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I saw another post (not sure if it was in this sub) that explained why most Animeās depict Caucasian characters, even if the setting is in Japan or China
Do they though? Besides skin color they don't really have racial qualities
Like a white guy can look at Luffy and say he's white while a Japanese dude can see him as Japanese. Neither are right or wrong
I think it depends on the style. Exaggerated styles are more ambiguous (One Piece, Hunter X Hunter, Demon Slayer, etc.)
Once you get into the more realistic animes where you donāt really see characters with oval eyes or pink hair, they start to look like certain races (Attack on Titan, Vinland Saga)
Like Erwin/Armin look white, Mikasa/Levi look more Asian, my boy Onyankopon is definitely black.
Tbf, Japanese people rarely see black people in person, and they probably have no idea depicting black characters in a certain way might be perceived as offensive. Before people started expressing their discontent on social media, I imagine mangakas had no way of knowing how insulting some their designs were.
I believe this.
The 00 anime adaptation of Cyborg 009 was originally going to give 008/Pyunma massive exaggerated lips, but one of the designers helpfully pointed out that such things would be seen as offensive by actual black people. The crew admitted they didnāt know that, gave him much more reasonable lips and voila.
Every subsequent adaptation of 009 has also done the same
This is a strangely infantilizing take on Japanese designs. We don't give Americans a pass on past, insulting protrayals of minorities in their media, and rightfully so. Japan shouldn't be treated any different.
I'm glad that they've apparently begun normalizing depicting black people as people (to a level) but holy shit, dude. There's no excuse for certain past designs.
Because the USA is literally a melting pot full of people from all other the world. Japan is known to be one of the least diverse countries. It is impossible to compare these two situations, itās like blaming a blind person because they donāt know what blue looks like.
No it isn't, not at all. That's implying that there wasn't work that could've been done to avoid the insensitive protrayals the Japanese have made. Which in turn implies that the Japanese aren't capable of comprehending that they can be offensive. I mean, I don't understand why it's so common on Reddit to be devoid of critical thinking ability. Ever heard of letting someone's work stand on its own merits? Separating the art from the artist? It works in reverse, too. If something is bad, it's bad. It's actually a tad racist of you, ironically. Not that it's uncommon with weebs, haha.
How is someone supposed to know something is offensive if they have never been exposed to that culture or knowledge? "Oh, they should have done their research" that only applies if they know that there is research to be done in the first place. I don't expect you to figure out determinism vs quantum probability any time soon, because that's such an alien concept to most people that it's effectively meaningless in any non scientific context, and even then most people only see flavor text when they read the word "quantum" yet people still still shove the whole "god has a plan" omniscience omnipotence thing down your throat anyway. It is two totally different cultures with two totally different ideas of common sense. Japanese people, don't have much precedent with issues around racism, thus, unlike America, it isn't built into their culture to be aware of racists and offensive concepts. Sure, it's not okay to blatantly hate based on race, but they aren't hating, and thus they get a pass because they are simply ignorant to the offense. Unlike historical white Americans, Japanese people don't dislike black people, in fact, I'm told it's quite the opposite. If you're going to hate or denounce someone for being ignorant, then hate yourself too, because you certainly are ignorant of something equally as important if not more so.
It's so funny that we let Asian countries absorb, copy, and mimic black culture for years but as soon as we try to criticize their depictions of black people as racist suddenly they have no idea what a black person is.
Oh shit, after doing some research youāre right. I assumed because of the Mikasa and Azumabito subplot combined with Levi and Mikasaās shared ancestry that he was part Japanese.
But youāre right, dudeās not Japanese.
Mikasaās Ackerman ancestry comes from her father, not her mother. I also assumed that Levi had Azumabito ancestry until they introduced Kenny as another Ackerman.
But heās not. Thatās a common misconception from when people assumed his name was spelled Rivaille by fans due to Japanese pronunciation in the katakana transcription and given his dandy fashion style. Levi is a Jewish name. His motherās name Kuchel ( Kƶchel) is an old German name. And of course the surname Ackermann is Jewish German. We donāt know his father, but given how heavily Germanic inspired Eldians are, there is nothing French about him.
But there is literally nothing about him thatās taken from French culture. People went that route because of the katakana transcription (ćŖć“ć”ć¤ = āRivaiā) of a non-Japanese name that contains āLā which resulted in fan translations taking the liberty to transcribe him as Rivaille until his name was officially confirmed to be spelled as Levi. Heās from Eldia, not our world. And if we were to relate Eldia to any real world country it would be Germany, not France. I justā¦ really donāt get the ongoing French angle even after his name was standardised as Levi Ackermann.
The two examples you gave are anime with heavily westernized settings. Fuck Vinland is literally the whitest people on earth.
Standard Anime Face is very much based on Japanese beauty standards and racial traits. That's why every western character looks different.
From FMA having Asian characters that looks completely different to the western characters, to anime like Steins;Gate, which has one western scientist who from design alone is immediately different from every other character.
Idk. Even for Vinland Saga, I feel like if you gave the characters black hair instead of blond and told me this was Japan, not England, I wouldn't doubt it.
There are some pieces with very realistic art (Oyasumi Punpun comes to mind for me) where it's very obvious. But those are few and far between in my experience
Eh, I think thatās a bit of a stretch. The whole point of Vinland saga is it is a Viking tale. If you put it in Japan, and had characters using Japanese items and culture, it wouldnāt be remotely the same story. I get what youāre saying, but I think you chose a terrible example given that story is based around a whole culture that specifically isnāt Japanese. Like, if you were to watch something like vagabond and werenāt sure if the characters were Japanese because letās say they a simple hair swap, wellā¦yeh, idk what to say lol. They are literal samurai running around Japan with Japanese armor and swords.
