Where are the Asians in anime?

[ChromeAlchemist]

Actually, I'm going to change that. Without a signifier of some kind, a stock character from manga is Japanese to them. You will see that people of other ethnicities will have some kind of racial marker, e.g. Americans being light blonde and blue eyed.

So really to them, Ichigo is Japanese, much in the same way Ben 10 is american. No racial markers of any kind means they are what they say they are.

But never a black protagonist, that would be interesting.

What about Afro Samurai?

Interesting. Funnily enough that follows what I was saying, about a racial marker of some kind (as if being black wasn't enough, he has an afro).

I'll count it, but I want more than that.

 

[Gigaguy64]

You have a point. Either Japanese anime artists are racist, or you are too preoccupied with racial diversity and political correctness.

The only anime black guy I've ever seen is the guy from Interstella 5555.

there are 3 people in bleach who are black.
Kanami Tosen.
Don Kan'onji
and the hawt, Yourouchi Shihoin.
but yea, its hard to disquish a ethenticity in anime unless its blatent.
(but aizen (Bleach) looks really american to me)

 

[Gigaguy64]

Read/watch AKIRA and every other work of Katsuhiro Otomo.

There is also Victor Freeman from "Blaster Knuckle" a black main character.
http://mangaoftaste.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/blaster-knuckle/

[IMG/]http://mangaoftaste.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/014.png[/IMG]

AWESOME!!!!!!!

 

[deleted_scifidownbeat]

DELETED

 

[axia777]

But never a black protagonist, that would be interesting.

Black Lagoon has one. Dutch is the African-American leader of the Black Lagoon Company. He is tough, smart and very un-stereotypical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Black_Lagoon_characters#Dutch

 

[Akai Shizuku]

That's just how the animators like to do it. I don't think they contemplate race much, and that's got to be a good thing.

Although some of the most awesome anime characters ever are black, such as those mentioned above.

Eureka Seven has characters of all races.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

You have a point. Either Japanese anime artists are racist, or you are too preoccupied with racial diversity and political correctness.

The only anime black guy I've ever seen is the guy from Interstella 5555.

there are 3 people in bleach who are black.
Kanami Tosen.
Don Kan'onji
and the hawt, Yourouchi Shihoin.
but yea, its hard to disquish a ethenticity in anime unless its blatent.
(but aizen (Bleach) looks really american to me)

Three.

As if that was a large number.

As if three was somehow comparable to the hundreds of characters in the rest of the anime.

In a culture where black people are a rarity, save for Bob Sapp and that other guy.

 

[Xpwn3ntial]

As well, anime eyes are often drawn extremely massive, unlike Japanese eyes. I'm going to guess and say that this is to appeal to countries outside of Asia and for dubbing convenience. I would find it weird to have a clearly American voice actor speaking through a Japanese cartoon character.

The way the characters are drawn in anime make it easy to to voice-act in any language as well as make them easy for any race to relate to.

The big eyes are usually a conveyance of sensitivity. The good, or at least good-hearted, characters. The squinty-eyed guys are more often than not bad.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

But never a black protagonist, that would be interesting.

Black Lagoon has one. Dutch is the African-American leader of the Black Lagoon Company. He is tough, smart and very un-stereotypical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Black_Lagoon_characters#Dutch

Dutch was awesome, and I loved his personality, but I mean black protagonist as in the sole protagonist of the story. I saw Blaster Knuckle above though.

 

[pokkuti]

Try Turn A Gundam. The protagonist is an effeminate dark skin white-haired boy
And there are many character with dark skin.

 

[Xanadu84]

One, I think they are Asian. It's just that cartoons tend to exaggerate features. So because they don't look like racist stereotypes of Asians, they appear to us to not be Asian. I'm sure that to an Asian, the characters look Asian.

Also, There's not a lot of black or dark skinned people because there's not a lot of black or dark skinned people in Japan. Japan doesn't present a lot of black people in the same way that our media doesn't portray a lot of people from, say, Liechtenstein. It doesn't come up for them, so why present a proportionally uneven number of people from that race? THAT would be racist.

