Comments

1. shannon wrote:

   Slightly off topic, I thought the FFX characters looked vaguely asian, but am I wrong on this?

   Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 1:22 pm ¶

2. steph wrote:

   thanks <3

   Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 1:27 pm ¶

3. Latoya Peterson wrote:

   @Shannon –

   No, I don’t think so. In one of the posts I’ve been talking about comparing different characters against our ideas of a default (like comparing Vaan from FFXII and Tidus from FFX) against the norms of another society where nonwhite is the default. I’ll get around to writing it one day, but it also hits against some of the conventions discussed here:

   http://www.racialicious.com/2008/12/03/mirrors-edge-pixilated-beauty-race-and-stereotypes/

   Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 1:32 pm ¶

4. vcious wrote:

   This is a very good question. I’m a white chick who doesn’t play many games outside the Final Fantasy franschise. I wouldn’t deny that the global “desire for white” (whether its fairness creams, double eyelid surgery or whatever) may play a big part in this. And of course, I think ‘fantasy’ as a genre is widely perceived as white – white characters in worlds inspired by European medival times from Tolkien onwards have been pretty void of characters of color.

   At the same time, I think there are non-white influences in character design as well. I don’t think Amano’s character designs depict white people (though this is a personal judgment and is up for debate), for example, and in the case of the earlier games, those were the primary designs the SNES graphics were based on. Still, it can be noted that from those beautiful designs, the eventual realistic CGI rendering made the characters white or more white-looking (and a lot of them have blond hair). And that’s a trend that’s continued to this day. Is white just considered more aesthetic?

   This post makes a very good point that the gaming community at large is particularly averse to these issues. In a lot of spaces nobody wants to hear criticism regarding representations of gender, sexuality, race etc. But in gaming community especially the people bringing up these points seem to be shouted down or given a 20-point list as to why it’s not worth the discussion. Sad. Here’s to hoping it’ll change one day.

   Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 1:42 pm ¶

5. 12xu wrote:

   I have my own theory on this. Prior to 1945 the Japanese, like the Germans, saw themselves a superior race-a race destined to control Asia, and after 1941, to defeat the American Empire.

   The crushing Japanese defeat at the hands of Anglo Americans seems to have been followed by a certain cultural imperialism by American popular culture. To a certain extent, I think it has had an effect on thing like the widespread portrayal of white characters in games, along with the proliferation of comic book characters with decidedly white features.

   Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 1:45 pm ¶

6. kaigou wrote:

   Hmm. Not a gamer, but I do pay attention to design, and having development experience, I wonder if there’s an additional component here. Who designs the software that’s used to create the base models? The gaming company? Or are they incorporating software created by other companies, for modeling, movement, etc — I know Pixar did massive amts of development in that area for their movies, and aren’t those for-movie developments then incorporated into to-the-trade software?

   My point is, is there a chance that some of the major development being done on the foundational software used to build games is being done predominantly by Western companies, and thus any game development using their software is going to be working with base-model assumptions for things like build, proportion, cheekbones, jawlines, and so on?

   There’s a Youtube video someone did that compares Western/Anglo face structure with Asian face structure as part of demonstrating that anime characters are not, in fact, “Western” or “White” but really are Japanese/Asian. That made me more aware that it’s not eyes that matter, quite so much as cheekbone, eye socket, jaw line, etc — and that’s what I twig on in the illustrations you provided. Those are strongly Western/White facial structures, regardless of eye shape/size — but to what degree do game designers have control over the basic skeleton provided in their software? Even if they then have control over the details laid on top, if the underlying structure assumes a Western/white proportion and build, in the end the illustration will still say “white” to us, regardless of trappings.

   Could that be compounding the difficulty of resolving the issues you listed, at least from a game designer’s standpoint?

   Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 1:47 pm ¶

7. method wrote:

   Well, we’re talking about Japanese games that make it over to the United States. I actually think that if you did your survey on all of the games that are released in Japan and allowed that anime characters who are supposed to be Japanese don’t look Japanese to Westerners then your list would actually have most Japanese games mainly consisting of Japanese characters. BTW, sometimes you can tell if a character is supposed to be white because he has a huge nose, lumpy features and an angry face.

   I think Japanese culture is defined by a persistent desire to escape normal experience, which is considered to be predictable and confining. They have a long history of romanticizing different aspects of European and white American culture– but also really any other culture. They fetishize Hawaiian culture, more recently African American culture, etc. This may be driven in part by a sense of inferiority (or more accurately, a sense of white superiority; Japanese culture was deeply influenced by its Europeanization phase after the 1880s and its related encounter with Nazi racial theories), but in general it has more to do with a sense of dissatisfaction with supposedly homogeneous and role-stereotyped Japanese experiences. I mean, Japanese people aren’t at all homogeneous and their lives aren’t any more boring than those in any other modernized economy, but there’s a pervasive set of beliefs about this. So your “final fantasy” is about being as far away from your normal experience as possible.

   Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 1:48 pm ¶

8. atlasien wrote:

   I’m Japanese-American but I honestly can’t answer this question. Here are some of my thoughts.

   1) I also didn’t think the characters looked particularly white. They had multicolored hair but the facial features didn’t strike me as particularly Caucasian. The blond guy looks like a Japanese guy with dyed blond hair and an un-Japanese chin.

   2) Japanese video game design is heavily influenced by European visual iconography.

   3) Japanese are fond of portraying emotion through the eyes. This is a native visual tradition. Therefore, eyes are generally drawn as unrealistically large. This makes people think they aren’t meant to be Asian, even when characters ARE meant to be really Asian. European iconography tends to focus more on the mouth area when expressing emotion, so cartoon European characters often have unrealistically large/expressive mouths, but people don’t really notice this tendency as much.

   4) Like many other countries, Japan has an inferiority complex because of external forces (white imperialism… in Japan’s case, both being menaced by it, and trying to keep up with it during the imperialist period).

   5) Like many other countries, Japan has a native streak of colorism: pale skin being associated with nobility, darker skin being associated with lower-class, manual labor out in the sun, peasantry, etc.

   I don’t have a problem talking about this, but I do reject the premise that Japan is somehow UNIQUE in all this. Japanese are not uniquely self-hating by any means. It’s a confluence of artistic and historical factors, some of them have to with imperialism and racism… and some of them are totally neutral.

   I also reject the premise that no one is talking about this. I hear a lot of people talking about it in a fairly shallow way… especially white people saying, “Japanese people want to be white, that’s why all their video game/manga/anime characters look white.”

   Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 1:48 pm ¶

9. Phil wrote:

   It’s a phenomenon called cultural cringe in Australia.

   Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 1:55 pm ¶

10. deathblossom wrote:

    @shannon

    No, they did, it was purposeful. They moved away from this in FFXII, which truthfully was more of a European medieval fantasy anyway. FFIX featured a more SD style. Gackt swears up and down Nomura jacked his look for Squall and in the compilation, the FFVII characters look more Asian in their design (to me).

    FFXIII, I’m on the fence about, honestly, because I see a lot of various in their character designs. Fang looks pretty racially ambiguous and both Cid and Serah look at bit Asian. I’m on the fence with Snow.

    What I wonder about is that, to me, these characters look like they jumped off the pages of an anime. We constantly argue that anime characters are not in fact white, and that variance in hair colors is meant to add personality and diversity. So when this look gets translated to high-definition consoles (or even non-high definition, see for example, Persona 3 and 4), are we meant to take away the blonde, pink, and blue hair, huge eyes, and what not found on anime characters and accentuate their “more Asian” features in this medium? And if we do, does it further the argument that anime characters are drawn to look more white?

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 2:00 pm ¶

11. vcious wrote:

    I was also going to point out FFX – something about Tidus and Yuna, their facial features & eyes always makes me think Asian, not white/European. Rikku, too. And I remember reading the clothes design for most cultures in FFX is inspired by traditional clothes in the Japanese isles – Ainu perhaps?

    atlasien – The point about expressing emotion through eyes is a really good point.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 2:04 pm ¶

12. atlasien wrote:

    @12xu

    “I have my own theory on this. Prior to 1945 the Japanese, like the Germans, saw themselves a superior race-a race destined to control Asia, and after 1941, to defeat the American Empire. ”

    Nope. Japanese relationship to non-Japanese has always been a mix of inferiority and superiority. Prior to the modern period, the relationship of inferiority was to China. Much of Japanese philosophy, religion and literacy was heavily derived from China. China was the ultimate source of upper-class cultural authenticity.

    Then when the Japanese saw how the West was carving up China, the government realized they had to copy everything they could from the European/American powers, or the same thing would happen to them…

    The idea of a “superior race”, even “race” itself, was a fairly late point of imperialist ideology, imported directly from European fascism… the imperialist government tried to spread it as much as possible, but it didn’t really get the chance to promulgate among all sectors of Japanese society before they lost the war.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 2:06 pm ¶

13. Mer wrote:

    I’m not a huge fan of JRPGs (more to do with the poor voice acting, bland combat systems and formulaic gameplay) but like most other forms of japanese gaming. I see all of the FF-style characters as asian unless actively trying to ape western style (”cowboy”-written characters, etc.)

    Perhaps you can blame the US-based writers and translators for this culture-shift. If the characters are modified for western tastes, they are actively being portrayed as more “western”.

    If it’s the visual depictions… blame anime and j-rockers. The market for US-based nipponophiles aren’t entirely to blame :p

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 2:15 pm ¶

14. Mars wrote:

    I’m chiming in with the same as everyone else, but I agree that the characters don’t really look that white to me. It may just be because I’ve steeped myself in anime and dramas, but European characters are always cast very strongly as the other. I always take it as a reminder of how superficial race is. Take a second look. All of the guy characters have smooth features, not the chiseled jaw stereotype, and there’s little cheek bone. Facial hair is sparse. If these were in an america comic, the artist would be blasted for their “girly” men. Some of the characters have blue eyes yes, but by far the most common anime eye color as over my experience? Purple or grey -> the same way magicians on this side of the ocean always seem to have gold or purple eyes.

    Yes, they have double eyelids. Anime characters have large eyes and thats part of how you make them. I’m reminded that we program ourselves as the default in an image and then toss a few beauty ideals that fit a small proportion of the populace.

    The fact that these characters don’t fit into our western stereotype of how Asians look isn’t caused by any self-hating stereotyping – its caused by the fact that their stereotypes are completely different from ours. Case in point for me? Most of the characters that I would have cast originally as “black” when I first started reading anime turned out to actually be tanned characters from the countryside or filipino.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 2:18 pm ¶

15. Eric wrote:

    Although anime and video games are obviously separate mediums, Susan Napier’s book about anime in Japanese culture may help us understand issues about characters in Japanese video games, too.

    http://www.amazon.com/Anime-Akira-Moving-Castle-Updated/dp/1403970521/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268244966&sr=8-4

    I haven’t read the whole thing but part of her argument is that anime often takes place in neutral/otherwordly spaces with neutral/otherwordly characters that suggests a complicated and often tense relationship between Japan and the West as well as Japan and other Asian countries (particularly places like China and Korea that were directly affected by 20th century Japanese imperialism). Napier argues also that, while the characters are rarely visibly “Asian,” they are also rarely visibly “white,” and instead ambiguous characters that inhabit both the liminal space between Japan and the rest of the world, as well as a nonexistent fantasy space.

    As problematic as it is that Final Fantasy characters do not “look Asian,” I think it is equally problematic to suggest that they “look white.”

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 2:22 pm ¶

16. Erika wrote:

    I actually kind of disagree with some things on this post — True, there are a lot of white folks in Japanese games, and not enough non-stereotypical people of other races (non-Japanese Asians are often heavily stereotyped in games, and blacks are as well).

    However, a lot of Japanese games like FF involve characters stylized in an anime-like fashion.
    Here’s a good video that debunks the whole “anime characters are white” myth.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKTvFhRbBt8

    If you look at this from a Japanese perspective, which sees Japanese people as being the “default” instead of from the western perspective, where whites are seen as the “default”, it makes sense. Other Asians — particularly Chinese and Koreans, in anime are shown with narrower eyes and pronounced cheekbones, while whites are shown with larger noses and with blonde hair. Only the protagonists, who are Japanese, are shown having a “default” look.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 2:25 pm ¶

17. Kirk wrote:

    You raise a very good question, and one that I’ve seen come up a lot over the years. I certainly don’t have any answers, but I do think that marketing to a perceived western audience has something to do with it.

    I actually thought that Faith from Mirror’s Edge was a really well-designed, inclusive and empowered non-white female lead character. Irony – that game was designed by the Swedish development studio DICE.

    Anyway, mainly wanted to say that I enjoyed this post, and that I think it raises a question that could be applied just as equally to western game developers as it is to the Japanese.

    (It’s a bummer, however, that such an interesting post needs to be bogged down with a laundry list of preemptive shut-downs like the one at the end there. Hopefully one day we can just agree on some of those arguments having run their course.)

    Last thing – I wanted to recommend checking out the gaming blog The Border House (though you probably already know about it) – they cover all sorts of issues of related to race and LGBT issues in gaming with the goal of “breaking down cultural and stereotypical walls in virtual worlds.” It’s really good stuff. Their posts on race in games are here:

    http://borderhouseblog.com/?tag=race

    Cheers!

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 2:26 pm ¶

18. alicia wrote:

    I just found the video that an earlier commenter pointed out about anime characters being compared to anglo and asian faces.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKTvFhRbBt8

    While I don’t agree with all the points, I did find some of it enlightening. If you look at the bone structure of the center character’s face and the guy to her right, the lack of a strong brow or chin reads very northeast asian to me.

    Also, I think the bodytypes of four of those characters match what I have in my head of Japanese media. The main girl’s lack of thigh is alarming (I’m trying to say they’re all sticks. Not sports illustrated swimsuit edition sticks, more like Japanese idol territory). Also, I don’t know if you’d have a guy as slight as the one next to her if this game was made in the US.

    I think we’d all be surprised simply putting black hair on a lot of these characters. They don’t match a western “stereotype” of an Asian face, but japanese media seems to portray a wider view of what a Japanese person looks like than we do.

    While they do not look like Hiro from Heroes, they do very much follow that sort of…. Gackt aesthetic.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 2:53 pm ¶

19. Notebook wrote:

    I was wondering when Racialicious was going to pick this up. It’ll be a nice change of pace from the usual NO TOWNZ/LINEAR nonsense that I had to put up with.

    While I don’t think I’m qualified to discuss the matters of Japan’s perception of race, there is one irritating things that I’ve been recently noticing–certain gamers [usually always white] complaining about video game characters not representing THEM.

    I know it sounds unbelievable that there’s people out there who think that there’s actually a lack of “relatable” 18-35 white characters out there in video games. There’s a very funny and sad motivational picture out there that disproves this theory. That thing just seriously irritates me, especially since they talk about wanting to have more “grown up” games and yet they keep trying to deny all of the problems that video games have don’t exist. It’s just so frustrating trying to deal with people like them.

    It gets especially frustrating for someone like me who hasn’t had the privilege of having many decent characters in video games of his own race without becoming completely minstrel-fodder. But really, the majority of the gamer community on the internet are really just a bunch of immature brats that are less concerned about enjoying and discussing games and more concerned with seeing who is more “mature” by basically hating on and flaming everything that doesn’t capture their childhood memories of yore.

    Doesn’t really help that due to the current shift between JRPGs and WRPGs, you’re gonna get a lot of so-called “experts” flaunting western superiority over the east, which just wants me to throw things out a window.

    No, I’m not completely jaded about this at all, why would you think that?

    And this is coming from someone who used to shamefully act the same way as them. Not that I’m saying I’m the pinnacle of maturity nowadays or anything, but still, it’s hard for me because I think there’s so much unused potential for video games that the developers aren’t aware of, and the only people I have to discuss with this won’t bother to do any sort of mature discussion done.

    …Wow, I really went into full rant mode there.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 2:59 pm ¶

20. Juan wrote:

    I’ll chime in too that though not all of these characters look white, there is the point that even when stylized they are “westernized” in some regard–does any of that make sense?

    Add on top of that a heavy use of western iconography and setting in most games/anime/manga/whatever and it becomes increasing problematic. Sometimes with the western setting and western connatations in character designs I find it hard not to identify some game characters as “white.”

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 3:04 pm ¶

21. Juan wrote:

    And my condolences if this conversation gets bogged down in matters of phenotype investigation, bone structure, ethnic characteristics and junk like that which I’ve seen bring this sort of dicussion to a halt far too many times.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 3:07 pm ¶

22. Tablesaw wrote:

    The racial background of Solid Snake from Metal Gear is a bit confusing (like everything in the series), but he’s definitely not white. The MGS wiki suggests that he’s biracial with a white father and a Japanese mother.

    I agree with everyone else about characters from Final Fantasy (7 and up) reading as Asian. But, then again, that’s something I had to be shown before I could see it for myself. The games that get brought over to America often have characters that are very easy for white players to imagine as white as they are for Japanese players to imagine as Japanese (though not as easy for many other people).

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 3:08 pm ¶

23. sadieko wrote:

    I recommend reading this article about racial markers in manga, which in turn heavily influences Japanese video games:
    http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html

    A Japanese audience reading these manga and playing these games have no trouble identifying these characters as Japanese. Pretty much the same way a white audience would have no trouble identifying the main character of — to use a cartoon example — “Hey Arnold!” or “Doug” or “The Wild Thornberries” to be Caucasian, no matter how little they fit into realistic Caucasian features.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 3:10 pm ¶

24. David wrote:

    As a Korean-American, I very much enjoyed your post and can understand your frustration with the race of protagonists in videogames. While I would enjoy greater ethnic diversity in games, I believe Final Fantasy XIII is landmark for a different reason.

    I have played Final Fantasies since Final Fantasy 1. Females have always taken a side-role (often times playing a damsel in distress). With the introduction of Lightning as the heroine, Square-Enix has taken a huge gamble. Lightning defies all stereotypes of females in videogame media. She doesn’t need a man to help her, she isn’t “cute,” and, let’s be mature, she doesn’t have double-d sized breasts. Is this male-dominated industry ready for a female lead that isn’t Lara Croft? Initial reaction says yes.

    It would have been just as easy to “test” the viability of a female lead in some side project game, but Square-Enix has taken their flagship franchise and placed it into the hands of a woman.

    People will argue that there have been females leads in the past in the series. The two that I foresee being lobbed at me is Final Fantasy VI, and Final Fantasy X-2. Allow me to preempt these by saying that Final Fantasy VI has no main protagonist (as was the intent) and Final Fantasy X-2 was 1. a side project and 2. the “cuteness” factor was so completely over-the-top that it could have been considered more of a step back than forward.

    To be fair, I should cite that Final Fantasy isn’t alone in pioneering the role of women in videogames. Bayonetta and Super Princess Peach should also be given nods.

    Again, I enjoyed your post. As the videogame industry gains more popularity, it’s important to take seriously the shaping influence it has on our culture and perceptions about ourselves.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 3:28 pm ¶

25. Bao Phi wrote:

    Hello all. I first want to say, thanks to Racialicious for cross-posting this.

    I also want to thank people for reading and discussing. I am trying to read and process.

    A couple of quick responses – I agree that many people may have commented that anime and Japanese culture product has characters that look white, but I’d argue that the discussion has seldom been asked within this specific socio-economic and historical context. I just want to make it clear that I have no intention of bringing this up to join the throngs of people who make fun of ‘oddball’ Japanese culture – I actually bring it up because I wonder what shapes the images we create.

    Regarding the idea that they look Asian and that these are just ’standard’ features, then I would ask, what compels creators who come from a people where the overwhelming physical characteristics are dark hair and dark eyes, create a ’standard’ or ‘norm’ that features people that are light haired, and light eyed? I readily admit that I bring this up with a very specific lens, being Asian American. I also confess that I am no expert in Japanese culture, pop or otherwise. However, I do think it bears mentioning that there is some dynamic at play here?

    And I also want to concur, that a dynamic like this is not unique to the Japanese, and if I gave that impression, I apologize. I brought this up at this place in time as a longtime consumer of video games with an interest in this question, and it corresponds to the release of the new FFXIII, a series I have long wondered about in this context.

    I have another longer essay regarding race and racial representation which is more about Western representation elswhere, linked on my blog.

    Thank you for the discussion and thanks again to Racialicious.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 3:36 pm ¶

26. maus wrote:

    “Lightning defies all stereotypes of females in videogame media”

    There’s plenty of examples of strong female leads/villains that aren’t “laura croft”. While I welcome the non-squeaky, helpless, love-obsessed leads in JRPGs, it’s not as if this should be considered groundbreaking, it should be expected.

    That said, good for them anyway

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 3:46 pm ¶

27. jh wrote:

    This may be weird but IMO, Final Fantasy characters ESPECIALLY are pseudo-asians. Those of us who have played lots of games and watched anime etc know that even though all the characters have “caucasian” features such as light eyes and hair, their features are all “asian-nized”.

    Characters that are SUPPOSED to be caucasian are marked as “hyper-caucasian” characters with exaggerated features while regular non-marked characters have caucasian features that are softened and made more asian.

    I don’t know why that is. It’s just something I’ve noticed.

    Sort of like how a lot of whites in america assume anime is filled with white people when in reality, the japanese consider those characters to be japanese (even if they have blond or crazy hair colors like blue and red).

    And I don’t know if you guys know Gackt but he’s 100% japanese but he often wears color contacts and dyes his hair blond and I swear to god, after he dyes his hair and wears contacts, he literally looks like a final fantasy character.

