Japanese Characters Are Not Trying to Look Western

[For.I.Am.Mad]

Just to let you guys know, Japan did nothing wrong during WWII. Especially between 1937-1945. Nothing wrong at all. No Korean sex slaves or anything. Nope. They're just victims of evil imperial America.

Seriously though, this a horrible article. 'None of this proves that anime characters are intended to look white.' Why, because you say so? Oh wait, a bullshit study to add to the denial. Since Japanese talk in layers by saying 'They look Japanese', maybe they're saying they look white but since Japanese aspire to be white they say Japanese since they want to be white. You know?

You ignore obvious things like the abundance of blond haired blue eyed girls. Or the fact that evil characters tend to have narrower eyes and have features that look...Asian.

 

[The Random One]

An article that starts (after the intro) with 19th century history and ends with Frank West can't go wrong.

I feel it didn't study its subject well enough, though. Most of the points are conjectures... anime characters may look Westernized or may look just stylized, what's the truth? Who do you listen to in this dillema?

It's true though that in Japan there's a fetiche of the West, but there's also a level of xenophobia. Maybe the two balance out, and I need to display my confusion over this fact with an emoticon

One interesting point is that it's impossible to create a raceless character, because people will expect characters with dark skin to be shaded even in a colorless medium, so while White and Asian people may see their own race on a character with background-colored skin it's harder for people with darker skin to do the same. Someone needs to do an actual scientific study on that, with labcoats and stuff.

Or the fact that evil characters tend to have narrower eyes and have features that look...Asian.

Wide eyes = innocence, duh. The prevalent 'horny old guy' manga archetipe also usually have very narrow eyes, even though they're generally nice. This is because they have no innocence. THEREFORE BY MY POWERS THE REST OF YOUR POST IS ALSO NULL AND VOID, KAZAM

 

[Acting like a FOOL]

despite not being able to tell what Clouds ethnicity is...

Everyone knows what Barret supposed to be! XD

 

[Windup Bird]

The shift in art style in japanese games from 8 bit era to nowadays answers to several factors:

- Improved technology, being able to portray characters in a more definite way. In the old days you only had to change the game's cover and maybe a couple of the splash screens in game. And that was it. The tiny sprites could be interpreted in any way.Now you have the ability to define a character down to the eyelashes. So there had to be some give and take.

- The gaming market has broadened several times over. The best example of this is Final Fantasy. At the end of the 16bit era, the franchise's offerings were enjoyed by a majority of guidebook wielding hardcore players. Enter the Playstation, with its improved visuals, there also laid the opportunity to take on a larger market, say, the animation crowd. Thus the previos major character designer, Yoshitaka Amano, takes a secondary role to a fresh face who brings about a whole new style of characters, more closely related to their anime counterparts down to the spiky hair. With the advent of realism, came yet another gamble. In japan the lines between cosplaying and street fashion aren't as clearly defined as the rest of the world. The value of japan's fashion sense has been proven time and time again as even western performers have profited on it. Thus the most recent installments Final Fantasy's cast of heroes seem more at home at a Mall than in a Dwarven Hall.

 

[92Sierra]

Years back there used to be an Asian guy who did portraits at our mall (I was kid back then so I can't tell you where he was from). After he drew you you would look Asian in the eyes. The eyes just had this slight narrow curved look to them that made you look Asian. I noticed in Tekken 5 that in Bruce's ending his eyes have a very exaggerrated wide eyed look to them. You can tell that the Japanese programmer was trying his hardest to make sure the black guy did not Asian eyes! In FF10-2 howwever in the extra high-res cut scene of Yuna singing 'A 1,000 Words' Yuna's eyes take on a slightly asian look. My point? I don't know. It's too late for me now to think. I guess it's like how guys can draw guys easier than girls and vice-versa.

 

[Zyxzy]

I am not entirely convinced that Dead Rising's success is due to ethnic pandering instead of, you know, the gameplay.

 

[Gothproxy]

A great article! I've always prided myself on catching the choice tidbits of Japanese culture that made it's way into various 'Neutral' games, and I really enjoyed many games that worked to immerse you in Japanese culture, past or present (Shenmue anyone?). It is sad to see Japanese developers working harder to produce games designed to target a western audience than just making really good games for everyone. Maybe all of us who are fans of Japanese culture and Japanese games will get a few more Western Ports before the Asian market goes belly-up to the almighty US dollar...or something like that.

 

[Betancore]

I think the appearance of the characters in Japanese games aren't a result of ethnic 'bleaching' so much - at least one would hope that's not the intention. Having characters who are racially ambiguous makes it easier for people of anything ethnicity or cultural background to relate to the character. And it helps each character look different. I don't think I'd be exaggerating to say that some people would have trouble distinguishing between characters if they all had, to quote the article, straight black hair and brown eyes.