 

[axia777]

But never a black protagonist, that would be interesting.

Black Lagoon has one. Dutch is the African-American leader of the Black Lagoon Company. He is tough, smart and very un-stereotypical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Black_Lagoon_characters#Dutch

Dutch was awesome, and I loved his personality, but I mean black protagonist as in the sole protagonist of the story. I saw Blaster Knuckle above though.

I see. But there are rarely any shows that have only one protagonist. Even Ninja Scroll had more than one. Even Afro-Samurai has more than one. They all get help from their hero buddies some time or another. Though I have to say I have no idea who this Blaster Knuckle character is. What series is he from?

 

[ReiSilver]

As well, anime eyes are often drawn extremely massive, unlike Japanese eyes. I'm going to guess and say that this is to appeal to countries outside of Asia and for dubbing convenience.

....*face palm* no the Japanese were not thinking about appealing to westerners when they made the character's eyes bigger. Eyes are very expressive and having large eyes on a stylized anime character makes it a lot easier to show emotion, at first it was style and cost effectiveness and now it's mostly just style. they weren't thinking 'oh maybe we should draw the eyes smaller because only Caucasians have big eyes'.
also large asian eyes: http://lh6.ggpht.com/sagasw/RlAiFLyhuJI/AAAAAAAAETk/l-FRTDI3yiE/s1152/05.jpg
http://lh3.ggpht.com/elaing.zhang/Rzg3xH3O69I/AAAAAAAAGmk/xgowRE1pPIE/s800/1518810356_3d62f14b3b_o.jpg

 

[randomsix]

One name: Brock

 

[Gigaguy64]

You have a point. Either Japanese anime artists are racist, or you are too preoccupied with racial diversity and political correctness.

The only anime black guy I've ever seen is the guy from Interstella 5555.

there are 3 people in bleach who are black.
Kanami Tosen.
Don Kan'onji
and the hawt, Yourouchi Shihoin.
but yea, its hard to disquish a ethenticity in anime unless its blatent.
(but aizen (Bleach) looks really american to me)

Three.

As if that was a large number.

As if three was somehow comparable to the hundreds of characters in the rest of the anime.

ahhh but they are very important characters (except mabey for kan'onji) and i wasent even thinking of all the arrancars many of them are black and many are hispanic.
plus there are a bunch of extras that are different races.
happy?

 

[RagnorakTres]

Kah-KHEM!!

What you are running into is a very common mistake. Those people who look Caucasian to us? They are Asian. A Caucasian (in most anime and regardless of gender) will be drawn with a strong jawline and hair on the limbs. Also, the eyes have a tendency to be more "normal" or realistic.

As for the eyes, manga/anime as we know it today is largely based on Walt Disney's character designs. Those giant expressive eyes are lifted straight from Mickey Mouse.

I thought it was weird at first too, so I did some research.

 

[LilGherkin]

-SNIP-

Is that Catcher Freeman
(Does anyone get the reference or am I laughing by myself?)

 

[Lonan]

I heard they are jealous of the way whities look, and wish they could look like it as well. (They're probably disgusted that such inferior creatures like foreigners could look like that.) This is what I heard. One person I heard it from was my sister, the other my friend. My friend is of Indian descent, just so you know. Apparently they are especially jealous of the appearance of blond haired, blue eyed people. If you go through anime, you will find a LOT of said individuals. Also, the west has always had an osession with China and Japan, the "east" I guess. It goes the other way as well, tourism to places like Buckham palace is largely Asian, and apparently some people in China have English characters on them, like some westerns have Chinese characters on them.

 

[minoes]

Is that Catcher Freeman
(Does anyone get the reference or am I laughing by myself?)

The Boondocks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFQkwW-oPZE

 

[Mr. Purple]

You have a point. Either Japanese anime artists are racist, or you are too preoccupied with racial diversity and political correctness.

The only anime black guy I've ever seen is the guy from Interstella 5555.

...thats the only anime black guy you've seen?
Never even heard of the anime. But ive seen plenty of black and Hispanic anime characters.