[Shaelyn]

when anime started, I highly doubt they were thinking about an international audience.

I've been wondering about it myself...

international audience or not, there's also the fact that the anime culture is still very japanese. I don't see many, if any shrines in the west, and the public schools here don't have school uniforms. and then, some anime characters still wear a lot of japanese clothes that we straight up don't have in the west. a lot of anime is also centered around tokyo tower, and has a ton of other japanese references that the west isn't going to really relate to. also, take hikaru no go as another example - most westerners haven't even HEARD of the game Go. with all this eastern influence, it doesn't make sense that anime characters look more like western people...unless it's just to make the main character stand out, but if they all look western...that doesn't make sense either.

I have noticed something else though. young women get those huge bright eyes...but older women in anime have small, slanted eyes about half the time.

it's probably just for effect...

anyway, as far as hair goes, I'm willing to bet that really is just an effect to make the main character(s) stand out. then there's instances like 12 kingdoms, where it's actually a part of the story.