[ichigoichie]

I really appreciate various opinions about how anime characters are represented. I'll try to see this issue from a slightly different aspect today.

As TV animaiton programmes aired in the 1950s in Japan, most anime programmes were from the US, such as Tom&Jerry, Betty, Popeye etc. Of course, till 1966, all the programmes on TV were black and white, so that viewers didn't recognise clearly what skin colour the characters had. And the first domestic anime programmes started on TV, aka (Testuwan Atom)Astro Boy, but they were basically targetting boys. Even though there were female characters in following domestic anime programmes, most females were not the leads. At that point, female robots/cyborg bodies were often used which represented non-Japanese (but they speak Japanese, so viewers could recognise them as Japanese).

But I'd like to point out that the anime programmes targetting girls started in 1966, Mahou Tsukai Sari (Sally the Witch). In the middle of the series, colour TV started. Sally, the first protagonist in anime programmes for girls, was obviously a non-Japanese. (She is from the Magic Kingdom). And along with her, western lifestyles were introduced as a sophisticated, modern, cool and heroic things, whereas traditional Japanese lifestyles were compared to her lifestyles.

Since then, western representations are quite often associated with heroines, who of course are 'good' ones. Since I'm interested in girl characters and how viewers (especially female viewers) identify themselves as anime heroines, I think that the way in which the West is associated with protagonists is so important and I really want to know how viewers internarised/naturalised those representations to make their self-images.

These tendencies haven't changed a lot even now. I don't deny that anime characters are 'internationalised', though.