Why are anime characters white?

Haffhart

Haffhart

Not a soulless minion of orthodoxy
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"Why are they white?"
"Huh?"
"They're supposed to be Egyptian, right? Why are they white?"
"Why would you choose to focus on that?"
"And for that matter, why are we white? Aren't we Japanese?"
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—Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series Episode 59 "Crowd Atlas"

But srsly y doe? I thought the Japanese don't like foreigners, yet anime humans seem to hail from every corner of Europe.
 
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Mr. Bung
I swear someone asked this question a long time ago...anyway, I think there are a couple reasons. The first is that anime was originally inspired by 30's-40's cartoons and movies from the U.S. by Disney and others that they were introduced to during the occupation. Interestingly, anime may have never became a thing if Japan hadn't been nuked.

The second is that most all Negroid (Africans) and Mongoloid (Asians, Native North and South Americans, Pacific Islanders etc.) cultures the world over have a very homogeneous look. Most all have very dark to black hair and dark brown eyes. However, the Caucasoids (white people) of Eurasia have many different eye and hair colors from black hair or dark brown eyes all the way to light blonde or red...
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ToroidalBoat said:
To do that, one may have needed to start earlier: what if Matthew Perry was never sent to force Japan to open to trade back in the 19th century?

Or in other words, what if the Edo period didn't end then?
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My bet is China would have genocided them and colonized the island, even if it is resource poor.

And Perry was a big historical gamechanger but the Japanese have been influenced by outside cultures since the dutch trading company and even longer than that. I really should hit the books sometime and look up why the Chinese tolerated them for so long, especially when compared to current day animosity. Fierce as fuck defenders yes but ultimately a small land with nowhere to go. It's fun imagining what-ifs!
 
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RembrandtCourage said:
My bet is China would have genocided them and colonized the island, even if it is resource poor.

And Perry was a big historical gamechanger but the Japanese have been influenced by outside cultures since the dutch trading company and even longer than that. I really should hit the books sometime and look up why the Chinese tolerated them for so long, especially when compared to current day animosity. Fierce as fuck defenders yes but ultimately a small land with nowhere to go. It's fun imagining what-ifs!
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Japan got their languages, legends, monsters, food like dumplings from China. I'd say that shocking would be the understatement of the century when in WW2 Japan suddenly decided the Chinese to be inferior and should be comfort brides for their soldiers.
 
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