The idea of "ethnic bleaching" in anime was new to me. I always understood that anime and manga used such a sparse artistic technique that the random hair and eye colors were used so it was easier to tell characters apart. I mean, what ethnicity has all pink hair or purple eyes?
Japanese Characters Are Not Trying to Look Western
- Thread starter Fintan Monaghan
- Start date
Japan (and Asia in general) is just very big on style. Most anime characters don't really look ethnically bleached, but just overly stylish. Just look at some of Clamp's work and you'll know what I mean.
In my opinion anime characters always look Japanese because they're Japanese animations. Though, if you look at comics or animations like Akira, the characters look very much Japanese. Same thing for the game Onimusha.
In my opinion anime characters always look Japanese because they're Japanese animations. Though, if you look at comics or animations like Akira, the characters look very much Japanese. Same thing for the game Onimusha.
I was watching some documentation on the reasoning behind the styling with hair color, eye color and hair style, and it was originally seen as a way to easily tell characters apart on the screen. It made it really easy to say, okay, that's this character, and this is this character. In a culture where students will wear uniforms, and when reflected in different mediums will also wear uniforms, and easy way to identify everyone individually on screen was born.
Mixing paints is cheap, which is why there is a pretty wide variety of skin tones in animation. Generally though, you write down what you're mixing, and if it looks great, you share your formula with the rest of the animation crew, so they can help keep it up. Of course, digital painting is even easier, because you only have to share 18 character hex codes.
Mixing paints is cheap, which is why there is a pretty wide variety of skin tones in animation. Generally though, you write down what you're mixing, and if it looks great, you share your formula with the rest of the animation crew, so they can help keep it up. Of course, digital painting is even easier, because you only have to share 18 character hex codes.
I cry pardon if I'm off base with this comment, but did anyone else find the irony of the picture associated with this article distracting? The faceless woman is wearing an outfit which, unless I'm mistaken, is pretty much an icon of Chinese fashion. This seems in questionable taste for an article about the New Face of Japanese Games that takes games to task for not being precise about the appearance of their characters.
*shrug* Maybe it's just me.
*shrug* Maybe it's just me.
Maybe there is some detail you caught that makes this a Chinese outfit rather than a Japanese one, but it looks like a kimono to me...
Google Images for "Traditional Japanese Kimono"
I may have been ninja'd, but it is obviously a Chinese dress, the neck is too high for a kimono.Demgar said:
http://www.google.com/images?q=chinese%20dress&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US
fficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1680&bih=841
Having seen anime with true to life charahcteristics, it gets hard to tell characters apart if they change minor things (say all are wearing something on their head so you can't tell by the hair style)vxicepickxv said:
I took Japanese history classes last year. What we have to realize is that Japan is not a naturally homogeneous nation: years prior they were a group of fragmented clans fighting against each other with a lose government. Why did they unite? To defend themselves from an eventual western invasion. Know thy enemy, after all. They adopted western tech, politics, and culture in the name of adapting against the "western barbarian".
When you have a fragmented nation unite and do so over more than a hundred years...things go crazy. The recent election screw-ups (3 goddamn PMs within five years?!) is proof of that. And the whole western adaptation thing has gone a bit far: from taking our products and improving them (electronics, videogames, cars, etc.), to portraying anime characters with white features as they are much more appealing than their own homogeneous looks (pale skin, small eyes, dark hair...dormed with a Japanese guy who looked like that and worked with a naturally dark-skinned Japanese girl...so hot...)
I get the feeling it's some kind of self-loathing: when a culture can't even portray themselves as is then there's a whole mess of problems within their national identity. Any thoughts?
When you have a fragmented nation unite and do so over more than a hundred years...things go crazy. The recent election screw-ups (3 goddamn PMs within five years?!) is proof of that. And the whole western adaptation thing has gone a bit far: from taking our products and improving them (electronics, videogames, cars, etc.), to portraying anime characters with white features as they are much more appealing than their own homogeneous looks (pale skin, small eyes, dark hair...dormed with a Japanese guy who looked like that and worked with a naturally dark-skinned Japanese girl...so hot...)
I get the feeling it's some kind of self-loathing: when a culture can't even portray themselves as is then there's a whole mess of problems within their national identity. Any thoughts?
