4. why do Jp characters in Jp anime look so Caucasian?
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This article is from the ITAMI Juzo, OZU Yasujiro, and the Japanese Cinema FAQ, by TANAKA Tomoyuki tanaka@cs.indiana.edu with numerous contributions by others.
4. why do Jp characters in Jp anime look so Caucasian?
a question i've been asked by Americans many times:
Question: characters in Japanese animations often have big round
eyes and they don't look Japanese at all (to Americans).
why do characters in Japanese animations look so Caucasian?
three reasons:
(1) lack of anti-Japanese prejudice.
Japanese people see themselves only as humans. the
Japanese naturally don't think of themselves as ugly,
short, yellow, buck-toothed, slant-eyed, etc. ONLY
racist Americans think this way, and draw cartoon
characters accordingly.
see the relevant section in "disparity in Asian/white
interracial dating FAQ". (i quote Malcolm X in that section.)
(2) Japanese are brainwashed by racist American standards of beauty.
during and after the US-occupation following WW2, the
Japanese aesthetic sense was gravely affected. many
Japanese people were brainwashed by the same prejudiced
standards of beauty that is prevalent in the USA:
"white people are beautiful; Asian and black people are ugly."
(3) naive internationalism.
most Japanese people have no idea that they are a target
of an intense racial prejudice, as in the USA. they
don't even really know what "anti-Semitism" is.
so most Japanese people have a "naive internationalism",
the belief that we can be simply human beings, without
specifying the race, national origin, social status, etc.
most of Tezuka's work for children (Astroboy, ribon no
kisi, etc) are done in this spirit.
see also section (2.1) "MYTH: Japanese (Asians) have slanted eyes"
of "American misconceptions about Japan FAQ".
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