comprehension.

You said;

Japanese culture is xenophobic. That's all is to it.

...Which is an absolute statement. If you were saying that Japanese culture had xenophobic elements, you should have said so.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Anime is a medium, and a medium can almost never be inherently racist, that is like saying all reality TV is racist. Is some content racist? Sure, but the same can be said about any type of content. There have been plenty of games with racist content but that does not mean all games are.

Exactly. Saying "anime is racist" makes about as much sense as saying, "Watercolor painting is racist."

If someone wants to do a thoughtful analysis of racist tropes in anime, be my guest. There's probably a goldmine of data in there.

Since Anime is Japanese who tend to be polite xenophobists it makes the content at times woefully stereotypical.

Japanese culture is xenophobic.

Neither of these statements are strictly accurate and Mad as a Hatter's statement is both inaccurate and racist itself.

There are definitely xenophobic people in Japan and expressions of that xenophobia in Japanese culture. Believe me, I liver here, I have to deal with it. But other people in Japan are also remarkably interested in other cultures and very positive about other cultures. Japan's the only place I've ever been where I've found a bar that gives 5% discounts to foreign patrons because they want to attract more Japanese business by making their customer base seem more cosmopolitan and diverse. What I'm saying is it's a mixed bag, and trying to analyze anime's racism as a "yes/no" question rather than a nuanced discussion of positive and negative portrayals within anime is going to be a waste of time because a "yes/no" answer is never going to be accurate enough to be meaningful.

Instead of answering "yes, it's racist" or "no, it's not". I'd rather see people put up examples of depictions and describe them. That would even be more interesting to other readers, because I'm sure there are others here like me who haven't watched much anime in the last 10 years and aren't caught up on what the state of the industry is.

Perhaps I used to strong a word,insular might have been a better term?

And yes its a mixed bag but I was wondering what others thought and this place has a wide enough demographic,ect the comments would be interesting to read. Tho my question is poorly stated.

 

[Mad as a Hatter]

I never said that. You need to work on your Reading comprehension.

You said;

Japanese culture is xenophobic. That's all is to it.

...Which is an absolute statement. If you were saying that Japanese culture had xenophobic elements, you should have said so.

i was not clear then what said then. And i'm sorry if i hurt you feelings. Japan is not perfect you know artificial relationship are a big thing there. And that would be fine if it woudn't replace real ones. I never said i'm 100% right either this is just what i have seen and heard. And i have prove that many people in japan replace real relationship with artificial ones.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/6651021/Japanese-gamer-marries-Nintendo-DS-character.html

Also they marry pillows too

http://metro.co.uk/2010/03/09/man-marries-pillow-154906/

This not healthy, it's dangerous, and this isn't isolated incident there are hotels and resturants dedicated to these people.

http://m.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703632304575451414209658940?mobile=y

 

[Mad as a Hatter]

And i'm not meant to bash japan but things i read and heard about the place don't give it really pleasing view. Economy has gone down the drain there, the rise of virtual relationships as replacement for real ones is concerning and all kinds of stuff. As much i love japan. the problems there can't be looked over.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Anime is a medium, and a medium can almost never be inherently racist, that is like saying all reality TV is racist. Is some content racist? Sure, but the same can be said about any type of content. There have been plenty of games with racist content but that does not mean all games are.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts on the issue. Anime is a medium and you can no more call it racist than you can call sit coms racist. Are there prevailing racist tropes that exist in anime? Probably, they exist in all mediums esp. since the awareness of this stuff is a relatively recent phenomenon. As MovieBob once pointed out in one episode of the Big Picture, sexism, racism used to be so common in human society that the words sexist/racist/etc. probably didn't even exist until about the last century and as such excising such things from our society isn't going to happen overnight.

 

[Mad as a Hatter]

I never said that. You need to work on your Reading comprehension.

You said;

Japanese culture is xenophobic. That's all is to it.

