from Hacker News

Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

by soyelmango on 9/14/10, 11:12 AM with 143 comments

  • by BobbyH on 9/14/10, 12:24 PM

    The post makes a good point, but it does overlook the fact that the "Godfather of Anime", Osamu Tezuka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osamu_Tezuka) was heavily influenced by Walt Disney and American animation.

    For instance, the Wikipedia article notes: "The distinctive "large eyes" style of Japanese animation was invented by Tezuka, drawing inspirations on cartoons of the time such as Betty Boop and Walt Disney's Bambi and Mickey Mouse."

    You can see how Bambi was drawn with large eyes here: http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=bambi

    You can see Betty Boop here: http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=betty+boop

    You can see Mickey Mouse here: http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=mickey+mouse+classi...

    You can compare the style of those eyes to Tezuka's Astro Boy, first published in 1952: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AstroBoyVolume1.jpg

  • by bitwize on 9/14/10, 1:35 PM

    This phenomenon is acknowledged enough by the Japanese to where it has a name: it's called "mukokuseki" which is Japanese for "no nationality". Basically it amounts to this: characters are drawn in an ethnically neutral way so that they have universal appeal, and it makes it easier to export these media works into foreign markets. Maybe the foreign markets thing was not a concern in Tezuka's early days, but it certainly is now.

  • by Jun8 on 9/14/10, 2:40 PM

    I have always pondered this question so I quickly went to the link and was confronted with a really weak and half-baked argument. First, this is not a question of American audiences; I'm not American and love anime but they don't look Japanese to me either.

    "The Other has to be marked. If there are no stereotyped markings of otherness, then white is assumed." This may be true but it has very little to do with anime. As others have pointed out (i) anime artists have been influenced by their Western counterparts (anime is not a traditional Japanese art form, you know) and (ii) commercial considerations play a role, i.e. very Japanese looking characters would have less appeal to a large audience.

    But forget about that and just think about the argument to see how faulty it is: In its essence it is trying to show how lop-sided white Westerners see the world but it itself is also very prejudiced. Do you think when a Chinese person looks at an anime character they think it's Chinese (because "otherness" isn't marked)? This sort of thinking is typical of a lot of mumbo-jumbo that comes out of English departments under literary criticism. If Japanese didn't have to mark "otherness", why are the characters in traditional Japanese paintings look very Japanese (slanted eyes, hairdo, etc.).

    In the end the article states: "Some Americans, even some scholars, will argue against this view of anime. They want to think the Japanese worship America or worship whiteness and use anime to prove it. But they seem to be driven more by their own racism and nationalism than anything else." This is another common tactic: when someone raises a problematic viewpoint, label them as racist, misogynistic, or worse (e.g. see the Summers episode).

    How can you explain that a lot of Japanese women go through cosmetic surgery to get rid of the slant in their eyes to make them look more Western? Why is baseball so popular in Japan? Japan has had a long love/hate relationship with the US (and Westerners in general). I'm not saying some form of American idealization is at the heart of anime styles but I think it has definitely influenced it.

    EDIT: For similar over the top ideas about race and culture and to see how politicized the debate can be, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controver...

  • by najirama on 9/14/10, 11:51 PM

    This whole thread reeks of nonsensical, "things-we-cannot-say", Politically Correct, bullshit.

    Let us call a spade a spade shall we? Asians have a considerable and measurable white bias when it comes to aesthetics.

    http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/05/13/asia.wh...

    http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jul/26/local/me-whitening26

    Couple the skin-whitening phenomenon with the double-eyelid surgery explosion with the open-air admission of the Asians' who elect to do these procedures that the so-called "Hellenic" features are more desirable than their own - and you have more than circumstantial evidence for the proposition "The Japanese draw themselves as white."

    ...And that isn't even mentioning the fact that the characters they draw, by any reasonable appraisal look about as white as Christmas in Nebraska.

    If the truth offends your sensibilities, then it is your sensibilities that need adjusting.

  • by pradocchia on 9/14/10, 2:37 PM

    I recommend the author's blog, http://abagond.wordpress.com/

    Programmer, West Indian, NYC area, writes 500 words a day on whatever he likes. Also a father. Studied Classical Greek and Comp Sci in college:

    People told me studying ancient Greek was a waste of time, but I learned far more about life and the world from the Greeks than from anything in computers.

    I read a few posts and enjoyed them all.

  • by coliveira on 9/14/10, 1:53 PM

    I think it depends on what you consider white. If you are just talking about the color of skin, Japanese are as white as Europeans. In fact, my personal view is that they are closer to white, European's skin color has a pink tone that you can't see on Japanese people.

  • by KoZeN on 9/14/10, 12:19 PM

    Just out f curiosity, what kind of people are asking this question?

    I've been an anime fan for years and this question has legitimately never crossed my mind despite being cynical and critical of almost every single factual inaccuracy I come across.

    Interesting article all the same!

  • by derefr on 9/14/10, 6:01 PM

    I'm going to give what is probably a very contrarian view here: scientific studies show that Caucasian features allow for a higher standard deviation than Asian features. (That is to say, both Asian and Caucasian test groups think two randomly-sampled Asians look more similar than two randomly-sampled Caucasians.)