    I think in japan, the characters are MORE asian than caucasian to the japanese audience. Esp since lots of young people in japan wear color contacts and dye their hair.

    here’s an interesting article about whether or not comic characters are “white”.
    http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 4:21 pm ¶

28. jh wrote:

    Oh, and another reason that FF characters aren’t all that odd to me is because if you open ANY japanese fashion magazines, especially those targeting young women, you’ll see all the models have dyed hair and wear color contacts. And because in japan, these people are the majority, they can dye their hair and wear blue contact lens without feeling weird about it. In america, everything is framed within a racial context. If a dark-eyed person wears color contacts, people are going to assume s/he is ashamed of his/her race. But japan is mostly monoracial and so they can do whatever they want without people accusing them of wanting to be “white”.

    I would assert that asian-americans are LESS likely to get double-eyelid surgery than asians in asia because asian-americans will be accused of being ashamed of his/her race while asians in asia will simply think of the procedure as purely cosmetic and non-racially motivated. You never hear asian people in asia saying “i want double-eyelid surgery because I want to look white”. They always say “I want the surgery because it makes me look better” and there’s no shame associated with it.

    Then again, about half of the asian population are BORN with double-eyelids and so maybe those who aren’t just want what other people have. I was born with it along with most of my cousins but some of my relatives don’t have it. *SHRUG*

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 4:26 pm ¶

29. jh wrote:

    I forgot to mention that all the artistic liberties taken with characters in anime/videogames doesn’t actually extend to a real acceptance of caucasians in the media. In japan, there’s a cap on the number of foreigners allowed to star in japanese TV. So while fantasy-based japanese media may seem predominantly white (though the japanese themselves may disagree) real life media is still predominantly japanese.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 4:35 pm ¶

30. Darth Paul wrote:

    I think the real problem lands squarely in the lap of designers and engineers rather than the industry at large or Japanese culture.

    Seeing how the staggering majority of them are heterosexual and male (regardless of their national or ethnic origin), the problem is probably tied directly to straight male mentality of what “normal” fantasy entails.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 4:40 pm ¶

31. Jess wrote:

    What altasien said.

    Also, if you look at pre-modern Japanese art, Japanese people also look “western” in some respects, at least I think they would to people from the US.

    I have a set of Hiroshige prints, (yeah I know he isn’t quite pre-modern, but I am using 1854 as the marker for the moment) that shows Japanese people in it — the skins are pretty white or pink and the faces don’t look “Asian” at first blush.

    Toyokuni’s (early 19th cent.??) faces have long thin noses and strong square jaws — they look a lot like Buzz Lightyear, IMO.

    And if you look here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utagawa_Kuniyoshi

    (sorry for the ugly link) you’ll see faces that look an awful lot like anime faces, and that’s almost 200 years before anime was invented.

    So, I’d say the “white looking” thing is one of those bits that depends on where you look at it from, and how things code differently when you move them to another culture.

    And when I look at some older prints — there’s a really interesting one by Hokusai from 1820 or so called “First Westerners In Japan” — and they look (modern stereotypical) Japanese. But Hokusai was shooting for more “realistic” art at the time (or at least, he said he was trying to understand his subjects better, but I don’t feel like delving into that philosophical point right now ) and it’s interesting to see how he interpreted what I thought were a couple of Americans (or Germans or whatever– European-descended people, at any rate).

    I am not sure I buy any “inferiority complex” thing, because World War II was the first time the Japanese had ever lost a war, and the very first time the islands were occupied by a foreign power. You also have to think about the fact that unlike many other Asian nations, Japan was an industrial and military power in its own right — they took part in carving up China — and they always had a seat at the table, especially after about 1900. Heck, at one point their industrial and military designs were arguably superior to those in the West, and they knew it.

    So a lot of the issues that come with being colonized are, to my mind, not the same, as the Japanese had pretty good control of their cultural production aparatus even under the occupation. (They still made their own movies, music, et cetera).

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 4:49 pm ¶

32. Shou wrote:

    Eric’s definitely pointing to something central. There’s definitely a lot of literature on this, and not just regarding the Japanese gaming and cartoon industry.

    It’s not black and white, of course–since there are many, many games in Japan featuring Japanese protagonists, as you mentioned, and they don’t make it to the US–but “Western”ification (for lack of a more sensitive, modern word) is ubiquitous in Japanese culture: video games, manga, high school haircuts, etc. (Ever heard of the blue anime contact lenses or Audrey Hepburn eye surgery?) As Eric points out, there’re great books and studies on how Japanese has schizoid behavior regarding culture, easily abandoning certain features while stubbornly embracing others. (This is true of many cultures. Take, for example, the recent publicity of critiques of hair straightening and distorted beauty standards and self-image problems for blacks.)

    There’s certainly a historical element which runs back to the Meiji Restoration, if not before, where Japanese people were proud of their heritage but insecure in their development and dress, and culled what they perceived was the best of the West. World War II of course humbled the nationalistic strand, and it’s certainly reasonable (if not obvious) to suggest that cartoonists and video game designers are influenced by the prevailing tendencies of the culture around them. You can find tons of French bakeries around Tokyo (with amazing bread), Viennese coffee-cake houses, and plenty of businesses take on Western names. There’s no doubt a love of many strands of Western culture and mythology. But then, there’s also a firm love of Japanese culture–I note it especially in aesthetics, professional craftsmanship, and very Japanese traditions of hospitality and service.

    But maybe I can add an interesting point, which is that, having lived in Japan as a kid and being half-Japanese, I never really think of the “white” or non-Japanese-looking characters as non-Japanese. There is something centrally Japanese about the characters, in their eyes and appearance as someone mentioned, but also in their behavior, in cartoons and video games like Final Fantasy. This by no means implies that the racial element isn’t an issue, but that it’s very complex, which seems to be your point.

    For example, we tend not to see people who look like Heidi Klum in video games, but rather people with many things in common with what might be a Japanese ideal of cute–only reasonable, right? (The girl in the center of the photo of your article, for example, looks very Japanese to me, but with pink hair.) So another interesting question that makes the discussion more complex is, why do Japanese story-tellers insist on infusing non-Japanese characters with Japanese physical traits?

    [I just want to comment on your argument that, "Actually there were people of color in Medieval Europe." True, but your average story writer, cartoon drawer, and video game maker--not to mention the consumers of their products--probably doesn't care too much about historical accuracy, just compelling story, visuals, and gameplay. Usually, the more fantastic and other-worldly, the better. So the question to me isn't, Why don't they put non-whites in Medieval Europe fantasy stories?, but rather, Why do they love to create wacky stories about Medieval Europe?, and, Do they love to create these games more than they like to create Japanese-centered or Asian-centered games -- e.g., Oni, Dragon Balls? (Dragon Balls, as we know, draws heavily from Chinese myth.) And, is there anything to the idea that these types of games are more accessible to non-Japanese markets because less familiarity with Japanese mythology, culture, and story-telling norms is assumed?]

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 5:00 pm ¶

33. Bryan wrote:

    As it’s really the only video game series I play faithfully(and I’m a veteran of almost all of the games, numbered and non-numbered), I’m just happy that the Final Fantasy series finally has not only a black playable character who isn’t an outrageous stereotype, but a female lead who isn’t cutsified or romantically involved with any other characters. Hopefully the next generation of games really represents a step forward.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 5:37 pm ¶

34. round.crow wrote:

    Haven’t played yet, but I am hoping that Sazh isn’t the Only Black Man In The Universe, like Barret from FFVII…

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 6:09 pm ¶

35. Sooz wrote:

    I don’t think that there’s much to discuss WRT the characters looking Japanese to Japanese people; they’re pretty obviously about the same as the Star Trek aliens to (mostly white) US people- Like Us but with a few Exotic features.

    I think there is room for a conversation regarding how the US (and prolly other Western folks) perceive the characters’ race and all.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 6:11 pm ¶

36. Seth wrote:

    Great article. If more of my friends in school were gamers I’d shoot them this, becaue some of the points you make touch on something I’ve been trying to help them understand as regards racial representation versus audience receptivity in our graduate program. As the only mulatto student (who happens to look just like the Chinese/Korean student, which is a little odd) in a program with a total of three non-white students, I’m finding myself hyper-aware of matters of distinction and assumed similarity…moreso than I’ve been at any time since I was in college in Indiana.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 6:15 pm ¶

37. westwood wrote:

    Do the characters differ in appearance in the Japanese versions of the games?

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 6:30 pm ¶

38. ben wrote:

    i dont usually worry about this stuff, but i do game, and have something that i feel needs to be said.

    of course the characters, or more importantly, the stories in these games are white, and imitations of ‘western’ culture. samurai folklore and chinese “romance of the three kingdoms” aside, there is not much about asian culture that has the kind of dramatization you get from hollywood day to day. that’s really more of an debate on (american) consumer mass media.

    what i want to comment on is subtle racism and developing a habit of ignorance. i think minute details, though they are easy to ignore, are extremely powerful in affecting the opinions of people. gamers, and more generally, human beings, are very sensitive. im not saying that your average gamer, when coming across something unfamiliar, pauses to think for a second. rather, when you’re trying to “figure out” how to beat the game, the mental processes that you rely on to recognize patterns, are by and large, subconscious. this is why it’s so hard to make dialogue about offenses of this nature, and it’s also why the ‘attitude’ of a game can be so dangerous. you are constantly redefining a young person’s ability to distinguish between the right and wrong, and between, familiar and unfamiliar. (i would argue that a game like gta is far more dangerous than a game like mortal kombat.)

    i think this really reflects on the gaming industry’s level of maturity. and let me interrupt your thought process a second to differentiate my meaning of the word ‘maturity’ between technology and content.

    you mentioned that you go as far back as atari. well, back in the days of pong, you know racism was not even possible in the realm of game design. even the original mario and sonic series, i would argue are race-neutral. surely, it was driven as much by the lack of graphics technology as much as an attempt to be apolitical.

    when a problem, like we are trying to discuss, arises, is when when we start to have the technology to simulate real life without having any prior discussion about the appropriateness of the content. behind a game developer/publisher’s decisions to begin, continue, and complete a product are many, many business decisions. quite frankly, money–even the dollar that come out of your own pocket–does not care about what you might be thinking 10 hours into call of duty 5: MW 2.

    i am a student of economics, and i am ashamed to say that, as much as i wish games could be more appropriate, they are primarily a product of the entertainment industry. and as much as i respect human beings, i am not going to wait in line for a hamburger if i can pull out a gun, eat for free, and fly away in my chopper, conscience-free. in real life, of course, i could do nothing of the sort.

    i am asian-american, and although i don’t represent all of us/them, i am quite ambivalent on this issue. yeah, sometimes, i feel left out. but i have experienced rejection throughout my life. to anyone, for whom this is their first, i’m sorry. you will get better. to others, let me raise the question: why do we need so badly to be ‘in’? it’s bad to see people disrespected by racism, but when they swallow their pride just to play along, it makes me sad. why do so many people who feel rejected by the system strive to return to it?

    i am not an expert, but i have made an effort to be open to many ideas on race relations, and one of the ugliest concepts i have had the privilege to learn about was the post-imperial culture of self-denigration and imperialism of the mind. for fear of saying something wrong, i will be short. when one imperializes another, they not only shake up the victim’s territory and culture, but their mental well-being. the meaning of defeat and domination have a powerful grasp on one’s self-image, and on their view of the world. this nation, this person may think lesser of himself, and begin to subject himself to change. call it what you want, reinvention, self-destruction.

    no disrespect to people who have spent their lives fighting for a cause, but strictly speaking, you represent yourself, first and foremost. i have to say, love yourself and your family, and if you can, love your friends, too.

    i apologize if the tone of my writing has changed over the course of the writing, and you didn’t appreciate it. sorry!

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 6:30 pm ¶

39. Fireball wrote:

    Anybody who doubts that Japan has an issue with white worship needs to visit a Japanese city and see all the WHITE models plastered all over their ads and billboards. The fact that a people chose to lighten their hair/eyes/skin color as a form of escapism and fantasy should speak tons. Am I to believe all those skin-whitening products are also perfectly harmless aesthetics? Spin it however you want, but the fact remains: you’ll never see a major Japanese manga/anime/videogame character transform into darker skin, hair and eye color to activate his/her superpowers.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 6:31 pm ¶

40. Fireball wrote:

    @Bao Phi- your article is greatly appreciated, although I disagree with you on one thing: this issue has been brought up many times before. And it’s been shouted down each time by game geeks with all the excuses in your list. That is why videogames, despite the marketshare and billion dollar industry, will never get taken seriously.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 6:35 pm ¶

41. Kat wrote:

    I’m with Shou on most of this.

    As a child I loved Anime. In none of the series I watched did the characters look Japanese however and in several they weren’t even Japanese: Cat’s Eye (half-German, half-Japanese), Georgie (White blond blue-eyed Australian), Robin Hood (White blonde-eyed), Sailor Moon (White blond blue-eyed), Anne of Green Gables, Attack No. 1, Little Women, Katri (Finnish)…

    I can’t really imagine anything remotely similar in the US, Canada or Western Europe.

    And there definitely should be a post in itself on Hetalia: Axis Powers…

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 6:56 pm ¶

42. Ico wrote:

    Chiming in with others who think these characters don’t read as simply being Caucasian. They look like anime characters; and a ton of anime characters in contexts and stories that pretty clearly indicate their Asianness are misinterpreted as white by western viewers. For example, Dragonball, Fushigi Yuugi, Natsume’s Book of Friends, Twelve Kingdoms, many Miyazaki characters… some of these folks have orange or blond or blue or whatever hair color despite being clearly labeled as Chinese or Japanese within the context of the story.

    So I think the idea that so many anime/game characters are white often comes from the misreading of characters who are really supposed to be Asian.

    That said, the question of why so many of them have westernized elements to them is an interesting one. Why do so many Asian characters get light hair/eyes? And pale skin? And all that? I haven’t lived in Japan, so I can’t speak to the racial issues around this question; but it does seem problematic.

    But it sounds like there are two separate issues here: one is the westernness of a lot of elements in Japanese games/anime, and why that is so prevalent (as in Silent Hill, Res. Evil, medieval fantasy, the lightening of skin/eyes/hair of Asian characters).

    The other is the tendency of western viewers/gamers to misread Asian characters or elements as white, which is a different kind of whitewashing entirely and which, in my experience, people fiercely, fiercely defend (try telling some folks that Aang or Goku is Asian. Hoo, boy)

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 6:57 pm ¶

43. Bao Phi wrote:

    Thanks all. Interesting reading. A couple of quick points-

    Shou: I agree that it’s not about historical accuracy, which was my point. In previous discussions on similar topics, particularly the game Dragon Age, some folks asked why there were not more characters/NPCs of color. The retort by apologists was, that it was a European setting and therefore it would be inaccurate to have characters of color. My rebuttal is that 1) that’s historically inaccurate, and 2) if it’s a fantasy world, that means it is limited only by our imagination. We create the rules and boundaries – and what does that say about us?

    Some other points – I think the combined questions that some people are raising, about how we should also be asking why game developers seem so fascinated by Western fantasy, is on point and a very good question.

    More later – gotta go to work. But thanks for the discussion…

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 7:40 pm ¶

44. Bao Phi wrote:

    Ico and others,
    one thing I am wondering is, what do Japanese people think of the Americanization of certain Japanese cultural products such as Dragonball Z, Speedracer, Avatar, and the soon to be made live-action Akira? I ask because this complicates the question.

    I get the point, that to Japanese these folks read as Japanese – but I still don’t think that answers the question, where does this come from? If for instance, I come from a place where the majority of people have black hair and black eyes, where does the translation to creating a “human” or “standard” that is supposed to represent my people, have features not associated with my people? I’m not discounting the point, I am asking folks to complicate it. I don’t think the answer is solely, well, they look Japanese to the Japanese.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 7:46 pm ¶

45. maus wrote:

    @40 “But it sounds like there are two separate issues here: one is the westernness of a lot of elements in Japanese games/anime, and why that is so prevalent (as in Silent Hill”

    Silent Hill is definitely based on a number of western psychological-horror movies and sources, while the game models do look strangely western (uncanny valley-ish) there’s at least a design excuse for the western influence.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 7:58 pm ¶

46. Havlar wrote:

    I don’t think anyone’s mentioned it, but there was a bonus disc that came with the European version of FFX (not sure about elsewhere) that, among other things, contained interviews with lots of the creative team. I haven’t seen it in ages, but I definitely recall an interview where it was said that, particularly following on from how incredibly Medieval-Europe-y FFIX was, they made a conscious choice to design Spira to look more Asian, in terms of architecture, clothing, music and so on… though, interestingly (perhaps reinforcing the main point raised by this post), there was no comment on how Asian the *characters* looked.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 8:08 pm ¶

47. cathy wrote:

    I’m agreeing with the above posters about marked/unmarked characters and that unless specifically marked otherwise, in Japan the characters are presumed to be Japanese (sometimes it’s hard for westerners to pick up on these markings of foreigness. It took me several volumes of a certain manga to realize that the one character was supposed to be Chinese, even though it was treated as an obvious point). Also, we talk about the exotification of Asians in the US, but for the dark haired dark eyed Japanese audience, light hair and eyes are exotic and really common in fantasy, including colors never seen on actual people (yellow eyes, pink hair, purple hair and eyes, etc.). Odd coloring can also be used to make a character easier to identify, as is odd hair shapes and specific clothes types. The blond Yuki in gravitation is a Japanese character and the blond K is American, two of the other characters who are Japanese have pink or red hair. Just like how we see the yellow skinned Simpsons as white, a Japanese audience can see the pink haired, purple eyed Shuichi as Japanese. For full metal panic, we are supposed to be able to tell the silver haired girl is white and the blue haired girl is japanese, even though neither blue hair or metalic silver pop up much in real life. I don’t see a light haired light eyed character here as racially interesting in a Japanese context, though FF’s inclusion of black characters, rare in manga and anime mediums, is very interesting. FF is one of the few Japanes mediums where you actually see black characters. The only other three I can think of involve two who might not be black (Russian and latino coded name), and one who is a biracial character in manga set in the US (Japanese written). I can’t think of a single black woman from any Japanese manga or anime.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 8:25 pm ¶

48. OuyangDan wrote:

    I love this post to itty bitty bits.

    I am a gamer, but not nearly as experienced. I have trouble w/ FPSs b/c they make me nauseous, play mostly WoW b/c console game controls tend to be a little complex for my firbro-riddled hands at times and dulled reaction times, but I have been delving more (and will proudly say that I finally beat my first console game since the SNES — Dragon Age — I rock). I have been watching game companies for their accessibility and diversity (was impressed and disappointed in BioWare in a short amount of time).

    That said, these things have irritated me to no end. I think the answer is very systemic and completely unclear. While perusing a bookstore here in Korea (I am currently living abroad) I flipped through several art books about anime and comics/animation in general. One such was “how to draw beautiful men”, which featured instructions on how to make your characters very much like we see them come out in the media as we are accustomed. Long, graceful features, pale, flowing hair, and a mix of Western and Eastern features. The “ideal” man you see was a hodge-podge of stereotypes. The graceful man of Asian culture and the “beautiful” paleness and facial construction of Caucasian and European descent. This was just one book. The result was nothing resembling anything like what we would presume someone who is Asian would look like, even of mixed race, and had all the markers of a European or Caucasian man. It is completely the opposite of the “how to draw comic heroes” books I find in U.S.-ian book stores — barrel chested and hyper curvaceous men and women, except for the Caucasian markers.

    I think this ideal is pervasive in the minds of those who design these games (and comics and anime, and even Miyazaki has said he deliberately makes all of his characters “beautiful”). When did “beautiful” = “Caucasian” or “European”?

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 9:16 pm ¶

49. Anon wrote:

    omfg i was just discussing this very issue with my husband tonight, after we watched the ff13 international trailer. i saw the black character, and hoped and prayed that he wasn’t some extreme stereo-type, and i also let out a disappointed sigh at the very white character line up. again. square/enix needs to grow some balls already. i’ve played every FF in the series, including some of the spin-offs and tactics games, but i have yet to see non whites represented, or at least non white washed minorities. after a while, you kinda get used to it, then you angry when, all these FF titles later, you still don’t see a poc character who isn’t questionably poc, but you see tons of VERY white characters, yet again.

    i always say, that poc (black in my case)should be more involved at every level of the gaming industry so that we don’t need some euro, or Japanese company to represent us cause it’ll rarely happen otherwise. oh and the watered down (read whitened)poc like Sheva from RE5, or Ayumi from X-Blades, and a myriad of others don’t count. there are some exceptions to the rule, like L4D2 having two black mains, and one of them is *drumroll*female, also Mirror’s Edge(asian female main)! i looooove Bioware’s ME series’ human diversity, and Bethesda’s, although i was wondering why asian peeps weren’t present in Oblivion, or Morrowind. i’m still waiting to see some hot asian male mains outside of Tekken, and other fighting games.

    you would think that games made by Japanese developers would feature more noticeably asian characters. i would effin love to see asians or any poc in these rpgs. i mean, there are some who could argue all day long about anime/manga/jrpg chars being asian, but i’m sorry, i mostly see white or very white traits.
    @Ico – Juuni kokki, and Natsume Yujinchou are wonderful animes!
    @Fireball- i agree whole heartedly on both your posts, especially about the geeks who whine all the time. i occasionally play the GW spinoff Night Fall, which takes place in suedo African-ish land, and a geek complained that he was frustrated because he couldn’t make a char without black features. oh the irony! and speaking of DBZ, my daughter, with absolutely NO context or experience with cariactures, decided that the show sucked because she thought the Mr. Popo character was an attempt to insult black people. blew me the hell away cause i never thought kids were that perceptive, and it’s change the way i filter things. i’m pretty sure people take away something negative about themselves when they are not represented, or made a fool of. and why are all the buffoon characters in anime drawn noticeably asian? they are never classy, cool, or smart. The chinese park ranger of Jusenkyo Springs in Ranma 1/2 made go WTF??? but this is only one example of many, and it carries over to games.
    @westwood – NO… and that debunks the whole “‘appealing to a white market” theory right there. sorry for the caps, i just get passionate about this stuff.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 9:37 pm ¶

50. Anon wrote:

    that would be “caricature” , sorry for the typo.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 9:43 pm ¶

51. atlasien wrote:

    @Bao Phi

    “what do Japanese people think of the Americanization of certain Japanese cultural products such as Dragonball Z, Speedracer, Avatar, and the soon to be made live-action Akira”

    As far as I can tell (as a Japanese-American, not a Japanese) the dominant reaction = confused, but vaguely pleased.