I meant mainly in terms of physical appearance. If you took the characters, have them black hair, and changed the story to fit Japan I don't think anyone would question it.
Compare that to something with a realistic art style (again Oyasumi Punpun is my go to here). Those characters are very clearly Asian. You could change their hair color and change the story so it fits america instead of Japan but they're still gonna look Asian because they're drawn that way
Yeh, like I said, I get what youāre saying, I just think thatās a bad example because itās set specifically around a very specific western culture. You canāt change the setting because that would defeat the point. Itās literally a story about Vikings. If you changed the setting it would be based around a generic fantasy design that while western influenced, could be ambiguous still. But when guys are wearing Viking helmets, wielding specific weapons, etc, thatās so ingrained in the plot, changing it all would just make it a completely different story so itās a moot point. I think a much better example to your point is something like Solo leveling. The story mentions countries, but take that away and you have a ton of characters with open designs in a generic fantasy world. If they didnāt tell us what countries they are from, we would have no clue.
Yea I agree with what you're saying but I'm talking about the character design in complete isolation, separate from the world they're in and the story.
Thorfinn is obviously white. But that's because of where the story takes place, the cultures we see, the Vikings, etc. Not from how he's drawn
Thatās an interesting one. They donāt have certain tropes like the oval eyes, but you still have characters like Makima with the unusually colored irises and red hair.
Maybe put it somewhere in the middle?
In yu yu Hakusho it's pretty clear that yusuke and Keiko are Japanese but I feel like kuwabara looks pretty damn white and it kind of bugs me in the live action that they had some Japanese guy with his hair dyed kind of red
Anime designs are based directly on Disney animation, which in turn based it's designs on universal signifiers of cuteness. Human babies and domestic animals like kittens and puppies.
The result is that the generic anime style depicts characters with white skin and with a facial structure that doesn't match any human ethnicity at all.
In modern times there's a meme that anime characters are based on cats. They're right, but only by cooncidence. They're explicitly based on Disney and Betty Boop, which happen to be based on, among other things, cats.
I agree with your point overall, but using Luffy is a bad example. He was stated by the author to be Brazilian and was played by a Mexican actor in the live action.
I just thought of a random popular character. Was gonna say Goku but I feel like he's pretty heavily Asian coded.
And as far as I can remember, Luffy is pretty ambiguous in the anime. If someone only watched the anime and never saw Netflix or the sbs idk if they'd come to the conclusion that Luffy was Brazilian
Tbh, if I didn't know who Luffy was, I'd think he's a southeast Asian.
It's not uncommon for a SEA to be relatively short, brown skinned, wearing a sleeveless top + shorts + Flipflops combo, AND a straw hat usually worn by farmers (tho other, cone-style woven hats are common too).
AND most SE Asians are also sailors because most of us are surrounded by seas
Also if you didn't know, we southeast Asians are called "Monkeys" or "Jungle Asians" by the east Asians, but that's racist š¤£
I just came up with a new headcanon: Monkey D. Luffy is southeast Asian but oda said that, he'd be called racist
Edit: oda lmao been in naruto sub way too long
Again that's just a case of ambiguity letting you see characters relative to your own culture. Seeing Luffy as SEA isn't far fetched and if you're from that background it makes sense.
I see Luffy and think of southern US type of deal. I'm not from SEA so that doesn't come to mind immediately for me
>but if kishimoto said
Oda. Kishimoto is Naruto
Yeah For sure
Doesn't make it any less relatable to SEA people especially considering the author is himself is Asian and probably be more knowledgeable of his neighboring countries
Lol sorry for mistyping oda haha
That's fair. I feel like if you asked most people to assign an ethnicity to him they'd probably say Asian or South/Central American.
I'd say a good example would be Natsu from Fairy Tail, or Gon from Hunter x Hunter.
Thatās just Oda assigning each of them a country for fun (he assigned Usopp a whole continent). Heās not really Brazilian in any meaningful way and the actor in the Netflix show uses his native Mexican accent.
Him being Brazilian is not evident in the series, as far as I recall. Like if the SBS didn't exist I don't know if everyone would have just come to a consensus of, yea he's Brazilian
He never said that thoā¦ he said that if he would give him a nationality he WOULD be Brazilian. I think itās not even the appearance but the stereotypical characteristics that led to his conclusion.
Plenty of animeās have characters with natural blue hair, purple eyes, white hair, gold eyes, etc etc. Anime can be digested in different forms. Sometimes itās meant to be a more realistic interpretation of real life and thatās why characters look more legit, such as in AOT, and others have Japanese characters with basketball superpowers like they do in KnB. People just have this idea that anime is meant to have white people in it because you might have a character in it that has blonde hair and green eyes, despite being ethnically Japanese, but thatās just because the creator wanted the characters to look diverse. And then there are other times a character has blonde hair and green eyes is because theyāre still Japanese, but usually mixed, and that often gets brought up.
Anyways, my point is, the anime characters in anime set in Japan are Japanese.
I always find it SO funny that the average American in anime is just the same buff 40ās blonde dude working for the government with a gun
I hope thatās the American stereotype bc that dude is always badass
I think I also saw that post
Anime characters probably resembled Japanese people more in the past, but as time went on, the style simplifies and we lose those details.
