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Yuen
topic
11:52:33 PM Mar 29th 2010
edited by Yuen
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.
75.73.70.113
05:26:29 PM Jul 1st 2010
In any case, things like blonde hair, blue eyes, and narrow, prominent nose bridges are pretty exclusive to white people, right? On this one can't legitimately disagree. Well, middle eastern noses, well.. that's kind of.. well..
69.150.170.218
02:10:12 PM Jul 17th 2010
Blonde hair, blue eyes, and narrow, prominent nose bridges are not exclusive to white people. More common yes, but hardly exclusive. Anyone can carry the genes for those features and they don't have to have any white ancestry.
75.73.70.113
07:30:15 PM Oct 17th 2010
Really? I mean, can you back that up? I really think the numbers we're talking about are in the thousandths of a percent, but feel free to prove me wrong..
drdeathray
08:39:51 PM Aug 29th 2011
edited by drdeathray
You know, my Asian friends, to be exact Japanese friends, born in Japan so what she calls pure, say they're really ashamed of her declarations in videos. Even they admit she's the one being racist. They say Anime never was an important part of their life in Japan, was just fun, and so is cosplaying. This Proud Asian Cute..whatever, insists that Anime and cosplaying is a way of life. My friends also say she might not be Japanese or Asian at all.

Although I do agree with some of her material, like Anime characters look like some Japanese cosplayers (GOOD Japanese cosplayers compared to bad Western cosplayers). I say Japanese and not Asian, because Anime refers to Japanese animation. Round face, tiny chin, small nose are Japanese, even when they have non Asian hair color. K. But Other Asian characters in Anime, like the Chinese, DO look Chinese.
ergeis
05:59:50 AM Sep 6th 2011
FYI, that was a troll who posted very similar things on forums. You people should know better.
joeyjojo
topic
06:57:55 AM Jul 18th 2010
edited by joeyjojo
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.

DonZabu
06:37:43 PM Jul 31st 2010
edited by DonZabu
I always figured there was something wrong with that paragraph.
ergeis
06:04:40 AM Sep 6th 2011
You know what the funny thing is? Everybody keeps citing Tezuka as the guy who set the trend for "white-looking characters" because he was influenced by Disney. He was influenced by Disney alright, but the character he bases his drawing style on wasn't even human to begin with.
24.17.72.12
topic
09:46:01 PM Oct 21st 2010
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.
KJMackley
topic
10:11:11 AM Jan 10th 2011
edited by KJMackley
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.
Pichukun
topic
12:07:34 PM Jul 28th 2011
edited by Pichukun
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..
drdeathray
07:23:29 PM Aug 29th 2011
Asians, often, are obviously Asians in Western Animation, or at least the stereotype. Straight black hair, small almond shaped eyes, small nose etc are easily recognizable as Asian (actually the correct would be East Asian) for the Westerners.
Gildedmuse
topic
04:37:46 PM Aug 6th 2011
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?
drdeathray
07:15:19 PM Aug 29th 2011
edited by drdeathray
Well the major difference Rei has from the other girls is the Tsurime Eyes. These kind of eyes if you noticed are used to make someone appear beautiful. The long black hair, in the East are also an indicator of beauty (you see blonde hair is more preferred in West, Asians prefer black...or at least that's what the studies have shown). I think she is drawn that way to appear beautiful, rather than Chinese. She is also very traditional, so she's meant to be Japanese. Also her religion, shinto, is "the indigenous spirituality of Japan and Japanese people" (From The Other Wiki). So in conclusion Rei is pure Japanese.

EDIT Naoko Takeuchi wants her to appear beautiful not cute (in comparison with others), that's what I meant.
Monsund
topic
12:26:03 AM Sep 16th 2011
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.
Cliche
topic
01:38:00 PM Nov 10th 2011
"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.
Bambooisgreat
02:13:47 AM Nov 11th 2011
Since I am the one who wrote that paragraph I guess I feel obliged to reply.

Your counterargument about the Simpsons doesn't make any sense. Are you implying that anime is supposed to be realistic in style? Sure there are realistic anime out there, but those usually don't fit this trope. Anime can ALSO be blatantly stylistic. In fact, the more stylistic a show is, the more this trope tends to apply. So the notion of the Simpsons being excluded for being stylistic is completely missing the point. Yes, there are no humans with yellow skin, but there are no humans with the facial proportions of a typical anime character either. Real life caucasians and asians have more in common with each other than either of them do with anime characters.

What I originally intended to illustrate was merely the effect of ethnocentrism. The same process that lets us accept caucasian characters depicted unrealistically, is the same process that keeps us from accepting depictions of any other ethnicity unless they look like racial caricatures. The japanese are guilty of this as well, hence the american characters always being blonde and blue eyed in anime.

As you see, this has nothing to do with favouring anime over western animation. If that's how you see it than it's not really something I can account for.
lamna
topic
04:54:36 AM Dec 24th 2011
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.
ritzoreo
topic
10:01:50 PM Feb 5th 2012
edited by ritzoreo
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?
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