Poll: What race do anime characters look like to you?
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I actually read an interesting article about this a few weeks ago. In culture, there are phenomena called markedness and unmarkedness.
Take a smiley face. A circle, two dots for eyes, and a smile, no more. This is our unmarked example. If you live in America, you will probably view the smiley face as a white male. If you live in Japan, you are likely to notice it as Japanese. When something is basic and unmarked, we tend to defer it to our status quo, hence why Americans look at anime characters and see whites, and Japanese look and see asians. Note that I didn't say that whites see whites and vice versa, as studies show that minorities in a certain culture will still typically view the unmarked as the main stay of that culture.
Markedness is as it would imply, marks to distinguish deviations from the status quo. If we were to change our smiley face to have slanty eyes, most Americans would ***** about its racist resembelence, but they would still undoubtedly see that its meant to portray an asian.
Anime characters are typically unmarked for racial bits, so the viewer will tend to associate it with the status quo. Hell, If you showed an anime to a tribe of black people who never saw any white men, I'm pretty sure even they'd see the anime characters as black.
Take a smiley face. A circle, two dots for eyes, and a smile, no more. This is our unmarked example. If you live in America, you will probably view the smiley face as a white male. If you live in Japan, you are likely to notice it as Japanese. When something is basic and unmarked, we tend to defer it to our status quo, hence why Americans look at anime characters and see whites, and Japanese look and see asians. Note that I didn't say that whites see whites and vice versa, as studies show that minorities in a certain culture will still typically view the unmarked as the main stay of that culture.
Markedness is as it would imply, marks to distinguish deviations from the status quo. If we were to change our smiley face to have slanty eyes, most Americans would ***** about its racist resembelence, but they would still undoubtedly see that its meant to portray an asian.
Anime characters are typically unmarked for racial bits, so the viewer will tend to associate it with the status quo. Hell, If you showed an anime to a tribe of black people who never saw any white men, I'm pretty sure even they'd see the anime characters as black.
Characters from most Animes look white to me, except for a few occasions. Liz from IGPX looks Hispanic, because she's Puerto Rican. In all honesty, the only feature that anime characters share with actual Asians is height. I mean Goku(Dragon Ball Z) is only 5 ft 7 in, though he actually looks about 6ft.
Remember: I'm not a racist, I've killed enough Nazis to populate Germany.
Remember: I'm not a racist, I've killed enough Nazis to populate Germany.
Which ones, and which art style?
Realistic art styles tend to go for whichever the character is supposed to be. Nonrealistic tend to go for whatever the design influence is.
Realistic art styles tend to go for whichever the character is supposed to be. Nonrealistic tend to go for whatever the design influence is.
Piece of advice, if you'll accept it. Occasionally you'll run into sites like that that discourage hotlinking. An easy way to get around that is using Image Shack, pasting the image url into the upload bar, and using the resulting direct link url for your image.snowman6251 said:
I actually use it for all the images I post, just to be sure. I changed the url in your tags, to demonstrate.
I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Logically, in your hypothetical scenario, this tribe would recognize that the anime characters didn't look anything like them and they would be curious about what they were seeing.Chefodeath said:
I wasn't aware that every anime character has the exact same skin tone/look.
Also, to me, they all look like a race of bizarre mutant freaks that have been living underground for the last 50000 years and have developed humoungous eyeballs to see better.
Also, to me, they all look like a race of bizarre mutant freaks that have been living underground for the last 50000 years and have developed humoungous eyeballs to see better.
Actually, some anime characters ARE meant to be white, that's why they have different coloured hair, but they are still all drawn by Japanese people, voiced in Japanese by Japanese people, all the same.
Chiaki from Nodame Cantabile looks pretty Japanese to me:
http://karmaburn.com/files/screenshots/nodame_cantabile/finale/chiaki1101.jpg
While this one looks white:
http://simplicity.kokidokom.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/cordasecondo02-07.jpg
Chiaki from Nodame Cantabile looks pretty Japanese to me:
http://karmaburn.com/files/screenshots/nodame_cantabile/finale/chiaki1101.jpg
While this one looks white:
http://simplicity.kokidokom.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/cordasecondo02-07.jpg
I think some markers that differentiate to me.
For example Naruto has blonde hair and blue eyes, so to me he comes across as white.
Sasuke has dark hair and eyes, coming across as asian.
Others can be tricky and don't really fall into any race we have (purple hair, red eyes)
For example Naruto has blonde hair and blue eyes, so to me he comes across as white.
Sasuke has dark hair and eyes, coming across as asian.
Others can be tricky and don't really fall into any race we have (purple hair, red eyes)