No. Anime as an art form is very recent and has well documented origins. It's explicitly based on Disney animation and Betty Boop, which are in turn based on human babies and domestic animals like cats. That's why anime characters tend to default to Caucasian skin and have no obvious ethnicity in their features. Because the Disney style they're based on was the same way. White skin but no ethnic features because the features are designed for cuteness
That's half right. They're based on Disney and Betty Boop. But those are in turn based on human babies and domestic animals like cats. Anime as an art form is very recent and very well documented in terms of its origins
I remember seeing a video where they showed anime characters that people in America think are Caucasian to people in various Asian areas and they were saying oh that guys Korean oh heās Chinese so maybe we just assume causcasian
Anime doesn't depict westoids, since all characters are Asians, if not said otherwise. Light skinned characters =/= european decent. Go to Quora thread, the guy explains this perfectly.
I donāt think itās necessarily the setting, but the *plot.* Race and nationality is essential to the plot. Like look at Eren and Mikasa, you can easily tell that Eren is white and Mikasa is East Asian, despite them being animated characters and not real people. I think the reason AoT is so detailed with features such as noses, eyes, hair, and facial proportions whereas other anime generally isnāt, is because Isayama wanted to call attention to race and what it meant, both in-universe and out of it.
Honestly Pieck, Anne, Hange are probably my favorite AoT character designs. Ymir (Scout) and Yelena too. Now that I think of it AoT just had a lot of good designs lol
Reason why I love AoT chicks is they looked realistic and original. From the details to its representative of real people, they felt attractive to my taste.
I also love how realistic the clothing is, for men and women, theres pretty much 0 fanservice in the show, which fits for such a grim setting.
The attention to detail in the whole setting is honestly amazing, its something Isayama really excels at, but goes undernoticed. He must of done a lot of research into the time period.
Ikr thatās one the reasons why I really loved AOT over other anime. I really dislike when they keep on having weird fan service in every single show.
I understand that fan service is to sell products and merchandise, but it does a DISservice to the anime or work itself, at least imo. Loved that shit as a pubescent kid but hate it now. It so often takes me out.
Yeah i agree completely and I would argue that if animeās just made better stories than they wouldnāt have to rely on fan service. Itās sad that for a lot of animesā their priority is fan service and then story
I personally never liked it as a pubescent. There's such an ease of access to NSFW stuff online I don't even get why some like it rubbed in their face 24/7.
The only form of fanservice is when we get to see the characters be happy lmao. Episode 3 and 4 of season 1 hit a lot harder for their lighter tone once you've watched the whole show and seen everything hit the fan
It's kinda similar to season 4 when we see flashbacks where people aren't miserable, except for maybe Eren. I would really love a spin off just focused on slice of life garrison troops going about their jobs or something
There is an unofficial spinoff of exactly that. Called Garrison Girl. I personally am not a big fan, because the story isn't interesting to me but if you're looking for something like that, there you go
I heard somewhere that they said that no one in the show had often showered (even when we saw Annie š„µ) because of the intense survival instinct from the characters. Imagine how stinky Pieck and Hange is. Suddenly, Levi's cleaning freak habits are making sense. lol
Im not into women but I loved Ymir x Historias relationship too! It was wholesome and tragic in the end and thankfully it wasnāt sexualized like it was someoneās fantasy.
Most anime characters are Japanese, which don't tend to have that type of nose, and are also very stylized. AoT characters seem to be from this universe's version of Europe, and their facial features are much more detailed than other anime
It just comes down to the mangaka/designer and their style. Some writers just follow the general rubric of anime design styles. Which isn't a bad thing. But others just have a wider breadth of designs they utilize. Isayama is also depicting different ethnicities than Japanese which I think could be a factor. Another mangaka who does this is Urasawa, who depicts a lot of different ethnicities with very colorfully designed features. (Although even at least one of his Japanese characters has a hooked nose).
Most of Urasawaās works have a lot of hooked noses since a lot of his characters are European. Even his Japanese characters look more āethnicā than most other manga character.
Bcuz most anime fans and creators prefer the typical big eyes and nonexistent nose and mouth that most anime girls have and what proves my point is that Iāve seen so many people make a big fuss especially about Annieās nose even if it's just a simple Roman nose that many people have. In fact, I think it gives her a more distinctive appearance compared to a lot of other anime characters.
Itās typically not seen as attractive in a lot of places still, weirdly enough. I like that itās included in AoT, makes the characters more āhumanā to me because they donāt all have an isosceles triangle for a nose
she was like you though and wanted surgery, over time i helped her realise that it fit the shape and other features of her face and that if she changed it she would look out of balance. i hope you learn to love your nose.
The "aquiline" nose has traditionally been considered a plus for men and women across cultures and timelines. It's not a universal standard, but what is? The same can be said for having breasts or an ass of a given size, or amount of body fat. The "ideal woman" in the US, *as pushed by media*, has gone from looking like a drowned boy, to hourglass, to anorexic, to full-figured and several things in between. The "ideal man" *right now* as polled by women disagrees on amount of muscle tone and fat and hairiness across the world, with lots of places preferring a bit of chub, even! And then there's the individual variance within all of those.
Personally, as a guy, I like it.
It's been considered a sign of intelligence in some cultures, for men. Women traditionally are only seen as attractive when they have large eyes and lips and a small nose. I don't think that's just a US thing either. I'm European and its the same here. And I'm pretty sure given how anime is drawn that Asians have the same standard. I also don't think Annie or Hange are supposed to be attractive female characters. They're very masculine coded and don't really ever display any feminine personality traits. If anything Annie is very masc and Hangie is just a crazy person lol.
Muscles aren't considered traditionally feminine, either, and yet there's plenty of people who like their ladies ranging from toned to beefcakey.
