Is it just me, or has anyone else also thought that the Japanese anime characters don’t look very Asian? The characters are often drawn with large eyes, a narrow and pointy nose, double eyelids —which are uncommon among Northeast Asians— and light-colored hair. They also often have ample body features such as large breasts and wide hips, which are said to be rarer among Japanese, Chinese, and Korean people. A lot of questions arise from this. Does the art of anime actually represent Northeast Asian people? Or is it meant to be a non-specific abstraction towards not one race of people but rather a neutral and fictional invention? Or, do they represent a specific stylization towards a particular race?
Japanese anime is the animated version of manga, which is a Japanese cartoon with traditional roots going back to the 1100s. In fact, anime is short for animation. The art of modern Japanese anime and manga began with Osamu Tezuka, who pioneered the style in his cartoon “Astro Boy” (1952-1968), which often featured light-skinned characters with large eyes and a small nose. In fact, the first litmus test to the question of whether Japanese anime characters look White or not can be found by comparing the traditional Japanese manga such as the Hokusai Manga of the 1600s to the modern Japanese manga and anime. The art in Hokusai Manga and its contemporaries depicts Japanese-looking figures, while most characters of modern Japanese anime and manga appear to be not Japanese or Northeast Asian.
However, most anime and manga feature characters with Japanese names, born and raised in Japanese society and culture, who are by all accounts Japanese. So why don’t they look it? This style has become popular around the world, which begs the question of why another art form with truer-to-life Northeast Asian features hasn’t. Instead, this seemingly whitewashed art medium is what has dominated popular culture.
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How can we find proof – direct or circumstantial – that there is indeed frequent whitewashing of Northeast Asian/Japanese characters in anime?
We’ve already gone over the comparison of traditional Japanese manga from the 1100s-1800s which depicted Japanese with true or realistic Northeast Asian physical features with Japanese manga and anime from the 1950s and onwards which shows Japanese people with specific, idealized or exaggerated European traits. In the latter case, the characters are further infused or polished with a sense of cuteness ( “kawaii” in Japanese) or sexiness, depending on the genre of the anime. One example of an anime series with cute characters would be
Another litmus test for whitewashing is to find the rare cases that actually show Japanese characters with Asian features. The notable exceptions are
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A third litmus test is the comparison of superior (or main) and inferior (or side) characters in certain Japanese anime or manga series, where there is a clear hierarchy based on physical appearance, with more Asian-looking characters being relegated to the inferior or side character roles and the more Caucasian-looking characters being centered as the superior or main character types. Examples include Detective Conan, in which the more attractive or smarter characters (such as Shinichi Kudo) are endowed with more Caucasian traits, while the less attractive or more ordinary characters appear more Asian (like Genta Kojima). Another example is the “Hating the Korean Wave” manga, in which the inferior Korean characters appear more Northeast Asian, while the superior Japanese characters appear more Caucasian.
The last two litmus test techniques involve comparing the depictions of western and Asian characters. One way to go about this is to compare western people in classical western art with the anime characters. Depending on the style of the anime, which in certain cases features characters with normal-sized eyes, there is literally no difference between the two. For example, compare Fujiko Mine from the series
1909) by Charles Courtney Curran. In my view, especially the idealized lady on the left-most side of the painting is virtually indistinguishable from many anime characters who are depicted without very large eyes in certain anime series.
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The second way to use that litmus test method is to look within the anime itself and compare the Japanese/Northeast Asian characters with the western characters, if there are any. Often, the two are virtually indistinguishable in their physical appearance. An example is the
Series, in which Kaname Chidori and Teresa “Tessa” Testarossa have very little to demarcate their racial differences in terms of their physical appearance.
It is true that Japanese anime characters do not 100% literally resemble white Europeans. Their figures are exaggerated and fuse modern Japanese aesthetic sensibilities (such as the “kawaii” aesthetic or an aura of seduction/sexuality. Also, I can see that in the case of 2D comic or animation, in which the illustration of characters relies heavily on sharp lines, it is difficult to depict certain Northeast Asian features such as the nose that generally tends to be less tall and wider than a western/European nose, and must be modeled more gently using gradations rather than sharp lines for pleasing effects. In my personal experience of drawing cartoon characters as a hobby, it is much easier to demarcate the nose of a cartoon character using sharp lines shaped like a triangular jab (as seen from the side) or a single dot or line (as seen from the front) to attain aesthetically pleasing results.
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Furthermore, race is a social construct, so not every person of a particular race or nationality will have the same features. There are also exceptions to the generalizations regarding race, such as some Northeast Asian women having voluptuous bodies. If race is a social construct, and there are greater genetic variations within specific races than between the races, then can it be argued at all that the Japanese anime characters generally resemble White people? Who is to say what white or Asian people should look like?
An article on the website Craftknight by a user named Valentin argues that Japanese anime characters appear white because this perception is purely based on a western perspective, but Japanese people see themselves in the anime characters. Is there any validity in this argument?
I would explain this Japanese perception of anime characters as being intrinsically Japanese as a collective defense mechanism to the potential accusation of racism and whitewashing against anime. Any smart Japanese person would know that the whitewashing of Japanese anime characters must be vehemently denied for anime to become accepted into the global market, which the West currently dominates. Anime is widely considered a Japanese cultural product, after all, even as the Koreans and the Chinese have produced their own imitations in the form of manhwa and manhua.
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Japanese people assert that anime characters appear Japanese and not Caucasian, but they also deny the atrocities and the war crimes of the Imperial Japanese Army against other Northeast Asian nations, including the Nanjing Massacre and the Unit 731. In my opinion, it is most likely a collective defense mechanism to preserve the national interests of Japan.
(Source: Chunbum Park. Both of the women’s names are Akane Sakamoto, a fictional character whom I made up. They are both clearly Japanese and Northeast Asian – one in anime version and another in more realistic version. The first rendering on the left clearly does not look European, while the second rendering is clearly a racist, stereotyping image of Northeast Asians.)
, in which most of the characters appear neither Caucasian American nor African American, despite the series depicting an American family as the protagonists. So does this justify whitewashing in anime?
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In my opinion, this is a false equivalency because the Simpsons characters are abstracted or stylized with a set of fictional traits such as yellow skin, blue hair, and duck-like shape above the mouth area that do not point to another race. It’s just as if a LEGO figure had a bright yellow skin, and one could still tell that the figure was Caucasian. Also, there is a focus towards achieving a unique, recognizable style of character design, and certain ethnic traits are introduced only to the side characters.
On the other hand, Japanese anime characters are stylized specifically towards having white traits. It does not help that Japanese culture traditionally admired light skin and tall noses. Comprehensively or compositely speaking, the Japanese anime characters appear white – in terms of the nose shape (which goes beyond being just tall, since Asian nose is not aquiline and does not become a narrow and pointy triangle), the size of the eyes, the frequent featuring of the double eyelid, colored eyes, and colored hair, etc. etc.
Valentin cannot expect to bring up a few points and counter them with individual arguments to defend anime from accusations of racism and whitewashing, since the whitewashing in many anime is done so from multiple angles simultaneously. The Simpsons’ character design is indeed a case of abstraction. Anime characters are not; anime character design is intentional stylization towards white traits.
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(Source: Chunbum Park. Clearly the nose on the left side is not an Asian nose but something else; the noses in the middle and on the right side are Asian
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