    I think it’s comparable to my reaction, as an American, on learning that a Turkish director made a Turkish version of Star Wars.

    Japanese anime is an internationalized, hybrid art form to begin with. It’s not any sort of pure native art form. Not to say that it doesn’t also reflect certain native visual traditions, but it would be unthinkable without the influence of European visual traditions in the 19th and 20th centuries.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 9:48 pm ¶

52. 7thangel wrote:

    when it comes to anime, manga, jrpgs, etc, coming out of japan, we should also look at the prevalence of eyelid surgery and why it’s an issue, how much of that issue plays into choices made by artists and the underline messages. i.e. a trend in many mange and anime continue to have the untrustworthy/evil person with narrow eyes, that just happen to make the characters look more asian. it’s a complex issue that rarely gets tackled, but then many don’t seem to want to truly discuss the other problematic things in some manga and anime

    i’m curious to how the characters would look if korea made the same amount of animated tv/films and games as they do regular movies. would it be like most of the manwha, where the characters look asian (at least all the ones i’ve read) or would it be similar to a lot of anime coming out of japan?

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 10:12 pm ¶

53. Antonio wrote:

    I think when it comes to positive roles for female protagonists, Samus Aran from Metroid is a good example, even though her gender was a surprise in the original game and Nintendo tends to throw her in skimpy outfits as a “bonus” for beating the game.

    I do think the seemingly euro-centric design of the FF characters is related to the same issue in anime and manga.

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 10:12 pm ¶

54. rat wrote:

    The wikipedia article for Lightning seems to point to an article that implies Lightning originally had a more asian look. Doesn’t mention why.
    http://finalfantasyversusxiii.net/2008/02/07/versus-guy-s-name-coming-soon-and-you-might-not-like-him.html

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 10:26 pm ¶

55. Martina wrote:

    Race is always kind of weird to me in video games. There are games that are pretty obvious and forward in portraying and stating the characters (based on) race, and then there are the vague ones. And sometimes there’s a reason, and sometimes there’s not. And when it comes to certain series, you have to wonder if they were meant to be Asian/Japanese or European, if it matters (to the story/setting and developers) and why.

    As far as Final Fantasy goes, I think a lot of the characters often feel if not look somehow inspired by westernized traits, and I think it’s pretty intentional in some cases. The FF series is weird, because sometimes I feel it’s kind of diverse and other times, I don’t know what to think. VII felt and was pretty diverse, and the before it they were too. And even though they were pretty medieval themed early on, there was still a number of characters that had racial/ethnic markers and the games managed to be diverse (whether it was with skin tone or another trait). But playing on more race related things, I don’t know what to think about Sazh. Apparently, he is quite the stereotyped character (mostly in design) but from reviews (of the Japanese ver.) his story seemed to be the most relevant to a number of people. But as the one of the only characters that feels (and is meant to be?) considerably African American, with the other being Barret, makes me kind of worried. Why portray race in that way? (And why there are never any African American females…)

    And someone brought up Persona, and that interests me because the Shin Megami Tensei games are almost always set in Japan or revolve around a world that reflects Japan. And generally speaking, the characters have something a trait or feature to them that conveys their culture (and sometimes down to what part of Japan they come from). I think with Strange Journey out (and coming out in US/EU), the first SMT game that isn’t really set in Japan and has a diverse cast, Atlus has shown that they have clear distinctions between the race of their characters. The only character that ever left me feeling a little confused before SJ was Hijiri from Nocturne, and I just assumed that maybe he was from Okinawa rather than another race or mixed race (skin tone and his vibe playing into that).

    A lot of games do feature characters outside of Asian/Japanese protagonists, but I think it’s generally clear when they are (and why). The Professor Layton games are a good example of this, and Level-5 said they wanted to make an Englishman (or something along those lines), and I feel like Layton was created to resemble Sherlock Holmes, albeit a Holmes that has faith in humanity rather than a general apathecy toward people. So he’s clearly marked as a protagonist not of Asian descent and with an obvious point of reference. And then you also have games like Harvest Moon, that clearly mark some characters ethnicity (using name as far as I see), and leave others feeling vague.

    But even if characters aren’t exaggerated (and sometimes it’s shamefully how much they are) or lack racial markers, they’re given something that sometimes differentiates them in some ethnic manner; Whether it’s their dress, name or something else.

    Sometimes, I start to think that maybe there aren’t many Asian/Japanese protagonists in games at all, and I generally can’t think of them off the top of my head, but at the same time, I think they’re also a sizable number. (They just drown in the overhyped mainstream that is FF, KH and everything along those lines.)

    Sorry if I misunderstood or went off on an unrelated tangent. But it is nice to see race discussed in video games (especially JRPGs).

    Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 10:43 pm ¶

56. karak wrote:

    The characters are Japanese. Look at their eyes, cheekbones, and overall bone structure. Japanese pop cultural believes that hair color, eye color, and clothing are all things that you choose, not that you’re born with. The characters are merely wearing contacts and hair dye–just as many trendy Japanese youth do, as well as their models and idols.

    Just as another note– Yuna and Lulu from FF10 are clearly Asian/Japanese, and Tifa and Yuffie from FF7 are also stereotypically Asian.

    Also, Japanese aethestics have valued unusual-colored eyes, round-eye shape, and pale skin since long, long, long before America cracked open the Tokugawa era. Shocking, I know, to think an entire race of people don’t give a shit about whiteness, but really, Japanese people in Japan don’t.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 2:34 am ¶

57. sealinewuman wrote:

    I guess it’s weird that I never thought about it before, but then again most of the games I play are fighting games and as stated, generally tend to have a decent cross section of characters of different ethnicites so if I didn’t feel like being La Mariposa (Lisa) in DOA4, I can switch and be a purple haired kick ass Japanese chick or the kinda kick ass Japanese sister that she hates. I have always wondered though, on the rare occasion that I play an RPG ( I don’t really cause I can’t handle first person perspective) why all the characters are white, but speak Japanese and have Japanese names. I don’t know if this has been said by another commenter or not, but I’ve been told (in reference to anime more than video games) that the characters aren’t meant to be white, but rather the idealized image of a Japanese person? For instance, they point out that the facial shape of the characters are usually Asian face shapes, i.e. round without the ‘bumps and contours’ that Caucasian faces have, larger eyes than “squinty” Caucasian ones etc. One thing I have noticed however even in fighting games that disturbs me in the rendition of almost any brown skinned woman. With the exception of DOA where all the chicks are hot as hell and just make me feel inadequate, most brown females in fighting games are depicted quite masculine in body type and usually with a less than honorable story line, just check out Vanessa from Virtua Fighter 5, she’s very muscular, with short hair and dressed in fatigues, while everyone else is lithe in form and dressed like a woman, or Christie and Julia in Tekken 6, in posters they’re depicted femininely, but in game play they’re very muscular while every other female has a feminine silhouette.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 2:39 am ¶

58. little mixed girl wrote:

    *fingers crossed that this post goes through*

    I’ve always liked video games, but I’ve never had the money to play them…and the friends that owned them were never keen about inviting me over to play
    So, while I know of FF, I’ve never sat down to play it.

    However, when I look at the characters, and when I look at other anime characters, I don’t immediately think “WHITE PEOPLE”.

    In the US, I think that we are brought up with the notion that when we depict other races, we must make it glaringly obvious that this cartoon character is black, white, asian, hispanic.
    With the asian/black/hispanic characters almost always having black hair, and the white characters having multicolored hair.
    The Asian characters (in the US) often get super-asiany eyes, just in case the view was confused.

    Japan, in my view, has a love-hate relationship with the West (ie- rich white countries).
    Comedians make fun of flat noses and “small” eyes. But at the same time, you have commericals running that scream that Japanese women are beautiful and better than Western (white) women. (Ascience, I’m looking your way)

    As many other people have mentioned, while the eyes might be “big” and the nose might be “tall”, the basic features say “Asian” to me, and probably to the average Japanese person, too.

    Unless there’s a way to talk with the video game creators, I don’t think we can get an answer to the “why”.
    My guess is that that style is popular and they are capitalizing on that popularity.
    As to why there are not more blacks in those games, I can only guess that it’s because the black characters are not super popular in Japan?

    I will say that you can find people who look like those characters here. They are rare though. And maybe that’s part of the appeal. Rather than making a character that looks closer to the average joe, you make one that looks like the rare guy/gal.

    I do think that it’s a bit annoying when people (not the author) focus solely on the character’s eye and hair color as evidence that the characters are not white.
    It’s even more annoying when people who have only been exposed to anime/games released in the US deem themselves experts on ALL anime/games released in Japan. Deciding that because they watched Naruto and Sailor Moon (kid’s shows), they now are able to speak frankly on ALL animation in Japan, and deem it as “white-washing”.

    Again, I’m not a super big gamer (no $$, no time), but I do notice the variety in animation styles that are available.

    Sorry if that doesn’t answer the question.
    I don’t think that there is any one answer…

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 3:00 am ¶

59. Kaonashi wrote:

    Alicia: You hit it right on the head. This is all about perception. While we Americans might think these characters look Caucasian, the average Japanese person in Japan will tell you that they’re definitely Asian. And unlike FF12, at least Tetsuo didn’t fall asleep at the wheel and there’s some character diversity in this one. I’m not too thrilled about the baby chocobo in the fro, though. :/

    Cathy: There’s one in Bleach. But she turns into a cat, so I’m not sure if that counts…

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 3:22 am ¶

60. Bagelsan wrote:

    I can’t think of a single black woman from any Japanese manga or anime.

    April from Darker than Black! And that lady weapon from Soul Eater who shows up like, twice… It’s a short list, at least off the top of my head, but I’ve noticed a lot more non-East-Asian PoC (and WoC) in the more recent anime especially.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 5:19 am ¶

61. Bree wrote:

    Don’t have much to comment, but I would like to mention the Tekken-series as one series that has always had a wide representation of different races. The characters have got more exaggareted as time goes by (it’s a fighting series after all), but you can see an example of its cast here:

    http://www.tekken-official.jp/tk5ps2/characters.html

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 6:47 am ¶

62. Anon wrote:

    @Martina – the Shin Megami Tensei’s are indeed a very good example of characters of obvious asian descent. i play the Devil Summoner series, and i noticed that the characters at the beginning of the series were much more identifiably asian than in the more recent installments where the characters tend to be more ambiguously eurasian, leaning toward the “eur”. if i may mention a jrpg where race and culture are a major part of the storyline, Shadow Hearts. the main character Yuri is the son of a Japanese father, and a Russian mother. throughout the game, he wrestles with his race and cultural identity, his father’s past, as well as his ability(he’s a Harmonixer) to transform into various daemons . i’ve always been partial to the first game because it did not shy away from the race/culture dichotomy(at least as it pertains to asian/white). the series is not perfect though. Yuri’s romantic interests lean toward european women, and it has the usual lineup of whitish characters outnumbering the ethnicish ones. the ethnic characters are also subject to stereotypes, and a few wtf moments. for instance, Lenny, who is a baddie from Shadow Hearts 2, shows up in the sequel as the main protag’s butler in Shadow Hearts 3. the problem with this is that Lenny seems to be a leaning-towards-black man phenotypically. personality wise, he is brawny with a loving heart, but no brains. he also refers to the protag in SH3 as “Master”. Yuri saved Lenny’s life in SH2, so this is possibly why he protects and serves the protag(descendant of Yuri?) in SH3, but it is still problematic, especially because a person with no knowledge of the story from previous games might be offended by this, with no context to frame it. hell, i did play the previous games and it made me a bit uncomfortable. i should note that the SH series follow a timeline continuum of roughly late 1800’s to early 1940’s. you travel to real locations throughout China, Europe, the Americas, and Japan. the third game takes place mainly in South and North America. when you travel to Harlem in SH3, there are mostly black npc’s walking around, and the area is an obvious slum. you will rarely see black npcs anywhere else even when you are in a favela of Brazil . i won’t even get on the cultural appropriation, and the stereotypical “someone coming” Native American character Natan… i love jrpgs, and other rpgs, but lately i find myself being attracted to rpgs with character creation tools, and diverse casts(with diverse back stories).

    another kid-adult experience. we watched the Death Note series, and when the live action movie came out, my child asked me why the actors looked more asian than the anime characters, particularly Yagami Light. “L” looked the most like his anime counterpart, imo. i think we will start watching the live action first so she does not equate anime with white*. i mean, in Japan the consensus may be that the characters are definitely Japanese, so there’s no racial trade-off . however, in countries that are much less homogenized, and much more eurocentric, it might reinforce the “whiter is better” idea.

    *side note- – -i know there is no “set look” for asian descended folks, so i understand that an asian person/persons can have a wide array of features, including those commonly found on white people. but those are the exception and not the rule. that’s like using Halle Berry, Alicia Keyes, or Gary Dourdan to represent the general black population of the world. while they may identify as black, they have alot of white admixture which makes them more palatable to the masses. @Martina again, i feel your pain on the absence of african american female characters in every genre of games. presumably white male gamers complained about Rochelle being the only playable female in L4D2. they always start out with “i’m not racist but, black women are just not my cup of tea…” i’m like grow the f**k up. there are two white guys to play with, but i suppose that isn’t enough for some. Rochelle fuggin rocks, she’s black like me, has loccs like me, and she says,”son of a beesting!” lol

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 6:49 am ¶

63. Edward wrote:

    You’re not alone, I also noticed this in most anime and squaresoft games. Usually characters are blondes or Caucasian to a point that they are considered beautiful than other features.

    I saw the game already, I think the girls are made very Asian. They’re a bit petite. But that’s it. The fashion is very Japanese though.

    Watch Code Geass. That Anime is really interesting. The British Empire has rule over the world and Japan has become a state of the empire called Area 11. I think there’s probably some truth in that story.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 7:30 am ¶

64. Christine wrote:

    @jh: “And because in japan, these people are the majority, they can dye their hair and wear blue contact lens without feeling weird about it. In america, everything is framed within a racial context. If a dark-eyed person wears color contacts, people are going to assume s/he is ashamed of his/her race. But japan is mostly monoracial and so they can do whatever they want without people accusing them of wanting to be “white”.”

    I disagree, just because Japan is virtually monoracial, doesn’t mean the country exist in a vacuum. There is still lots of pressure from the rest of the world where light skin, hair, and eyes are considered both markers of “whiteness” and the standard of beauty. I mean why is light hair and eye color the so popular and marketable? It’s very similar to the phenomenon of white models being so successful in China. These features are foreign, white, and thus seen as desirable.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 9:06 am ¶

65. Anon 2 wrote:

    I think the bigger question here is why are all the huge game designers and game companies either white or japanese. So no other race has people talented enough to make video games?

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 10:40 am ¶

66. Astraea wrote:

    I’m mostly just reading, since I’m white and I don’t have any authority to speak on the issue at hand. I absolutely love Final Fantasy and am enjoying XIII so far, so this discussion is really interesting.

    Would you (in general and the original poster) consider characters like Rinoa and Tifa to be ones that look Asian?

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 11:36 am ¶

67. little mixed girl wrote:

    urgghhhh…i tried to post at work and it didn’t go through, so attempt #2.

    I’ve never had the $$ for video games, nor friends who would drive me over to their places to play them, so while I like them, I only know so much about the characters.

    After giving it a little thought, I remembered a number of games here in Japan that basically have white people as main characters and are set overseas.
    If I were to make a guess as to *why*, I would say that:
    1. Shoot-outs/gun battles are things that happen overseas and things that foreigners do, not Japanese people. Guns are mostly illegal in Japan, and there aren’t street wars. But those things do happen in Hollywood films.

    2. Foreign setting and foreign characters means that you cane be looser with facts/etc.
    Think Silent Hill vs. Fatal Frame.
    Fatal Frame is more Japanese-style horror with a very Japanese cast, while Silent Hill is more western (I think).

    When it comes to how characters look, especially the FF ones mentioned, I think that they are based on an Asian look.

    I think that in north America, we are used to cartoon characters that exaggerate ethnic/racial features.
    Blacks, Asians, Hispanics are almost always drawn with black/dark brown hair, black/dark brown eyes. And Asian characters usually have their eyes drawn differently from the non-Asian characters.

    On the other hand, white characters are “free” to have blonde, brown and black hair and eyes of different colors.

    Here, we’re getting the same things, but on Asian faces.
    Let’s put it this way, if you close your eyes and color the hair and eyes of the supposedly “white” anime/game characters black and dark brown, do they look more Asian?

    I honestly don’t know why Japanese game companies make games/characters that are biracial looking and have strange non-Japanese names.
    But, what I have learned is that if a character is multiracial, it’s usually written somewhere. If a character is supposed to be white, then they will find a way to let it be known that that character is foreign.

    Finally, who called Sailor Moon white?
    Are you kidding me? Because she has yellow hair and blue eyes, she’s white?!
    Her name is Tsukino Usagi, not Tiffany Jones. She marries a super Japanese looking guy and has a pink-haired kid!

    I would ask that people who have only watched the KIDDY anime that’s available in the US to stop commenting on the race of anime characters. Especially when they are watching the shows dubbed and have not even begun to touch the tip of the giant iceberg that is anime and manga in Japan.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 11:37 am ¶

68. Anon wrote:

    @little mixed girl – you would be correct on Fatal Frame, and that’s the main reason i enjoy the series. Silent Hill tends to have these odd looking blonde characters in every game, that creep me out much more than the grey children, and the puppet nurses…

    i’ve always watched anime, which is just a fancy, stylized cartoon, with more dramatic storylines. i watch everything from the kiddie stuff like, ocha-ken, nanami chan, bincho-tan, chi sweet home. to more intermediate like Bleach, Tokyo mew mew, Snow Fairy Sugar, Kero Kero chime, Suga Suga Rune, and finally the stuff i won’t allow kids to watch, Beserk, Basilisk, Battle Angel and Higurashi no naku koro ni and more. i am sometimes still blown away by the seeming “whiteness” of these characters who are performing tea ceremonies, and ancient Shinto rituals. some of us did not have the liberty of being raised in Japan, so the way we see the characters of J games/anime/manga, may differ from the way you do. Crybaby Usagi looks like a corn fed, blonde/blu white girl to me. logically i know she’s Japanese, but she looks white. maybe if i were raised in Japan, my views would differ, as yours do.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 1:06 pm ¶

69. Juan wrote:

    Finally, who called Sailor Moon white?
    Are you kidding me? Because she has yellow hair and blue eyes, she’s white?!
    Her name is Tsukino Usagi, not Tiffany Jones. She marries a super Japanese looking guy and has a pink-haired kid!

    I would ask that people who have only watched the KIDDY anime that’s available in the US to stop commenting on the race of anime characters. Especially when they are watching the shows dubbed and have not even begun to touch the tip of the giant iceberg that is anime and manga in Japan.

    US-centric as this topic is, this does seem to be about how it is percieved by audiences in the west somewhat.

    You do realize that in the case of Sailor Moon some would consider her, and most of the other characters as white, because when it was dubbed in english they also changed the name of the cast to something more western, right? In fact they did, maybe still, do this with some shows in fact. I never learned otherwise about the actual source material of Sailor Moon until a few years ago.

    Which not only adds to misinformation but the english dubs that alter the cast in some way is sometimes the easiest, least expensive, only, etc. ways for some of us to obtain access to anime.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 1:09 pm ¶

70. shannon wrote:

    Strangely, in Code Geass, despite the distinction between the Japanese and the Brittians(sp?) being very important in the story, I couldn’t really tell the difference between the two.

    Also, ‘untrustworthy’ characters tend to have narrower eyes, but also, adults tend to have smaller eyes in series of anime I have seen.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 1:24 pm ¶

71. cathy wrote:

    @Shannon, I know, I had trouble with that one too.

    Another point though with anime is that the characters that can more easily be rewritten as white tend to go over better with a US audience. There has been some discussion with this in regards to Naruto. No, his hair and eye color don’t make him be read as white to a Japanese audience, but the fact that it is easy for an American to misread him as white does effect the popularity of many of these characters. Juan said “You do realize that in the case of Sailor Moon some would consider her, and most of the other characters as white, because when it was dubbed in english they also changed the name of the cast to something more western, right? In fact they did, maybe still, do this with some shows in fact.” Exactly, this is done to appease the racial discomfort of presumably white American audiences, not to reflect the origional character or the origonal writers intent.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 2:37 pm ¶

72. jk wrote:

    “fireball:Anybody who doubts that Japan has an issue with white worship needs to visit a Japanese city and see all the WHITE models plastered all over their ads and billboards. The fact that a people chose to lighten their hair/eyes/skin color as a form of escapism and fantasy should speak tons. Am I to believe all those skin-whitening products are also perfectly harmless aesthetics? Spin it however you want, but the fact remains: you’ll never see a major Japanese manga/anime/videogame character transform into darker skin, hair and eye color to activate his/her superpowers.”

    You make a good point. But at the same time, the skin-lightening thing has been around for thousands of years throughout asia. In east asia, unlike maybe south asian and west asian societies, skin-lightening creams are better described as anti-tanning creams. These creams won’t make you lighter than your natural lightest skin tone. These creams will only make you lose your tan faster.