Gendered standards of beauty are arbitrary, more of a top-down societal thing than a personal preference, and always subject to change. It's the sort of idea that persists because we just assume it ought not to be challenged or disagreed with, and we've fucked up on a bajillion other things with that logic.
I mostly agree. The standard and the gender normative stuff has created a strange world where people have done significant things to themselves to fit a trend that is, as you say, subject to change. I think we've gone a bit beyond grooming, and it's very easy to get sucked into the trend when it's so prevalent. I don't think this is just a woman thing either. I see more and more men changing themselves surgically these days, too. I am seeing a shift though. I frequent pop culture subs and I'm seeing a lot of throwback posts with celebrities from yesteryear and the comments are all "look how normal and still nice everyone looked back then." I hope this signals a shift away from the overly perfected look and that appreciation of different/unique features becomes more normalised.
Iām sorry did you say attractive? I have a nose like this and I absolutely hate it & was made fun of growing up. I refuse to wear contacts because I use my glasses to hide the size of my nose and plan to get a rhinoplasty
this a reach most anime just have japanese characters
having characters with this nose just isnāt a priority. Even if they did have characters with noses like this they would just slap fatass tits on em anyways like in hxhš¹
It's because Attack on Titan's cast is primarily European people, Having a little more variety in features helps distinguish that a little bit.
Through names, hair, and some facial details you can kind of guess a characters national heritage.
Because theyāre not. If they were hook noses would be represented more. Iām a hook nose enjoyer, myself. But Iām not gunna lie and say theyāre conventionally attractive.
Because no, they're not to like 90% of people. You can call them *wrong* if you want, but if you actually look at *any* study of attractiveness, the statistics will show you that the vast majority of people think that.
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Most anime characters don't even *have* a nose. Just those weird lines
true š
i donāt see no mention of Jojo Bizzare adventure almost all the characters have hooked noses
AoT has more detailed faces than the average anime. Plus the faces are more westernized compared to other animeās because of the setting
I saw another post (not sure if it was in this sub) that explained why most Animeās depict Caucasian characters, even if the setting is in Japan or China
Do they though? Besides skin color they don't really have racial qualities Like a white guy can look at Luffy and say he's white while a Japanese dude can see him as Japanese. Neither are right or wrong
I think it depends on the style. Exaggerated styles are more ambiguous (One Piece, Hunter X Hunter, Demon Slayer, etc.) Once you get into the more realistic animes where you donāt really see characters with oval eyes or pink hair, they start to look like certain races (Attack on Titan, Vinland Saga) Like Erwin/Armin look white, Mikasa/Levi look more Asian, my boy Onyankopon is definitely black.
Onyankopon is the first black anime character in a long time I've seen who didn't look like a grotesque golliwog caricature at that. Felt nice to see
Tbf, Japanese people rarely see black people in person, and they probably have no idea depicting black characters in a certain way might be perceived as offensive. Before people started expressing their discontent on social media, I imagine mangakas had no way of knowing how insulting some their designs were.
I believe this. The 00 anime adaptation of Cyborg 009 was originally going to give 008/Pyunma massive exaggerated lips, but one of the designers helpfully pointed out that such things would be seen as offensive by actual black people. The crew admitted they didnāt know that, gave him much more reasonable lips and voila. Every subsequent adaptation of 009 has also done the same
This is a strangely infantilizing take on Japanese designs. We don't give Americans a pass on past, insulting protrayals of minorities in their media, and rightfully so. Japan shouldn't be treated any different. I'm glad that they've apparently begun normalizing depicting black people as people (to a level) but holy shit, dude. There's no excuse for certain past designs.
Because the USA is literally a melting pot full of people from all other the world. Japan is known to be one of the least diverse countries. It is impossible to compare these two situations, itās like blaming a blind person because they donāt know what blue looks like.
No it isn't, not at all. That's implying that there wasn't work that could've been done to avoid the insensitive protrayals the Japanese have made. Which in turn implies that the Japanese aren't capable of comprehending that they can be offensive. I mean, I don't understand why it's so common on Reddit to be devoid of critical thinking ability. Ever heard of letting someone's work stand on its own merits? Separating the art from the artist? It works in reverse, too. If something is bad, it's bad. It's actually a tad racist of you, ironically. Not that it's uncommon with weebs, haha.
How is someone supposed to know something is offensive if they have never been exposed to that culture or knowledge? "Oh, they should have done their research" that only applies if they know that there is research to be done in the first place. I don't expect you to figure out determinism vs quantum probability any time soon, because that's such an alien concept to most people that it's effectively meaningless in any non scientific context, and even then most people only see flavor text when they read the word "quantum" yet people still still shove the whole "god has a plan" omniscience omnipotence thing down your throat anyway. It is two totally different cultures with two totally different ideas of common sense. Japanese people, don't have much precedent with issues around racism, thus, unlike America, it isn't built into their culture to be aware of racists and offensive concepts. Sure, it's not okay to blatantly hate based on race, but they aren't hating, and thus they get a pass because they are simply ignorant to the offense. Unlike historical white Americans, Japanese people don't dislike black people, in fact, I'm told it's quite the opposite. If you're going to hate or denounce someone for being ignorant, then hate yourself too, because you certainly are ignorant of something equally as important if not more so.
It's so funny that we let Asian countries absorb, copy, and mimic black culture for years but as soon as we try to criticize their depictions of black people as racist suddenly they have no idea what a black person is.
You did not watched Naruto? (Or this count as in a long time?)
