I'm amazed you're a university student... white? don't look one bit....

that being said, http://www.mangaupdates.com/authors.html?id=115 draws some great art and could give you a reference on what white looks like. e.g. pluto, monster

Thanks for your SUPER helpful input. Believe it or not, people who aren't weeaboos actually think manga is full of characters who look Caucasian and presume things about Japan idolizing the westerner based on that. Someone else linked a video that shows that a lot of Americans think that, and some even write academic papers on that. My project is exploring how characters are depicted and why Americans assume such things. Clearly, you are SUCH an open-minded person that you have never thought a character in manga could be white! Or that they may be represented as void of race! (That is also an option.) So bravo on how you've managed to not make ANY assumptions! Oh and hun, I'm a fantastic student at a top 10 university.

Once I read something about how westerners see characters in manga as "look like more caucasian than asian" in this site: Matt Thorn. However, Japanese people perceived them as Japanese, depending where the manga set.
He studies on shoujo manga mostly, I find he has some interesting findings on manga.Maybe you've known his name. But if not, it may helps with your paper.

Edit:
I'll add some manga:
Lady mitsuko: Japanese woman married an Austrian count. You can compare the appearance of Austrian count to other Waki Yamato's male leads, like in Haikara-san ga Tooru and Yokohama. Not much difference, despite in two latter titles, the males are Japanese, while in Mitsuko, he's Austrian.

Sabbath Cafe: School for foreigners in Japan. I think you'll see more stereotypical images here.
Black Lagoon: there are some african-american here, along with chinese, russian mafia
Me and the Devil Blues: an african-american jazz musician
Versailles no Bara
Jiraishin: the police is Japanese, but there are some case he go abroad (to Germany, I think). There is also case involving US soldier from the base.
Bloody Monday and the sequels. The US president shows up in Bloody Monday 2, and IMO


If I remember more, I'll post again.



Last edited by p3pelepe at 12:45 am, Nov 12 2011

They look white because it's in black and white, obviously...

even though Poppoya Love Letter touched me.. i also am kindda offended by it because it depicted Filipinos and even said that Filipinos are ugly and short. well i think that im not ugly. so yeah.

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GUESS WHO??

*looks at your profile picture*
I wonder why you wouldn't think that everyone in manga is white!
I'd have to say, out of all the manga I've read, I've seen very few characters that look Asian for 2 reasons: eye size and hair color (especially the former). People use generalizations to figure what nationality/race a person is. Not racism; it's being a realist. Now, the characters in Boku to Issho sure look Asian
Maybe it's because the pages are cleaned and edited that removes slight differences between skin tone? Beats me.

Anyways, I think Aiki has some gun wielding American woman. That's pretty stereotypical IMO

I definitely second Eyeshield 21- there's a whole scene about this racist American coach, and why he became that way, and an African American player. What about Waltz wa Shiroi Dress de? He's Indian and gets a lot of trouble about his skin color. Also, the oneshot That Summer may be worth looking into.

I find that mangas with more realistic art are the ones that make the characters look Asian. Can't think of any examples right now, but... if I can, I'll edit this.

And yes I am jealous that you have a class on manga at your university.

I'd suggest Me and the Devil Blues.

Chocolove from Shaman King.

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Believe it or not, if you read a japanese sounding name for the character, chances are, the character is meant to be japanese especially if the setting is in japan. Regarding that academic paper, well, it seems that richtards could do shit for a degree at a rich university.

regarding white, if they look white and have a name that doesnt sound asian(japanese), it is certainly possible. Void of race? there is a race/species for every character. However, if the setting is not earth (modern or not), chances are, their race is of things we know not of. That being said, there are only three races in modern earth...

thank you for your compliment, certainly I'm amazing. Praise me more.... I am glad that I could help you.

Regarding top universities.... there are only two qualifications to get into top universities... 1. be rich or 2. be lucky

that being said, do tell me which one of them are you.

ps. every leader came from a top educational setting... and see how fucked we are now

pps. Maybe this would help you as it seemed that you lacked the will to look yourself:

http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/6476/stupidperson.png

Calm down, guys.

They are talking purely about visually, if an American sees a picture of a character from a manga, devoid of any obvious racial clues like character name, then if the character has pale skin, they'll probably think it's American. There's no reason not to unless the character has obvious exaggerated stereotypical Japanese physical characteristics. And manga drawings tend to be fairly simplified so subtle physical characteristics that you'd notice in real life as typically belonging to a certain race are not obvious in a drawing. Furthermore, anime and manga tend to break certain racial characteristics like Japanese people having dark hair and eyes- you see supposedly Japanese characters with crazy hair and eye colors all the time, even when the manga is devoid of any fantasy elements. Ethnicity is easily interpreted differently because of this sort of thing.

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I'm with mogicks on this. It's about the assumption that generic looking characters match the dominant race of the reader's society, if there's no context given. (Or just the primary local race that matches the character, like an American assuming a dark-skinned Japanese character is Black.)

No one's trying to start an argument here. Asking for clarification is cool, discussing things is cool, but let's try and keep things civil so we don't bug the mods. Also...



I don't really understand what you're trying to say with that. It's probably not very topic relevant, so I won't ask you to clarify for me, but I thought I'd let you know that what you're saying is a bit hard to follow.

One of the most stereotypical depictions of an American in manga has got to be David Rice from Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro. It's so over the top that it's laughable. Check chapter 34 and 35.

Ilm a big Osamu Tezuka fan, but there's definitely lots of racist images in his work. The general school of thought is that he was trying to show foreignness and wasn't intentionally being racist, because any charachter who isn't Japanese looks a little different. In Ode to Kirihito, both white and black African people look strange, but the black people look like the racist American drawings from thee mid 1900s. In The second volume of Black Jack there's a story with Inuit charachters I think, who are drawn very strangely. Also, in Adolf it is pretty clear which charachters are caucasian and which are Asian.
This isn't by Osamu Tezuka, but Banana Fish has a lot of charachters of different races.

check out eyeshield 21. In the second half of the manga, especially towards the end, they compete against several different nationalities, including a multiracial texas team, and a german team.