    In the west, people tend to think ALL skin-lightening creams have a market because of asian white worship but that’s not necessarily true. Most east asians are already pretty fair. And fair skin has been the standard idea of beauty for an incredibly long time. IMO, skin-lightening cream is to asians what anti-wrinkle cream is to caucasians.

    The first sign of aging for caucasians is wrinkles. THat’s not true for asians. For the vast majority of asians, the first sign of aging is skin discoloration (asians actually tan pretty badly, in spite of having the ability to tan).

    If you want to see how old an asian person is, take a good look at his/her skin and see if there are spots and freckles.

    a lot of asian women are religious with the skin-lightening creams because it is anti-aging for asians. (But remember, the majority of skin-lighting creams in east asia is anti-tanning and anti-melanin rather than bleaching)

    The bleaching creams used in populations with naturally dark skin is another matter altogether though.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 2:40 pm ¶

73. jk wrote:

    Many have already pointed out that in japanese anime/manga, the default characters have westernized features in spite of being asian within the context of the story. Someone’s already pointed out that in Fushigi yuugi, where the characters are supposed to be chinese, you’ll see characters with all sorts of hair and eye color.

    I’ve ALSO noticed something else in anime that people haven’t mentioned, and that is the characters with dark hair and eye color are often considered to have “traditional personalities”. In anime, the girl with black hair and eyes is usually the sweet and pure girl with traditional values. The guy with dark hair and eyes is usually the “cool” character who is serious and aloof and often excel at many things.

    I think in anime, the characters with other hair color are usually the ones who are more in tune with pop culture. I don’t know if anyone here has read Super Gals but in the manga, society is constantly trying to stop her from dying her hair and wearing so much makeup but she insists on doing so because she’s into pop culture.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 2:47 pm ¶

74. Latoya Peterson wrote:

    @jk –
    I don’t know if anyone here has read Super Gals but in the manga, society is constantly trying to stop her from dying her hair and wearing so much makeup but she insists on doing so because she’s into pop culture.

    *looks at the DVDs on her shelf*

    Yeah, good point about the values assigned to characters based on appearance as well.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 2:50 pm ¶

75. jk wrote:

    Something just occurred to me that I think is relevant to this discussion.

    We often say in the west that videogame characters, even those produced by japan, look more western than eastern. But then again, how many of us have seen pictures of asian models in asia? (Asian-american actors and asian actors in asia tend to have different kinds of beauty)

    I was watching this pop culture show on Tudou yesterday and I noticed how almost all of the asiah models look like videogame characters in spite of being 100% asian. (in the case of yesterday’s show, they were chinese/taiwanese)

    Regardless of what we think of as “typical” asian features, the models used in asia have looks that’s completely different from the rest of the population. And yes, these models are 100% asian (though there are also a lot of eurasians in the mix)

    I think the reason final fantasy characters too “westernized” to us is because we don’t realize these characters are supposed to resemble asian supermodels i.e. the epitome of asian beauty.

    Just like how western supermodels rarely look a thing like your regular citizen, asian super models also look different from most asian citizens. And so when anime characters have “above average beauty” the western-centric point of view is to see these characters as “caucasian”.

    People will argue anime/game characters are caucasian because they have light colored hair but I would argue that people have been dying their hair for ages. White brunette women have been going blond since forever. So I don’t think hair color really denotes race, especially within the context of anime/videogames.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 2:54 pm ¶

76. Notebook wrote:

    @little mixed girl – At the risk of opening a huge can of worms regarding English dubs, while in the past there have been many butchered* dubs by 4Kids and the like back then, it’s safe to say that the majority of dubs nowadays don’t do stuff like changing names to make them sound more Americanized or well anything that 4Kids and their ilk did.

    Granted, you have to deal with stuff like cut content for violence, but that’s for things shown on TV and usually the DVDs are left alone in that regard**, and not only that, but they usually [nowadays anyway] have the original voice track for those who don’t like dubs at all.

    Then there’s video games, which get even more complicated due to hardware limitations and the amount of space voicework takes up. Some companies at least try to keep the option there, though some companies are better at this [Atlus] than others [NISA].

    *I’m really wary of using this term since certain fans have a habit of… abusing this term in the community. However, I think it’s an appropriate term for the majority of the things that 4Kids and others have done in the past.

    **Something that has me concerned is that Funimation, who is known for not censoring their releases, has decided to censor one of their titles. I don’t know why it’s that title only but it concerns me. Hopefully this is a case of it being the Japan side of things deciding this, since it’s not uncommon for things like that to happen. Not that that makes things better though…

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 2:57 pm ¶

77. jk wrote:

    #

    Christine wrote:

    @jh: “And because in japan, these people are the majority, they can dye their hair and wear blue contact lens without feeling weird about it. In america, everything is framed within a racial context. If a dark-eyed person wears color contacts, people are going to assume s/he is ashamed of his/her race. But japan is mostly monoracial and so they can do whatever they want without people accusing them of wanting to be “white”.”

    I disagree, just because Japan is virtually monoracial, doesn’t mean the country exist in a vacuum. There is still lots of pressure from the rest of the world where light skin, hair, and eyes are considered both markers of “whiteness” and the standard of beauty. I mean why is light hair and eye color the so popular and marketable? It’s very similar to the phenomenon of white models being so successful in China. These features are foreign, white, and thus seen as desirable.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 9:06 am ¶

    You make a good point but I don’t necessarily agree with everything you say. You assume the japanese are trying to achieve caucasian beauty by dying their hair and so forth but don’t caucasian women dye their hair too?

    Maybe the current in vogue fashion IS to have light hair, but not necessarily be of a race where light colored hair is natural. Here in america, actresses and models bleach their hair blond all the time even though they’re not nordic. And high school goths dye their hair black without wanting to become asian. And people dye their hair blue without actually having elf heritage.

    Liking a certain LOOK isn’t necessarily a declaration of the person wanting to be of another race.

    I’m chinese american and proud of my heritage and my looks. But recently, I’ve also decided to lighten my hair because it flatters my skin tone. If my white friends with black hair can lighten their hair, why can’t I? I’ve also worn color contacts when I was in asia and it wasn’t because I hated my naturally brown eyes. I just thought it was a fun change of pace to wear color contacts. It changes your look COMPLETELY and is kind of fun. You can wear completely different shades of makeup when you change your eye color. But when I came home to the US, I stopped wearing color contacts bc here in america, everything is too racialized. People would wonder if I’m ashamed of my race if I wore purple contacts or something.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 3:01 pm ¶

78. jk wrote:

    I should also mention that in ancient rome, where people tend to have naturally dark hair, it was common for people to dye their hair blond. They looked down on the gauls, who tended to have naturally light hair, and yet the roman citizens liked dying their hair blond.

    Hence I would argue liking a certain look for yourself doesn’t necessarily translate into a worship of that race.

    As for white models in asia, I think it’s because Asians think foreign brands are fancier. if you can buy something of a foreign brand, you must be well to do.

    But when it comes to ACTUAL marketing of cosmetics, companies tend to find popular asian idols to do the promotion.

    When white models are used in asia, they tend to be used as nameless unknown mannikins in pretty pictures. But when it comes to the actual SELLING of the products, they almost always go for well-known asian actors because the consumers identify more with them.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 3:06 pm ¶

79. jk wrote:

    In addition, western audience like to think of anime characters as “white” because these characters don’t look like the western stereotype of an asian person.

    In western media, asian characters are also drawn with exaggerated asian features (and not necessarily the NICE features).

    But the fact of the matter is, many asian people don’t resemble the western stereotype of how an asian person should look.

    I’m 100% chinese (nationality american) and when I’m in asia, people can tell I’m asian. But here in america, I often get asked about my racial background and people will tell me TO MY FACE that both my parents can’t be asian because I have “anglo” features.

    They think my nose is too pronounced, my eyes are too big and so forth. But the fact of the matter is, anyone who has spent any amt of time in asia will realize TONS of people in asia have very prounced noses. A lot of chiense people even have very narrow noses. And while some asian people have smaller eyes, a lot of asian people also have large eyes.

    And I rather resent people who doubt my asian heritage because I’m….what? “too good looking” to be 100% asian???

    I have a cousin who looks like a final fantasy character and if it werent for the fact that her skin tone is on the darker end of the spectrum, people would assume she’s half white too.

    the idea that beautiful asians must have some caucasian ancestry is really racist in my opionion.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 3:13 pm ¶

80. Reiter wrote:

    Very insightful and deep article! You hit right on the head exactly the same tired and nonsensical arguments that self righteous and entitled/privileged white gamer fan boys (and a few girls I’ve met) always trot out to shut down any intelligent discussion about race in video game character design (or any character design, for that matter, such as in comics, TV, movies, anime, etc.).

    The next time I encounter one of these idiots, I’m going to direct them to this article since it so neatly lists (and debunks) all of their silly arguments. Until the majority of these very same gamers grow up and get a clue, video games will never be taken seriously as a medium outside of just another cash making machine and/or convenient political scapegoat of society at large. And it’s because of the latter that so many gamers adopt this clueless and entitled/privileged attitude toward race, believing that this somehow grants them special status or establishes some sort of legitimate “street cred” (aka snarky apathy in stupid attempts to look “cool” among their peers).

    Think you know what it feels like to be treated like a real outsider? Try walking in the shoes of a POC in racist America (and abroad). And I have to agree that I hate how a lot of Western gamers (ie. white people) automatically assume that much of Japanese characters in games and manga are white simply because of said features already addressed. Sheesh, get over yourselves; it’s not always about white folks, you know. I’ve been to Japan and can say that matters are more complicated than just skin color or eye shape (getting back to things like socio-economic status like dark/tan skin = blue collar day laborers out in the sun, white/light skin = white collar more wealthy office workers, etc. . . . you know, things that were in place WAY before European powers entered the picture).

    The idea that “white is right” and “white as the default race” is so effen pervasive and ingrained/indoctrinated in us all that it hardly ever warrants intelligent discussion much less a second thought for most gamers. But hey, it’s all fun and games, amirite? Shut up and play!

    And when Asian gamers do beat white players at their own game, the losers then turn around and perpetuate the continual stereotype of the emasculated, robotic Asian gamer/gold-farmer. Of course, they can play! It’s ingrained in their culture! “The nail that sticks out gets hammered . . .” Ugh, damned if you do, damned if you don’t, but that’s another whole can o’ worms!

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 3:27 pm ¶

81. Bao Phi wrote:

    Hello folks, thanks for the discussion/debates and links, still reading and thinking.

    Veryquickly, then back to work: one of the most compelling ideas/arguments I’ve read so far is this idea that Japanese people wear colored contacts/bleach their hair blond etc NOT because they are consciously trying to mimic whiteness, but because it signifies difference in a homogenous society – maybe a relevant analogy would be, how punk rockers dye their hair etc to rebel or act out dissonance.

    I think there’s a great level of truth to that and I find the argument compelling. I am also re-admitting here my placement as an Asian American and how this informs my curiosity.

    What I’d like to continue to ask and ponder, though, is whether or not this is truly all coincidental – meaning, sure, many Japanese may consciously be engaging in dissonance rather than a white-washing. But does that explain away all the light-eyes/light hair desires and dynamics? I am not for pinning down one answer – I’m actually for complicating the discussion.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 3:29 pm ¶

82. Bao Phi wrote:

    Astrea and others – I think one of my regrets with this original post is, I wasn’t as clear as I could have been about how I’m not interested in policing who may or may not look Asian. To clarify: sure, some of these characters actually may have some features that signify Asianness, to us as well as their Japanese creators/consumers.

    I also certainly don’t want to come off as someone who is arguing for essentialism or racial purity. Nothing like that.

    What informs my curiosity is, what socio-economic-historical factors inform the images and worlds we create and consume? Is is purely coincidence that so many of these characters have light eyes and light hair – features that signify whiteness/colonized notions of beauty throughout the world in history? What is at play here?

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 3:35 pm ¶

83. atlasien wrote:

    @Bao Phi: “But does that explain away all the light-eyes/light hair desires and dynamics?”

    No. It’s a complicated mix.

    There are some Japanese who do go a totally different route… stressing difference/nonconformity through the application of non-white (such as black/African-American) characteristics. E.g. getting dreadlocks, or darkening their faces.

    But I think a white/European aesthetic of difference is much more common and powerful, for a simple reason… global media reflects who has the most global power, and that’s a basically a white/European face.

    If you’re taking the perspective of looking at Japan from outside, anything any Japanese person does to stress their difference from other Japanese is going to be racialized somehow. But from the inside, it might not seem that way.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 4:22 pm ¶

84. RJG wrote:

    I’ll admit that I’m not the best person to judge Asian facial features, what with being a white dude myself, but I actually thought Lightning, Snow, Hope, and Vanille had Asian features. In fact, I thought all the character models from X on were modeled to be explicitly Asian.

    And it may not have been ultra-explicit because of the way graphics were, but I always thought it was intended for many of the characters in episodes I to VI to also be Asian, too, but then again I could have been biased by how Yoshitaka Amano drew them, which is how I believed Square[Enix] “wanted” them to look (and how I explicitly thought of his illustrations as making things “Asian” back forever ago).

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 4:43 pm ¶

85. RCHOUDH wrote:

    Thanks Bao for posing this intriguing question about race representation in Japanese video games. And your concise list of inane excuses used to shut down intelligent conversations and the rebuttals against them are much appreciated!

    Getting back to the question you posed I agree with everyone who’s said that it’s complicated. For myself I’ve come to the conclusion that such characters possess an odd mix of “Asian/Caucasian” features. In other words I don’t think they’re either 100% white or Asian. That’s why their racial ambiguity is debated upon so much and this ambiguity helps both white Westerners and Japanese to relate to them. Whites relate to them due to obviously their hair, eye and skin color as well (in some cases) to their background if the storyline setting is medieval European fantasy based (like the earlier FF incarnations above). Some whites even believe that since whites can possess the physical characteristics of face and body type so desired by Japanese too then these characters are clearly “white”:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6wTztB5FCA

    The Japanese relate to them as characters possessing physical aesthetic beauty that appeals to them (round face shape, petite bodies for women/wiry muscular frame and “effeminate” facial features for men) with just a touch of exocticness with the varying hair and eye colors. Of course since most characters practice Japanese culture that makes them even more relatable to the Japanese.
    One thing is clear here. There is really no room for darker-skinned folks (from anywhere in North and South America, Africa, and Asia) to relate racially to these characters. I have yet to see a main character in a popular Japanese manga, anime, and/or game who does not possess physical characteristics associated with either whites or Japanese. Other than serving as occasional minor sidekick characters, such characters are unfortunately few and far between. The only anime I can recall with a dark skinned main character was called Nadia (I forgot the anime title) and the only way she differed was in her skin color. In every other way she looked like a typical anime character. The two major ways I found darker characters being depicted was by either them having exaggerated (and often ugly) racial features or one like Nadia above with typical “white/Asian” mix features but with darker skin.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 7:12 pm ¶

86. Minotaar wrote:

    This is not an answer for the difficult question the poster had. I dont think there is a single answer, or an answer that is the weighted sum of a number of different answers.

    Has anyone considered the possibility that the Japanese Media does this white-transformation stuff because this is how they have always done it?

    Japan has always been a place where people perfect and innovate on existing concepts, much more so than many other cultures. They take an idea, and they improve on it, over and over and over. It has produced wonderful things in history – Budo, the Katana, certain forms of calligraphy, great cars, etc. In Japan more than in many places, people take a good idea and make it better.

    We are talking about Final Fantasy THIRTEEN. These people have been making the same game over and over for like two decades now. Look at the other famous “white people centric” video games from Japan – Street Fighter four, Super Mario Galaxy 2, etc – and many of them are franchises. Maybe one aspect of these franchises is that the “white people as heroes” formula has worked for them in the past, and they dont want to change it.

    This does not explain why they racialize everyone to whiteness in the first place. It does not answer the poster’s question. But I think we are making some wrong assumptions here. The design of these games is not totally from the ground up, and the people who make these games are locked into a certain mindset.

    I would still like to know the origin for Japanese white-washing though.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 7:16 pm ¶

87. Kat wrote:

    Thank you for a good and thought-provoking read. As a white female and long-term manga and anime junkie, I have often wondered why the characters looked white even when they weren’t.

    I recall reading in an out-of-print book called, Manga! Manga! A History of Japanese Comics that this all began with girl’s comics where big eyes represented characters who were nice and virtuous or some such thing. This made me very uncomfortable as it directly contradicts real life where eye shape (or other features) says nothing about what’s inside a person. [On a side note, the follow-up to Manga! Manga! in the 90's showcased a number of manga artists who appear to be drawing characters who look more Asian.]

    I have a preschooler and I try to expose him to a variety of people in the media he watches (He likes Dora the Explorer for example.) but I hate the “tokenism” you often see.

    Video games are often worse and I am a bit nervous as to what games and such will be available as he gets older. I am involved with SF and media fandom and have had mixed results when I’ve brought up this topic at-con. I think simply speaking up about this isn’t enough; speaking up effectivelyand strategically is…I’m just not sure how/where to do so sometimes. I mean, if no one listens to you, or dismisses you, speaking up isn’t very effective.

    But thank you for a good article.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 7:22 pm ¶

88. jk wrote:

    Hey guys, I think this picture illustrates the way japanese people draw “asian” versus “caucasian”

    At first glance, it’ll seem like all the japanese characters in this comic are caucasian because of their light hair and eyes. And yet, when the artist drew a character who is SUPPOSED to actually be caucasian, he looks nothing like the rest of the caucasian-looking asian characters.

    In the very top panel, the male character on the right is supposed to be white, while all the other characters in the manga are supposed to be japanese.

    Notice how the caucasian character has exaggerated western features that isn’t exactly gorgeous.

    Interesting huh.
    http://www.mangafox.com/manga/the_wallflower/v14/c055.1/14.html

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 7:41 pm ¶

89. Westerly wrote:

    Hmmm. Okay –

    If you’re a Westerner – white or a person of colour for that matter, there is a tendency to associate blonde, red, brunette hair and eyes that are ‘not -brown’ or ‘not-black’ exclusively with “people of European descent.”

    I now tend to take it granted that the characters are *gasp* Japanese, unless specified – but that’s because I’ve been watching and reading anime/manga for years now. After a while a perceptual shift occurs, and you DO begin to figure out who the big-nosed, freckled, carrot-headed angry individual is – compared to the normative default of round-eyed, pink-haired, little-nose characters who make up the majority etc.

    (This, as opposed to assuming that Cloud Strife *had* to be some form of Brit or American white punk…with a faux-’mohawk’…)

    I can honestly say now that many of the FF characters automatically and now instinctively look Japanese to me – while most of the time I can tell who the foreigners or outsiders are because of how they are visually marked. Yuna and Tidus are a prime example of characters who look explicitly Japanese (and even though it is a fantasy, I’ve seen young Japanese guys who look like that and who style themselves like to an extent). So they look Japanese to Japanese audiences or to non-Japanese audiences who have a certain familiarity with this type of visual representation.

    Not that that my particular reading of these characters identity really matters in the final analysis. I think what becomes problematic and rather irritating however, is the typical Westerner’s assumption that their reading (or misreading) of identity reflects some kind concrete reflection of ‘reality’ per se. (”I see them as white, therefore they are white.”) It never seems to occur to us that our gaze is a subjective one and that it sits alongside many other gazes, readings and perceptions.

    “Shocking, I know, to think an entire race of people don’t give a shit about whiteness, but really, Japanese people in Japan don’t.”

    Yes and no. A high premium IS placed on paleness and whiteness (socially, aesthetically, economically) – it’s just that Japanese don’t automatically attach paleness/whiteness *to* European people – that’s all. But they fetishise ‘whiteness’ as much as so-called “white” people do, and as much as the rest of the ‘darker’ folks have been instructed to.

    I agree that people of European descent , more often than not, really do seem to think that they have some kind of exclusive genetic patent on ‘light’ coloured eyes and pale skin or un/consciously believe that they are the sole origin of these physical traits. Furthermore, thanks to years of literature, narrative representation and bad ’science’ they’ve also managed to convince many other people to believe this nonsense.

    So I find it depressing that non-white people should even feel the need to assert the “right” to be able to dye their hair, wear contacts or to alter and play with their appearance – as if your appearance ought to function as some kind fixed, immutable category (so that no-one gets ‘confused’) – while white people get the freedom of aesthetic mutability, changing representation and play.

    What none of this avoids however is that whether or not ‘lightness/paleness’ is sought after and used as the default representation “because” of a desire for aesthetic and representative freedom, because of a dominant global aesthetic, because whiteness functions as an economic marker, because of pre-existing cultural aesthetics, OR because of a unhealthy desire to be ‘white’ – the *end result* is much of muchness DESPITE various intentions/explanations. (i.e. paleness/fairness is ultimately valourised over ‘darkness’ time and time again.)

    I think it’s interesting to explore and untangle the various motivations that might help explain the tendency/trend but in real terms *shrugs*

    And it also doesn’t help to address some of the FF franchises less than edifying tendencies. I own many of the games save for III, X-2, Tactics, Core Crisis and the DS spin-offs and I haven’t played the on-line FFXI. While the discourse rages around whether or not the protagonists are white, are “Asian-in-white face”, ‘bi-racial’ or *gasp* Japanese it hasn’t escaped my attention that people who exist beyond the white/Japanese binary don’t get such a great deal in terms of representation.

    Or should I just say that ‘characters’ like Barrett and even worse, Red *smh* don’t feature as some of the franchises finer moments. And as for the dull female triumvirate that you usually get a.) independent mature/sexy warrior woman b.) annoying, perky girl, or woman-child, c.) bland, self-sacrificing noble love interest and damsel in distress whom everything revolves around…

    It comes in threes, it’s predictable and (surely) 13 instalments down the track and it’s kind of tired by now.

