the eyes and hair?

[ShiaLover44]

i love the hair especially the girls hair yay

[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.

[kireikoori]

Oh Jesus Christ. Not again.

Originally Posted by kokunin

they have the humongous eyes (compared to the asian scheme of things, they don't have that feature, unless they're mixed)

O.K. WTF?
Japanese people often have quite huge eyes. Natually. Methinks you watch too much anime and have completely avoided all other Japanese media. This statement freaked me out so much I was like...is this even worth commenting on?
Mixed Japanese don't even seem to have bigger eyes than the average Japanese. I guess if the the Japanese parent was one of the single eyelid ones then the kids probably would have double eyelids if mixed. But guess what? Japan is filled with big eyed double eyelid people. Single eyelids are far far more common in China.

About the hair. Black isn't the only hair color Asians can have naturally. Sometimes it's brown. Naturally.
Secondly. Yeah, and Pink hair is real natural for Westerners!

And also, sometimes the characters are set in Europe! Like Hellsing! So wouldn't "European" features make sense? There are just as many characters in anime with "Eastern" features as well.
To me anime walks the line between Western, Eastern and Alien in features. That you can't tell which it is. And I like that.

Oh, and anime is made by Japanese people for Japanese people. In the early days of anime people had to struggle to get anime. It took a long time for it to actually become available in American stores. And if it weren't for those underground fans proclaiming how much they wanted it all the time it would never be available on tv, in stores, catalogues or elsewhere. Japan never intended to market anime outside of Japan.

[Shaelyn]

Originally Posted by kireikoori

Oh, and anime is made by Japanese people for Japanese people. In the early days of anime people had to struggle to get anime. It took a long time for it to actually become available in American stores.

quoted for truth.

hell, it's still hard to find anime...you have to really know where to look, or go to a convention. around here, all the good anime stores have pretty much shut down.

fry's is about the only place left.

[Shaelyn]

double post ~grumble~

[ILOVEJAPAN]

Originally Posted by 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.

Exactly. If they cared eveny remotly what audiences abroad tought, they wouldnt make so many reffrences to Japanese culture, they dont even consider the global audeince at all.

I think the reason young people have huge eyes and adults have thiner eye, is because large eyes show inocents and narow eyes show maturity. Notice that girls also have larger eyes than boys.

[ILOVEJAPAN]

Originally Posted by kireikoori

Oh Jesus Christ. Not again.

O.K. WTF?
Japanese people often have quite huge eyes. Natually. Methinks you watch too much anime and have completely avoided all other Japanese media. This statement freaked me out so much I was like...is this even worth commenting on?
Mixed Japanese don't even seem to have bigger eyes than the average Japanese. I guess if the the Japanese parent was one of the single eyelid ones then the kids probably would have double eyelids if mixed. But guess what? Japan is filled with big eyed double eyelid people. Single eyelids are far far more common in China.

Somthing to consider is that many asians have surgery on there eyes (a very popular phenominon in asaia) I dont think slanted/single eyelids are more or less comon in any specific country. I dont think large eyes in anime are suposed to look western, they are just suposed to represent inocents.

Originally Posted by kireikoori

About the hair. Black isn't the only hair color Asians can have naturally. Sometimes it's brown. Naturally.
Secondly. Yeah, and Pink hair is real natural for Westerners!

Yea I agree, alot of anime characters have pink, blue, red, purple hair, no one has hair like that.

Originally Posted by kireikoori

And also, sometimes the characters are set in Europe! Like Hellsing! So wouldn't "European" features make sense? There are just as many characters in anime with "Eastern" features as well.
To me anime walks the line between Western, Eastern and Alien in features. That you can't tell which it is. And I like that.

Some anime is set in europe but its more often set in Japan. Name me 5 set in europe and I will name you 50 set in Japan. There are many characters in anime with easter features, and alot with western features, they dont look like alians to me, but thats just because Im used to the style (if I wasnt used to it and saw it for the first time I might think they looked like alians. Anyway, as I was saying, even though many anime characters do have eastern features, almost all of them have white skin (thats the part I dont get).

Originally Posted by kireikoori

Oh, and anime is made by Japanese people for Japanese people. In the early days of anime people had to struggle to get anime. It took a long time for it to actually become available in American stores. And if it weren't for those underground fans proclaiming how much they wanted it all the time it would never be available on tv, in stores, catalogues or elsewhere. Japan never intended to market anime outside of Japan.

Thats absolutly true. I think people forget that the only reason anime excists in the US is because there was alot of demand for it. Not because Japanese tried to market it to us.