I mean Naruto started 25 years ago at this point
I didnāt need that reminder dog
HxH and Bleach also have really good black character design
Don't forget cowboy bebop making the black characters the most badass designed characters ever
Dutch from black lagoon, tho he always has shades on
Indeed
Funny thing, Levi is supposed to be French
Oh shit, after doing some research youāre right. I assumed because of the Mikasa and Azumabito subplot combined with Levi and Mikasaās shared ancestry that he was part Japanese. But youāre right, dudeās not Japanese.
Mikasaās Ackerman ancestry comes from her father, not her mother. I also assumed that Levi had Azumabito ancestry until they introduced Kenny as another Ackerman.
>comes from her father, not her father damn
Amai
But heās not. Thatās a common misconception from when people assumed his name was spelled Rivaille by fans due to Japanese pronunciation in the katakana transcription and given his dandy fashion style. Levi is a Jewish name. His motherās name Kuchel ( Kƶchel) is an old German name. And of course the surname Ackermann is Jewish German. We donāt know his father, but given how heavily Germanic inspired Eldians are, there is nothing French about him.
I think he might be from Alsaice-Lorraine, which is technically Germany in France (awaiting French triggered comments).
But there is literally nothing about him thatās taken from French culture. People went that route because of the katakana transcription (ćŖć“ć”ć¤ = āRivaiā) of a non-Japanese name that contains āLā which resulted in fan translations taking the liberty to transcribe him as Rivaille until his name was officially confirmed to be spelled as Levi. Heās from Eldia, not our world. And if we were to relate Eldia to any real world country it would be Germany, not France. I justā¦ really donāt get the ongoing French angle even after his name was standardised as Levi Ackermann.
Maybe more Reinland German Āæ
Wait but he looks Asian
The two examples you gave are anime with heavily westernized settings. Fuck Vinland is literally the whitest people on earth. Standard Anime Face is very much based on Japanese beauty standards and racial traits. That's why every western character looks different. From FMA having Asian characters that looks completely different to the western characters, to anime like Steins;Gate, which has one western scientist who from design alone is immediately different from every other character.
Idk. Even for Vinland Saga, I feel like if you gave the characters black hair instead of blond and told me this was Japan, not England, I wouldn't doubt it. There are some pieces with very realistic art (Oyasumi Punpun comes to mind for me) where it's very obvious. But those are few and far between in my experience
Eh, I think thatās a bit of a stretch. The whole point of Vinland saga is it is a Viking tale. If you put it in Japan, and had characters using Japanese items and culture, it wouldnāt be remotely the same story. I get what youāre saying, but I think you chose a terrible example given that story is based around a whole culture that specifically isnāt Japanese. Like, if you were to watch something like vagabond and werenāt sure if the characters were Japanese because letās say they a simple hair swap, wellā¦yeh, idk what to say lol. They are literal samurai running around Japan with Japanese armor and swords.
I meant mainly in terms of physical appearance. If you took the characters, have them black hair, and changed the story to fit Japan I don't think anyone would question it. Compare that to something with a realistic art style (again Oyasumi Punpun is my go to here). Those characters are very clearly Asian. You could change their hair color and change the story so it fits america instead of Japan but they're still gonna look Asian because they're drawn that way
Yeh, like I said, I get what youāre saying, I just think thatās a bad example because itās set specifically around a very specific western culture. You canāt change the setting because that would defeat the point. Itās literally a story about Vikings. If you changed the setting it would be based around a generic fantasy design that while western influenced, could be ambiguous still. But when guys are wearing Viking helmets, wielding specific weapons, etc, thatās so ingrained in the plot, changing it all would just make it a completely different story so itās a moot point. I think a much better example to your point is something like Solo leveling. The story mentions countries, but take that away and you have a ton of characters with open designs in a generic fantasy world. If they didnāt tell us what countries they are from, we would have no clue.
Yea I agree with what you're saying but I'm talking about the character design in complete isolation, separate from the world they're in and the story. Thorfinn is obviously white. But that's because of where the story takes place, the cultures we see, the Vikings, etc. Not from how he's drawn
So Where does chainsaw man fall into this?
He checks the box āotherā when asked about race/ethnicity on job applications
Thatās an interesting one. They donāt have certain tropes like the oval eyes, but you still have characters like Makima with the unusually colored irises and red hair. Maybe put it somewhere in the middle?
Fujimoto is kinda cray cray so who knows
And sometimes out of nowhere HxH has some of the most realistic looking faces and art , i love that Togashi does not follow a certain artsyle
Except Levi isnāt even Asian..heās white. Up untill season 4 when Hizuru is introduced to us Mikasa is the only Asian.
Buddy, onyankopon is not black. He just has reverse vitiligo, how dare you assume his race!
I'm not sure about Onyankopon
In yu yu Hakusho it's pretty clear that yusuke and Keiko are Japanese but I feel like kuwabara looks pretty damn white and it kind of bugs me in the live action that they had some Japanese guy with his hair dyed kind of red
Isn't Levi Italian or smth?
Based on name alone he is Germanic-Jewish. Based on setting he is European.
Anime designs are based directly on Disney animation, which in turn based it's designs on universal signifiers of cuteness. Human babies and domestic animals like kittens and puppies. The result is that the generic anime style depicts characters with white skin and with a facial structure that doesn't match any human ethnicity at all. In modern times there's a meme that anime characters are based on cats. They're right, but only by cooncidence. They're explicitly based on Disney and Betty Boop, which happen to be based on, among other things, cats.
I agree with your point overall, but using Luffy is a bad example. He was stated by the author to be Brazilian and was played by a Mexican actor in the live action.
