Why are so many anime characters white?

[Not G. Ivingname]

I just suddenly noticed this about anime, and japanese characters as a whole. Most of them are white. Naruto, Ken, Ichigo, Ryu, Mario, and every single final fantacy character (expect the "ethnic spice" as Yahtzee puts it), they all look Cacastion. Yes, I know that Japanese people don't have slitty eyes, buck teeth, and what ever else how they were protrayed in WW2 posters, but in the following image, what ethnicity comes to mind when you glance at these characters.

Spoiler

What I see is three white guys, a white girl, a half black guy, a half asian girl that looks like the woman from Smallville, and a deer.

Does anybody know why a culture that was cut off from the Western Wordl until a few hundred years (and the West has been either forcing trade on them, or making their cities fine radiated dust until a few decades ago) have so many of its characters being white?

 

[LeonLethality]

Probably because the west had a huge influence on Manga and Anime. Also Japan sort of has a thing for western culture.

 

[CoverYourHead]

Probably because the Japanese tend to have a white skin tone, and it's a part of anime and manga art style to have eyes be quite large and expressive, often more so than western animation. Also, there aren't a whole lot of different nationalities in Japan as there are in, say, The United States (Or so I hear, I don't have any facts to back this up). So it makes sense really.

 

[Sir Kemper]

My uneductaed geuss would be that there aren't that many people in japan of those backrounds, not saying that japan is completely filled with nothing but asians, Those group's are there, but they're a minority, and like many minority's they aren't really focused on much...


I'm sorry I think that might have sounded incredibaly racist, Not my intent of course, but if somebody could correct me that would be great...

EDIT: Essentialy what CoverYourHead said.

 

[w@rew0lf]

I just suddenly noticed this about anime, and japanese characters as a whole. Most of them are white. Naruto, Ken, Ichigo, Ryu, Mario, and every single final fantacy character (expect the "ethnic spice" as Yahtzee puts it), they all look Cacastion. Yes, I know that Japanese people don't have slitty eyes, buck teeth, and what ever else how they were protrayed in WW2 posters, but in the following image, what ethnicity comes to mind when you glance at these characters.

Spoiler

What I see is three white guys, a white girl, a half black guy, a half asian girl that looks like the woman from Smallville, and a deer.

Does anybody know why a culture that was cut off from the Western Wordl until a few hundred years (and the West has been either forcing trade on them, or making their cities fine radiated dust until a few decades ago) have so many of its characters being white?

Because when they try travesties such as this occur.

[sub]Your soul. It's being devoured at this exact moment.[/sub]

​

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Umm, Afro Samurai?

Coincidentally, the only anime I liked.

 

[qazmatoz]

Soooo...because their eyes aren't slanted enough...they're white...even with a name like Ichigo Kurasaki... Kay.

 

[RaphaelsRedemption]

Because it is traditional in Japanese art to depict "good" and beautiful characters with white skin and blonde hair.

There is a very long record of this, and while I don't know where this started, I don't think there was any racial motivation behind it.

 

[cerebus23]

Maybe simply cause most japanese are in fact white? While many anime character tend to look western they usually are supposed to be japanese, they have as much a fascination with large round eyes as they do you know them being light skinned.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Japanese animation was inspired by Disney and the old Betty Boop cartoon.

Osamu Tezuka took Disney style animation, and simplified it, creating basic anime.

I have no idea how I remember that.

 

[child of lileth]

Basically because they hate Ganguros.

Plus, it's based on culture. They don't have many, if any at all, people in Japan that aren't either Asian, or some form of Caucasian.

 

[Ashendarei]

The exaggerated features definately help when portraying emotions, and it definately follows a long-standing tradition of animation.

While I'm not horribly thrilled with the way europeans or americans are portrayed in Anime, I don't think there is anything particularly bad or racist about it.

(I know you didn't really 'go there' with your OP, but that was kinda the feel I got from it)

 

[Miumaru]

There are more "accurate" anime out there. But those are generally more serious and realistic.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

Probably because the Japanese tend to have a white skin tone, and it's a part of anime and manga art style to have eyes be quite large and expressive, often more so than western animation. Also, there aren't a whole lot of different nationalities in Japan as there are in, say, The United States (Or so I hear, I don't have any facts to back this up). So it makes sense really.

I vouch for you; see, darker skin tones rarely appearing in animes do NOT make it racist. it would be rather odd change of pace, that's all.

don't worry, darker skin tone manga styles are slowly on the rise.

 

[Arsen]

Why on earth do you even care? Seriously, why is race such a damned issue these days, I'm sick of it back and forth...

 

[Worgen]

well most societies arnt as integrated as the US is and asian cultures tend to be rather racist about things like skin tone (I heard that the maker of dragon ball wanted all the namiks to be black, looking like mr popo or something so he could kill them off), but most of it comes from just having really one skin color there, there just arnt many black people in japan, probably almost all of them are US military personnel or celebrities endorsing something

 

[NeutralDrow]

Japanese people have a very large range of skin tones, but tend to be fairer-skinned overall (exceptions in artwork, off the top of my head, would be Chika from Ai Yori Aoshi and Tatsuki from Gals).

Eye design is a confluence of factors: earliest anime design was expressly based on Disney cartoons, larger eyes are more expressive (especially in a animation style that tends to favor "false animation" or slower movements), and there's also a trend in Japanese artwork that people with narrower eyes tend to be more amoral (ala <url=http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5217/saitomc3.jpg>Hajime Saitou) or untrustworthy.

Spoiler: Guess which one's the evil counterpart?

This doesn't hold, naturally, if the artist is specifically going for a more realistic style (like Vagabond, or the <url=http://ghostlightning.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/rurouni-kenshin-trust-and-betrayal-batoussai-tomoe.jpg>Rurouni Kenshin OVAs).

That's probably why, when Japanese do draw actual white people (as in, white Americans and Europeans), they have a disproportionate tendency to be blond. As well, the trend in Japanese artwork regarding pictures of outsiders tends to not be larger eyes, but larger noses.

EDIT: Besides, you used One Piece as an example. Even aside from the extremely stylistic artwork (I could counter with The Big O; those people look more Asian than Caucasian to me), do any of those characters even have recognizable ethnicity?

 

[Dorian6]

http://www.1999.co.jp/itbig07/10073038a3.jpg

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonball/images/thumb/d/d7/AssistantBlack.gif/250px-AssistantBlack.gif

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_9LeRpFXYRy8/SxA_EH45AqI/AAAAAAAAA4g/aAzaw2owp_s/s400/jynx.gif

idk but every one i've seen has been utterly terrifying