Mukokuseki - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Caucasian Asian

Mukokuseki is the use of ambiguous racial features in anime, with characters having wide eyes, light skin, great stature, and unusually colored hair (such as blonde or even blue). It literally means "stateless", though the term relates to more abstract anime and is used for hyperbole in this case.

This can be seen in fantasy and science fiction anime, where characters are given colored hair, enlarged eyes, and oddly proportioned human bodies. Phenotype Stereotypes are used to differate Western characters from Japanese ones, and the actual features are sometimes not intended to be a direct matchup of reality.

Reasons behind the presence of mukokuseki is to diversify the character roster and distinguish between individuals, but it can have cultural implications when looked at with a Western eye. It's also been suggested that, living in countries where the demographics are different and "white" instead of "Asian" is the background noise, so to speak, people from Western countries are more likely to perceive that the characters look white because that's what they're used to

. It can also cause some other problems with a Live Action Adaptation... do you cast the character based on canon ethnicity or what they actually look like?

Arguably started by Osamu Tezuka, whose art style was heavily influenced by the works of Walt Disney, Max Fleischer and other American cartoonists.

It would probably be easier to list Japanese comics, videogames and anime that don't indulge in Mukokuseki. So we will!

Aversions

Anime and Manga

In Azumanga Daioh, the characters from different areas of Japan look believably similar to the real-life skin-tones/hair colours.
Most of the characters in Akira look convincingly Japanese.
The original Mobile Suit Gundam's Mirai Yashima & Hayato Kobayashi are fairly oriental-looking compared to the rest of the cast. Series protagonist Amuro Ray, who isn't may get a pass, as he's part foreigner, his mother being either American, Canadian or Mexican depending on the version.
- 0083's Kou Uraki is often commented on as being the most Asian-looking character in all of Gundam.
Most of the characters in Nadia The Secret Of Blue Water are European whites and look the part, with pinker skin and such. All of the characters of different races look like their respective races. The only exceptions are the Atlantean characters, who are a sort of brown skinned mukokuseki, somewhere between Indian and African.
Most of Naoki Urasawa's manga are drawn very realistically. The Caucasian looking people in his work actually are Caucasian, as many of his manga are set in Europe or other exotic locales. Infact, Urasawa occasionally goes too far in the other direction. Monster 's Eva Heinemann, a German, has a slightly oriental look to her. Just about the only time he plays this trope straight is with Kana from 20th/21st Century Boys, who has more of a typical big eyed, fair haired "anime girl" look to her, resembling Monster's Anna/Nina, but this is probably to emphasize the character's "otherness", as she has supernatural powers.
- Also played somewhat straight with his redesigns of many classic Osamu Tezuka characters for Pluto, especially Ochanomizu & Tenma, due to their comedically oversized schozzes, which could never be reduced to typical Japanese proportions without rendering the characters unrecognizable. So while they do look realistic in a sense, they don't look like people who could realistically be named Tenma or Ochanomizu. Shansaku "Mister Mustachio" Ban also suffers from this, as his character model was recycled from Monster's Dr. Reichwein, who is in turn based on the American actor Wilford "Diabeetus" Brimley. Urasawa does a surprisingly good job on Inspectors Tawashi & Nakamura, though, as Well as Astro Boy & his "sister" Uran.
Full Metal Alchemist mostly avoids this, as it takes place in a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of central Europe and visitors from the east like Ling are stereotypical Asian-looking for the most part. It also inverts this trope with Roy Mustang, who looks more like somebody from Xing than Amestris. Fanon has it that his mother is from Xing, but within the manga this is never commented on.
- Since his adopted mother has been shown to be madam of a brothel there's no knowing which of the parents could be from where. Izumi is also much more Asian in appearance then the rest of the cast and she most certainly is not Xingese. Like Mustang her ethnicity has yet to be commented on. It should also be noted that Amestris is shown to be very multiracial, so it might just be not that big enough a deal to warrant commentary.
  - Multiracial, due to all its historical expansions, but Miles refers to Olivia Armstrong, who is the ultimate Aryan soldier, as "pure-blooded Amestrian", suggesting that while socially and in terms of citizenship they have a slew of ethicities, there exists a Germanic prototype of the original Amestrian race.
  - Amestris boasts a thriving Xingese community!
- Of course, Ed has been mentioned (offhand) as having odd features. Possibly since his father is from Xerxes.
  - That might be the golden eyes.
A curious inversion occurs in Patlabor. While it plays this trope straight to varying degrees with the main cast, in order to emphasize Kanuka Clancy's otherness she was drawn as the the most Japanese-looking.
Windy Tales uses a Korean art style where the characters are very clearly not white.
