Why are all anime characters white?

[chuckman1]

Seriously I don't understand why in so many animes (especially ones taking place in JAPAN) ALL characters are white. Seriously I never see any asian features on any anime characters.
Maybe it's the art style but I don't see why everyone would look like an American white person.

SO why do you think even "asian" anime characters don't look asian at all?
EDIT: By all I didn't mean EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER I meant the majority.

 

[Mr. Cheese]

What about Brock?

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

I don't even watch anime and I still know that's not true. Anime characters are not all white.

 

[Wuggy]

Yes, it's the art style.

Asian people are usually recognized by their eyes being being "leaner", resulting from their eyelids being kind of lower. However, the Japanese culture considers small eyes (particularly on anime) to look "mean" or "rude". The artstyle reflects on that: you'll notice that most often young and/or the main characters (the good guys) have large eyes, whereas usually the antagonists and/or people with dismissive/mean/cool personality have leaner eyes.

Also, saying all anime character are "all" white, simply isn't true. I don't watch anime or read manga myself, and I know this.

 

[thePyro_13]

Anime is based on Manga, where drawing in black ink is much harder and looks worse.

Overall, anime tends to avoid drawing a characters race, Western and Japanese characters are often drawn the same(maybe western characters tend to have blond hair). So they usually all appear white.

Of cause their are exceptions, especially in the more popular Animes.

But it's no racist conspiracy or anything, just a part of the drawing style.

 

[Wintermoot]

Ryu Jose from MSG and Claudia LaSalle from SDF Macross
and I don,t think "white" anime characters look even remotely Asian.

 

[C. Cain]

It's a matter of art style and projection. Asian audiences consider anime characters to be Asian, whereas Caucasian audiences consider anime characters to be Caucasian.

 

[l3o2828]

Yoruichi from Bleach is black.

But anyways, i agree with the above posts, it's simply untrue they are all white.

 

[Saulkar]

I think, and do not quote me on this because I think I heard this in like grade 2, that Japanese culture views pales complexions as more beautiful than dark and thus lighter skinned characters in anime because they can make them that way.

I am no doubt wrong though.

 

[General_Tragg]

he's pretty fly for a white guy...

 

[Rblade]

Because japan idolizes western culture, so the whiter the better.

and the eyes, large eyes make the emotion easier to draw or something like that, but they also make you look very not asian.

 

[infinity_turtles]

It's the art style. It's heavily influenced by old Disney work. That said, the Japanese are often just as white as Caucasians. Features you might associate with generic Whites are explainable as well. Small noses for instance. We associate that with Whites because in comparison with those of Middle-Eastern or African decent, they are indeed smaller. Asians typically have even smaller noses though. Big eyes, something we don't usually associate with Asians, is mainly used because of the aforementioned influence, but also because especially narrow or small eyes is seen as a stereotypical image of deceitful or evil characters. Larger eyes used to be seen as a quirk, not sharing any implications despite those of the other end of the spectrum, but the Disney influence mixed with pre-existing stereotype changed that.

 

[Quigglebert]

clearly you dont watch enough damn anime, see afro samurai for more details

 

[Sgt. Dante]

This is covered in a book I read for a project back in Uni. But completely forgotten the point now. Something to do with the normalization of your self image. I'd have to go look it out.

 

[Winterfel]

Yeah since we've left any kind of research out of the picture let's bring up the fact that ALL video game protagonists are white.

C wuut I did thar?

 

[Kalikin]

Well... When I see an anime character, I think, "cool, an anime character of indeterminate fictional origin", not, "hey, an American". Then again, I've only seen Americans in movies, so for all I know they MIGHT resemble each other...

 

[Broderick]

I remember seeing a video about this subject once, it said that we only THINK they are white based on a few features, C cain above said pretty much the same thing, we are projecting. As someone said before, eyes display emotion quite well, and larger eyes means its easier to show that emotion. The size of the eyes can be part of the character as well, see brock(from pokemon) and gin (from bleach); while brock's "line eyes" makes him look friendly and content, gin's eyes makes him look sly,(as it resembles the way one would animate fox eye's)he seems to have a hidden agenda(and does!).

As for more on topic, what exactly makes the characters look white to you besides skin color and the eye size? What exactly are these "asian features" you are talking about? Eye size and skin color are one thing, but what exactly makes a japanese character look japanese? Not trying to be hostile or anything, I think those are a couple questions people need to think about regarding this topic.

 

[MrAkuma201]

It's the style it's drawn the way the eyes are is so you can see how the character feels better. and try google Black Anime Characters and see what comes up. I know what you are trying to say and I get it ;3

 

[Capt. Crankypants]

You really should lay off the OP about the liberal, and slightly exaggerated use of 'All'. Seriously, nitpicking aside, he has a point, right? Google images, 'Anime' (Safesearch recommended), and have a browse. You're hard pressed to find any specific ethnicities, and be honest with yourself, the regular art style does seem to be of persons of western origin and caucasian skin.

That said, a few of the posts here do seem to sum it up, and the opinions suggested here seem to mirror the common explanations that I've heard, about idealising/idolising western culture and appearance, and/or going for a universal 'look' which western AND japanese audiences aren't too hard pressed to relate to.

So, instead of throwing up a picture of that 'one black dude from that anime that you remember', and sarcastic comments and comparisons about 'all blah is blah', how bout we work a civil discussion from here eh?

...I don't even like or watch anime.

 

[nothinghere]

watch this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKTvFhRbBt8

don't know how to imbed a video, sorry