Western bodies in japanese anime

[ILOVEJAPAN]

Originally Posted by setsunatenshi

hmm... asian people from thailand, indonesia, vietnam and such places have a darker tone of skin than those in japan in my oppinion.
Even so not everyone is pure white caucasian here in europe so the skin tone tends to get a bit darker, even though it isn't much.

I have a few japanese friends and their skin is about the same color as mine... only the hair is darker, of course :P

And from my time in japan pretty much everyone i saw there was about the same skin color as people here in europe, except for those overly tanned chicks that walked around with barely no clothes at all

(it could be that maybe i'm colorblind though ´^_^)

Alot of Japanese naturauly have light skin, but they are still asian so its still a diffrent skin colour then white people. Even if they were REALLY light there would still be less pink/red in there complection, they would just look pale.
(at least thats what I have noticed)
It may depend where in Japan you are, and how cold/warm it is.
I deffinatly notice Japanese celebritys looking MUCH lighter then most Japanese though.

Anyways complection is besides the point im trying to make. The people drawn in anime are clearly meant to look caucasion. If they were meant to look Japanese I think there skin would look at least a littlr darker.

[Aleesunz]

Originally Posted by ILOVEJAPAN

Yea...well im caucasian but I dont exactly look like it. Im really tan. One o my freinds says I look a little green, and when I thought about it I actualy kinnda agree with her. I think I see a little yellow in my comlection too.

Odviously white people arent actualy white...they are more pink/peach/white/red small amounts of all those colors mixed together.
If you said white people were white that would be like saying black people are black....odviously they arent pure black...I would say more like a dark brown colour (with some other colors mixed in)

Uhm...That's what I was saying?

XD

But yeh, it's more to do with skin TONE than the light/darkness of it.

[ichigoichie]

Originally Posted by Kurisuten

I always wondered about this topic! In my opinion, anime girls don't look Japanese. And they DO look more like a western girls. I even read in a anime magezine that the creator of Naruto purppesly made Naruto with blond hair and blue eyes to appeal to the western culture.

I always wanted to look like an anime girl, and I'm American!

And ichigoichie, I always wanted to know a Japanese girls opinion about this topic!

Hi! What made me think that anime characters are non-Japanese was their profiles. They have long nose and western-like profiles. As for skin colours, I agree that most Japanese are not aware much of racial representations involved. Techinically speaking, animators often change the skin colours of characters just to make them distingished each other. But interestingly enough, dark colours represent strength/villains/outsiders, whereas light colours represent weakness/inocence/mainstream etc. Off course, there are always exceptions, though.

As the digital technilogy has developed, the effectiveness of colouring have got to mean more than before. (Colouring in MIYAZAKI's anime films is a good example.)

And probably this is debatable, but using western-look bodies is a way to avoid having Japanese viewers be conscious about their body images, sexualities, etc.

[ILOVEJAPAN]

Originally Posted by ichigoichie

dark colours represent strength/villains/outsiders,

It bothers be when anime show the white characters as Japanese, but dark characters as foreigne.

I mean, fine go ahead and deny the way you naturualy look. Anime is suposed to be like a fantasy world...but If your going to draw yourself as diffrent from the way you really are (for whatever reason you have) then why shouldnt this other race/natanality look diffrent too?

[ILOVEJAPAN]

Originally Posted by Aleesunz

Uhm...That's what I was saying?

XD

But yeh, it's more to do with skin TONE than the light/darkness of it.

Oh yea...I was agreeing with you/strengthining your point. Not arguing with you. I really need to make my intentions more clear. Its harder if your not talking in person.

[Abasio]

Most of the Japanese girls I know want to have big round eyes, a skinny waist & big boobs! Just like an anime girl, I think this is just what is popular & so that is how they look like.
It's not particularly Japanese or western! From what I've seen.

[ILOVEJAPAN]

I keep trying to make this point but nobody gets it:

lots of people have big eyes big boobs and thin waists

but the people in anime are WHITE they have WHITE skin.

A Japanese person can be as pale as humanly possible and there skin still wouldnt look they way an actual caucasion person's skin looks.

The only thing that really shows any signs of wanting to look western (at least I think) is the fact that the characters have caucasion skin.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by ILOVEJAPAN

I keep trying to make this point but nobody gets it:

lots of people have big eyes big boobs and thin waists

but the people in anime are WHITE they have WHITE skin.

A Japanese person can be as pale as humanly possible and there skin still wouldnt look they way an actual caucasion person's skin looks.

The only thing that really shows any signs of wanting to look western (at least I think) is the fact that the characters have caucasion skin.

You keep making this point, but I don't buy it. Japanese actually have a great variety of skin tones naturally. Some people turn blue when it's cold! And many Japananese people tan beautifully.

You often see women using parasols and covering their arms in the sun to avoid getting darker.

This is not from a desire to look "Caucasian" but there is a faction of Japan that beleives lighter skin is more beautiful (like a porcelain doll). This idea of beauty has been around a lot longer than the Western influence (think kabuki and geisha).

For animators, the reason most characters have lighter features is NOT because they want thier characters to be Caucasian, but it is easier to show facial expressions on a lighter "background" of a lighter skinned face.

Sure, in shows like Black Lagoon you have white characters, black characters, Chinese characters, etc... but unless their character is specifically from another country (or planet), I assume they are Japanese.

[ILOVEJAPAN]

Originally Posted by MMM

You keep making this point, but I don't buy it. Japanese actually have a great variety of skin tones naturally. Some people turn blue when it's cold! And many Japananese people tan beautifully.

You often see women using parasols and covering their arms in the sun to avoid getting darker.

This is not from a desire to look "Caucasian" but there is a faction of Japan that beleives lighter skin is more beautiful (like a porcelain doll). This idea of beauty has been around a lot longer than the Western influence (think kabuki and geisha).

For animators, the reason most characters have lighter features is NOT because they want thier characters to be Caucasian, but it is easier to show facial expressions on a lighter "background" of a lighter skinned face.

Sure, in shows like Black Lagoon you have white characters, black characters, Chinese characters, etc... but unless their character is specifically from another country (or planet), I assume they are Japanese.

Hm you may have a point about wanting to have lighter skin before western influences came in. But thats still sad. I still feel like its denieng who you are. Even if its not influenced by westerness, its still trying to be not Japanese. No one in Japan looks the way anim characters do. Maybe some celebritys, but not most of the random people walking down the street.

And yes there are lots of diffrent tones but its the same general colour.

[Samael]

It's not really suprising to me. Japan has a very western influenced culture now, so the archetype for an attractive woman is very similar. In fact this generally accepted archetype is pretty much the same around the worls with the exception of a few back aswards countries in the mid east.

On the apparent "ethnicity" of anime characters. It's not that easy to maintain any semblence of ethnic origin in the generally accepted anime form. The minor nuances that seperate western skin tone and bone structure from their eastern counterparts can't easily be portrayed well in anime style art.

I'd say the most Japanese looking characters I've seen are Satoshi Kon's work, although he goes more for of an artistic rendering of real people, charactures if you will.