Chang Wufei in Gundam Wing looks recognizably Chinese. However main character Heero Yuy, who is Japanese, follows the trope. This may be intentional, due to that fact that Yuy's Japanese-sounding name is an alias. He is an orphan whose actual background is a mystery. A similar thing happens in Gundam 00 with Setsuna, whom we later find out is actually Kurdish. A more obvious example is Quatre who is supposed to be Arabic, but is a blond haired blue eyed bishonen.
- It's been speculated that Quatre might be an Arabic Berber, who are known to have remarkably light skin tone... although blonde hair and blue eyes might be pushing it a little.
  - The Aryans located in regions just east of Arab countries have been known to have a small but noticeable population of people with blonde hair and blue eyes. Part of this stems from them being descendants of the Macedonians that came that way under Alexander the Great.
  - Particularly in the Levant, there actually are a lot more light-skinned, blue-eyed and blond- (or even red-)haired people than most people think - even among people who identify themselves as Arab. The people in this region have a long history of immigration and intermarriage with foreigners - and not just in ancient times; during Ottoman times, a lot of essentially white, and often blond-haired and blue-eyed, Muslims from the Balkans and the Caucasus emigrated to this region. It's perfectly possible that Quatre descended from janissaries, Bosniaks or Circassians that emigrated to the Middle East during Ottoman times.
  - Yes—if his family had been Lebanese before spacing, for example. Or they could be Caucasian post-space converts, like America's stereotypical 'black Muslims,' or something. What's odd is that his sidekicks are Arab stereotypes right down to, in some cases, keffiyeh.
The characters in Hikaru No Go really do look Japanese. The same goes for Death Note, which isn't surprising since HnG artist Takeshi Obata was also the artist for that manga.
- What's bizarre in Hn G is that the Koreans are walking Asian stereotypes with considerably less distinction from one another than the Japanese characters. Now, Japan has historically been more racist against the Koreans than any other foreign nationality, but it's still a little weird to see. Because the phenotype is actually really close. The Chinese that appear in the manga have more Japanese-character-like variation, but their Asian qualities are accentuated, too.
Pretty much everyone in Genshiken is recognizably Asian, and the only two light-haired characters explicitly dye their hair. The two American characters who visit in the second season are also distinctly Caucasian.
- Sue looks more like an American styled cartoon character than an actual American.
In Ghost In The Shell most characters look more or less as if they could be actually Japanese, depending on the art stlye of the different artists/animators. Except for Batou and Togusa, who look don't look asian at all.
All of the characters in Paranoia Agent look very much Japanese.
- In fact most Satoshi Kon works are also inversions, such as Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Paprika and Tokyo Godfathers.
The characters in Gantz mostly look distinctly Japanese. Gantz is very big on anatomical correctness, If You Know What I Mean.
Most of Tsutomu Nihei's manga have several distinctly Asian-looking characters, although considering the trans-human leanings of most of them, this could often be more an issue of personal taste than ethnicity. Nihei even pokes a bit of fun at racial differences in Blame! when Japanese-looking hero Killy passes through a land of blonde people who are all at least twice as tall as he is.
Somewhat averted in Soul Eater, where the predominance of caucasians is justified by Shibusen's being located in America. Concurrent with this, there are several darker-skinned characters as well.
This seemed to be the case in Digimon Adventure... until the second season when it's revealed that the resident blond-haired blue-eyed heroes are only part foreigner.
There are a substantial number of Japanese characters in Area 88, two of whom are at the eponymous airbase. Can you tell who they are without knowing names?
Black Lagoon has one single aversion: the assassin Shenhua (a.k.a. "Chinglish") actually does look Chinese (especially compared to the supposedly Chinese-American Revy). The Japanese characters arguably look relatively more Japanese than everyone else, but still fall under this trope easily.
- Revy actually did have very narrow eyes early-on in the manga, but slowly morphed into her anime model as the series progressed. Rock does look distinctly different from the rest of the cast, and when actual Americans do show up, their facial structure clearly identifies them as being white. Chang, too, is clearly Chinese—a lot of detail is put into the hair of most of the Asian characters. Revy aside, Black Lagoon is generally very good about races.
- The Russian ex Spetznaz troops are noticably Russian, many of them of blonde hair and blue eyes, which is uncommon through the rest of the cast. The arabic terrorists were all black haired and blue eyed and a shade darker of skin.
Cowboy Bebop has a wide variety of ethnicities and there is considerable effort to make them appear properly ethnic. Some of the terraformed planets have an architectual Planet Of Hats with corresponding cultures like Morocco, Equador and Vienna. In fact, some fans theorize that Spike Spiegel is Jewish.
- His hair doesn't help, but Word Of God says the name was picked because it sounded cool.