Clark Kent (Superman), John Stewart (Green Lantern), Wally West (Flash) all look very different from each other and are easily distinguishable based on their skin, hair, features and build. The animators had the luxury of writing for an audience that had similar diversity all around them.
Japanese have vigorously been convincing themselves for centuries that they all look alike (regardless of whether they actually do or not). There's an incredibly strong reluctance to admit that they don't all look alike - and therefore a very strong over-romanticizing of the "other" or that which looks and acts differently. If everyone looks, talks, acts and dresses alike - and they're BORING - then anything that looks talks acts and dresses different is considered to be totally cool.
So it's not necessarily that they're trying to make the characters look Western, it's that they're different. One easy way to do that without making them alien is to play around with hair and eye color. That's what you see.
Japanese have vigorously been convincing themselves for centuries that they all look alike (regardless of whether they actually do or not). There's an incredibly strong reluctance to admit that they don't all look alike - and therefore a very strong over-romanticizing of the "other" or that which looks and acts differently. If everyone looks, talks, acts and dresses alike - and they're BORING - then anything that looks talks acts and dresses different is considered to be totally cool.
So it's not necessarily that they're trying to make the characters look Western, it's that they're different. One easy way to do that without making them alien is to play around with hair and eye color. That's what you see.
Such things are not a new phenomena, Indian cinema been doing something similar with it's lead actors for years. They're certainly a lot lighter in skin tone than most of the normal populace there - which also seems to buy skin whitening cream in droves.
(Source: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/india/100727/indian-culture-skin-lightening-shahid-kapur )
But it seems that not even we in the Britain are not safe from such things - in Britain there's a lot of folk out there using sun-beds to appear darker. (Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/aug/01/sunbeds-cancer-warning )
(Source: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/india/100727/indian-culture-skin-lightening-shahid-kapur )
But it seems that not even we in the Britain are not safe from such things - in Britain there's a lot of folk out there using sun-beds to appear darker. (Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/aug/01/sunbeds-cancer-warning )
What a great article. I was just asking myself how japanese must feel towards their characters being depicted with bright eyes and blonde hair all the time. I personally always found the majority of japanese anime and game characters to be very white, but that just proves the point. I would've never looked at it that way. Characters that are open to completely different perspectives.
Ah good catch, I think you're right, it looks like a cheongsam [http://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/annahe/product-detailBoqmHpvCZQhI/China-Cheongsam-8013-.html] to me. (I suppose the affinity for red should be a bit of a give way too.)Elijah Newton said:
Gift.
Actually, these two things are related. In many societies, European and Asian, a paler complexion was held up as a mark of health and beauty, basically because it was a sign of class. If you were pale, that meant you didn't have to work outdoors so you were probably wealthy and powerful.Gunner 51 said:
In the West, sometime in the 20th century as the concept of holidays and vacation became more prevalent, an all-over tan started to represent the same thing. If you're tanned all over, it probably means you have the free time and money to lay on a beach in a swimsuit for hours at a time. Being pale means you don't have the time to do this, so you're probably either poor, or working all the time at low-paying jobs. But there's still negative sentiment towards a "farmer's tan", because it's a sign that you do outdoor physical labour. These sentiments exist even though some white people, notably most redheads, can't even get a tan.
I'm not entirely sure why most Asian cultures still hold pale complexions in high regard. They might not see a beach vacation as a worthy leisure activity, but the number of beach episodes in most anime series makes me question that.
Yea I don't know who put that up there but it unfortunately keeps me from taking the article seriously. A search "japanese dress" gives a kimono and "chinese dress" is qipao.Giftmacher said:
Many japanese games to me have japanese characters. Superficially they don't look like it but personalities and character motivations are very culturally relative.
Japanese studios may be trying to Westernize their games, but there is one thing that they fail at when they attempt this feat.
No American talks with the same over exaggerated body motions and constant fist clenching, like the sort that can be found in FF 13.
Seriously guys, you make great games, but enough with the day time soap body language. It's cheeses up the game something fierce.
No American talks with the same over exaggerated body motions and constant fist clenching, like the sort that can be found in FF 13.
Seriously guys, you make great games, but enough with the day time soap body language. It's cheeses up the game something fierce.