I found this the other day, really interesting. Shows that ambiguous anime features can be as easily interpreted as "obviously asian" as it can be interpreted as "obviously caucasian". I quote:

"You racist westerners must learn to accept and be grateful with the deep set eyes, long nose, square jaw, square face and big wide body form you racist westerners born with which made you racist westerners look boney/masculine. Because it is very disgusting and very racist when you racist westerners cosplaying our Anime characters we cute Asians made based on our Asians almond shape eyes, small nose, sharp jaw, round face and smallish body form.

Don't you racist westerners ever taught in school by your western teacher or by western your mama and papa about how it is racist for one race to impersonate other race just like how you racist westerners impersonate us cute Asians by cosplaying our Anime/Asian characters rather than cosplaying your cartoon/western characters?"

http://www.youtube.com/user/ProudCutePureAsian

This makes me very depressed. Girl has probably faced a lot of racial discrimination, and this is how she lashes out. See, this is what prejudice does.

Note the extensive use of the term "Asian" instead of "Japanese". She's obviously internalized the way Westerners homogenize an entire continent of people instead of focusing on a specific country. Japan is not China is not India is not Singapore is not Saudi Arabia. And yet she's collapsing those countries into one single term, "Asian", which actually signifies Japanese in this case, because that's exactly the way Westerners tend to perceive people with a certain set of stereotypical characteristics.

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.''

I'll got a fair amount of white guilt myself but the link's[1] article argument (that's westerners seeing white traits in Japanese art is a reflection of a post WWII superiority complex) is well bullshit. The author even admits it's not very convincing. There is a lot simpler and less offensive explanation: Manga was influenced a great deal western cartoons and that artists use as many hair and colours as possible. Lets stick to them and leave out Flame Bait.

Anyone feel like finding a nice picture of Sailormoon with a caption similar to "typical Japanese citizen"? I can't seem to find any good pictures of her that aren't blurry screencaps or group photos.

I took out the Doug example because the show has more to do with Amazing Technicolor Population than actually having vague facial features. No one is stated as being a particular race and there is no real way of trying to interpret what they are supposed to be. The idea of the trope is that they are all mostly homogenous, which Doug is not.

• Doug is a completely western example but still manages to play the trope completely straight with it's multicoloured cast. Be they pink, blue, or purple, their technicolour appearance has nothing to do with their stated races.

What happened to the Western Animation folder? It's gone. Or is this tropes aversion just too typical in the west?

What about comics? But they often have realistic designs..

Now, it's been a while since I watched/read Sailor Moon so it's possible that I'm mistaken but I could have sworn that at least one of the girls (Rei) was meant to be Chinese on... her father's side, maybe?

I rewrote the pokemon example. Keep in mind even in the Japanese series, Meowth grew up in Hollywood. The Pokemon continents seems to be strange hodgepodge of real world locations.

"Important to note is also the fact that western fans (especially those that are new to anime), are psychologically predisposed to assume that animated characters are white unless something else has been stated. This is due to a perceptive form of ethnocentrism. The japanese however, live in a homogenous society consisting of people who are japanese, and are therefore predisposed to assume that animated characters are japanese. Thus they tend not to react to their characters features as strongly as the non-japanese do. Compare this to how our perception of the Simpsons ethnicity isn't affected by them having yellow skin. One might therefore argue that this trope is the result of our own perception, rather than the qualities of the art style."

Pulled from the description. I might as well put forth one of my counterarguments: not every Western cartoon uses yellow skinned characters. Also, it is blatantly a stylistic choice because it doesn't resemble actual human skin.

On a side note, why is it that anime-related trope descriptions are written so much more favourably on this site? If it were a Western Animation trope, it would be full of Unfortunate Implications-related snark.

I'm not sure where or how to put it, but there an Older Than Television, bordering on Older Than Radio.

Compare the old propaganda lithographs of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) to those of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). The Japanese and Russians look nearly identical. The Chinese look far more "Asian", with some artists making them look like grotesque monsters.

Compare these two images.

And here is the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth, try to pick out the Japanese representatives from the Russians and Americans.

Call me dumb/thick but I still don't quite understand what causes Mukokuseki; could someone please elaborate with other words? I do understand that it's an ambiguous depiction of racial features, but does this mean that those huge wide eyes mean that such is the way anime chooses to depict Asian eyes? How is it for example that the Asian characters in the GI Joe cartoons from the 80's (drawn in Japan and Korea no less!) look "different" from the rest of the cast but anime made for Asian markets can't tell the difference? Does this mean that for Asians the main stylistic difference between Asian and Caucasian features is one of height and hair colour rather than eye shape?