  - Jews are known for having green hair?
Despite being largely responsible for this style, Osamu Tezuka himself has a few aversions. A few of his recurring characters, most notably Tonan Shipan are more distinctly oriental than most. Tezuka also often used an interesting workaround. When depicting his ostensibly Japanese characters traveling to the Western world, he would often exaggerate his foreigners' appearance; Tezuka's Westerners are usually taller than his Japanese characters, with wide shoulders and long noses. This is especially noticeable in Black Jack.
Mushishi almost entirely adheres to probable Asian eye colors, hair colors and facial features — which, of course, makes the white-haired, green-eyed, and anachronistically dressed Ginko stick out like a neon rainbow on a colorless photograph.
- Well, when Ginko was designed the writer was imagining the story set in the modern era, with the first story set in a traditional house deep in the woods, but it somehow slipped into an alternate feudal era, leaving him with his anachronisms. At least according to the author's notes. But then, he's supposed to be a freak, anyway.
The cast of Great Teacher Onizuka tends to look authentically Japanese but most of the young female characters are subject to Generic Cuteness, though to a lesser degree than usual. The manga has been advertised as "NO big eyes, NO magic powers, NO giant robots".
Like Ghost In The Shell, Darker Than Black is kind of a mixed bag for this, with secondary characters looking Asian but major ones not. For instance, Wei and Alice look Chinese, but Hei doesn't.
In Axis Powers Hetalia, the East Asian nation-tans that have appeared until now look generally similar to each other, including Kiku/Japan. This is a somewhat rare aversion of making the Japanese character generically stateless or anime-like, but making other East Asians more realistic.
- The writer of the original comics lives in New York, giving him a presumably more discerning set of racial distinctions compared to someone ensconced in mostly-homogeneous Japan. Also a better 'outsider's view' of Japan itself, which may be why Japan fits into the cast so well.
Most of the characters in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei have a somewhat normal Japanese appearance, with the obvious exception of Kaede Kimura.
Rurouni Kenshin - Kenshin has red hair and purple eyes (that turn gold when he goes into Battosai Mode), but his parentage is unclear since he's an orphan. (Epileptic Trees say he's at least part Dutch.)
- Also to considered are the OVA movies; Kenshin comes off way more Japanese in those, but there is also a large shift in art style to consider.
Tokko - Though they all have Japanese names, this is especially obvious when Ranmaru and Muramasa are seen together.
Welcome to the NHK - All the characters are recognizably Japanese. The only character with blond hair is obviously bleaching it, since we see flashbacks of her in high school with dark hair.
Code Geass seemed to be trying to avert this trope in theory, especially since race and racism were major plot points, but its Britannian lead was designed so he could have been Asian (or a space alien), and its most major Asian character so that he could have been Causasian, and one of its most flagrant racist's right-hand man had a British name but an extremely Asian appearance. (Guilford.)
- The Chinese who don't just look weird look Chinese, though, and most of the minor Britannian and Japanese characters look Anglo/Aryan or Japanese. Or like aliens.
  - CLAMP designs.
Youre Under Arrest's cast is pretty clearly Japanese, especially given that they're government employees.
Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0 starts out in an American NERV base under attack, most of the personnel in the base clearly are Caucasian (except for Kaji).
If the movie takes place in Japan, Hayao Miyazaki's characters tend to have dark hair and eyes. Fair-haired people crop up on occasion in the backgrounds, but most of them only appear if the setting is meant to be European.
Averted in BECK. To keep with the indie-film feel, the whole cast have rather realistic hair colors and rather look Asian. Of course, the series throws in a couple Black people and a few Whites for contrast.
Kyou Kara Maou is set alternately in modern Japan and a Northern European sort of fantasy world, where the Japanese main character gets a lot of attention for having black hair and black eyes. As does his older brother, eventually, who's less cutely designed and therefore more clearly Japanese. He says on several occasions that 'most Japanese people look like this.' The Germanic looks of most of the main characters are noted in the first episode, while the lead is still finding his feet and has no idea what's going on, but afterward they don't really come up, since they're standard to the world they're in. Also some fantasy coloring like pink are green hair, and a couple of vaguely Asian-looking people here and there.
- Like the third season's inexplicable soukoku Berias. Spoiler tag hides major twist. Who turns out to have been concealing his actual identity as a blond elf prince.
- Played straight with the main character's mother (who may be Japanese-American although she's now living in Japan), who has curly light brown hair and Generic Cute features, though in one flashback scene in Boston she refers to herself as Japanese.
- And played straight... for... you know... the rest of the cast?