Besides, is it typical of most people who fall under the broad umbrella of 'Caucasian' to have hair colours such as purple, or bright orange? It's not necessarily whitewashing, in this respect, because they don't even look all that Caucasian. I don't look at an anime girl with blue hair, and think that she looks white. Sure, their eyes might be unnaturally large, and they might have curly hair, but those things still don't make me automatically assume that they're Caucasian. And as stated in the article, there are reasons behind that - to give the impression that a character is innocent, or naive - little things like that. We get these cues from their expressions and their facial features, and that's what they represent - not race.

And if characters appear 'ethnically neutral' and makes the game more accessible, how is that a bad thing? Games that just so happen to be made by Japanese developers don't have to be about Japan. Look at all the RPGs that are set in fantasy worlds. So now all the characters in this fantasy world should look Japanese just for the sake of it? They did intend for people of other cultures to play it too, right? And if we really wanted a game which was more focused on Japanese culture, there'd be one. And maybe it'd be actually set in Japan, instead of in some world created by Japanese designers.

And whitewashing? Most of the Japanese/Chinese/Korean people I know, especially the girls, are paler than most Caucasians are. There is a whole market out there dedicated to making your skin more pale.

Also, people with no face really creep me out. Reminds me of that Doctor Who episode...ugh.

 

[Silver Patriot]

Wow, now I feel ashamed that I like Dead Rising.

Seriously though I feel that creating games that focus toward a specific culture is not bad in and of itself. Look at Metal Gear Solid. A Japanese game that had a definitively American character and focused strongly on American government and culture. MGS4, which admittedly had become more global in scale, is now the best selling game on the PS3. It is when you start changing you franchises to appeal to a certain culture or completely ignoring those franchises that you may have a problem.

 

[ilion]

Maybe we are just reading too much into this. I mean Japan is a proud nation, always has been, people just like diversity in life.

 

[Gunner 51]

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 )

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.

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.

I kind of have to laugh, perhaps believing that the grass is greener on the other side is part of the human condition.

 

[Joe Matsuda]

Whoa whoa whoa...what does Renee Montoya have to do with Japan???

OT: I never really though of those characters in anime with blonde hair and lighter skin to be caucasian

...but maybe I'm just letting the knowledge of what country theyre from influence my perception...

 

[Rylot]

I am not entirely convinced that Dead Rising's success is due to ethnic pandering instead of, you know, the gameplay.

Um, yeah, I'd agree with that. I know that the article was about how race impacts how people perceived race in video games but there are so many other factors involved in this discussion that the author never touches on. Maybe it's just that cultures are too complicated to reasonably expect every aspect of them to delved into in a three page internet article...Too much thinking, I'm off to bed.

 

[NaramSuen]

My friend always used to complain when characters in anime of manga had blonde hair, but as I pointed out to him many of the blonde Caucasian girls we see aren't real blondes either.

Here in Taiwan, large round eyes and pale skin are both considered to be the ideal. There are different arguments about the round eyes, but the pale skin has nothing to do with race or emulating Westerns and everything to do with socio-economic class. If you had pale skin it meant that your family was rich enough that you didn't have to work outside in the fields. This rings true for most of the countries in East and South East Asia which I have travelled to.

 

[NaramSuen]

Just to let you guys know, Japan did nothing wrong during WWII. Especially between 1937-1945. Nothing wrong at all. No Korean sex slaves or anything. Nope. They're just victims of evil imperial America.

Seriously though, this a horrible article. 'None of this proves that anime characters are intended to look white.' Why, because you say so? Oh wait, a bullshit study to add to the denial. Since Japanese talk in layers by saying 'They look Japanese', maybe they're saying they look white but since Japanese aspire to be white they say Japanese since they want to be white. You know?

You ignore obvious things like the abundance of blond haired blue eyed girls. Or the fact that evil characters tend to have narrower eyes and have features that look...Asian.

Actually you have to go back a little earlier to 1931 when the Japanese invaded Manchuria. It was the ongoing civil war in China and Chiang Kai-shek's belief that the Communists were a great threat than the Japanese that prevented full scale for six years.

 

[Michael O'Hair]

Maybe we are just reading too much into this. I mean Japan is a proud nation, always has been, people just like diversity in life.

Japan seems to be more humble and proud, and at times the Japanese people seem almost ashamed of being Japanese. It appears that the Japanese don't like characters in their media to appear ethnically Japanese. Key to the issue, I think, are Japan's first contact with cultures outside of Japan in the form of the foreign barbarians that brought modernity to the country (Meiji era).

