Why Are So Many Manga Characters Drawn to Look Like White People?

[BrunDeign]

I mean think about three of the most popular manga in recent memory - Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece. Bleach is an especially big offender in this, since it takes place solely in Japan and other-worlds that are based on Feudal Japan architecture. These characters are being drawn by Japanese character and in many cases are supposed to BE Japanese characters.

So why do so many of them look like they'd fit right at home in the U.S.? Take Ichigo Kurosaki and the rest of the main cast from Bleach. Do ANY of them scream "Japanese/Of Japanese descent" to you?

What I want to know is why these character are drawn the way they are. Do the Japanese find people in the United States more attractive? I'm really grasping at straws to figure out a reason for their art style.

Oh and as a disclaimer I am white so I'm not raging about it. I'm just confused and curious. Of course this is my opinion too so if you disagree, say so and tell me why. All discussion is welcome.

 

[smearyllama]

I think it was explained once, on these forums, I do believe, that anime characters are drawn in a sort of neutral way, like how a smiley face just means a person, and doesn't specify that they're of any race or ethnicity.

I could be wrong, however.

 

[Lucem712]

I find this video is helpful in clarifying dimensions and stylization to their real life equivalent.

 

[Vault101]

I dont know...its just to do with the style of the face

I actually bought a book on how to draw Manga, even though I cant stand the manga artstyle,

reason was it had alot on basic stuff like proportions and the body, so it was really helpful (and I just ignored the sections on heads and got another book for that)

I mean I find a a ripped man in a serious looking pose..with that "manga" face kind of rediculous

also wasnt managa originall inspiried by disney?

 

[thylasos]

They're not, it's your cultural prejudices being projected onto the characters. As has been attested in the evidence which'll inevitably come up, but I'm too drunk to look up right now.

Also, the initial influence of of Disney on Osamu Tezuka.

 

[Strain42]

I don't claim to be an expert on such things, and I refuse to...y'know...potentially educate myself by watching some of the videos people have posted here, but I will say something I remember reading about once.

Supposedly part of it is because a lot of what has become modern "anime" style (I use quotes because since it's just the Japanese word for cartoon, technically a Pixar movie is anime) was heavily inspired by the old western cartoons like Betty Boop.

I'm not sure if that's 100% accurate, but it isn't really too much of a stretch to believe something like that could have been an influence.

To the people who say "they don't, it's just because [insert reason here]" I don't entirely believe in that either. To illustrate this further, let me use two characters as an example.

These two characters are named Yosuke and Vincent. Both were designed by the same person. The former is Japanese, the latter is American. For starters, note that they do look very similar (which makes sense, I already said they were the same designer, but because they look the same despite being different ethnicities is what's off)

I decided to try an experiment with a friend who isn't really into the whole anime thing, and I asked him if the characters were American or Japanese. He told me he couldn't tell. To aid this, I told him that Yosuke's name was Mark and Vincent's name was Junpei (yes, intentional references)

And he suddenly just accepted that "Mark" was American and "Junpei" was Japanese. Because it is kinda hard to tell based on their designs.

 

[Lucem712]

I found that very... enlightening. Especially the end XD

Though for the topic... I honestly have no clue. I just take them at their word for it. Makes no difference to me.

Haha, yeah, it goes a bit off at end...the other youtube video posted is better, IMO

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

I mean think about three of the most popular manga in recent memory - Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece. Bleach is an especially big offender in this, since it takes place solely in Japan and other-worlds that are based on Feudal Japan architecture. These characters are being drawn by Japanese character and in many cases are supposed to BE Japanese characters.

So why do so many of them look like they'd fit right at home in the U.S.? Take Ichigo Kurosaki and the rest of the main cast from Bleach. Do ANY of them scream "Japanese/Of Japanese descent" to you?

What I want to know is why these character are drawn the way they are. Do the Japanese find people in the United States more attractive? I'm really grasping at straws to figure out a reason for their art style.

Oh and as a disclaimer I am white so I'm not raging about it. I'm just confused and curious. Of course this is my opinion too so if you disagree, say so and tell me why. All discussion is welcome.

because that style of drawing comes from white American comics?

Spoiler: Like betty boop

 

[BrunDeign]

I find this video is helpful in clarifying dimensions and stylization to their real life equivalent.

Yeah but that video is comparing "bug-eyed" and oddly-proportioned anime characters' faces to those of real people. In Bleach, many of the faces and eyes (again I use Ichigo Kurosaki as an example) are shaped in a more realistic fashion most of the time.

 

[Lucem712]

I find this video is helpful in clarifying dimensions and stylization to their real life equivalent.

Yeah but that video is comparing "bug-eyed" and oddly-proportioned anime characters' faces to those of real people. In Bleach, many of the faces and eyes (again I use Ichigo Kurosaki as an example) are shaped in a more realistic fashion most of the time.

