Are anime characters caucasian or japanese

try googling Do anime characters look caucasian and you'd be surprised how many hits you get. Some people consider it a serious enough issue that they write formal academic papers on it

how about you? Do you think that they look japanese or caucasian?

it's a bit fast. Just pause it from time to time so you can read the subtitles

========================
I'm not arguing that the characters are definitely japanese and definitely not white as most characters are ambigious enough to be interpreted as any race

It may seem like i'm overanalyzing anime but this is actually a response to those who are overanalyzing anime.

like these people:
http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=181650
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080722054903AACVpOd
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=928790&topic=47581011
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080226011142AAKJiky

Here's an academic paper analyzing the japanese people's self image based on anime
http://www.focusanthro.org/archive/2007-2008/saunders07-08.pdf

Here's an article on newsweek "Is japan becoming less Japanese"
http://www.meiwasuisan.com/yt/bin/img/sougou/12377354020024.jpg


Basically some people think that the japanese have a warped self image and they base this conclusion on the fact that anime characters look caucasian to them.

In this video, i argue that the characters may not necessarily look white to everybody and so any conclusion based on the fact that they look caucasian is poorly grounded.

also, I said that asians are good at cosplay but i never said that white people are bad at cosplay.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =




Update may 18 2009:
I wont be answering any more questions as Ive gotten a lot already and most of them are the same. So heres a generic reply to the most common questions Ive been getting:

Anime characters aren't anatomically accurate. If youd try to measure the difference the eye sizes of different races, the difference wouldnt usually be greater than a millimeter. You cant expect these measurements to be accurately reflected in anime, even the more realistic ones.

The only way you can definitively make a character look like a specific race is by exaggerating stereotypical features. These exaggerations are more common in mangga and in older, less politically correct anime. david rice of neogami neuro had very stereotypical features in the mangga which were toned down a little bit in the anime.
http://nougamineuro.wikia.com/wiki/David_Rice

If they do need to exaggerate features its usually the nose and the facial shape. I never suggested that small eyes are a stereotypical trait of whites to the Japanese animators. My point was that large eyes arent a stereotypical trait of whites for the Japanese animators. When whites are represented in anime they either have smaller eyes or eyes that are the same size. They never make the eyes stereotypically bigger than other races when they draw whites.

Heres an interesting article on how and when stereotypes are used by the japanese.
http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html

The point of the video is not to prove absolutely that anime characters are Japanese or east asian. As I said before, they usually look ambiguous enough to be interpreted as any race. And there are anime that are set in Europe where the characters are mostly white. The point is to disprove the argument that most anime characters are drawn to look Caucasian (even those that arent supposed to be Caucasian) and that the Japanese have a secret desire to be white because of this.

The premise itself is flawed so any conclusion you derive from it is poorly grounded. There is no reason to assume that they were intentionally drawn to look Caucasian. Racial characteristics aside, most of them live in japan, have Japanese names, Japanese hairstyles, japanse fashion etc. if you ask the average japanese person why most anime characters look caucasian, theyd give you a baffled look because the characters dont look Caucasian to them at all.

This video doesnt advocate racism. Its actually against racism. Ignore the asian supremacist comments, especially from proudasianguy. Im not on their side and I mark them down whenever I can. Im not attacking whites or any other race in this video. Im attacking whites who have a Eurocentric view of the world, who think that everyone wants to look white. If you dont have such a view of the world then you have no reason to be offended.
BTW the song is namida mokou by stereopony

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• are
• anime
• characters
• caucasian
• white
• or
• japanese
• asian
• naruto
• evangelion
• death
• note
• melancholy
• of
• haruhi
• suzumiya
• stereopony
• cosplay
• jpop
• jrock
• koreans
• chinese
• big
• eyes
• pale
• caucasianization
• nose
• stereotypes
• slanty
• eyed
• racist
• yoko
• igura
• girl
• hot
• cute
• babe
• chick
• yaoi
• otaku
• geek
• hair
• kawaii
• make
• up
• avatar
• last
• airbender
• dragonball
• evolution

[BigOChunk]

If Japanese animators knew caucasians would use anime to promote white supremecy, they definitely would not have shared anime with the western world. They share their art with you out of benevolence and you guys assume the Japanese people idolize caucasians for their features and hate their own features. How egotistic can you white people get? Only the animator has the right to decide which race the character belong to cause it's their creation, everybody elses opinion mean nothing.

[MrJavinos]

still anime is pretty awesome with or without a racial profile +

[freesz100]

this video is biased not all caucasians looks like this,thats what makes people unique they dont all look alike,i have seen asians with that face in fact square jaw.if youre gonna make a video at least tell the truth instead of reeling to one side of the story.and that girl in the music video does not look like an anime character i dont think anyone does but if youre talking about certain traits thats another story.

[freesz100]

@bakaheibaka i dont even know who you are but whatever,ill be fucking your mom instead,i heard she love big black cocks.

[bakaheibaka]

@freesz100 yeah iam, got a problem with that, fagget? go back to sucking your dads dick

[TheFadeForever]

@beautyx0 First of all "American" is not a race and how many Asian have you seen in your entire life considering I met many who didn't have squinty eyes. Even if you were to compare different eye shapes there wouldn't be a huge difference in size.

[beautyx0]

This was educational but when they mentioned the nose I got insecure because I dislike my nose. But the thing is generally (Majority) Asians are known for squint and americans have big eyes and so in cartoons its like normal for them to have big eyes in america but in anime the eyes are big when asian eyes are "generally" smaller. But I do agree with a lot of good points you made in the video.

[lindseylance64]

Ryu is based on Kenji Sakaguchi yay... :)

[kiintaro26]

@rakiema1 Yeah you're right.

But Russia takes up a large part of the Asian continent as well.

Look on the map.

[rakiema1]

@kiintaro26 what part is that? siberia? but india is in south asia , peope there are dark and have european features, evevn bigger eyes and eyelashes. Also people of iran, irak, afghanistan, so i want to say that nog only white people has those big eyes, nose etc but also other asians.

[kiintaro26]

@rakiema1 Isn't a little part of Russia located in Asia as well?