Japanese and Anime representation

Japan is widely known for for its animated work, because it is big in the  animation industry, creating one of the biggest types of animation know worldwide called Anime. Anime has been going on since 20th century. The first Japanese animations were experimented with using animation techniques used by filmmakers in Japan's early years of animating. the first worldly popular anime was Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy which was created in 1963, at this period anime started off as a full representation for Japan and its culture, with the characters always looking like the Japanese people. Since reaching the 21st century the characters appearances have strayed away from the Asian appearance in to a European representation. Some people believed that the change of representation was based on the idea of the Japanese people feeling ashamed of their features and they preferred to make themselves look more like the white Europeans.

People say that Japan has moved its style of animation away from the west idea of representing characters to try and create a style of their own.

"During the 1970s, anime developed further, separating itself from its Western roots, and developing unique genres such as mecha. Notable shows in this period include Lupin III and Mazinger Z. During this period several filmmakers became famous, especially Hayao Miyazaki and Mamoru Oshii."  

http://www.gojapango.com/culture/anime_history.html

ANIME HISTORY (no date) Available at: http://www.gojapango.com/culture/anime_history.html (Accessed: 23 January 2016).

This could be regarded as untruthful because, the evidence is in the animation based on the representation, the characters make a statement for themselves. The questions to ask is why the characters have white skin, multicoloured hair and eyes, why not make them look like Japanese people?

"I did not think about it at first, but I read stories about marketers in Japan pushing products by saying using them would make Japanese people white, tall and blonde with blue eyes. There was an article about the first McDonalds in Japan being promoted this way."

"Manga and anime characters look like white people to me, not black or latin, and specially not asian. Colorful hair aside, I find that many Japanese/Korean cartoon characters often look more Caucasian than Asian. This contrasts with traditional Japanese art which looks more realistic to me, sort of like medieval European art which is not photorealistic but you can tell they are European."

"I can see why the Japanese might draw black people like racist cartoons because of old western cartoons, but I can't find an explanation as to why they draw other Asians as racist depictions like those using against the Japanese in WWII."

https://www.quora.com/Are-anime-and-manga-drawing-styles-an-idealization-of-western-features-by-the-Japanese

Top stories (2010) Available at: https://www.quora.com/Are-anime-and-manga-drawing-styles-an-idealization-of-western-features-by-the-Japanese (Accessed: 23 January 2016).

The reason for the Japanese adopting the western look could be because of all the racism the Japanese have faced in the past during the world war period or just in general as Asian citizens in society.

Japanese Girl

Anime Girl

From these images you can draw the idea of the character below being Japanese based on the setting and her clothing but the features of the character herself are nothing like the girls above, the above image is of an actual Japanese girl, maybe the characters should look more like the top image rather than the bottom because you will see Japanese people for who they are and not who they are trying to be.

The only information that can be gathered on this subject is people opinions on the matter of the representation of Japanese anime characters.

This video talks through the comparisons between white and asian people. It compares the popular anime characters to actual Japanese people and recreates them to suit the Japanese image, to demonstrate how they should look from what they look like.

The YouTuber in the video called "Onision Speaks" talks about the matter being that the Japanese anime representing either side, but maybe being a Style that works with both white and Asian. features.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qus34ySIbyI

OnisionSpeaks (2014) Why do Anime characters look white?. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qus34ySIbyI (Accessed: 23 January 2016).
(Top video)