I didn't read everything, however I'll post my opinion.

Because Japan people love European culture, so in manga they try to reproduce it putting fancy colors to hair and eyes.
In fact quite often people with fancy hair colors have an European (or American) origin (most of the blond transfer guy from your average shoujo are half American, Asuka and Satella are German, etc. while your average main char has black hair like all Japanese guys).

What I like in Trivial Pursuit style. Pick your category:[img]http://i379.photobucket.com/albums/oo233/Reid4891/Manga/trivia-1.jpg[/img]

answer...all asian ppl look the same lol thats y 😀

[img]http://www.ixdrive.co.uk/img/584e3ee8a9c18da0e85d0ea21ad9f874.gif[/img]

"You just bleed there and think about what you've done!"

Funny, I thought everyone who read manga and watched anime knew that the art style was taken from old American animations like Betty Boop. I imagine because of that, people in the West imagine almost every character in a cartoon is white unless they are made a caricature from Bugs Bunny to Mickey Mouse.

The characters are fairly generic though so if they were dubbed, many may take them to be their own ethnicity. Most people would see Peanuts as full of white kids but in Asia, a little kid reading it would likely think they were just like him. Hell, he may not even think that the dark skin kids were black. He'd just as easily think Indian, Pacific Islander or some kid with a really dark tan.

Quote from Keel

answer...all asian ppl look the same lol thats y 😀

And what he said. 😛

LOL AM I THE ONLY ONE THAT THINKS MOST ANIME/MANGA CHARACTERS LOOK JAPANESE? 🤣

dunno it's just my point of view.

I'm a chinese person, so I don't kno if that has anything to do with my view lol. xD

Their race never really fleeted across my mind. xD
Though I've always somehow or another assumed they were Japanese unless specified otherwise.

hhmm never really thought of their Race, more their species. Most mangakas don't draw humans that I have ever seen in real life... 😔 🤣

half the asians i know either look(on purpose) like anime characters or mexicans. either some over the top korean hair-do or crew cut.

"Hip-hop was set out in the dark. They used to do it out in the park"

From what I understand, anime drawings were heavily influenced by American cartoons, namely Disney cartoons. The styles of the big heads and big eyes were adopted, and since it was an American art form, it's not surprising to see that most characters would look white.

While anime art has changed and the big heads aren't as prevalent, the big eyes won't be going anywhere.

Compare classic disney to any classic anime and you'll see the similarities

[color=#ff0000]"“That's the difference between me and the rest of the world!
Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!” "[/color]

Read this:

[url]http://matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html[/url]

It was written by an anthropologist as a response to just that question, so check it out.

Quote from noisette

Read this:

[url]http://matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html[/url]

It was written by an anthropologist as a response to just that question, so check it out.

Very good read... a lot of the points in it are quite obvious when highlighted by the author but never dawn on you when actually reading manga. I could almost instantly think of a characters that fit some of the points being made..

Quote from Keel

answer...all asian ppl look the same lol thats y 😀

From a white person's perspective - maybe (for me sometimes, depending on how their built, hair style and a few other things differ). But from an asian (japanese in particular) perspective I don't think they would see each other in the same way.
Think about it... if you were born Japanese you probably wouldn't look in the mirror and say: " Damn I look just like everyone else in school."

Quote from drunkguy

Funny, I thought everyone who read manga and watched anime knew that the art style was taken from old American animations like Betty Boop. I imagine because of that, people in the West imagine almost every character in a cartoon is white unless they are made a caricature from Bugs Bunny to Mickey Mouse.

Umm, I never knew that...

Quote from Rainy Days

Their race never really fleeted across my mind. xD
Though I've always somehow or another assumed they were Japanese unless specified otherwise.

Yeah... For me when watching anime I automatically assume they are Japanese unless otherwise stated... (occasional exchange student).

For a lot of anime and manga which are not set in the real world, or set in a similar but parallel world, it is not even worth thinking about because its a whole different setting than the real world.

If an anime or manga is set in the real world (japan in most cases) and is your average shounen or shoujo manga, then it can be said that most of the characters don't really look japanese. Depending on the mangaka's style this could vary, but for the most part it is pretty much quite obvious that not all characters look Japanese.

I can say that for example, Sasuke and Ishida look somewhat Japanese but no way in hell could I say the same for Naruto and Ichigo.

Edit:

Quote from noisette

Read this:

[url]http://matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html[/url]

It was written by an anthropologist as a response to just that question, so check it out.

This was an interesting perspective. Relative signification (the majority of characters in any part of the world drawn the same and then foreigners drawn with stereotypical exaggeration to differentiate them from the mainstream) seems as good an explanation as any.

There were a few parts of his argument that weren't very good though. From what I gather the author seemed to be overly protective of Japanese and accused European society of unconsciously assuming that non-whites wanted to be white.
Basically throughout his argument he accused Europeans of being racist, while rationally explaining why the Japanese would draw Chinese, Hispanic and black people with "stereotypical exaggeration". Ridiculous.
P.S: Yes I am aware that the author is Caucasian.

[img]http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/6818/29042893.png[/img]
[img]http://img.userbars.pl/69/13603.gif[/img]

as far as i figure, osamu tezuka(astro boy) for the most part started the manganime thing. he also modeled his art style off disney = white ppl. guess it just kind of evolved from that.

some series do have the ppl looking asian(eyes, etc) though usually they're only seinen oneshots or shorties

Quote from daed

some series do have the ppl looking asian(eyes, etc) though usually they're only seinen oneshots or shorties

Yeah, for example the main character from Freesia actually looks asian.
I don't think anyone could look at him and say he's white. It sort of boggles the mind that Japanese people could look at Naruto and accept hes Japanese (going by this guy's essay: http://matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html)

Anyway check out Freesia, awesome manga, awesome characters (even though the protagonist is just a teeny bit out of it).

[img]http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/6818/29042893.png[/img]
[img]http://img.userbars.pl/69/13603.gif[/img]

You have to realize that the majority of anime is fiction based and for entertainment. If all characters were drawn the same and look similar then people would see that as being generic and be turned off.

If anything, animes/manga characters are of their own race with the outrageous facial features such as eyes, ears, hair and nose. Their own distinct features of exaggerated body types of both male and female characters with mature lolis, sexy young milfs and gilfs, muscular elders, midget perverted elders, etc.

And seriously, dbz, seriously, I think you are putting to much emphasis that having certain features automatically make you a certain race.

because if they made the girls actually look Japanese then most of them would have small breasts and no ass. And if your drawing ecchi you kind of need the big breast and a nice ass for the fan service other wise not many people will want to look at it.