    When you have 10 or 20 characters, and want them to be recognizable at a glance (for brand ownership), even when appearing completely out-of-context alongside characters of similar ages and styles from other series, and even when drawn minimally and potentially badly by a subcontracted art studio--it's logical to make them whatever race has the widest "visual range." It's also logical, for the same reasons, to give them technicolor hair.

  • by Keyframe on 9/14/10, 12:37 PM

    What struck me as odd in Asia were all the skin whitening products. Even regular cosmetics had "Whitening" plastered over it.

  • by nightlifelover on 9/14/10, 1:14 PM

    Simple because paper is white?

  • by dawgr on 9/14/10, 12:24 PM

    I think I read once that Asian people pay more attention to the eyes than other facial features when they are reading emotions. The hypothesis was somehow based on the fact that the emoticons Asians use tend to mostly show the eyes. Since it's difficult to show emotions on a cartoon, perhaps drawing big eyes started as a way to make it easier for the artist to express anger, happiness,... on what they drew.

    They might look whiter than Asian, but it probably has nothing to do with Asians wanting to be white. You can probably test what the OP said by asking a villager in Africa which race those cartoons belong to assuming he's seen an equal share of whites and Asians.

  • by shaunfs on 9/14/10, 2:26 PM

    I have to admit, I always wondered why Naruto was a blue-eyed blonde white kid. This article helped me consider some of my own reasoning. I had just assumed Naruto had characters that reflected a mix of races instead of one race. The last sentence of this article is offensive though. It's a derogatory generalization. Personally it doesn't matter to me what the characters look like and I don't see why someone relating to a character is a negative.

  • by c00ki3s on 9/14/10, 12:24 PM

    This "article" seems to be very light on basically anything. Especially facts. How much karma does it take on HN to vote things down?

  • by po on 9/15/10, 3:31 AM

    This is a nice thought-provoking article.

    Pale white skin has a history here in Japan much longer than anime. Look at geisha for example. On the other end of the spectrum, there were Gangaru walking all around tokyo at one point too:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganguro

    Japanese women especially are well aware of their skin's natural ability to change color and often treat it as a fashion decision.

    A heavily tanned caucasian can be much darker than an asian, latino, african american, etc... I think many westerners would be surprised that caucasians don't always have "white" skin if they actually looked around the world with a critical eye.

  • by kingkawn on 9/14/10, 1:49 PM

    cmon, its a little off that when Goku goes super saiyen he turns blond and blue/green eyed, no?

  • by js2 on 9/14/10, 3:07 PM

  • by olavk on 9/14/10, 6:06 PM

    The more a stylized a cartoon character is, thee more it look like you. E.g what ethnicity does this character have: ☺ ? I bet it has the same ethnicity as you!

  • by Arun2009 on 9/14/10, 5:32 PM

    What is striking about this entire affair is just how politically incorrect it is to suggest that East Asians want to look White, whereas, say, to suggest that East Asians want to look African would sound merely quaint. Substitute East Asians with any other 'race', and it's the same story.

    Man, have we some issues to work through!

  • by GBond on 9/14/10, 2:13 PM

    I hope part 2 explains why anime villains are almost always drawn to look like girls and assumed male.

  • by inboulder on 9/15/10, 9:06 PM

    This doesn't explain or even address why the Japanese favor 'large round eyed' actors in ads for beauty products, why darker skinned Japanese women are not featured on TV, and why the current depictions of beauty in Japan eschew many traits common to classical Japanese portrayals of beauty.

    It is glaringly obvious that European ideals of beauty have enormously affected the Japanese aesthetic, especially including anime; almost any Japanese person you meet will readily admit to this, to claim otherwise takes willful ignorance.

  • by adlep on 9/15/10, 6:36 AM

    I know for sure that all of the Manga style drawings DO NOT look asian, so there was a marketing element to it. Seems like Japanese creators wanted to make Manga universal and appealing to everybody - and of course they were successful at it. So, rather than drawing asian looking characters, they have created a "universally appealing" characters. This is equal to "bigger audience".

  • by DannoHung on 9/15/10, 7:31 AM

    I am seriously disappointed with how the skin tone issue was blown off in about half a sentence. I understand that there is great variability in Japanese ethnic skin tone, but it seems like the majority of Japanese have a dusky skin tone while the majority of anime characters have a very pale skin tone.

  • by ianb on 9/15/10, 2:37 AM

    The post features four anime characters. Two of the characters are clearly blonde... and I'm pretty sure this isn't my whiteness just projecting blondeness. Very few Japanese people are blonde. Is it racist for me to notice this?

  • by mwerty on 9/14/10, 3:39 PM

    isn't it less work?

  • by rubashov on 9/14/10, 6:37 PM

    I find it more interesting that the female models you see on billboards and such in Japan are distinctly more caucasian looking than the population: rounder eyes, narrower face.

    The popularity of actual caucasian models in advertisements is also interesting.

  • by c00p3r on 9/15/10, 10:44 AM

    Cat-like faces or baby-style faces - big eyes, small nose, triangle-shaped with small chin. Everywhere in the world children love kittens. There is no deep psychological, let alone political influences.

  • by bluedanieru on 9/15/10, 1:45 PM