    I also found it interesting that the game developers made a point of stressing how untraditional, un-cute, allegedly ‘masculine’ and unattractive Lightning was – hailing her as a departure from the norm. And she may well be received and perceived as such. From my own perception however (and it’s only my own reaction that I’m speaking to here) *visually* at least, Lightning is not particularly daring or remarkable to me, or all that much of a departure from what has preceded before.

    (I can’t speak to her characterisation, which may be making all the difference here.) But when *I* look at Lightning I see shades of Aya Brea (”Paradise Eve”) combined with the tom-boyish yet inevitably skimpy attire of Rikku, Yuna or Paine in their X-2 adventures – all of which was a frilled up version of what you get in ‘Tomb Raider’.

    Her features are just the usual features that your stock-standard FF character has whether it’s Amano or Nomura at the helm of the character art. She’s looks – familiar to me at least. So visually at least, I’m not feeling the revolution.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 7:57 pm ¶

90. jk wrote:

    Recently, street fighters has been ported to ipod touch and while looking at the pictures, I’ve noticed that Ken (caucasian) and ryo (japanese) look virtually identical except for the hair color. Ken is blond and Ryo is brunette.

    And Chun li, who is supposed to be Chinese, doesn’t look a thing like the way westerners draw asians.

    I think the reason the characters in manga and anime look so racially ambiguous is because of the artistic style. I’m not sure but maybe it’s because all the characters are drawn in the same style with similar features. Comic artists and character designers don’t tend to draw the main characters in a why that emphasizes the race. Usually, the race is stated in the story. When the race of a character IS supposed to be depicted through the character’s appearance, the character is drawn with exaggerated features. The fact that caucasian characters are usually drawn in a manner that doesn’t look like the japanese characters kind of implies the japanese audience consider all the default characters to be japanese, regardless of the character’s appearance.

    This is an interesting topic and I’m not sure how accurate our perspective is. We’re looking at japanese art and culture from the outside with a western perspective. It’s probably entirely different to observe japanese culture from the inside.

    I think the multi-ethnic composition of western society has made us more sensitive to race. We expect our fictional characters to be drawn in a way where their race is easily identifiable because our population actually has people of all ethnicities. If a western artist draws an asian character, we’re supposed to be able to tell the character is asian by his/her hyper-exaggerated-asian eyes least the audience accidentally mistake the character for a caucasian. And so we have the same expectations when we look at art produced in other countries. We forget that japan is largely homogeneous and people are considered to be japanese first and foremost unless otherwise stated. Which is why comic artists can draw their characters in any way they want (those who have seen One Piece will know some of the styles are pretty quirky) and we’re expected to know they’re japanese. The question of whether or not the characters are japanese never crosses the japanese audience’s mind.

    Here’s an interesting piece of info: One of my favorite comic artists drew a comic book that took place in england (Hellsing). Virtually all the characters in that book are either english or german and they’re almost all caucasian (one character was japanese I believe). Now the very same artist is drawing a new comic series where there are a lot of japanese characters. But the japanese characters are drawn in the same style he used when he drew the british characters, but we’re expected to understand these characters are japanese. If a story takes place in england, we’re supposed to know the characters are english. If the story takes place in japan, we’re supposed to know the characters are japanese. And any character that is considered an outsider within the context of the story is drawn with stereotypic features. For example, a Chinese character in a story about japan and japanese characters will have black hair and stereotypic clothes and features. But a japanese character in a story about China with chinese characters will have black hair and stereotypic features. This isn’t always the case but it’s true for a lot of manga.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 8:03 pm ¶

91. jk wrote:

    The link to the manga The Wallflower is even more interesting than I thought because I just realized that chapter talked about japanese girls and foreign (white) guys.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 8:06 pm ¶

92. miga wrote:

    http://www.colorq.org/PetSins/2005/9/charas.aspx?x=mg

    Found these two lists of dark-skinned Manga and Anime characters. Not exhaustive (couldn’t find Anthy on this list, as well as this one Indian/Japanese character from this one manga…she’s a police officer? The main character?) but a good starting point if you want to find non-fairskinned characters. Sadly, most of the characters are sidekicks or comic relief, but a few of them are main characters (Anthy, for example is really important, as well as that one girl I mentioned)

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 8:24 pm ¶

93. miga wrote:

    Also, forgot mimiru from .hack// These characters (when portrayed positively) have features identical to other anime/manga characters except for skintone. So it kinda leads me to believe that anime/manga characters don’t neccesarily look “white”. If a character is portrayed as “white,” oftentimes mangakas will give stereotypical markers (AKA big noses, rugged jaws) and behaviors (French=fiery and beautiful, British=tea lovers, Americans=loud and love to party)

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 8:32 pm ¶

94. jk wrote:

    hnnn…or maybe the reason manga characters are drawn the way they’re drawn is because japanese people don’t see themselves the same way as outsiders see them.

    In america, all asian people are lumped in one giant category and as minorities, most of us embrace the asian-american category because it increases our population # and gives us more political influence (though not much imo).

    But in asia, asians don’t think of themselves as “asians”. They see themselves as belonging to a specific ethnic or national origin. You virtually never hear anyone in asia use the term “asian”.

    I think the asian perspective on race is completely different from the asian-american perspective on race and even their language reflects this difference in their thinking. Because american culture deems whites as the norm, we keep projecting our perspective on other cultures. We don’t realize that in asia, asians are ethnocentric too, with asian people as the default norm.

    Here in america, we refer to asians as asian-american. We refer to caucasians as whites or just plain american (because white is considered to be “the norm”).

    In asia, people refer to whites as “american” or “foreigner” (even if said foreigner is in his own country) and asians with race-specific terms regardless of how long that person has been in america. The way they talk about race really weirds me out.

    Here’s an excerpt from an interview i heard yesterday of a chinese actor:
    Actor: When I was in hawaii, I saw a lot of japanese people (japanese american) and of course there were a lot of foreigners (whites) too.

    I found it interesting that even when he is the foreigner, he still refers to Caucasians as “foreigner”. And I also find it interesting that asians in asia never think of an asian-american as “american”. Their tendency is to first view the asian as an asian, and then as an american second (if you really insist upon it LOL). As an asian-american, I know that sometimes when an asian foreigner meets me, s/he automatically assumes I have more in common with him/her than I do with my fellow americans. A lot of asian-americans find this irritating and consider the asian foreigners to be kind of rude in this respect. I knew a taiwanese guy who went to harvard and he ended up offending a few asian-americans by grouping them with asian people from asia. Then somebody had to explain the “asian-american” category to him and then he finally understood.

    When I was in asia, people would ask me “what kind of person are you”, meaning “what’s your nationality”, and then I’d respond “american” and then they’d say “You don’t look american”. At first, I was really offended especially when random people kept telling me I didn’t look american, I just wanted to ask them HOW an american is supposed to look. Then I finally realized to them, “american” did not denote a national origin but rather a race and in this case, “american” is supposed to be caucasian.

    When I was in japan, I told my host family that a lot of japanese-americans don’t speak japanese at all and they were a bit put off. my host dad didn’t understand how a japanese person could NOT speak japanese and I had to tell him that japanese-americans are AMERICANS first and eventually, all immigrant families will absorb and contribute to the dominant culture.

    In conclusion, I;d just like to remind people that in the discussion of anime/game characters, we have to remember that our ideas of race and appearance is completely different than that of asians. And as minorities in america, we tend to internalize how different we are supposed to be from the “norm”. The predominant american culture teachers minorities to be aware of our “ethnic” features and so in art, these features are exaggerated to clarify the character is not a part of the norm. But in asia, asians ARE the norm. All the most beautiful characters, the most interesting characters, and the lead characters are supposed to be asian. And not only are they supposed to be asian, they’re supposed to be the most beautiful of asians (indeed most anime characters resemble asian supermodels).

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 8:37 pm ¶

95. Anon wrote:

    @Notebook – also regarding eng dubs, let me be the first to say that english is my first(thankfully not only)language, so alot of times i’ll watch anime with eng dub because it is my default language. i mean, some eng dubs suck, and some are pretty decent. but then again, i’m not a dub-snob. i just dislike the name switching you mentioned. Usagi becomes Serena, Satoshi becomes Ash, and so on. it is very problematic that their names need to be changed to make them more marketable to a non Japanese audience. back to dubs/subs, most of the anime i watch is not available dubbed anyway, so i definitely don’t mind subs.

    @jk – just curious, what are considered to be “not nice features”?

    @RCHOUDH – i think it’s called Nadia: The Secret of Bluewater. and i agree, she looks like a typical anime char just darkened. i found a link for you that may explain abit of Nadia’s appearance, i warn you though, some of it is kind of
    http://en.allexperts.com/e/n/na/nadia:_the_secret_of_blue_water.htm

    i think that, living in the west, the general meme is white>non white. so again, for some of us it is hard to separate what may be perceived as white looking characters from white worship. and you CANNOT get angry at those of us poc who live in the west, and have to deal with white dominated media and culture 24/7, for percieving that way. Japan has been exporting anime/manga/games/dramas to the west for years. so if Japanese company like Capcom makes a huge faux pas(the trailer) in marketing a game like RE5 with hordes of black people being slaughtered by a white guy, or an anime airs in the US with Mr. Popo, or a ds game Loco Roco, or media with very whitish chars— they get a pass because they aren’t familiar with western racial baggage? but before i can speak about race in anime/manga/j games, i have to be schooled in the intricacies of Japan’s views on race? i’m confused. no, really, i am.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 8:50 pm ¶

96. Titanis wrote:

    “and Tifa and Yuffie from FF7 are also stereotypically Asian.”
    Yuffie is a given (her name and pretty much the entirety of Wutai prove that), Tifa I’m not so sure about…

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 11:07 pm ¶

97. Titanis wrote:

    Part of the problem, I think, is that anime/manga/games don’t always distinguish very well between the characters who are Asian and the ones that actually *are* white. Often, there’s very little physical distinction between them…

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 11:23 pm ¶

98. Minotaar wrote:

    Another point that should be mentioned is that Square Enix has a very well defined artistic style. I dont know if it’s one art director’s making, but you can just tell when you see a Square Enix character on a poster or otherwise. Something about the rather delicate features and outlandish fashion sense just oozes Final Fantasy. This is another aspect of artistic inertia (for better or for worse) that keeps Square Enix from provided a better racial depiction of people, independent of politics.

    Posted 11 Mar 2010 at 11:40 pm ¶

99. Reiter wrote:

    Ok, now that I’ve calmed down a bit, I did want to point out a dark skinned character (Brazilian, specifically since Brazil is where the show takes place) who was one of the main heroines in an anime – Michiko Malandro of the series Michiko to Hatchin. She’s meant to be attractive but also a very temperamental and violent character (probably evoking stereotypes of Latinas as being hot-headed, combative, and highly emotional; can’t win ‘em all, I guess).

    The other main character is meant to be half-Japanese but has light skin and blonde hair, as does her father (who has a Japanese name, Hiroshi, and is meant to be full Japanese, I believe). Satoshi is also a very cool POC (specifically black) character (a multi-dimensional villain, in his case). A very good series, but take its depiction of POCs with a grain of salt.

    Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 12:24 am ¶

100. Fang-fangirl wrote:

     “(I can’t speak to her characterisation,”

     That shows, because her characterisation is different. Unlike the “triumverate”, she is none of her female traits for guys (that is, aside being motherly). You could make her male, and most fanboys wouldn’t mind her as a hero. That is a good portrayal of a woman, for once.

     And then there’s Fang, who is simply awesome and female(especially since HER lover is probably the bubbly Vanille, who also breaks the triumverate you mention by not being the way you think she is, just acting that way for specific reasons).

     And as for race, well, if Fang’s supposed to be white, then I suppose some people owe me an apology for beating me up for being a “nasty foreign bitch bulldyke”. ^^
     But then, whenever I complain about racism people usually pretend I make things up because I’m only somewhat darker skinned and that makes me clearly white.

     Odd that this only works when people don’t want to admit racism. It doesn’t seem to work against actual racists.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 3:49 am ¶

101. karak wrote:

     Bao Phi–

     I’ve re-read your post, and I think one of your original points has been lost in the scuffle. It is eminently true that even when there’s unmitigated, awful, blindingly obvious racism in videogames, fans will defend the game to the death and often demand that people ignore it or stop being so sensitive–and it’s usually white fans who do so.

     And video games, in general, do not have POC. Basically, you get Japanese, White, or anthropomorphic beings. And there are so many more kinds of people in this world.

     So, yeah, you’re spot-on with pointing out some of the problems in the industry/culture.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 4:18 am ¶

102. Anon wrote:

     @Bao Phi, I’d like to address you as well, thank you so much, for literally putting to words, what some of us gamers have felt for so many years, but have never been able to articulate properly, without busting a blood vessel. Also, I’ve noticed that when examining certain poc for excluding their own, or other ethnicities, you get shouted down as well. It’s as if there is a hierarchy within the poc world that noone talks about, and as long as you skirt the issue, you’ll be fine. thank you for taking some of that to task. I’d really like to explore that more too, especially with how it relates to this topic, ie., who has the “right” to complain/question vs who doesn’t.

     @Karak, I believe that a good portion of the fans who defend and demand ignorance are also poc. I always find it especially hurtful being told to stfu about racism by other pocs because I feel this stuff effects us all in the long run. I’m not going to buy the games anymore because apparently poc aren’t “cool” or “refined” enough to make the grade(without buffoonism) for most jrpgs. Hit em in the pockets, I guess. I’ll stick to Fallout, ME, Elder Scrolls, and other similar rpgs, where I can at least play as a poc, and interact with some. Feel free to check some of those out, they are really good

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 5:20 am ¶

103. chitownboi wrote:

     i used to be a big gamer myself.

     i see things like this as a general response to globalization, colonization, and internalized racism.

     when people say its an issue of capitalism not race, its important to see how the two are intrinsically tied for poc.

     when i think about fantasy, i see it all over the place. in mangas and anime, hentai, poc are only depicted as some gross stereotype of “other”.

     i remember being sooo excited when i heard they were making a dragonball movie, but then hearing of the white casting made me annoyed and really made it seem uninteresting like some sort of halloween costume…
     also to not on dragonball z there is actually a blackface character in there.
     http://www.toptiergaming.com/dbzocg/images/carddatabase/Onset/Mr%20Popo%20Sensei.jpg

     in the world of fantasy j.r.r. tolkien is regaurded as an author that has paved the way for fantasy fiction. i believe that judeo-christian views on spiritual purity are often related to racial purity, and that is very apparent in the lord of the rings series, along with almost every video game, anime that i have watched, etc.

     THE LEGENDS OF ZELDA always has and always will be my favorite games, although i love FF series as well, but seeing how Ganon is the darkest character in these games and other racial elements its disheartening to say the least

     and on the etreme end, i question if my retreat from gaming and mainstream media, movies etc, and the seeking out of entertainment that is explicitly anti racist anti sexist, and anti heterosexist is not just a subconscious shift, but a movement towards trying to put myself in a place to fully face off with my own self hate that i have been taught, socialized as a black womyn…

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 5:21 am ¶

104. Bagelsan wrote:

     why do Japanese game companies create so many games where the protagonists all look European or white? …why aren’t there any Asian characters?

     I think that what a lot of people have been getting at, in a way, is that this isn’t exactly the right question. It seems more accurate to ask, first, if Japanese characters really *do* look white (I don’t think they do, personally) and to whom do they look white? And why do we (often incorrectly) perceive them as white?

     While there’s definitely racism and a sad lack of PoC in video games, Japanese-made games like FF seem like a poor example. Asking where all the Asian characters are is pointless when a good chunk of your audience is like “uh, they’re right there?”

     As for Asian-ness as the default in manga/anime/etc, it really does become natural to assume the characters are Asian unless they are clearly marked otherwise. Check out the protagonists in Black Lagoon: http://images.absoluteanime.com/black_lagoon/dutch.jpg — the middle two are “default” looking (Japanese and Chinese-American, left and right respectively) while the guys on either end are very clearly marked as non-Asian.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 6:28 am ¶

105. Aadonis219 wrote:

     I find it down right disgusting how people continue to make excuses for why there is a lack of colour in the responses to this blog. My parents taught me to never use racism as an excuse for not trying or failure, society also reinforces the same notion of not using racism as an excuse for failure and even if your claims of racism are legitimate you very well may be accused of pulling the race card ( never mind that Abe Lincolin was the first person depicted pulling a race card but I digress) pardon my run on but; If those who feel racism is no longer an excuse for failure then you should also fail to excuse racism and recognize its many shapes forms and facets. I youtube about this ALL the time. Its the subtlety about modern racism that allows it to thrive. I feel like Neo in the matrix movies, whom when looking a the digital rain on pc monitors could see the images they were intended to depict. Some of us simply see images and think nothing of it, simply because we dont like thinking-especially about race/racism. But like the Matrix its everywhere.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 6:49 am ¶

106. Christine wrote:

     @ jk: I hear what your saying, but my point wasn’t that Asians might dye their hair, wear contacts etc. only for the reasons of looking more white. People certainly can alter their appearance for just for “funsies”. I used to straighten my hair, not because I wanted to have features closer to the white standard of beauty, but just b/c I liked it. Now I wear it naturally and curly b/c that’s fabulous too. So I agree with you about there not HAVING to be a racial motivation in changing ones appearance.

     What I was trying to get at was that just as in America their are pressures toward a certain standard of beauty, they also exist all over the world. Japan is no different. Does that mean that everyone in Japan is dyeing their hair and wearing contacts b/c they are trying to look more white/European. Of course not. For some people it is, for others it is just creative expression, fashion, and just because. In America, I think it can be the same. I hope that clarifies my point.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 7:27 am ¶

107. RCHOUDH wrote:

     Thanks everyone for naming dark skinned characters in anime. I’m aware of there being some out there of course. I guess what I was trying to question was whether dark skinned characters can not only be main characters in popular games/anime/mangas, but also whether the settings they are in are in anyplace other than some vague “Asian or European setting” and whether the majority of other characters in the series are also dark skinned. I’m thinking no such series exists (or they’re very few and far between). I get the feeling that the reason why some dark skinned characters exist is for purposes of exoticism like rather than having the usual “light skinned Asian/European” being let’s spice it up and let them have dark skin (with skin color being the only variation made). Then by the next series, the same animators will go back to using the default “white/Japanese” mix of characters.
     In answer to someone who asked whether Tifa from FF 7 was Asian or not, I believe not because of hearing about the origin of her first name. Both Tifa and Aeris had their names derived from Tifaeris which I heard is biblical in origin. Sephiroth’s name is also supposed to be biblical. That, combined with their last names sounding Anglo (Tifa Lockhart, Aeris Gainsborough) makes me think they are meant to be European (with some physical characteristics cherished by Japanese).
     Also I agree with the poster who mentioned that POC’s in the West should be forgiven for first believing anime characters were white upon first seeing them. I remember when I introduced anime to my East Asian American friend, which was Sailor Moon, she remarked how uncomfortable she felt seeing Sailor Moon as having blond hair because she felt the white beauty ideal being upheld even in anime. That’s what I think most Westerners’ (both white and POC) reaction is to anime upon first viewing it and that’s understandable because even after coming to accept Sailor Moon as being Japanese (after repeated viewings of the Japanese version) it can still seem uncomfortable at times to cherish this character as a POC because really how can one justify one’s disdain for Barbie and her upholding of the white beauty ideal, while avidly consuming Sailor Moon products at the same time?

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 9:30 am ¶

108. Bao Phi wrote:

     Thanks everyone – still reading and thinking.

     Bagelsan – I disagree – I think the question remains: what causes people who come from a society where the dominant physical characteristics are dark hair and dark eyes, create characters and worlds where the ‘norm’ or representation of the self does NOT contain those elements? What it comes down to, which I have repeated numerous times – what socio-economic-historic powers shape what we create and envision?

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 1:38 pm ¶

109. Fireball wrote:

     I hope I’m not derailing this topic, but is anybody here into cosplay? As a casual observer, I’ve noticed that caucasians tend to have an an easier time fitting the ‘looks’ of these anime and videogame characters. While a lot of Asians put in an incredible amount of talent and hard work in their outfits and makeup, when it comes to the face, westerners have a much easier time fitting their character faces accurately (from my observation). This is especially true for those non-Asian characters, or ‘racially ambiguous’ characters. And not just because caucasions have the advantage of white skin (many east Asians have very pale skin), but there’s also the roundness of eyes, straight angular noses, etc, which fit these characters quite well. Food for thought.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 1:51 pm ¶

110. Bao Phi wrote:

     One more thing – gah – I have to work, really! But this conversation is fascinating.

     This may seem self-indulgent, but I want to thank the folks who seem to understand why I asked the original question and for the positivity.

     One thing I was thinking – and this is another question – a lot of people are saying they look at these light skinned/light haired characters and say, well, they’re Asian. But what about the Black characters? Do Asians/Asian Americans/Japanese look at the Black characters in Final Fantasy etc, and think they’re Japanese as well? If not, why? If these folks are a non-racialized standard, then wouldn’t it follow that the other POC representation would be seen as Japanese as well?

     I have been reading about how white foreigners and even Asian non-Japanese foreigners are portrayed as grotesque and unflattering. But I still think we can’t dismiss this outright.

     I do like the reminders from people that skin lightening etc and different ideas of beauty and class based on lightness of skin are long time aspects of Asian culture, and not just Japanese. I regret not mentioning this in my original post.

     Thanks – still thinking – more later – gotta get back to work…

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 1:52 pm ¶

111. jk wrote:

     “Fireball wrote:

     I hope I’m not derailing this topic, but is anybody here into cosplay? As a casual observer, I’ve noticed that caucasians tend to have an an easier time fitting the ‘looks’ of these anime and videogame characters. While a lot of Asians put in an incredible amount of talent and hard work in their outfits and makeup, when it comes to the face, westerners have a much easier time fitting their character faces accurately (from my observation). This is especially true for those non-Asian characters, or ‘racially ambiguous’ characters. And not just because caucasions have the advantage of white skin (many east Asians have very pale skin), but there’s also the roundness of eyes, straight angular noses, etc, which fit these characters quite well. Food for thought.”