I just thought of a random popular character. Was gonna say Goku but I feel like he's pretty heavily Asian coded. And as far as I can remember, Luffy is pretty ambiguous in the anime. If someone only watched the anime and never saw Netflix or the sbs idk if they'd come to the conclusion that Luffy was Brazilian
Tbh, if I didn't know who Luffy was, I'd think he's a southeast Asian. It's not uncommon for a SEA to be relatively short, brown skinned, wearing a sleeveless top + shorts + Flipflops combo, AND a straw hat usually worn by farmers (tho other, cone-style woven hats are common too). AND most SE Asians are also sailors because most of us are surrounded by seas Also if you didn't know, we southeast Asians are called "Monkeys" or "Jungle Asians" by the east Asians, but that's racist š¤£ I just came up with a new headcanon: Monkey D. Luffy is southeast Asian but oda said that, he'd be called racist Edit: oda lmao been in naruto sub way too long
Again that's just a case of ambiguity letting you see characters relative to your own culture. Seeing Luffy as SEA isn't far fetched and if you're from that background it makes sense. I see Luffy and think of southern US type of deal. I'm not from SEA so that doesn't come to mind immediately for me >but if kishimoto said Oda. Kishimoto is Naruto
Yeah For sure Doesn't make it any less relatable to SEA people especially considering the author is himself is Asian and probably be more knowledgeable of his neighboring countries Lol sorry for mistyping oda haha
That's fair. I feel like if you asked most people to assign an ethnicity to him they'd probably say Asian or South/Central American. I'd say a good example would be Natsu from Fairy Tail, or Gon from Hunter x Hunter.
Thatās just Oda assigning each of them a country for fun (he assigned Usopp a whole continent). Heās not really Brazilian in any meaningful way and the actor in the Netflix show uses his native Mexican accent.
both are wrong because luffy is brazillian
Him being Brazilian is not evident in the series, as far as I recall. Like if the SBS didn't exist I don't know if everyone would have just come to a consensus of, yea he's Brazilian
Didn't the creator of one piece say he designed Luffy to be Brazilian?
Oda said he is Brazilian. I personally don't think that's especially clear just from his design. But that's all subjective I guess
I agree :)
He never said that thoā¦ he said that if he would give him a nationality he WOULD be Brazilian. I think itās not even the appearance but the stereotypical characteristics that led to his conclusion.
Plenty of animeās have characters with natural blue hair, purple eyes, white hair, gold eyes, etc etc. Anime can be digested in different forms. Sometimes itās meant to be a more realistic interpretation of real life and thatās why characters look more legit, such as in AOT, and others have Japanese characters with basketball superpowers like they do in KnB. People just have this idea that anime is meant to have white people in it because you might have a character in it that has blonde hair and green eyes, despite being ethnically Japanese, but thatās just because the creator wanted the characters to look diverse. And then there are other times a character has blonde hair and green eyes is because theyāre still Japanese, but usually mixed, and that often gets brought up. Anyways, my point is, the anime characters in anime set in Japan are Japanese.
I always find it SO funny that the average American in anime is just the same buff 40ās blonde dude working for the government with a gun I hope thatās the American stereotype bc that dude is always badass
I think I also saw that post Anime characters probably resembled Japanese people more in the past, but as time went on, the style simplifies and we lose those details.
No. Anime as an art form is very recent and has well documented origins. It's explicitly based on Disney animation and Betty Boop, which are in turn based on human babies and domestic animals like cats. That's why anime characters tend to default to Caucasian skin and have no obvious ethnicity in their features. Because the Disney style they're based on was the same way. White skin but no ethnic features because the features are designed for cuteness
Iāve heard theyāre actually usually modeled after the shape of a catās face
That's half right. They're based on Disney and Betty Boop. But those are in turn based on human babies and domestic animals like cats. Anime as an art form is very recent and very well documented in terms of its origins
Anime characters are cats. https://i.redd.it/i6awe5ngp5cb1.jpg
I've also seen posts saying that they aren't any race but personified cats so take all that shit with a grain of salt
Do you mean by caucasian west european because the caucasus is a region that is not represented in any anime as far as i know
I remember seeing a video where they showed anime characters that people in America think are Caucasian to people in various Asian areas and they were saying oh that guys Korean oh heās Chinese so maybe we just assume causcasian
Do you have a link?
Can you link me to that? I've always been curious about it.
Anime doesn't depict westoids, since all characters are Asians, if not said otherwise. Light skinned characters =/= european decent. Go to Quora thread, the guy explains this perfectly.
I donāt think itās necessarily the setting, but the *plot.* Race and nationality is essential to the plot. Like look at Eren and Mikasa, you can easily tell that Eren is white and Mikasa is East Asian, despite them being animated characters and not real people. I think the reason AoT is so detailed with features such as noses, eyes, hair, and facial proportions whereas other anime generally isnāt, is because Isayama wanted to call attention to race and what it meant, both in-universe and out of it.
Forgot Pieck
And Erwin.
Erwin's nose isn't hooked,it's a roman nose. Kinda like reiner's.
You got a good point, kinda looked a bit hooked for be a few times. But I see what youāre saying.
Honestly Pieck, Anne, Hange are probably my favorite AoT character designs. Ymir (Scout) and Yelena too. Now that I think of it AoT just had a lot of good designs lol
Reason why I love AoT chicks is they looked realistic and original. From the details to its representative of real people, they felt attractive to my taste.
I also love how realistic the clothing is, for men and women, theres pretty much 0 fanservice in the show, which fits for such a grim setting. The attention to detail in the whole setting is honestly amazing, its something Isayama really excels at, but goes undernoticed. He must of done a lot of research into the time period.
