Why are anime characters white?

Question

Seriously, why do nearly all anime characters appear to be caucasian?

Answer 1

I wouldn't really said they are Caucasian.

Anime characters are generally white due to the following reasons:

1) "In Japan Geishas were (and still are) known for their extremely white skin, which represents beauty, grace, and high social status. In Asian countries, pale skin represented royalty or sophistication. Most royals were believed to have their pale skin from staying indoors all day as opposed to the farmers who spent their lives working in rice paddy fields under the sun."

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

No doubt there are anime characters with darker skin colour mostly due to a reason e.g. Non-Asian, sporty, farmer, giving it a tough-look.

It will be logical for the artist to give its creation a perfect look e.g. fair skin.

2) You can often identity each artist thought their unique drawing style which makes almost all their characters looks alike. Thus, it's important to give each anime character a distinct look, mostly achieved by giving the character a different hairstyle or hair/eye colour e.g. blonde/blue/red which blend into their characterisitic as well. E.g. Blue is often used to represent calm, clever, mysterious

A fairer skin colour (white) will also match well with other colours and enhance the emphases on the colours.

3) Commercialise reason. Alot of anime characters are "japanese", because the targeted consumer are japanese. This allows them to relate to the anime. Same reason for caucasian, because they are one of the targeted consumer too.

4) The easiest.. To blend into the story background. If the story is located in European countries etc.. It will be weird to see Asian looking characters in the whole anime too. And if it's based "world-wide", it's logical to expect all range of skin colour too.

Answer 2

Well, large eyes on a character symbolizes innocence, which was largely influenced by Disney and other western animators. I've also found that red (or orange) hair on an anime character tends to symbolize a bad temper and hot-headedness (ex. Ichigo from Bleach, or Kyo from Fruits Basket). This is a largely European idea. There are animes out there where the characters do look more Japanese, such as Paranoia Agent.

Answer 3

They're not caucasian. Most of them are actually supposed to be Japanese or belong to a fictional nation similar in makeup to Japan (possible exceptions could include the cast of Slayers and Kiddy Grade, but I'm not sure about that). This is because most anime take place in Japan. The reason they appear to be Caucasian instead of Japanese is because the style of drawing in anime was based on American animation, Disney and whatnot.

Answer 4

I remember watching a show a long time ago, and it said that some, or rather, many Japanese people are fascinated with Caucasians and their appearance. The show mentioned that that was why you see coloured eyes on many Japanese Anime characters, because they are mimicing Caucasian eyes and colours. As for blue, green, or pink hair, though, I couldn't tell you!

Answer 5

THEY AREN'T WHITE!!!!!!

(I'm sorry this question is asked waaaaay too often and I always hear the same "Japanese people love white people becwause we're sooo pretty answers. It upsets me.)

They give the characters round eyes because in Japanese drawings NARROW (not slanted. NARROW) eyes are seen as evil or deceptive. That's why our American books do poorly in Japan. Our heroes have narrow, squinty eyes. To us that shows determination. To them it shows that our "hero" has something to hide so he's sheilding his eyes from us.

The hair colours are different to make the characters easily differentiated. They don't use just Blonde or Black Or Red hair. They use Purple and Green and Pink. It makes them easier to recognise at a glance. If you notice, the VAST majority have Black or Brown eyes. That's because they are still Japanese, just stylized.

We see them as "White" because we WANT them to be White. The mind sees what it wants.

Answer 6

Some anime are suppose to look white. I heard some thing about Asian people liking the way white people look from eyes to nose, lips, hair color, and some are Japanese it's just a bit hard to tell.

Answer 7

Caucasian is easier on the eyes when you put all the other colors in. When a character is like a red color or dark green or black, then you fun into vision problems,and your ability to see the character with ease. well that's all i know, tell me what you think.

Answer 8

paper is white takes less ink to make characters the same way.artist save time and money

Answer 9

The world may never know.

Answer 10

because most asian people have light color skin. the people in anime are meant to be asian but i also think they look like causasian ppl.

they should put more spanish/ african americans in there too!