Yeah, sorry. I mistakenly posted that one and the one I meant to post was posted by another user (A few beneath my original post)

I think it's all in the artist touch and social perspectives of beauty. Some things like protagonist not having squint-y eyes has more to do with the fact if you draw a character with thin eyes, they look evil. Larger eyes and small mouth and nose are features of Disney cute-ness formula. And sometimes if an anime does include Caucasian folks they have thin eyes, large(ish) squared off (sometimes)

I can't really tell you why they appear to be very Caucasian other than artistic choice and social values of the artist. :\

 

[Do4600]

I mean think about three of the most popular manga in recent memory - Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece. Bleach is an especially big offender in this, since it takes place solely in Japan and other-worlds that are based on Feudal Japan architecture. These characters are being drawn by Japanese character and in many cases are supposed to BE Japanese characters.

So why do so many of them look like they'd fit right at home in the U.S.? Take Ichigo Kurosaki and the rest of the main cast from Bleach. Do ANY of them scream "Japanese/Of Japanese descent" to you?

What I want to know is why these character are drawn the way they are. Do the Japanese find people in the United States more attractive? I'm really grasping at straws to figure out a reason for their art style.

Oh and as a disclaimer I am white so I'm not raging about it. I'm just confused and curious. Of course this is my opinion too so if you disagree, say so and tell me why. All discussion is welcome.

There is a lot of information on this actually. I read a book a long while ago that explained the origins and history of the Japanese manga and drawing style, I'll tell you want I remember.

The first manga was published during the 1870's modeled on a British magazine, but didn't last long. The first real production industry of manga was during the Russo-Japanese war(which I find fascinating to learn about). These publications were very different obviously, and used mostly semi-traditional styles of Japanese art that were printed into magazines.

Manga as we know it really started being produced just after World War II.(of course there was refinement during the 45 years I didn't talk about)

There are a couple theories as to how the "manga" style evolved, one of them is that during the Allied occupation of Japan(1945-1952) artists were influenced heavily by Americans, American comic books, tv and Disney.

The eyes are obviously of note, this begins with Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astroboy, who was very influenced by Disney and Max Fleischer cartoons. Take a Japanese wood block print, and edit Bettie Boop's or Felix the Cat's eyes onto it, and see what you get.

 

[madwarper]

Do ANY of them scream "Japanese/Of Japanese descent" to you?

I am curious; What exactly are you looking for in order for a character to "scream" Japanese decent?
Having squinty eyes? Buckteeth? Being 4" tall? Good at math? Horrible at driving? Constantly eating Ramen?
Do they have to be a racist stereotype for you to see them as Japanese?

 

[Erana]

A big part of it is the eye color and hair. Having many different eye colors and a variety of hair types and hues just allows for a greater... Well, variety. In reality, while the japanese can treat and dye their hair or get colored contacts, its easier to expect blue eyes and red hair and such from Caucasians. And then add in the fact that a lot of us here are either caucasian or are surrounded by a caucasian-oriented culture, and its easy to make assumptions.

The real irony though is that all the old people in anime are depicted as grey headed, when of all the people with dyed hair in Japan that I saw, the majority of them were elderly women.

Yes, elderly women with neon hair colors is a thing in Japan.

 

[DarkRyter]

You guys think that the Japanese have conversations about how white people look like anime characters?

 

[Soviet Heavy]

There's a trope for this.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mukokuseki

The nationality neutrality is apparently one of the factors that makes Manga and Anime so easy to sell. It's the same with the Simpsons making everybody yellow. By making a homogenous people, any culture can watch and relate somewhat, at least on a visual level.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I think it was explained once, on these forums, I do believe, that anime characters are drawn in a sort of neutral way, like how a smiley face just means a person, and doesn't specify that they're of any race or ethnicity.

I could be wrong, however.

AFAIK, that's very close.

A smiley face is a default person, which in our culture equates to white and male and adult and so on.

For it to be female, you stick eyelashes on, maybe lipstick and a bow and use pink. For it to be asian, you stick...whatever makes a smiley asian, I guess, but without it they aren't asian.

The default in Asian nations is going to be asians, so when you don't modify a face from the default in an asian production, you are depicting an asian.

...

Someone mentioned the Simpsons, with everyone having yellow skin and all. Yellow is used as default...but then you have people that aren't white, and so get more realistic colours. Brown people are shown to be brown by actually being brown. Dr Hibbert or Apu, for example, there's no reason why they couldn't be bright yellow same as everyone else who (in "reality") isn't anything close to that colour, but they differ from the norm, they aren't white, so are modigied beyond the default.

Hell, same with lego. You've got normal lego faces, which are yellow, you've got normal female faces which have big red lips instead of normal, and then you have non-white people which aren't the normal colour.