[ILOVEJAPAN]

Now that its been mentioned I actualy have noticed that light skinned people want to look tanner and tan skinned people want to look lighter. So maybe people want what they cant have? The grass is much geener on the other side...that kindda thing?

Anyway, I do agree that anime was originaly trying to be like american cartoons so the style developed from that.

Im not sure if speaking Japanese is an indecation that the characters are Japanese. On american TV if a character is in/from a diffrent country or even a diffrent world, the character will often be speaking english just for the conveniants of the veiwers. I only consider them to be Japanese if they have Japanese names or live in Japan. If neither of those things are true then I wouldnt assume them to be Japanese. I also notice that if a character is from another world or outer space or somthing, there culture will be conveniantly simiealar to the culture of the country they are from (its all eiseir for the creators if they dont have to think up a new culture and/or language) I cant think of any specific examples from american TV or animation, but in Urusei Yatsura, Lum is an alian, but somehow happens to know Japanese and most (all?) of Japans customs and culture, aparantly her planets culture is the same as Japanese culture, because its the same with all her freinds .