And if people liked diversity, particularly, why do most protagonists in first- and third-person action games look the same (buzz-cut space marine stereotype)? Probably the same reason that Japanese characters look like Caucasians: the audience tends to project themselves onto the characters, which is facilitated by the characters conforming to a cultural ideal.

 

[ManInRed]

First of all: Final Fantasy characters are ambiguous in race? What game are you talking about?! You're honestly telling me you can't tell Barret and Sazh are not the same race as Yuffie and Snow? Do you really expect me to believe you think all four of them are white? If it was just one, then maybe I'd believe you, but claiming you're that bad at telling race apart makes you sound like Steven Colbert.

Anime looks different than western art because it has a different focus to make characters look distinct than western animation. Western animation can usually have their characters broken down into simple geometric shapes; this can be clearly seen if you take our most cartoony looking characters, for instance: Mickey Mouse's head is three big circles.

Anime on the other hand has standard silhouette or shape to their characters, relying instead on style and expressions to distinguish characters so they don't all look the same. Different clothes, hair style, colors, with exaggerated facial expression. Strip those away and the characters would all look the same. Back when sprites in video games were made up of very few pixels, these stylizing features were the perfect tool for distinguishing between sprites. It has only now become more noticeable as games have improved graphics to allow more detail and flexibility in character design.

However it is true, by not changing the shape of the bone structure of the characters faces, Anime does lack some of the facial features we often associate with race. But this is not an attempt to remove racial features; this philosophy in art can be track down in Asia long before western influence existed. It is also important to remember a lot of Anime characters were never intended to be seen outside of Japan when they were made, so it's a bit self-center if you try to examine this topic through the lens of an American culture, or any other.

A typical Japanese artist does not have to tell people apart on a daily basis using the traits we associate with the groups of people our culture defines as difference races. If a crime occurs in Japan and the officer asks a witness what the assailant looked like, he's probably not going to mention he looked Japanese or Asian. But he certainly be quick to point out the assailant had spiky blonde hair, and had on a blue tank top.

As for why horror games are set in America, the creators have admitted American horror movies having a huge influence on their design. And it shows!

One thing that does bother me about Anime and race is how, to make characters seem less foreign, American Anime characters are introduced as Half-Japanese and Half-American. It doesn't make any sense. You can't be half American, you're always 100% American or not American at all. In fact, you can even be 100% Japanese and 100% American. Using American to define any non-Asian race is silly, as it completely misses the point on what being an American means.

 

[snave]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't a lot of the early animations from Japan bear startling resemblance to their Western counterparts because well, that was how the industry started? All artists in all artistic fields begin from mimickery to some extent, and branch out later.

Modern characterisations are for the most part a mix of fantastical over-stylisation and a hefty peppering of raial stereotypes, particularly towards the Chinese (see: sidebar image on the article, most any gameshow on NHK). Annecdotally, the current generation of anime/game hairstyles would look much more normal on a Japanese retired woman than anyone on a beach ANYWHERE (purely a funny aside as the direction of influence there is clearly pop culture outwards).

Any discussion regarding eyes are baffling in their own regard due to the inherant state of dominant and recessive eyelid fold traits in East Asians, and even raising Hamasaki's snip-snip issue without touching on the fact that bifold eyelids are natural in Japan is pretty lax, given the context (although I think Hamasaki, glue or surgery or what-have-you has gone so far she looks decisively alien).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to diss this article, its just that there are a lot of unfinished and unfleshed out threads within it that are then used to push a "balanced" argument. Particularly, in the first two pages you raise as many affirmative points as you do negatives towards the central argument, but these points tend to be mutually exclusive in scope and none are balanced within themselves.


Falseprophet: In most societies, Oriental, Occidental and anywhere in between, intellectuals were prized more than farmers, and guess which one tends to develop a more tanned complexion? Its only pretty recently in human history that a tan has become prized. I don't know enough aboiut the whitening stuff to comment further, but its an curious starting point.

ManInRed: I suspect that is primarily political. Even a recruitment video I once saw for an "internationalised" cult made a point of showing the foreign character going home because he had no Japanese heritage whatsoever.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I always thought they mostly like the western face at least the round eyes that with liking various non black hair colors and fancy styles you get more than the 5-10 combination you get with most Asian looks.

I have noticed more Black/brown hair leads in anime but not many with a Asian eye styles.

 

[Booze Zombie]

I also thought that most of these characters in Japanese games were an actually an expression of desire to be strange and not be bound by things like respecting elders, knowing your place and all in all, almost like some sort of escapism deal with trying to break out of the shame-based society Japan has.
That is, the characters in quite a few Japanese games strike me as being loud and all over the place (both in personality and appearance) for the very sake of not being "normal", being "rude, powerful, young, weird and not-caring about it".