     Actually, I find your comment interesting because I have the OPPOSITE opinion. Yes, I know what cosplay is. But in my experience, the best cosplayers tend to be asians. I’m all for people dressing up and having fun but USUALLY, caucasians make unattractive anime characters. Having seen cosplays in japan, taiwan, and the US, I think asians make much cuter anime characters.

     I’m ashamed to admit this but I used to point out hideous white caucasian cosplayers to my friends and we’d laugh about it. (my friends are white too because I grew up in white suburbia). THe general consensus was that most caucasians make horrendous anime characters. And that asians tend to look more anime-like (anime art looks more asian to begin with) and the ONLY thing that asian cosplayers had to do was to change their hair/eye color (which most caucasian cosplayers have to do anyways because anime hair tend to be in crazy colors).

     Btw, if you peruse DeviantArt, you’ll see gorgeous anime-looking people (all asian cosplayers) while the ones done by caucasians are sort of….ack….I’m not bashing caucasian cosplayers. I think they have the right to dress up too. I’m just saying when you look at most asian cosplay pictures, they look like real anime art at first glance because they have the right eyes (cat-like, round) the right facial structure (rounded rather than angular and usually youthful looking).

     I’m not saying ALL asians have a youthful delicate look but a lot do, including myself. When I was an undergrad, I actually had people coming up to me in the library to tell me I looked like an anime character LOL and I didn’t even dye my hair or wear color contacts. All I did was pin up my hair in the style that’s popular in asia.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 2:40 pm ¶

112. jk wrote:

     @bao

     Generally, dark-skinned individuals aren’t seen as japanese. I’ve never seen an anime where we’re supposed to automatically know a dark-skinned character is japanese, especially since there are so few dark-skinned characters.

     A while ago, hayao miyazaki’s son animated this book that was by ursela k leguin (SP)(I THINK.) and they made the characters light-skinned even though in the book, the characters were supposed to be tanned. Some of my friends were really irritated about that.

     Usually, the only dark-skinned anime character is the character that’s a part of the african-american-loving subculture (I think they’re called ganguro girls or something). Girls of this sub-culture like to tan their skin really dark (they’re usually fake tans cuz most japanese ppl can’t get that tan naturally) and they make their hair more afro-like (i dunno how they do it but I think it must be hard. Asian hair doesn’t really do small tight curls naturally).

     I was in japan last december and I saw a lot of ganguro girls with african-american sailors and every time I saw one of em, I wondered how in the heck they found so much time to maintain their look cuz trust me, that type of look is really high maintenance.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 2:47 pm ¶

113. jk wrote:

     I’d like to add to the conversation that the japanese treat race differently than americans. I’ve gone to japan a lot, and one time, I was there as an exchange student. I realized that while japan likes foreigners, they tend to only like white foreigners (90% of the time) or african-american foreigners (30% of the time). They don’t tend to like asian foreigners and the discrimination against native non-japanese asians are pretty great. (In america, asian-americans of all ethnicities tend to be known for high academic achievement. But in japan, Korean-japanese people are known to be low-achieving but it’s really a result of systematic discrimination against koreans. In japan, it’s not unusual for you to hear people say korean and chinese people in japan are criminals. I had a teacher tell me that to my face.) I know Chinese-american sailors in japan who say the japanese girlfriends of their navy friends don’t want their bf to be friends with “a chinese guy”. In high school, I also knew a girl who was half japanese and half chinese and a lot of people in her class didn’t like her because “she’s different” (in japan, when you say someone is “different” that’s a pretty big insult)

     And I also knew a dark-skinned guy (I’m not sure if he was philipino or indian) who was living in japan because his mom married a japanese guy and he was always alone in school. The poor guy had no friends so I was friends with him when I was there as an exchange student.

     and at summer camp (I was still an exchange student at the time) all the girls wanted to take pictures with the blond australian guy and they didn’t want to take pictures the dark-skinned dark-haired foreigners or with asian foreigners. They really like eurasians though (people with asian-white heritage). My observations may be skewed because the majority of the people I hung out with were teenagers (as I was a teenager at the time too).

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 2:58 pm ¶

114. jk wrote:

     and I think this contributes to the odd relationship japan has with foreign countries. The west loves japan because westerners tend to be treated really well there but a lot of asians hate japan because of the historical legacies of WW2 and bad treatment.

     When japan is interacting with the west, they tend to be humbler. BUt when japan is interacting with the east, they tend to be more pugilistic and will say things like “imperialism by japan is beneficial because it modernized korea and taiwan” and etc. This tends to create animosity between japan and her neighbors.

     I don’t think I’m qualified to explain why that is. I can only state my observations and leave the explanation to those who have studied this subject.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 3:02 pm ¶

115. jk wrote:

     @Anon

     You asked what I meant when I said marked characters, such as a caucasian character in a predominantly asian story, tends to have “not nice features”. Sorry for the confusing you. What I meant by that is that…well…..Generally, the main characters are flawless. meaning they have all the normal features that are unobtrusive (plastic surgeons say an attractive nose is one that doesn’t stand out). But marked caucasian characters tend to have abnormally large noses, sometimes the noses are bulbous. The anime style of drawing is a style that neglects details. A nose is sometimes drawn with just a line or two dots for nostrils. But a marked caucasian character will have the entire nose drawn, which ends up looking kind of oversized on the character’s face. And caucasian characters (male ones) tend to be drawn with large squarish faces as opposed to the oval-shaped face japanese characters have. Asian characters are drawn in a beautiful and mildly effeminate way in the case of male characters. They are clearly meant to look attractive. But caucasian characters are sometimes drawn in a way that emphasizes their caucasianness, but not in a way that makes for an attractive anime character.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 3:08 pm ¶

116. jk wrote:

     @westerly
     “I agree that people of European descent , more often than not, really do seem to think that they have some kind of exclusive genetic patent on ‘light’ coloured eyes and pale skin or un/consciously believe that they are the sole origin of these physical traits. Furthermore, thanks to years of literature, narrative representation and bad ’science’ they’ve also managed to convince many other people to believe this nonsense.”

     You know……The romance of the 3 kingdoms, a novel based on historical text that covers a period of medieval China mentions a lot of chinese people with light-colored eyes and hair. All of these people are today known as Chinese. (back then, they weren’t “chinese” because a unified country didn’t exist yet. They were instead identified by the city-states they came from or their family). One of the kings was described to have green eyes and “purple” hair. And nobody doubted he was chinese and indeed, his family supposedly had a long history with the Han dynasty.

     I think it’s interesting that whites think all asians are alike because China used to be a bunch of different ethnic groups before the country was unified and 90% of the population ended up identifying themselves as “han”.

     And I apologize for any mistakes in facts. I’m too lazy to dig out the book to double-check everything.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 3:17 pm ¶

117. jk wrote:

     This topic is especially interesting to me these days because I’m an aspiring comic artist (parttime/hobby of course. Can’t make a living doing this).

     And I hope to create a great manga for the american audience where the diversity of americans is actually depicted.

     I admit I was slow to catch on to the topic of white-asian-other in manga/comics. When I read comics as a kid, it never occurred to me the characters weren’t asian. It wasn’t until I realized a lot of white people thought the characters were caucasian that I realized there was actually a debate on the race of characters.

     I can understand why manga would have predominantly japanese characters (or white characters in the opinion of some white audience) because japan doesn’t have many foreigners (unless you count all the white “english teachers” in asia). But I don’t understand why american manga/comics are predominantly white especially since our actual demographics is very diverse.

     I hope I can remedy that some day.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 3:26 pm ¶

118. TierListE wrote:

     You know, a part of me has stop caring about *why* anime/video games from japan favors the light and bright; I just know they do, and I will be the happiest TierList in the world when video games at least could step out of the box at bit more, especially in the existence of black and other darker skin women, and the strict “maybe one” quota on non-white/japanese people.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 4:00 pm ¶

119. Juan wrote:

     @Fireball

     *faceplants* Ugh, I have an offputting relationship with cosplay I guess you can say, given first & second-hand experience with it. Not only are you often out of luck when you’re not pale skinned but you get “looks” (mostly from white people) when you cosplay as a character with a light skin tone.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 5:32 pm ¶

120. karinova wrote:

     Yeeeaah, the key to understanding this phenomenon is almost certainly explained by the concept of “marked” and “unmarked” states. In short: those “white” characters are Japanese.

     Gonna go ahead and second (well, third) the recommendation of Matt Thorn’s The Face of the Other as a good intro; it deals with manga specifically, but the concept extends to all visual media.

     It’s too bad the OP focuses on Japanese games, because the larger point still stands: there are very few (non-East-Asian) PoC in mainstream gaming overall, and in North American games in particular. It’s noticeable, and it sucks. I almost fell outta my chair with happiness when I saw all the black people (and women with clothes on!) in Fallout.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 6:15 pm ¶

121. Titanis wrote:

     “Which is why comic artists can draw their characters in any way they want (those who have seen One Piece will know some of the styles are pretty quirky) and we’re expected to know they’re japanese”
     Incidentally, I don’t think a lot of the One Piece cast IS Japanese. Someone asked the author fairly recently about what real-world ethnicity he thought the main characters would be, and only Zoro was Japanese (Luffy was Brazilian, Usopp “African”, Nami/Sanji/Robin/Brooke from various parts of Europe, Franky was American, and Chopper Canadian)…

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 6:19 pm ¶

122. Fireball wrote:

     “Matt Thorn’s The Face of the Other”-Just read this and I disagree with it. I believe the author has a rather naive idealistc fantasy of Japan. Let’s face it, we all know that a form of racial/color hierarchy exists and permeates every moden society in the world. How is it that Japan is magically immune to its effects?

     “These characters are Japanese, so there!” is a rather simple but inadequate explaination. I think honestly, fandom tends to be reluctant to admit that their favorite hobby could be marred by something as unwholesome as racism.

     Popular media is a reflection of a society’s (sub)consciousness. Even something as simple as wanting lighter hair/eyes is not so innocent as what people would like to think.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 7:17 pm ¶

123. jk wrote:

     @Titanis

     Yea you’re right. One Piece isn’t filled with a japanese cast nor does the story take place in Japan. I was merely pointing out how different comic artists have different artistic styles and the styles don’t change much regardless of their character’s ethnicity. There is the tendency for comic artists to draw all characters in the same style unless the character either has dark skin or is supposed to be marked as an “other” within the context of the story.

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 7:40 pm ¶

124. shannon wrote:

     http://media.photobucket.com/image/claire%20rondo/Nezu_chan/Darkskin%20characters/Planetes-ClaireRondo.jpg

     another dark skinned anime character. I found the anime she’s from Planetes to be interesting, as it dealt with issues of the first world vs the third world.

     In another anime, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, the dark skinned character is an illegal immigrant…

     I don’t really expect the japanese to have a better record on race in media than americans. I can’t wait until people of color create more games…

     Posted 12 Mar 2010 at 10:44 pm ¶

125. Anon wrote:

     @jk, thanks for explaining, i see what you mean. i read your posts on your experiences in Japan, and it sounds similar to what i was told by people who had lived there. we had to make a descision recently, between relocating to europe or Japan(work related)and we were advised by friends that Japan might not be a good choice for our school-aged biracial child for those very same reasons you mentioned:(

     @juan, my kid cosplayed last halloween as Toshiro Hitsugaya from Bleach, and she got the snobbish stares because she didn’t sport a white spiky wig to match his hairstyle. one guy actually thought it was cool that she was the “female version” of Hitsugaya lol.

     120.Fireball wrote:
     “These characters are Japanese, so there!” is a rather simple but inadequate explaination. I think honestly, fandom tends to be reluctant to admit that their favorite hobby could be marred by something as unwholesome as racism.

     Popular media is a reflection of a society’s (sub)consciousness. Even something as simple as wanting lighter hair/eyes is not so innocent as what people would like to think.”

     Fireball, i completely agree! that’s why i am ambivalent or have a “love/hate” relationship with anime/manga/jrpgs. i just can’t overlook the obvious disdain for pocs. and my tolerance for it lessens by the moment.

     Posted 13 Mar 2010 at 4:30 am ¶

126. karinova wrote:

     @fireball,
     Can you elaborate? Granted, the theory may be arguable, but I don’t read it as suggesting that Japan is “immune” to racism. The basic idea is: in relatively homogeneous nation ___, a character does not require blatant “markers” to be read as ___ian. He doesn’t say Japanese media can’t/won’t have egregious racial stereotypes. He doesn’t address racism in Japan at all. He’s just saying that in Japan, a stick figure with two dots for eyes and a line for a mouth is likely to be read as Japanese— just as in the US, the same unmarked figure is usually assumed to be American (to be read as anything else, it’d need to be marked in some way; ditto in Japan). So for Westerners to look for “East Asian” markers in East Asian art,* fail to find them, and conclude that the “unmarked” characters are white is… problematic. But the problem (he’s saying) isn’t in Japan.

     Why is it “naive and idealistic” to say that?
     (I’m honestly asking.)

     ___
     *And let’s face it, the Western markers for “East Asian” are pretty stereotypical. Not every Easy Asian has single-fold eyelids and perfectly straight jet black hair.

     Posted 13 Mar 2010 at 6:07 am ¶

127. TierListE wrote:

     Also, for another anime-styled video game that shows a good amount of male and female japanese, chinese, and European faces to compare and contrast there’s the Dead or Alive franchise.

     Posted 13 Mar 2010 at 7:23 am ¶

128. little mixed girl wrote:

     re: sailor moon
     The first time I saw Sailor Moon was on tv in 7th grade after my Asian-American friend hounded me to watch it.
     Yes, I watched it in English, and no, I can’t remember if I knew from when she told me or after she told me that the show was Japanese.

     What I have noticed with anime shown in the US from 1997 to 2007 is the shift (?) from changing names from Japanese ones to leaving them as-is.

     I do believe that people are focusing on the hair and eye color of characters too much.
     When I found out that Sailor Moon was a Japanese show, I didn’t think, “omg, no way. if this show is japanese, why don’t the characters have black hair???!”

     As to brown people in anime, think about it this way…
     Japanese people don’t think of themselves as brown people. A Japanese person can dye their hair pink and put in green contacts, but still be Japanese.
     When brown characters appear, if they are Japanese, then they are given Japanese names.

     If a character is multiracial, it’s stated in the character profile.

     If you think that it’s strange for Japanese people to like/produce animation with characters that have hair color that is “non-Japanese” and eye color that’s not black, I think you need to ask yourselves also, why is it that you believe that all of the characters in an animated show must have similar hair and eye color?

     Because the argument that I see seems to be that “real Japanese people don’t look like that”. And it doesn’t make sense that a North American standard of representing Asians should be the universal standard.

     When it comes to video games, all I can guess is that Japanese people aren’t always going to want to play video games with people that look like them and that only take place in Japan.

     Posted 13 Mar 2010 at 1:57 pm ¶

129. jk wrote:

     @Fireball

     I don’t necessarily agree with everything you say but SOME of what you say is valid imo.

     First of all, I really don’t think manga is an expression of japanese people wanting to be more caucasian. But I DO agree that these days, western culture has a lot of influence on japan (and in the past, the majority of the cultural influence on Japan was China. Japan adopted chinese writing, painting, music, architecture and countless other things, then they altered it to suite japanese people. But cultural diffusion has always occurred throughout history from the direction of the dominant culture to surrounding less powerful neighbors )

     But when japanese people internalize stereotypes that comes from western society, there is a major disconnect in the way they apply the stereotypes. For example, they’ll adopt the west’s stereotypes of asian people, but they’ll fail to apply that stereotype to themselves. They’ll instead apply western stereotypes to other asians such as Chinese and Koreans. For example, in manga, you’ll often see the “chinese servant” which is a throwback to all the old western movies where rich white folks had Chinese servants. And Chinese-american characters are almost always from Chinatown, as if Chinese-americans aren’t dispersed all over the US. And Chinatown always has either mystical elements (Petshop of horrors) or criminal elements (too many manga to list).

     All of these ideas come straight from western stereotypes of asians, and in manga, you’ll see the stereotypes in the stories. But oddly enough, the negative anti-asian stereotypes are never applied to japanese characters. The “exotic mysticism of the east” is strictly a chinese characteristic. The “backwards adherence to cultural dogma and misogynism” also only applied to chinese characters (korean characters are more rare in manga). Now japan is still a really sexist society and it is also a society with strict cultural mores. But for some reason, Japanese characters aren’t depicted as being dogmatic in their thinking (unless it is a period drama) but Chinese characters are. Chinese characters are also often depicted as ranting on and on about honor and culture and what not (ex: Wufei from Gundam Wing, that guy whose name i forgot from Code Geass, to a lesser degree, Shaoran and meilin from card captor sakura). And I almost forgot to mention Chinese characters are often wearing “traditional” clothing versus the japanese characters that wear “modern/western” clothing. So chinese characters are largely portrayed as stereotypes, regardless of nationality. So yes, Japan has internalized a lot of western stereotypes of other cultures, but in the mind of the japanese, the stereotypes only applies to OTHER people and not the Japanese. And I’ve yet to read a single manga where (arguably) POSITIVE western stereotypes of asians (such as the model minority myth) is applied to non-japanese asians.

     During WW2, when japan was allied with germany, the japanese government was well aware of the nazi idea of a racial hierarchy and the japanese were NOT up there (since the japanese are asians). And so Japan started saying it’s imperialism is an attempt to “liberate” asia from the west. And yet the japanese people had the same sort of disdain for non-japanese asians (they basically said chinese and koreans were subhuman. And raping “pigs” was ok). In the cultural mindset of the japanese people of that era, there was a major gap between the way they thought of “asians” versus the way they thought of “japanese”. And to this day, a lot of this type of thinking has persisted. This type of dichotomy in their thinking allows them to be racist against asians without feeling bad about themselves.

     When it comes to race and discrimination, it is easier for the japanese to think about the discrimination in other countries than it is to think about discrimination in japan (though this is true for every country. We like to cast stones without looking at our own faults). Most people in Japan know all about the way blacks are/were treated in america. But virtually none of them know about their own second class citizens (the koreans who have lived in Japan for generations, as well as the “untouchable” people who are from families that performed “dirty” tasks in the past. Those people typically come from families that had jobs as executioners and I think….butchers….but I could be wrong about the latter).

     And western stereotypes of other ethnicities in manga isn’t limited to non-japanese asians. In a lot of modern japanese art, you’ll see “cute” pictures of black characters that look like….golliwog. And the thing is, the artists who drew the pictures did not intend for it to be racist. Golliwog-style art was brought to japan by the west, and the artistic style has persisted until today but purely as an artistic style. The racist history behind golliwog are not known by the majority of japanese people. When an american sees golliwog , we’ll say it’s racist. When japanese people see golliwog, they’ll say it’s “cute”. A few months ago, I saw a golliwog picture on a case of coke.

     But before we say Japan worships the west and hates the east, I also have to say occasionally, Japan ALSO doesn’t like the west. When it comes to the west, japan has a sort of….sense of victimhood. In schools, japanese teachers teach their students how japan was the only country in the world bombed by an atom bomb, but they won’t talk about what japan did in other countries. They’ll also teach the kids how the west forced poor japan to open it’s doors to the west with military might. (I was confronted by a japanese teacher who asked me whether or not I knew how Perry, a US Navy commodore, forced japan to open it’s doors. I truthfully told him I didn’t. And then he went on and on about how the west was always using it’s military might to make japan acquiesce. I couldn’t understand EVERYTHING he said because my japanese sucks but I got the gist of it.)

     Occassionally, you’ll see negative stereotypes of westerners in manga (it’s pretty rare though). In Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro, an american guy was harassing a japanese woman and when the woman refused to date him, he eventually turned into a monster that looked like a hyper-caucasian (bad guys in that manga turn into monsters). He had a HUUUUGE nose, he ranted that america was the best, and if memory serves me right, he waved a gun around or something. I need to re-read that chapter to get the details correct.

     And while a lot of young japanese women would happily date US military personnels, there are ALSO regular protests at US bases. The protesters say the US military personnels are responsible for crimes, noise, and other kinds of unrest. So even with the west, there is a bit of a love-hate relationship. Most japanese people (at least those I’ve met) really like the west and western pop culture. But if you ask them if they like the west better than Japan, they’ll immediately talk about how great Japan and japanese culture is. In manga, you’ll see characters go on and on about how great the simplistic japanese food is, and how the delicious “white meal of rice” is just for japanese people (er…don’t OTHER asians also eat rice?). And when I was in high school in japan, it was very common to hear students grumble about learning english in school. Often times, these students will say “I’m japanese, why should I learn english?” So I would say japan is an interesting mix of nationalism and an appreciation for the west. You can totally see such a mentality leak through in various manga if you read the manga with a critical eye.

     PS
     This is something really funny that I didn’t fully understand until years later. When I was in japan, some of the japanese guys asked if the exchange students had pubic hair the same color as the hair on their head. I don’t know if they were joking or if they were teasing the exchange students on purpose. At the time, we were all like…HUUUH? Then RECENTLY, a guy friend of mine showed me a japanese anime porn, not for the reason you think mind you. In the porn, the anime girl was blond with blue eyes. She had a western name. And the story takes place in a mystical western nation. We all thought this girl was caucasian. But when she got naked, her pubic hair was black. LOL Doesn’t this make the discussion of “anime characters with light-colored hair” conversation even more complicated?

