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Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

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Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#41

Post by ugh »

bitwize wrote: post #32
ugh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny thing is that Scott Pilgrim [+] looks Japanese to me even though he is a very Canadian hero. [+] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Pilgrim

Scott's eyes in that image resemble those of Link from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker . In most drawings of him they are rounder. Oddly enough -- in 2001 some test footage from Wind Waker was released, showing a Link with some very almond-shaped eyes. The appearance of Link was retooled so they look less almond-shaped and more mukokuseki.

The cover of the first volume isn’t really all that representative, that’s right. Here is a page from the fourth volume: http://www.scottpilgrim.com/images/previews/v4pre/v4pre__027...

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#42

Post by slantyyz »

coliveira wrote: post #39

I think it depends on what you consider white. If you are just talking about the color of skin, Japanese are as white as Europeans. In fact, my personal view is that they are closer to white, European's skin color has a pink tone that you can't see on Japanese people.

Reminds me of a funny story a professor told me. Back in the days of apartheid, someone told a Japanese friend of his that in South Africa, that he'd have the same status as a "white", to which he retorted "Why would I want to be white?"

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#43

Post by jcl »

araneae wrote: post #34
dawgr wrote: post #3

I think I read once that Asian people pay more attention to the eyes than other facial features when they are reading emotions. The hypothesis was somehow based on the fact that the emoticons Asians use tend to mostly show the eyes. Since it's difficult to show emotions on a cartoon, perhaps drawing big eyes started as a way to make it easier for the artist to express anger, happiness,... on what they drew. They migh…

Everyone pays attention to the eyes when they are reading emotions. That's why eyes are called "the window to the soul."

No, he's right. There is at least one eye-tracking study that shows that people from Asian cultures pay greater attention to the eyes when reading expressions. Relative to the Asians in the study, the Caucasians relied more on other parts of the face.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17605-human-facial-exp...

It's not clear whether it might be influencing different art styles, though.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#45

Post by shaunfs »

I have to admit, I always wondered why Naruto was a blue-eyed blonde white kid. This article helped me consider some of my own reasoning. I had just assumed Naruto had characters that reflected a mix of races instead of one race. The last sentence of this article is offensive though. It's a derogatory generalization. Personally it doesn't matter to me what the characters look like and I don't see why someone relating to a character is a negative.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#46

Post by soyelmango »

BobbyH wrote: post #28
Sukotto wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those characters have big eyes and foreheads for two reasons. Firstly, to make them cuter... like babies. All baby humans have proportionally big heads/eyes to the rest of their bodies and we're hardwired to think of those characteristics as simpler, cuter, and deserving of our attention. Secondly, to give the animator a face that is both simpler and larger which makes it much easier to draw expressions These two thi…

Yeah, in fact, Steven Jay Gould wrote a great article on how "As Mickey became increasingly well behaved over the years, his appearance became more youthful. Measurements of three stages in his development revealed a larger relative head size, larger eyes, and an enlarged cranium--all traits of juvenility." As he puts it, "Humans feel affection for animals with juvenile features." full article: http://www.monmsci.net…

This would explain the glut of sites such as cuteoverload.com

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#47

Post by patio11 »

slantyyz wrote: post #42
coliveira wrote: post #39

I think it depends on what you consider white. If you are just talking about the color of skin, Japanese are as white as Europeans. In fact, my personal view is that they are closer to white, European's skin color has a pink tone that you can't see on Japanese people.

Reminds me of a funny story a professor told me. Back in the days of apartheid, someone told a Japanese friend of his that in South Africa, that he'd have the same status as a "white", to which he retorted "Why would I want to be white?"

Relatedly, "Asian" is a category which exists in America a heck of a lot more than it exists in Asia.

(I was helping one of my friends with a grad school application. He got to race, asked me why a school would need to know this -- silly Japanese person, how would we run our racial discrimination departments without sorting you first -- and couldn't find Japanese on the menu so he picked Other. Quote, "The closest I saw was Asian American, but I think that's for Chinese people, right? Whatever, I'm certainly not American.")

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#48

Post by powrtoch »

dgabriel wrote: post #36
powrtoch wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not complaining about the type of racism, but the general trend of presupposing that all arguments against you will be of a certain misguided type and therefore illegitimate. Like if I said "Mac is better than PC, and if anyone disagrees with me, it can only because that person is a pedophile". Obviously that example is unrealistic, but you see the issue.

That's a non-sequitur. In the context of racial appearance of drawn characters, and the incorrect attribution of race based on the viewers biases, it's an appropriate, if somewhat incendiary, term. If someone counters that Japanese definitely draw white people because Japanese people think Americans are awesome (and there are some arguments of this type floating around out there), then it's a culturally myopic, borde…

Sigh. Alright, last try, then I'm done with this time-sink discussion.

Forget racism. I said nothing about whether "racist" was an appropriate term for the kinds of people he has in mind. The problem is in equating "the people I have in mind" with "everyone who could possibly think I'm wrong". The problem is that he has assumed, before anyone has even had the chance to argue with him, that any arguments he gets will be motivated by some particular flaw he expects to encounter. The problem is that he dismisses all disagreement as "racist" before even hearing that disagreement.

Yes, if a bunch of people speak up and disagree with his points, some of them will probably do so because of some underlying racist beliefs. But that doesn't authorize him to declare that everyone who disagrees with him must therefore be a racist. That's wrong, descriptively and normatively.

For example, if I linked to an article where the top 50 Japanese anime authors had explicitly stated "Yup, we just draw white people", that wouldn't make me a racist. It would make him wrong, and me right to disagree. I don't expect to find an article like that, and I find the author's main point in the article quite plausible. The issue is just that there are conceivable legitimate objections (particularly any based on actual evidence, which, as has been noted, this article lacks), a possibility he has refused to even acknowledge with a wave of his hand.

I seem to be talking right past you, but I don't know how to spell this out any more plainly.

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#49

Post by shaunfs »

senki wrote: post #24
edanm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same question. I didn't think it was a big deal, since I figured that other people ask the question and it just never occurred to me. Then I came across the last sentence of the article: "Some Americans, even some scholars, will argue against this view of anime. They want to think the Japanese worship America or worship whiteness and use anime to prove it. But they seem to be driven more by their own racism…

Look at this: http://www.google.com/search?&q=site:answers.yahoo.com+J...

Look at this: http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#sclient=psy&hl=en&...

What's the point. I bet there are a million bigots, immature kids, and ignorant people asking questions on Yahoo Answers. Unfortunately every country has people like this, it's not exclusive to one area.

Let's just all read this and decide collectively that Yahoo Answers should never again be used as debate source material: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100317231952AA...

Re: Why do the Japanese draw themselves as white?

#50

Post by pradocchia »

I recommend the author's blog, http://abagond.wordpress.com/

Programmer, West Indian, NYC area, writes 500 words a day on whatever he likes. Also a father. Studied Classical Greek and Comp Sci in college:

People told me studying ancient Greek was a waste of time, but I learned far more about life and the world from the Greeks than from anything in computers.

I read a few posts and enjoyed them all.

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