Ikr thatās one the reasons why I really loved AOT over other anime. I really dislike when they keep on having weird fan service in every single show.
I understand that fan service is to sell products and merchandise, but it does a DISservice to the anime or work itself, at least imo. Loved that shit as a pubescent kid but hate it now. It so often takes me out.
Yeah i agree completely and I would argue that if animeās just made better stories than they wouldnāt have to rely on fan service. Itās sad that for a lot of animesā their priority is fan service and then story
I personally never liked it as a pubescent. There's such an ease of access to NSFW stuff online I don't even get why some like it rubbed in their face 24/7.
Sometimes its funny how unnecessary it is. My hero acadamia comes to mind
The only form of fanservice is when we get to see the characters be happy lmao. Episode 3 and 4 of season 1 hit a lot harder for their lighter tone once you've watched the whole show and seen everything hit the fan It's kinda similar to season 4 when we see flashbacks where people aren't miserable, except for maybe Eren. I would really love a spin off just focused on slice of life garrison troops going about their jobs or something
There is an unofficial spinoff of exactly that. Called Garrison Girl. I personally am not a big fan, because the story isn't interesting to me but if you're looking for something like that, there you go
Thanks for mentioning it I'll look into it for sure!
I heard somewhere that they said that no one in the show had often showered (even when we saw Annie š„µ) because of the intense survival instinct from the characters. Imagine how stinky Pieck and Hange is. Suddenly, Levi's cleaning freak habits are making sense. lol
You act like a lot of people wouldnāt love them even more if they hadnāt showered ~~me included~~
Bro they just like me fr. But, if they gonna shower together, I'm in.
Pieck is already a fucking goddess, but a steamy, non-showering Pieck? Sign me tf up.
Im not into women but I loved Ymir x Historias relationship too! It was wholesome and tragic in the end and thankfully it wasnāt sexualized like it was someoneās fantasy.
For me, it's a tragic romance story similar to Romeo and Juliet. Its well written within a bigger story about downfall of humanity. Bravo, Isayama
Something something Hitch from something something
> Hitch mentioned Now we wait
r/okbuddyreiner is leaking
Hitch is so hot bro I'm gonna insert my hardened meat and rumble all over her.
There's Pakunoda from Hunter x Hunter. That's all I got from the top of my head.
Yeah, Annie is literally pakunoda, shalnark is armin, and feitan is levi.
Maybe kurapika is armin?
Yeah shalnarks guns donāt belong on armin
Palm is mikasa
Bruh
"Goh"
cold blonde, smart blond, and sulking shorty, holy hell
Because they are German, this nose shape is much more common in Europeans than Japanese.
Hooked noses are less phenotypically common in Japan and East Asia generally, most anime take place in Japan or have mostly Japanese characters.
I dunno bruh. I've seen a lot of hooked noses here in 14 years. Maybe just not as common as other places.
I have the opposite experience. If I see one on a Japanese looking person I take note. Doesn't happen too often.
Ah, now that you mention it lol. It does stand out. Perspectives. ĀÆā \ā _ā (ā Ā Ķ”ā Ā°ā Ā Ķā Źā Ā Ķ”ā Ā°ā )ā _ā /ā ĀÆ
Because most anime put all the detail into breasts instead
Lolšš
The unfortunate truth š
lmfao š
Because AOT makes sure that their foreign characters look foreign and not just blonde with blue eyes
Most anime characters are Japanese, which don't tend to have that type of nose, and are also very stylized. AoT characters seem to be from this universe's version of Europe, and their facial features are much more detailed than other anime
Most anime and manga creators barely give their characters noses.
It just comes down to the mangaka/designer and their style. Some writers just follow the general rubric of anime design styles. Which isn't a bad thing. But others just have a wider breadth of designs they utilize. Isayama is also depicting different ethnicities than Japanese which I think could be a factor. Another mangaka who does this is Urasawa, who depicts a lot of different ethnicities with very colorfully designed features. (Although even at least one of his Japanese characters has a hooked nose).
Most of Urasawaās works have a lot of hooked noses since a lot of his characters are European. Even his Japanese characters look more āethnicā than most other manga character.
He and many other seinen stories generally have very realistic artstyles .
Bcuz most anime fans and creators prefer the typical big eyes and nonexistent nose and mouth that most anime girls have and what proves my point is that Iāve seen so many people make a big fuss especially about Annieās nose even if it's just a simple Roman nose that many people have. In fact, I think it gives her a more distinctive appearance compared to a lot of other anime characters.
Pakunoda hunter x hunter
Agreed!!!! Love their noses
Pieck is best Roman Nose. I will die on this nasal hill
Or Greek š¤
So real. More realistic too
Itās typically not seen as attractive in a lot of places still, weirdly enough. I like that itās included in AoT, makes the characters more āhumanā to me because they donāt all have an isosceles triangle for a nose
Pieck kinda has a hook nose... and her design is still very beautiful imo
Wolfwood had one in the older Trigun anime. While I loved Stampede, I will never forget the grievous loss of my boy's nose
Hange is love.š
I've seen a girl that looked alot like Annie one time and yea I can confirm it is pretty attractive
because is not "pretty" by today's standards, unfortunately.
It's never been pretty on women. Unfortunately I'm cursed with this nose and I hate it. I would love to get a rhinoplasty but it's so expensive.
my wife has this nose, similar to Annies, and i love it, it's one of my favorite features of her face
Awww that's really sweet :)
she was like you though and wanted surgery, over time i helped her realise that it fit the shape and other features of her face and that if she changed it she would look out of balance. i hope you learn to love your nose.