     Posted 13 Mar 2010 at 5:33 pm ¶

130. jk wrote:

     Oh yes, I forgot to mention. In one of my class discussions, an english teacher mentioned how it seems like manga always depict negative things as coming from China (In ranma, the characters got cursed because they fell into cursed pools in China. The pools’ chinese tour guide was also a giant walking stereotype). The japanese students were very offended and said it wasn’t true. There wasn’t much of an explanation except that “it’s just a comedy”.

     I think like the west, when you confront people about internalized racism, there is a lot of denial (unless the person is a raging proud racist).

     Posted 13 Mar 2010 at 5:38 pm ¶

131. SynQ wrote:

     @Bao “I actually bring it up because I wonder what shapes the images we create.”

     It is the culture of Racism (White Supremacy) that shapes such images. Generations of domination and subjugation that promote the idea that “white” is right.

     Posted 13 Mar 2010 at 8:04 pm ¶

132. SynQ wrote:

     Glad that you posted this article. It starts the most needed dialog that leads to discussion of the so-called “Race” issue. What benefits Racism (White Supremacy) is when no one discusses it. Articles like yours bring it out into the open. Thank you.

     Posted 13 Mar 2010 at 8:19 pm ¶

133. jk wrote:

     @fireball

     And I forgot to mention in my previous posts that a lot of anime characters don’t have “round eyes” either. I for one believe anime eyes are based on the shape of asian eyes. Having seen lots of asians, I know asian people can have “triangle eyes” or “narrow eyes” or “round eyes” and so forth. I saw this male actor in an asian drama who LITERALLY had Tasuki eyes (from fushigi yuugi). When I saw him, it really hit home to me that the reason anime characters are always drawn with the same series of eye-shapes is because they’re based on asian eyes. A lot of caucasian eyes are really deep set, unlike most asian eyes, and they just don’t look very anime-y to me.

     Posted 13 Mar 2010 at 10:11 pm ¶

134. jk wrote:

     I love reading this page so much. This is a topic that’s become more and more relevant to me as I get older. When I was a kid, I could read both manga and american comics with relish but the older I get, the more dissatisfied I’ve become with both forms of graphic novels.

     My problem with manga is with the stereotypic way they depict non-japanese people, the absence of people with darker skin tone, and the way they portray women as morons. I’m sorry but the girls in japanese manga are idiots 90% of the time. They’re either crying over a man, or trying to get a man, or serving a man, or trying to get a man to fall in love with her. I also find it really irritating how men in manga are usually portrayed as the one getting romantically pursued by women. I find it really painful to read such storylines and so I’ve pretty much lost interest in shoujo manga.

     I’ve lost interest in american comic books because of the absence of non-white americans, the stereotypic way non-whites are portrayed, and the boring storyline. I’m just not interested in the storyline of most american comics, especially since there are numerous universes with the same characters and the stories just go on and on and on. There’s no beginning and no end. That bugs me.

     I really think it is up to this generation of people to make comics more inclusive to all people.

     And I apologize for my poor writing skills. I didn’t edit anything I wrote and I’m an incredibly lazy writer. I blame my education (LOL). Science students don’t often write eloquent essays.

     Posted 13 Mar 2010 at 10:37 pm ¶

135. jk wrote:

     I was studying the art of Hanasakeru Seishounen and I realized if it weren’t for the different hairstyles and hair/eye color, all the male characters would look exactly the same.

     Maybe the various hair/eye color of japanese manga characters arose out of a need to distinguish one character from another. Anime characters don’t have enough real life distinguishing characteristics to make each individual look identifiable. In real life, asian people all look different in spite of having dark hair and eye color. But in manga, all the characters basically have the same face, mouth, and nose. And so you need the hair and eyes to do the distinguishing. That said, some of the less able artists make it really hard for the reader to distinguish the characters. Sometimes I can’t tell one male character from another when I read The Wallflower.

     Posted 13 Mar 2010 at 11:27 pm ¶

136. jk wrote:

     I know this is off topic but I just saw the newest Top Box-office teen actor list…and guess what? They’re alllllll white. I have nothing against white people. I like caucasians just fine and I think caucasians are as beautiful as any other ethnicities. But why can’t there be a single non-white actor on the list? Oh yes…because non-white actors don’t get casted in movies that that are based on novels that don’t star non-white characters (and in the case where the characters ARE non-white, they’ll just whitewash the characters)

     Sad….very sad. And this contributes to the misconception that only white actors can bring in the cash and so Americans not “blessed” with caucasian ancestry get marginalized (but they take our money anyways)

     Maybe that’s why Tales from Earthsea, a movie created in japan, would whitewash the dark-skinned characters. (In earthsea, dark-skinned people are the norm while light-skinned people are the “anomaly”). Le Guin has gone on record to criticize the way cover art illustrators have tried to whitewash her characters. Here’s her quote:

     “Did you ever see the very first English edition of A Wizard of Earthsea? It was a Puffin paperback, I think. I was really excited about it – I think it was my first English publication – until I saw it. The Ged on the cover was this marshmallow-colored guy drooping like a lily in a sort of nightgown. Oh Lord! I think most white people have failed to notice that most of the people in most of my SF and fantasy are not white people. So. What else is new?”

     I wonder how she feels about Goro Miyazaki whitewashing her characters in his anime.

     Posted 14 Mar 2010 at 1:11 am ¶

137. jk wrote:

     Ahhh…Turns out Le Guin *DID* make a comment about the whitewashing of characters. I thought she was very charitable….and unsure of how to address the whitewashing done by japanese people.

     http://www.ursulakleguin.com/GedoSenkiResponse.html

     Posted 14 Mar 2010 at 1:22 am ¶

138. Ico wrote:

     @jk, this is a tangent, but… really? (About girls in manga). I admit I am pretty selective about what anime/manga I like but I find it much easier to find stuff that has strong female characters than in Hollywood. For one thing, you can have shonen stuff that focuses on a female cast (i.e. Claymore), which you’d *never* see in Hollywood because conventional American wisdom states that males only like to see other males doing cool stuff. And there are so many other examples of strong female-focused anime: Utena, Twelve Kingdoms, Slayers, Haibane Renmei, Seirei no Moribito, Banner of the Stars, Princess Tutu… I can’t think of American equivalents to these; in American comics, women have to be busty supermodels if they are main characters, and they *never* genderbend the way you see in these kinds of anime.

     Ok, sorry for the tangent… ^^;;

     Posted 14 Mar 2010 at 3:19 am ¶

139. rk wrote:

     @Ico

     I would say for every one anime about strong female characters, there are two about silly female characters. Even in anime with “strong female characters” the female leads tend to lose their ability to fight once they meet the male lead. I never understood how in Ranma1/2, Akane, a martial artist in her own right, seemed to lose all fighting abilities after meeting Ranma. She ended up constantly getting rescued by the male characters. Then when shampoo was defeated by Ranma, she decides she must marry him. The mangaka is a female herself (though Rumiko Takahashi is an interesting case. She once stated she didn’t like having male assistants because it was too much work or something.) Then there’s fushigi yuugi where Miaka is basically a complete moron. Then there are all those “harem” anime where 10 girls are fighting for the SAME guy and I have no idea why because the male lead is always a bland dude with no particular ability. I lost interest in Naruto because none of the female characters appealed to me and none of them are half as strong as the male characters (in the beginning the female characters were more concerned with getting Sasuke to fall in love with them). Then there are those anime where the girls’ only ambition is to get the guy. And anime girls tend to defer to guys in just about everything. And then there are way too many anime like Ai Yori Aoshi. I’ve seen all the anime you’ve listed (except for seirei no moribito) but those anime are a small subset of the total genres. I’ve read A LOT of manga, and half of them I no longer even remember. And a lot of the manga that I’ve read aren’t the huge breakouts. Most manga in Japan never make it out of Japan because only the most popular ones will be sold to foreign countries. And it feels to me at least that the MAJORITY of the manga has a sort of paternalistic view of women, even shoujo manga which is usually created by women. There is this comic artist whose name I’ve temporarily forgotten but her genre is romance/mild smut. SHe has the tendency to write stories about girls who get raped by extremely handsome men and then the girl falls in love with the man. Oh yea, her name is Shinjo Mayu. I suppose we can argue her genre is unique because it’s supposed to be smut. However, even non-smut manga is filled with vapid female characters. (Kamisama kazoku is also mildly annoying. And Zettai Kareshi.)

     But then again, here in the west, we like to assume we’re the only ones who respect women and yet we rarely see strong female characters like that of Martial arts movies. When Crouching Tiger came out, I pointed out to my friends how we rarely see female characters like those in American movies. And there are always exceptions in manga/anime. I loved Tenshi na Konamaiki because the female protagonist was unconventional, a tough fighter, and I suppose can be classified as a feminist (though she also thought she was a man…..) I first saw that anime in Japan and fell in love with it. I didn’t get to finish watching that anime until it came to the US (I also have the manga).

     Posted 14 Mar 2010 at 8:23 pm ¶

140. rk wrote:

     And I don’t know if anyone’s noticed but in manga, women are still portrayed as the ones who do the housework. Even in bleach, it is Yuzu who does the housework even though Ichigo is older. And there are a lot of those “long suffering wife/girlfriend/sister” characters in manga. The male characters will act like idiots, then the female characters will step up and take responsibility and take care of everything. In Kamisama ga Ippiki (A less popular manga that you can’t find in the US) the female protagonist is always the good and responsible one that has to take care of the mess created by her older brother (that means cooking/cleaning/other housework). It’s just a theme I see repeating over and over again in various manga.

     Not to mention I got a lot of flack while in japan for not behaving femininely enough I guess. Girls are expected to behave in a certain manner and guys have more freedom to do what they want.

     Posted 14 Mar 2010 at 8:30 pm ¶

141. rk wrote:

     Warning: this is super long

     The article’s originator’s question of “why doesn’t Japan create more Asian Characters” only makes sense if 1)The Japanese believed in the “asian” category and 2)the Japanese felt a need for OUR idea of “representation”

     We ask these questions as Asian-Americans without realizing race in Japan is quite different than race in America. And more importantly, the vast majority of Americans do not understand Japanese racism. Here is an incredibly long discourse that I’ve written on this subject. I’m not the greatest writer in the world but I hope I can get my points across. It’s complicated complicated complicated. And it doesn’t paint a flattering picture of Japan as an accepting society. I don’t want this to turn into a Japan-bashing nor do I want to insult Japanese culture. As a foreigner, I will always see things differently from the Japanese perspective. And yet at the same time, neglecting to mention the negative parts of Japan will perpetuate the myth that Japan is largely non-racist. We hear about “racist” countries like South Africa but we don’t realize there are also other “inhospitable” nations. Not being an eloquent writer, I hope I can write about racism in Japan without actually bashing Japan or the Japanese. I have great respect for Japanese culture, except for the parts that pertain to its endemic racism. And I also acknowledge that racism isn’t exclusive to Japan, I’m merely pointing out it is also PRESENT in japan.

     First of all, I can support the idea that anime characters that the western audience view as Caucasian might actually be Japanese (or other kinds of asian). I cannot, however, support the idea that anime is immune from western influences because a lot of the racial stereotypes seen in anime (as well as other Japanese entertainment material) come straight from the west. I always find it absurd when Japanese movies and anime portray other asian nations as mysterious lands of mysticism when Japan has so much in common with other east asian nations, especially considering the strong historical ties between japan and China. The east is VASTLY less understandable for the Japanese than western cultures, and yet in movies and anime, asian countries are typically portrayed as backwards or clinging to old beliefs. I saw Chakushin Ari2 a long time ago (the sequel to the original Japanese movie One Miss Call) and I was surprised to see the movie depict Taiwan as some 3rd world nation that’s run down and the people as backwards villagers. Considering Taiwan is one of the “asian tigers” and is an industrialized country, I thought the movie’s depiction was an interesting peek into the Japanese mentality of non-japanese Asians.

     I also noticed Japanese movies tend to portray Chinese people in japan as restaurant owners or criminals. And I also wondered if it was on purpose that the actress picked to play the Chinese character is significantly less attractive than the lead Japanese characters (by the way, I suspect the actress who played the Chinese character is Japanese herself but I’m unable to find the name of the actress). I once watched a J-drama where the protagonist is a criminal. And since he is a criminal, the antagonist of the story must be a bigger and badder criminal. It was no coincidence that this bigger/badder criminal was the Chinese mafia. The Japanese protagonist, while a criminal, had redeeming characteristics and was played as a multifaceted character while the Chinese criminals were just evil criminals. But once again, Japan has a love-hate relationship with all things foreign and so even Caucasians, who are generally very much liked by most Japanese people, are not immune to racist caricatures. I once saw an anime, that unsurprisingly never made it over to the US, that was about a white American family living in Japan. The characters were drawn in stereotypic ways as “marked” characters and they were blond with blue eyes. In the episode that I saw, the daughter of the American family was going to an Omiai (one of those arranged marriage meetings) and she and her family acted like complete loonies. The girl was kind of …well..for lack of a better term, skanky. And the dad scared the poor Japanese people with a giant erection in his pants. I saw this anime at 3 in the morning and I remember thinking to myself, OH MY GOD I can’t believe this sh*t is on tv! No wonder it’s on in the middle of the night.

     Now onto the topic of race as depicted by manga. Americans and Japanese draw Asians differently. We already know Asians allow for a wider range of looks to be seen as “normal” asian features. Interestingly, when I was in japan, more than one of my classmates told me I looked Japanese. I don’t know what they meant by that. Perhaps it’s because I’m not unattractive. It almost feels like there is the assumption that Japanese people are the only Asians who can be fashionable and good looking. They expect non-japanese Asians to look less attractive, or stereotypic, and when they don’t, they feel you look “Japanese” (The same way a lot of whites assume attractive Asians have some white heritage). I think magazine models contribute to this type of thinking. In Japanese magazines, you’ll see a ton of super gorgeous people and sometimes, they’re not even Japanese but you’ll~never~know~ because you’re supposed to assume they’re Japanese. Sometimes magazines will even try to pawn Eurasians off as pure Japanese, which must affect Japanese girls adversely in my opinion. They try to pass all sorts of models off as having the “standard look” for Japanese people. This shift in perception is helped by the practice of models adopting Japanese names. Emi Suzuki? Her previous name was Wu Ziliang. Perhaps this is why I couldn’t walk a block without seeing an ad for a plastic surgery clinic. Don’t get me wrong, everybody gets plastic surgery these days but in the US, you don’t see plastic surgery advertisements EVERYWHERE you go. In japan, you see it in the trains, on the buses, and the back of every single fashion magazine there is.

     I’ve mentioned this earlier but there is a huge dichotomy in the Japanese psyche of “Asians” versus “the Japanese”. I took the following from Asahi shinbun:

     During the Meiji Era (1868-1912), one scholar said that Japanese diplomacy wavered between admiration and humiliation. In other words, the Japanese either “looked up to” or “looked down upon” others.

     My views are the same. The Japanese will admire the dominant culture of the time (currently the west), but they will also look down on the west. And in the past, Japan looked up at China. And today, Japan looks down on China.

     And while Japan has internalized a lot of the west’s stereotypes of other ethnicities, Japan is a very insular country to begin with. And it would be wrong to blame all Japanese racism as a result of western influence. You won’t notice it at all when you’re a tourist but if you try to LIVE there, you’ll without a doubt notice the racism. Japan is in general suspicious of anyone who isn’t Japanese. The Japanese brand of racism isn’t usually like the burning cross KKK type (though there HAVE been massacres of Koreans and Chinese people in the wake of a huge earthquake many MANY years ago). Japanese people will let you know they don’t like you by systematically excluding you from society. Their type of racism is really more of a rejection of you as a person rather than actively attacking you.

     The racial hierarchy does exist in japan, roughly in the order of Japanese, whites, everybody else, and then finally, non-japanese Asians. Non-Japanese Asians are to the Japanese what Black people were to white people in the past. And I kid you not but Japan does not have any laws against discrimination, nor are there laws against hate speech (the last I checked at least). And all foreigners are unwelcomed in one way or another, except some more so than others. I don’t see this belief system changing any time soon because Japan, while a modern nation, is also very adamant about preserving its “Japanese-ness”. Immigration to Japan is next to nil (and also very difficult). And non-japanese Asians are expected to adopt Japanese names, which falsely perpetuates japan’s homogeneity. Some would argue Asian-americans adopt anglo names to blend in, but in Japan, the non-japanese Asians are expected to change their last name too so you’d never know they weren’t Japanese (and when Japan is so homogenous, the need to discuss discrimination never arises). Discrimination, while non-violent and confrontational in nature, is very blatant. (When Korea’s leaders meet with Japan’s leaders, the Korean leaders will often discuss the treatment of Koreans in Japan). And even though the birthrate in Japan has plummeted and there is genuine worry about who is going to support the aging population, the government and scientists are looking to robots instead of immigrants to fill the future work force. I know it sounds very SF but I got this straight from newspapers. I don’t know if it’s realistic for them to expect robots to do the work but there ARE already some robot production (their usefulness is debatable though).

     And finally, it goes without saying that the Japanese government is still unwilling to acknowledge ww2 era atrocities and the use of comfort women. And when the Japanese government does acknowledge the WW2 war crimes, the “apologies” are insincere at best. It’s hard to take an apology seriously when Japanese politicians persist in visiting yasukuni shrine (which holds war criminals). It’s equivalent to Germany’s leadership paying respect to the members of the Nazi Party. I personally don’t understand why the Japanese government can’t simply apologize FOR REAL but in my opinion, their resistance to apologizing is similar to the way racists offer backhanded apologies such as “I’m sorry if YOU’RE offended”.

     In light of such cultural psyche, I feel it is unrealistic for American POC to expect Japanese anime to include more “diversity” as the Japanese themselves do not feel like they need to include “others” in any meaningful way. Manga predominantly feature Japanese characters, and if the western audience sees these characters as white, good for us. But in the Japanese point of view, the characters in manga are overwhelmingly “white” because they are Japanese people.. The fact that westerners view these Japanese characters as Caucasians do not concern them. And our expectation that Japanese mangaka/videogame creators, who are from a society that marginalizes all non-japanese people, will help us combat marginalization in the west by creating more racially inclusive characters is sadly naïve. Japan is today what America was 80 years ago, except there’s no violence (that we know of at least. Racist incidents aren’t covered by the newspapers).

     And finally, I feel a lot of asian-americans may have an overly rosy view of asia as an alternative to the “racist western nations”. I did too, before I got a heavy dose of reality. In the case of Japan, you never hear in the news of how pervasive racism in Japanese society really is. I had thought Japan would be right up my alley because as a fellow asian, I should be welcomed with opened arms (LOL I was sooooo wrong). Prior to spending time in various countries in Asia, I thought all Asians got along because there was the brother/sisterhood of our “asianness”. But it seems like Asians only get along with Asians if they’re Americans first and foremost. And I thought Japan was a great place to live because there were so many tourists saying they had a great experience. When I actually got there, I realized Japan is only great if you’re an ignorant tourist, preferably white, and to a lesser degree, an African-American (African-African doesn’t count.) Discussions of racism in japan predominantly take place in the west and only among a small number of people (like us). And during these conversations, the focus is primarily on western foreigners and so people aren’t aware of the pervasive racism against Asians and Burakumin in japan (because non-japanese Asians are less likely than western foreigners to make a big stink about racism).

     There will always be people who’ll insist Japan isn’t racist. But I would say tourists aren’t qualified to make such a judgment, ESPECIALLY white tourists who get a lot of preferential treatment (except when they don’t). Occasionally, Black-Americans will say how well they’re treated in Japan, and I’m sure they were treated in a very friendly manner, but I would warn them not to mistake politeness and friendliness for acceptance. If you try to LIVE in Japan, you’ll start to notice things like people refusing housing to you, refusing services, the cops looking at you too much, and the newspapers going on and on about how foreigners are committing all the crime (even though it’s not true).

     Asia really isn’t any better than the US when it comes to race, and in many ways, even worse. Unless you’re happy to live in a country that’s at least not racist to YOU (if you’re the right kind of asian) but IS to other people, living in an Asian country is probably not as great as living in America. The America of today, with all of its racial problems, is still more hospital to minorities of all ethnicities than many asian nations. Asia is great for tourists, but not necessarily for immigrants. And even white people, who are way up there on the racial hierarchy, have a hard time becoming “one of the people” even if they’ve lived there their entire life. Unless there is more immigration to asian nations and these immigrants and their descendants fight for the respect minorities have fought for here in America, I really can’t foresee any change in the status quo.

     And I’ll probably catch a lot of flack for saying this but I feel infinitely more at home and comfortable in my skin living in America than I do anywhere in Asia even though I’m asian (specifically Chinese-American). Whenever I’m in an Asian country, there is always either a conflict pertaining to the way my world view differs from “the natives” (Taiwan/China) or the host nation considers “my kind” to be unwelcomed (japan). And the way people keep asking me “where are you from” gets tiring after a while because I’ll answer “America” and they’ll say “you don’t look American” then I’ll have to wonder if I should explain “American” isn’t an ethnicity but a nationality. (Trust me, just like it is in America, American=white is also the assumption most Asians have. In fact, in asia, the word “American” is used interchangeably with the word “Caucasian”).

     Don’t get me wrong. I still like Asia (great shopping and food LOL) and will visit that area of the world as often as I can. I also still enjoy manga and anime in spite of the stereotypes employed in the storyline and character design. And Japan isn’t all bad. When I was there, I met lots of great people who were incredibly helpful and hospitable, even out of their way so. I also made a ton of friends in high school. But it still doesn’t change the reality that while there are people who are nice to you, the society at large is still very unwelcoming. How unwelcoming? It’s unwelcoming to the point where during a conversation, if the smiling person you’re speaking to realizes you’re Chinese or Korean, s/he’ll will literally stop the conversation and walk off (when it happens once, it’s a fluke, twice, you’re unlucky, but more than 3 times? Something’s seriously wrong). I kid you not. When I first got there, I thought some of my classmates were “tepid” towards me because that’s the Japanese way. Eventually I realized it was because they didn’t like me. And why would they like me? A lot of Japanese people don’t even like half Japanese Eurasians and they actually like white people (mostly). I should’ve listened to my white-japanese-american friend who told me how the kids picked on her when she lived in Japan. I guess I thought I would be ok because I’m 100% asian (wrong-o).