In Flag, the cast is multi-national and this is reflected in the design of the cast. The Japanese and Chinese characters look diffeent from each other and they do not look anything like the American, European, African, and other Asian cast members. The inhabitants of the fictional country look like a cross between Indians and Nepalese.
Hanazakari no Kimitachi E, or Hana Kimi, is set in a Japanese private school where the ethnicity of the characters is obvious, especially whenever the manga-ka bothers to color in their hair. Main character Mizuki is half-American and given light brown hair, and her friends commented upon seeing her blond-haired blue-eyed brother that he looks more American- to which she replied they were actually half-siblings.
- Osakan classmate Nakatsu is obnoxiously blond but is given a backstory wherein he explains why he dyes it.
- The Dorm 3 RA Himejima seems to be a stereotype of French overdramatism and flamboyance, even carrying around a rose, having long blond hair and appearing with shoujo sparkles- but he is explained to be a half-German who worships his European heritage.
- Mizuki's friend Julia has very blond, curly hair and blue eyes, which garnered lots of attention when she arrived in Japan to visit her.
- In fact, the author seems to relish getting the chance to draw more than Japanese people, so there's an oddly high number of blonds, blacks, and more when the characters visit California.
Banana Fish does a good job making the different character's nationalities apparent in the art.
Project Blue Earth SOS has a very multi-ethnic cast and each cast looks appropriate. Earth SOS's character design even averts the large eye phenomenon, the eye size is normal.
All the characters in Gokusen including Kumiko actually Japanese. Even the many Gonks have that asian look to them.
Chrono Crusade is a bit of an unusual aversion—there are characters with strange hair and features that don't seem to fit under any particular nationality, but they're not human at all. The characters that have blond hair and blue eyes are all Americans, but there's also Americans seen with brown and black hair. Two German characters have red and brown hair, respectively. There is a White Haired Pretty Girl, but she has red eyes and is probably supposed to be an albino (and she is supposed to be a little strange, as well). On top of this, in the manga a minor character appears obviously Japanese next to the Caucasian characters.
Most of Junji Ito's characters look quite realistic, though he has a strange habit of giving his main female characters slightly more European-looking hair & eyes (most notably Kirie from Uzumaki). The funny thing is, though, that because of his art style, these features look slightly unusual with the rest of their faces, giving his women a somewhat unreal, doll-like sort of beauty. Come to think of it, most of his heroines look an awful lot like Kristin Kreuk...
In Sword Of The Stranger, the Chinese and European warriors all look significantly different from the Japanese. However, the title character somehow manages to hide his non-Japanese ancestry merely by dying his hair.
More support for the relative outsider thesis: In Liar Game author's first manga, One Outs, a black woman is portrayed with huge, thick lips and a broad nose (much like how white culture-influenced artists potray black people), compared to the "neutral" small nose and lips of the Japanese characters. The American men, being the outsiders in this particular work, are portrayed with stereotypical European characteristics such as tall, prominent noses and bulkier builds. Again, this provides evidence supporting the idea that eurocentrism is the main reason why Westerners tend to identify manga characters are Caucasian - in absence of stereotypical racist identifying characteristics, Westerners will assume that a particular character is of the same ethnicity that they are. In the same way, Japanese will identify the very same character as Japanese, because in absence of stereotypical characteristics such as the large noses/blonde hair blue eyes/huge thick lips(for Africans), and so on, they will see those characters as Japanese.

Film

Parodied in The Movie of The Dukes Of Hazzard, which shows precisely how ridiculous this kind of thing would look in real life.

Video Games

The in-game character models in Final Fantasy X follow this trope. However, the FMV ones have very noticeable Japanese features—for some of them, at least: Rikku is quite obviously Asian, as is Tidus, Yuna's features are a bit more caucasian, possibly referencing her being a Half Human Hybrid, and Wakka is Ambiguously Brown. Lulu, Auron, and Seymour, though, are white as the driven.
- This is also seen in Kingdom Hearts.
- In some scenes from the early concept trailers for Advent Children, Cloud looks rather obviously Asian. This was changed to the more racially ambiguous look he has in the final version(s) of the movie, as well as Dirge of Cerberus. This also arguably the case for both the early versions of Sephiroth and Kadaj.
An odd variation on this occurs in Megaman Battle Network with Dekao "Dex" Oyama, whose comparatively dark complexion & full lips give him an oddly negroid look, rather than the caucasian features typically given to anime characters.
- This only gets weirder with his little brother Chisao, who, in sharp contrast, has very light skin, beady eyes, and a body shape that resembles nothing so much as a Bobble-Head. We don't know what the Ooyamas are supposed to be, honestly.