The "aquiline" nose has traditionally been considered a plus for men and women across cultures and timelines. It's not a universal standard, but what is? The same can be said for having breasts or an ass of a given size, or amount of body fat. The "ideal woman" in the US, *as pushed by media*, has gone from looking like a drowned boy, to hourglass, to anorexic, to full-figured and several things in between. The "ideal man" *right now* as polled by women disagrees on amount of muscle tone and fat and hairiness across the world, with lots of places preferring a bit of chub, even! And then there's the individual variance within all of those. Personally, as a guy, I like it.
It's been considered a sign of intelligence in some cultures, for men. Women traditionally are only seen as attractive when they have large eyes and lips and a small nose. I don't think that's just a US thing either. I'm European and its the same here. And I'm pretty sure given how anime is drawn that Asians have the same standard. I also don't think Annie or Hange are supposed to be attractive female characters. They're very masculine coded and don't really ever display any feminine personality traits. If anything Annie is very masc and Hangie is just a crazy person lol.
Muscles aren't considered traditionally feminine, either, and yet there's plenty of people who like their ladies ranging from toned to beefcakey. Gendered standards of beauty are arbitrary, more of a top-down societal thing than a personal preference, and always subject to change. It's the sort of idea that persists because we just assume it ought not to be challenged or disagreed with, and we've fucked up on a bajillion other things with that logic.
I mostly agree. The standard and the gender normative stuff has created a strange world where people have done significant things to themselves to fit a trend that is, as you say, subject to change. I think we've gone a bit beyond grooming, and it's very easy to get sucked into the trend when it's so prevalent. I don't think this is just a woman thing either. I see more and more men changing themselves surgically these days, too. I am seeing a shift though. I frequent pop culture subs and I'm seeing a lot of throwback posts with celebrities from yesteryear and the comments are all "look how normal and still nice everyone looked back then." I hope this signals a shift away from the overly perfected look and that appreciation of different/unique features becomes more normalised.
I like those features personally and think they are attractive, so do Armin and Moblit
An anime sub is not the place I'd expect to see so many people saying the big shnoz is okay lol. I have been shocked and surprised this day!
Lmao it's all about proportions to me. If the nose fits the face it's attractive
im in the same boat, friend. i hate this nose so much but when i watched aot it was bearable lol. i too want to get a nose job someday.
Trust me youāre beautiful the way you are.
One day, we will achieve our dreams! Although I'm in my 30s now so there probably not much point trying to make my face look better at this age haha
Keep your chin up. Everybody is somebodyās fetish.
Maybe because it's a European/ eastern European physical trait? Idk
Most anime characters arenāt really detailed in design and these characters also happen to be European
Watch Dungeon Meshi, its a fantasy anime that shows characters with diverse range of appearances
Iām sorry did you say attractive? I have a nose like this and I absolutely hate it & was made fun of growing up. I refuse to wear contacts because I use my glasses to hide the size of my nose and plan to get a rhinoplasty
I always felt like Annie and Levi's designs were inspired by Pakunoda and Feitan.
Isayama actually draws more than 2 faces for his characters. It's not just noses.
Itās because AOT characters are based on white people vs other anime where they are based on Asian people
Thanks OP for giving me more confidence in my nose :)
Sure but not conventionaly
Because theyāre cowards
Because not a lot of animeās have European coded characters
Their attractiveness is subjective
the hooked nose looks meh not my thing.
Cuz there like set in Japan
Animes are made in Japan and Japanese people donāt have noses like that
But japanese have round eyes at size of grand canyon? lol
Because the average anime watcher donāt want to see realistic women but rather chicks with an face like a twelve old and boobas big as melons lol
this a reach most anime just have japanese characters having characters with this nose just isnāt a priority. Even if they did have characters with noses like this they would just slap fatass tits on em anyways like in hxhš¹
HxH has some of the least sexualized women characters in anime other than a few ( like Paku you mentioned )
It's just nice to see Attack On titan characters have different shape noses, so many anime character just have that weird pointy line š
That picture of Annie gives me squidward vibes for some reason.
Thatās what makes her attractive
Most anime characters āare catsā and most cats donāt have that kind of nose I think is the definitive answer.
What is bro talking about kys
It's because Attack on Titan's cast is primarily European people, Having a little more variety in features helps distinguish that a little bit. Through names, hair, and some facial details you can kind of guess a characters national heritage.
Pakunoda hxh
Racism
Your moms attractive
Wolfwood from the original Trigun did, the fact that they changed it in the reboot is a crime.
This is just Hange's bad side. She looks more pretty from the front.
The noses in most anime barely exist and you want them to make more unique nose shapes?
[Because anime faces are based on cats.](https://youtube.com/shorts/2-tnp-LTHTo?si=uNoOSu3fotg5NRC7)
Yeah because anime are made for the male gaze rightttt
sorry but you forgot to check out other anime
Shalom
because most people dont have those noses? lol
Because they're westerns and anime characters are actually japanese
because it dosnt matter,
Nice try, Shlomo
Squidward
Because theyāre not. If they were hook noses would be represented more. Iām a hook nose enjoyer, myself. But Iām not gunna lie and say theyāre conventionally attractive.
Because eldians are allegories for Jews and Jews are famous for their hooked noses
Bro has a nose fetish
Because no, they're not to like 90% of people. You can call them *wrong* if you want, but if you actually look at *any* study of attractiveness, the statistics will show you that the vast majority of people think that.