...Which is an absolute statement. If you were saying that Japanese culture had xenophobic elements, you should have said so.

i was not clear then what said then. And i'm sorry if i hurt you feelings. Japan is not perfect you know artificial relationship are a big thing there. And that would be fine if it woudn't replace real ones. I never said i'm 100% right either this is just what i have seen and heard. And i have prove that many people in japan replace real relationship with artificial ones.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/6651021/Japanese-gamer-marries-Nintendo-DS-character.html

Also they marry pillows too

http://metro.co.uk/2010/03/09/man-marries-pillow-154906/

This not healthy, it's dangerous, and this isn't isolated incident there are hotels and resturants dedicated to these people.

http://m.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703632304575451414209658940?mobile=y

Look dude, you're just digging a deeper hole for yourself. I've lived here in Japan for nearly a decade. I've worked with Japanese people that entire time. I've never once met anyone who married a pillow or their DS. You have to go looking for people that socially deviant, and I'm not convinced that if you'd pull a population of 126 million out of any of our countries, you would find a similarly tiny number of people who embrace artificial relationships. People are weird. When you get a lot of them together, odds are good one or two are going to be really weird.

Which is all a giant red-herring, because your latest post has nothing to do with the conversation you were having or the topic of this thread. No one here has said that Japan is perfect. The topic is not "Is Japan perfect" nor is it a discussion about weird relationships in Japan. If you want to talk about that, start a thread about it, I'd be more than happy to participate. Instead of derailing this thread with a 5 page bicker-fest where you do everything you can to distract from the fact that you wrote two bad posts, I propose you just deal with the fact that your posts were objectionable. If you really want to do the honorable thing, offer a "my bad." And then stop encouraging the derailment of this thread and participate in a manner that is useful for what the OP wanted to discuss.

Yeah sorry for looking for evidence and being wordly of problems in other countries. It isn't like we live in age of the Internet where everything is one click away. I like to look deep into things and problems in other nations. In my country trans people are sterilized, people who move here are meet with prejudice especially somalians, grey market is though the roof (thats illegal government spending). And here is little extra info. Trying to hide these problems won't help you. I'm sorry if i hurt your feelings but these are facts go read and educate yourself. If i know more about your country's problems that just shows your own ignorance.

 

[Silvanus]

i was not clear then what said then. And i'm sorry if i hurt you feelings. Japan is not perfect you know artificial relationship are a big thing there. And that would be fine if it woudn't replace real ones. I never said i'm 100% right either this is just what i have seen and heard. And i have prove that many people in japan replace real relationship with artificial ones.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/6651021/Japanese-gamer-marries-Nintendo-DS-character.html

Also they marry pillows too

http://metro.co.uk/2010/03/09/man-marries-pillow-154906/

This not healthy, it's dangerous, and this isn't isolated incident there are hotels and resturants dedicated to these people.

http://m.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703632304575451414209658940?mobile=y

I'm not saying any culture is perfect, but there is not sufficient evidence here to conclude it's a "big thing". A restaurant and a few people constitutes a fairly small sub-culture. I could bring forth the same quantity of evidence about... ooh, say, people in Britain hosting championships based around facial hair. It wouldn't make it a "big thing".

Also, the guy who married a pillow is South Korean, not Japanese.

 

[Dragonbums]

I really wish you could explain more in detail. Because your going to have yes's and no's and that's really all about it.

Is anime explicitly racist? I guess not? What grounds are you basing this on? The fact that most of the characters are representative of Japanese demographics?

Going by that logic I could say that most American cartoons and television shows are racist because for the most part they feature a predominately white cast with a couple of token characters in there.

Your really going to have to expound on this more OP.

 

[Drummodino]

Is cinema sexist?

Is television homophobic?

...you do realise how stupid that sounds yes? They're mediums, you can't say they're racist as a whole. Is there racist anime? Probably. There's also probably racist novels. That doesn't mean every single novel is racist though.

 

[Piorn]

Hardly anything publicly visible is racist, nowadays.
Many misrepresent race due to cultural differences or experiences, but nobody does it intentionally.
Imaine if I were to make anything, any medium, I'd naturally build characters based on my experiences. So, as a german from a rural area, there might be a russian or arabian type character, but generally mostly white people. That's just the way it is here. Who knows, if I grew up in NYC, I might've known some black people and based characters on them.
Just like a medieval fantasy story will have male knights, and that's not sexist.
And even if something is inappropriate, 99% of those cases are still people just being ignorant of those issues. Those cases need to be called out and scolded, but that's it.

I just like to live by Hanlon's Razor.

 

[Hectix777]

To be honest, I don't think it's all that racist. I mean let's face facts: most anime or manga features more diverse casts than most modern sitcoms. I mean, it's pretty rare for not having all white casts for show and the only black guy being token.

Anime is not racist in my eyes, at least they're there and not pretending they don't exist.