     And I find it really weird to say this but I experienced more discrimination during my one year in Japan than I did my entire life thus far in the USA. I can honestly say I would not have chosen to stay in Japan as an exchange student had I known how racist Japan can be. Towards the end of my stay, I was desperate to come home but I made myself stay the entire duration because I don’t like to quite anything (and because my parents shelled out a ton of money because I insisted on doing the exchange program). I can honestly say I would’ve been happier to simply be a tourist. Every time someone talks about visiting Japan, I secretly thank god (and I’m not even religious) that I’m American living in America instead of a resident in Japan. Because as an American, I can except success if I work hard ( in spite of the fact that biases still exists in American society) and yet if I were a resident in Japan, I’m not sure all the hard work in the world can make a difference. And yes, there are some outliers, but the one or two successful non-japanese asian people are the exception to the rule. How exceptional? As exceptional as the guy who became HIV negative after testing positive months earlier (researchers are very interested in this guy).

     What disturbs me VERY much about the discussion in racism in Japan is that when people ask a valid question, others will minimize it. For example, occasionally, Asian-Americans planning on going to Japan will ask whether or not it’s a good idea. And well-intentioned whites will tell Asian-Americans that they should do just fine because they are Americans first and foremost and if anyone won’t give them a job because of their asian ancestry, they shouldn’t want to work for such people anyways. That answer is…..not helpful at all. White foreigners have no idea how intensely racist the Japanese can be to Americans of other ethnic persuasions, especially if that American is a non-Japanese asian. And they also do not realize that the Japanese people will not view asian-americans as “American” because the only “true Americans” are “caucasians”. They view Asian-Ameriacans the same as Asians in Japan, as residents, rather than true citizens. It’s easy for white foreigners to tell Asian-Americans not to worry about racism because they’re the ones swarmed by women (if they’re male) and everyone is eager to take pictures with them. They also get English teaching jobs pretty easily. They don’t realize that non-white Americans get rejected A LOT from jobs. It’s not a case of getting one or two rejection letters. It’s a case of scraping at the bottom of the barrel. It is just TOO dangerously naïve for people to tell Asian-Americans that they should expect the same kind of good treatment White Americans get. And if you’re asian of the Korean or Chinese persuasion, I would REALLY ask you to seek frank discussions of racism in Japan and don’t let anyone minimize the importance of race. I’ve read numerous posts in message boards by people who claim it’s not a big deal to be a non-japanese Asian-American in Japan and yet my personal experience, as well as that of other Chinese-Americans that I personally know is RADICALLY different. When I was in Japan as a tourist, everything was fantastic. When I LIVED in Japan, it was a miserable experience. And it was VERY obvious that all the Host families treated the white students better than the non-whites, and the Asians as the red-headed step child. And every time English-teachers in Japan tell me how “so-and-so is asian and did just fine in Japan”, I just want to shake my head. If you predominantly hang out with ex-pats, you’re experience is going to be completely different than if you’re living with a Japanese family (I’ve lived with 4 different families). And if you’re in school as a student, where the teachers basically have your under your thumb, you’re really going to hear racist comments. It’s less likely that a teacher is going to hear racist comments because they’re the TEACHER. But if you’re a student, the situation is decidedly less ideal. You won’t know just how much you’re disliked unless the Japanese feel comfortable enough to let you know. And Asian foreigners tend to put the Japanese more at ease and so the Japanese are also more comfortable letting you know you’re not welcome. Usually, social etiquette dictate they be cordial to you while racist behind your back. And even when they’re racist, they’re often cordial (i.e. they’ll smile as they tell you they don’t serve foreigners). There are asian-Americans who insist they have had a great time in Japan but I really think they’re willfully ignorant in the same way you’ll sometimes hear some Asian-Americans claim we’re not minorities or that we don’t face racism or that we shouldn’t be so sensitive. I just wonder what’s wrong with those people. Have they no self-respect? Maybe there’s something about Asian culture that teaches us to “suck it up” no matter how bad it is. It seems like only western foreigners in Japan are going to the courts to fight back after they get discriminated against and yet it seems the non-japanese Asians in Japan have been complacent even though they receive the brunt of Japanese racism.

     And finally, I have to say I genuinely regret not telling more people how racist Japan really is (Or at least to those who are a member of the “major target group”) . When I came home to the US, I basically told people Japan was ok and only focused on the positive aspects because I didn’t want to seem like I was a holier-than-thou westerner who thought Asian countries were inferior. And it’s also hard to explain to Americans how the Japanese are racist against other Asians in a very extreme degree. It’s just not something that’s well understood, especially since Japan doesn’t even have a reputation for being a racist nation. Due to my decision to sanitize my recount of my experience in Japan…let’s just say someone important to me went to Japan thinking it was an Asian paradise and is now stuck there and totally hates it. I had written down this person’s experience but I deleted it because…I don’t want to get anybody in trouble. I’m being intentionally vague.

     I read this guy’s experience and boy does it ring true with me.
     http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/14169

     ps
     While in Japan, my feminist sensibilities were also offended but that’s another discussion altogether. I have to thank my host mothers for inadvertently teaching me the importance of getting an education and a self-supporting job.

     Posted 14 Mar 2010 at 8:38 pm ¶

142. Rose wrote:

     Thank you so much for this article. My friends were just recently raving about how great the new FF was going to be and when I complained that it was the same generic race, setting etc. they told me I was looking into it too much. I was (and am) so disappointed in Final Fantasy. It used to be my all time favorite game and I’ve played almost all of them but really it’s become too tiresome to keep forcing myself to relate. Funny enough, my brother was so looking forward to White Knight Chronicles so he bought it and even he (a huge rpg fanboy) was severely disappointed in how white it was despite the fact that you can create your own character (who just stands around while the storyline occurs).

     I also find that on the very few occasions that people of color are included in rpg video games they are blatant! You KNOW they are POCs and their designs are really overdone, including Japanese (who don’t seem to exist without a samurai sword!). Sadly I have yet to see a brown woman (of any descent!) that I can easily relate to. The only Indian person I can think of right now is the mystical guru in the undercity of FFXII =p.

     Fortunately people are beginning to look into video games as an emergent media (finally!) and are writing articles like this one.

     Posted 14 Mar 2010 at 10:28 pm ¶

143. Jha wrote:

     I got that Japanese characters with unusually-coloured hair are coded Japanese unless stated otherwise. We had anime dubbed into Malay when I was growing up (in Malaysia), and it was always a given that if a character had a Japanese name, s/he was Japanese. I also code most FF characters as Japanese, despite the weird hair colours. It’s just one of those givens when you live in an Asian country consuming Asian media. I didn’t realize many folks coded them as white until I got to North America.

     But, and this is to jk directly, why would it be considered more attractive to have eyelid surgery? Why would lighter hair be better than darker? Like other folks have said, these don’t happen in a vacuum, particularly with the fascination for blonde hair that I see with a lot of international students from the “Far East” countries, who also include some Chinese students, but it’s mostly the Koreans and Japanese students who dye their hair blonde. And it’s usually blonde!

     I can understand the desire to be different: I had a hair-dyeing phase. But blonde is not new, even among Asians, so I eschewed it for reds and purples because it looked more natural (yes, I”m aware of the irony of the statement) on my yell0w-toned skin. I also had a thing for different-coloured contacts, but never had any because they are expensive (so, perhaps, this is also a class issue?). Not only that, but I thought blonde hair on yellow-toned Asians looked hideous. I still do.

     I’ve read a version of Romance of the Three Kingdoms a long time ago and I don’t recall any light-haired, weirdly-eyed people O_o;; I’ve also consumed a lot of Chinese media, and I rarely saw anything other than black-haired, brown-eyed characters unless they had a specific reason to be so (for example, one Journey to the West serial had Sun Wukong with reddish hair, because he’s a monkey, and another character who was a chicken spirit with blond hair, because… well, he’s a chicken spirit and chickens come with light-brown feathers!) so I’ve always found the Japanese fascination with different coloured hair and eyes to be… well… weird.

     Posted 14 Mar 2010 at 10:42 pm ¶

144. miga wrote:

     @Jha: I don’t know about the past, but I rarely see blond Japanese women right now (I’m in Japan for a semester). Right now, I’m seeing alot of brunettes both on the street and on TV. I’ve only seen two blond Japanese women, and one of them was sporting EXTREME loli fashion. My assumption about going brunette (rather than blond) is that it’s easier to do with dark brown/black hair. None of the products shown on TV call for bleaching, which you’d have to do to turn really dark hair blond.

     Posted 15 Mar 2010 at 9:54 am ¶

145. TierListE wrote:

     I’m playing FFXIII now- I just got into it so I can’t speak for the franchise, but (partially assuming the names were not changed) I don’t think many of the characters were meant to be of blatant* Japanese decent. I saw that video posted a couple of times in the comments and tried to apply that as well.

     Maybe the main character and her sister are Japanese. Sazh and Fang are not. Snow came off to me as typical white American skater boy, and Hope could have had the look for it, but with his last name and father’s name and look, comes off as German-based or somesuch. And I don’t think Vanille is because of name or look.

     *as in “this person came from a virtually full line of Japanese nationality descent”. Any and all of the character can have Japanese decent.

     Posted 15 Mar 2010 at 11:07 am ¶

146. Anon wrote:

     i’ve also noticed this trend with online mmo/rpgs made by eastern companies. for instance, i play(not so much now)Perfect World online, and well as Asda, Wonderland, Luna, Trickster, Pi Story, Nostale, Fairyland English, and Crazy Tao. the common thing for these games is to have a large asian community, with the majority being from or descended from the country of the game company’s origin. that being said, most of these game’s npcs are the default white looking characters you see in jrpgs. also most of these games, with the exception of fairyland and perfect world, only have the ability to generate “white” characters from their character creation tools. i would get harrassed by the online community on Perfect World about my look. i took a still-lasting hiatus when i was commented,”kinda strange u made a black char running around a japanese/chinese setting…” if anyone plays PW, you know there are TONS of lily white characters running around. which is funny because the PW char creation system is the most diverse i’ve ever encountered when it comes to asian or white features. not so much black, though apparently i managed to make a convincingly black character to inspire comments like that.

     i’m ashamed to say that i kept my identity secret from my clan in fairyland for a few months because i didn’t want to deal with, “why are you playing this game black”, (me and character)that i had in other games. i would be afk all the time to avoid casual banter. i just felt out of place because the main community is/was malaysian, chinese, filipino. i had heard all the stories, from other black people who had traveled to the east, that we weren’t liked much(but whites were) so i guess i was paranoid. of course, my fairyland clan rocks, so i was paranoid, in this instance, for no reason. but i would caution you to keep your guard somewhat if you are playing some of these online games of any kind because the racism and hypocrisy is rampant.

     ftr the following is a list of the locations for these games i mentioned:
     Fairyland English(Taipei, Taiwan)
     Luna Online(Japan)
     Perfect World(Beijing)
     Trickster(Korea)
     Pi Story(Japan)
     Crazy Tao(Fuzhou, China)
     Asda Story(Japan/Korea)
     Wonderland online(Taiwan)
     Nostale(Korea)

     also, to the poster who mentioned asian players being stereotyped as “robotic gold farmers” you are sooooo right on the mark. if i had a penny for every nerd on GW who’s said that…funny thing is they(white male players)talk shit about the Korean players who kick the American’s asses in pVp, saying that they bot and hack, which is not true. then they say,”oh the asian players are no good at strategy and tactics, only farming.” it can make you heart-attack-inducing angry, which is why i don’t play too many online anything these days.

     fft, go to Pi Story’s official page, and check out the blonde germanesque girl at the top of the page, then come back here and tell me i’m crazy, and she isn’t coded white.

     Posted 15 Mar 2010 at 2:19 pm ¶

147. Reiter wrote:

     @ rk

     I have to agree with you about how the West just loves to fawn over and pat itself on the back for believing it to be so enlightened when it comes to feminism, especially in self righteous crusades to “liberate poor downtrodden” women in so-called patriarchal foreign societies, such as in Asia or the Middle East. As if the West is doing these women a favor by butting in and telling them this and that are wrong.

     Ok, I get that oppression in any form sucks, true, but it’s definitely a problem when these “rescues” are framed in the context of the white knight savior complex. It’s often used as a thinly veiled disguise for white males to hook up with foreign women, for whatever reason (in many cases, these men couldn’t care less about the woman’s culture or ethnicity; it’s a power/ego trip thing as much as it is a sexual control issue).

     Posted 15 Mar 2010 at 3:20 pm ¶

148. sitara wrote:

     @jk

     Ganguro is a subset of gyaru, and it’s based on the image of blonde, tanned, beach-bunny Californian white women.

     Posted 15 Mar 2010 at 11:13 pm ¶

149. moth wrote:

     @Bao Phi, co-sign on everything. I hear the same arguments that are used to defend the characteristics of Final Fantasy characters being made to defend the features of Avatar the Last Airbender’s animated characters and other anime.

     The arguments seem to be
     a) not all Asians have black hair, brown eyes, eyes that aren’t as round as the stereotypical European’s, etc.
     b) these are just standard featues
     c) Asians read the characters as Asians
     d) you just want the characters to look like Asian stereotypes

     You tackle those arguments so well. I wonder if someone were to make a movie out of this specific game — should the actors be Asian?

     It almost reminds me of how, back in the day, black women had to have the features of Lena Horne to be beautiful – yes some black people do look like Lena – but does that mean such women weren’t valorized due to Eurocentric beauty standars or that other women weren’t excluded from the pedestal?

     The arguments also ignore the fact that older forms of East Asian art such as Chinese terra cotta warriors or Japanese line drawings clearly depict Chinese and Japanese people with epicanthic folds, black hair, and other traits most Chinese and Japanese people share. How and when did Eurocentric features come to represent the standard Asian? Clearly the artists who created such works didn’t consider their art stereotypical.

     Posted 16 Mar 2010 at 12:25 am ¶

150. Bagelsan wrote:

     rk: WATCH SEIREI NO MORIBITO RIGHT NOW. DO IT. Okay, but seriously, that is the only anime I have *ever* seen where it ended and I sat back, stunned, and was like “they… they did absolutely nothing wrong.” It’s got pretty much my favorite heroine of all time in it, and she kicks so much ass that her guy friends have to go back later and take the names for her.

     It also has some interesting, if subtle, racial politics — there is a definite friction between the colonizing people and the native people, and it ends up being *very* important that the colonizing people shut the hell up for a minute and listen.

     Posted 16 Mar 2010 at 2:16 am ¶

151. Christine wrote:

     Whoever mentioned Michiko to Hatchin: Thank you!

     Posted 16 Mar 2010 at 12:17 pm ¶

152. Micah wrote:

     At least Sazh isn’t speaking ebonics and being straight up ignorant like Barret was…

     But this is something I struggle with. Talking about race with gamers is like talking to a wall at times. When RE5 came out and there were charges of racism, alot of things you brought up were often in the conversation, in a way to make it whitewash the situation and drown out opinions. It tends to make it difficult to have these conversations.

     Posted 17 Mar 2010 at 12:20 pm ¶

153. Jenn wrote:

     What? Seriously? They all looked Asian to me.

     I’m white, and I read all of the characters, with the exception of Sazh of course, as Asian. Snow totally reads like the typical strong-man gangster bad-boy popular in manga (think Ichigo or Yusuke Urameshi). He looks like a Japanese dude with a particularly strong chin and dyed hair. I’m just guessing that they all have double-lids because it’s easier to animate emotion like that (the anime aesthetic) and because the really “ethnic” looking asians are considered ugly and/or foreign by the Japanese. I mean, they have their own minorities that tend to skew darker skin tones, and they have a negative opinion of other Asian ethnicities with darker skin, so it makes sense that they’d have a lot of characters with pale skin.

     I’ll also echo what was said up thread, but when we consume media made for Asians by Asians, we often read the characters white because the developers “forget” to stereotype their characters with yellow skin and slanty tiny eyes. I have Asian friends that, if animated, would probably be read as white by people who don’t know better. Their skin isn’t yellow. Their eyes aren’t small. Hell, we wear the same color face makeup (I know, because we’ve shared). If a character was white in most Japanese media, you know, because they go out of their way to show it with a prominent brow line and low cheekbones. They stereotype us, but they don’t stereotype themselves.

     Also, all the of the female characters in the game are TINY. I mean, white people like their women skinny too, but they also like them really buxom. The FF characters were extremely petite. That totally read as the Japanese ideal woman to me (Vanille is “moe” like woah), not the white ideal.

     Some of the ethics seem “off” too, if you’re American and white. I can’t put my finger on it, but just some of the emotional intensity and tit-for-tat reasoning isn’t very “white”. Take Hope’s story line. White people (Americans, mostly) would read him as a sissy and alternatively as a creepy weakling bent on revenge. Snow would be a big moron, and Lightning is a frigid bitch. Those characters would totally not have been written like they were if the game was developed by white people. Lightning wouldn’t have been so intense, Vanille wouldn’t have been so bouncy, Snow wouldn’t have been so bent on protecting/saving Serah (Americans would have him forgetting about her quickly and using her demise as an excuse to get revenge), and Hope wouldn’t have been so wimpy and then driven. Only Sazh, really, read anything at all as something that an American could have thought up. But then again, not really. I mean, he wasn’t the loud black gangster comic relief, at all.

     As far as race goes, I wish FF13 had more people of color, or even Asian minorities. But they did a hell of a lot better job giving Sazh a back story than most Americans give black characters (and we live in a country with loads of black people! Japanese do not!). And I’d say most of the characters totally read as Asian. Maybe it’s just because I have a passing familiarity with how race is portrayed in Japanese media, but I couldn’t imagine those characters as anything but Asian and Japanese, at that.

     Does not compute.

     Posted 18 Mar 2010 at 2:05 am ¶

154. Bao Phi wrote:

     I think an interesting question then becomes – why then, can only beautiful/normative representations of Japanese be those closest to white? Why can’t there be a representation of Asians that represent some common features – such as darker skin, dark eyes, dark eyes, small eyes, etc, and be beautiful instead of stereotypical?

     Posted 18 Mar 2010 at 5:43 pm ¶

155. Ardwynna wrote:

     There’s an interesting vid on this very subject here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKTvFhRbBt8

     Essentially, we think we’re looking at white, the Japanese see Japanese all the way. They don’t draw themselves to conform to our stereotypes of Asian people.

     Posted 21 Mar 2010 at 12:58 pm ¶

156. Rainy wrote:

     Yeah, as others have said, in Japan, these characters are considered Japanese. I think it funny that most of the blacks portrayed in anime have an afro or dreads. I don’t mind it but it’s interesting. You also have to realize that if everybody in your country has dark skin and dark eyes or light skin, black hair and dark eyes, anybody who is the total opposite of that will be held up as beautiful. Remember most people on this planet are brown, that is why being light or white is held up as a standard of beauty.

     Posted 22 Mar 2010 at 4:15 pm ¶

157. Kyo Seki wrote:

     @Bao Phi post 153

     The reason for that is the same reason hollywood actors don’t have “common” features of white americans. Basically the same reason “average” looking people are rarely seen in movies in america as well. I quoted both these terms because a common feature of a race is often up to interpretation.

     For example when i was watching a korean drama with my grandma, i asked her: why do all these korean actresses get eye lid surgery? Do they want to look white?

     Her response was “why would they want to look white?! It is because they want to look chinese.” Ironically even though i have double eyelids myself, i saw myself as uncommon. My grandma, however, saw our eyes as common. It just goes to show how much culture affects a person’s perception of race.

     With that said, there are actually quite a few asian animes/shows that depict characters with dark hair, dark eyes, and smaller eyes as attractive. Dark skin, however, is almost never seen in a favorable light. In asian cultures paleness is always prefereable; also in american culture as well, albeit more subconsciously. That is something that must change in my opinion.

     Posted 24 Mar 2010 at 11:12 pm ¶

158. DovS wrote:

     Before seeing this article, I thought that the characters in FFXIII looked distinctly mixed race to my eye. In particular, I noticed the distinct shape of the upper lip on most characters, which is has a noticeably narrower peak, something I see more often in Japanese facial features.

     If anything, I think that the character designs are meant to be a mix of Japanese and White features.

     Posted 25 Mar 2010 at 4:20 pm ¶

159. moth wrote:

     @ Rainy “. You also have to realize that if everybody in your country has dark skin and dark eyes or light skin, black hair and dark eyes, anybody who is the total opposite of that will be held up as beautiful. ”

     This seems to ignore the presence of white privielge. After all, in any of of the countries where everyone has white skin, blue eyes, and light hair is anyone who is a total opposite held up as beautiful?

     Posted 01 Apr 2010 at 10:25 pm ¶

160. electribe wrote:

     @ moth Well yes, especially when it comes to guys the “tall, dark, handsome” stereotype seems to be the norm. Actors like Johnny Depp or George Clooney who don’t have blue or light hair are considered to be the most attractive. When it comes to women though, then yeah I would agree with you there.

     Posted 02 Apr 2010 at 12:22 pm ¶

161. moth wrote:

     @electribe – in what non Eurocentric context would George or Johnny be considered dark?

     Posted 02 Apr 2010 at 11:14 pm ¶

162. electribe wrote:

     @moth – tanned, bronze skin

     Posted 04 Apr 2010 at 7:24 am ¶