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Usagi-kun
Joined: 03 Jul 2013
Posts: 877
Location: Nashville, TN
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 6:47 pm
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Probably my favorite blonde, gun-toting, crazy 'American' character. But then again, everything is kind of crazy in that manga.
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GeneStriker
Joined: 03 Feb 2016
Posts: 156
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 7:03 pm
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And even if they aren't blond-haired, blue-eyed, you can still tell they're American by the random grammatical nightmare English shout-outs.
OH! MISTAKE!!!!
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EricJ2
Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 7:14 pm
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CoffeeCan wrote: |
Vaisaga wrote: | As a Canadian I'm more miffed that most anime seem to believe that our continent consists only of the United States.
We need more Canadian characters like Kate from Sketchbook and Kirara from GJ-bu. |
Yes, we're always lumped in with United States. At the very least we need proper Canadian stereotypes, coffee, lumberjacks, poutine, The Maritimes accent, RCMP, Igloos, and of course, Hockey.
I love Canadian stereotypes, so much fun you could have with them. |
Don't worry, there are uniquely Canadian stereotypes in the US.
(In fact, it's safe to say that the Kids in the Hall ultimately did more international harm than good...)
I also admire your restraint in not shoving guns or the War of 1812 down our throats, or angrily insisting that any Canadian be properly referred to as "a resident of North Continent", to avoid any insulting misuse of the A-word.
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MajinAkuma
Joined: 15 Aug 2014
Posts: 1199
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 7:33 pm
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Gevani from Death Note is a black-haired American. And I guess that the black-haired Lind L. Taylor is also American. Well, Lester and Lidner fit the stereotype. Raye Penber doesn't really count since he's half-American, half-Japanese.
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Just-another-face
Joined: 08 Feb 2014
Posts: 324
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 7:44 pm
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#821235 wrote: | I can't understand a work you're all saying. Try speaking American. It's the only language I understand, IN AMERICA!! |
You're not funny, just so you know.
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Razor/Edge
Joined: 05 Jun 2015
Posts: 607
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 10:39 pm
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Quote: | Japanese girls were absolutely obsessed with Leonardo DiCaprio back in the Titanic days. |
Let's be honest, who wasn't obsessed with Leo during those days?
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Joe Carpenter
Joined: 29 Oct 2011
Posts: 503
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Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 12:01 am
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Japanese misconceptions of America are too cute for me to take offense, one anime that got it pretty right though is Gunsmith Cats.
Just-another-face wrote: |
#821235 wrote: | I can't understand a work you're all saying. Try speaking American. It's the only language I understand, IN AMERICA!! |
You're not funny, just so you know. |
Hey, a littlekuriboh reference would have been funny...almost a decade ago.
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leafy sea dragon
Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
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Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 1:58 am
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Something that's always weird to me: American people often seen to follow inaccurate stereotypes in Japanese media, but somehow, they always nail the look of an American city, even in stories where not much research was done. They somehow know what makes an American city look different from a Japanese city. However, the reverse--American illustrators rarely ever get the look of a Japanese city down unless it was copied from a photograph or something. Usually, it's just an American city, often NYC, only with more neon signs.
I mean, I recently read an American comic book where the main characters went to Tokyo. The buildings had distinctly American architecture: Old brick buildings with flat tops, Gothic-style skyscrapers, and messy outdoor ground-level train stations. I have never seen Japanese media depict an American city with Japanese architecture, with their signature outdoor stairs and hallways, vertically-oriented steel and glass exteriors, and surburban houses separated by thick brick walls.
GeneStriker wrote: | And even if they aren't blond-haired, blue-eyed, you can still tell they're American by the random grammatical nightmare English shout-outs.
OH! MISTAKE!!!! |
As a bonus, here's an American character who isn't blonde (Joseph Joestar from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure).
NeoStrayCat wrote: | Well, that header picture made me lol, Bandit Keith doing the "Shut up and take my money" pose kinda way. |
Yeah, there is no better subject for this article's thumbnail than Bandit Keith. I would not have accepted anyone else.
Alan45 wrote: | It is not just Americans. Any character who is supposed to be half Caucasian such as Eri in School Rumble is also shown as blond and blue eyed. Blonds have really dominate genes. |
Meanwhile, Nisekoi's leading lady is already a blonde Japanese, so Paula McCoy, the American character complete with a McPrefix, has to one-up Chitoge with her silvery hair.
She doesn't behave in any stereotypically American way though except for her love of guns.
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maxs2d2ace
Joined: 11 Oct 2015
Posts: 8
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Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 2:08 am
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Just-another-face wrote: |
Quote: | Why Are Americans In Anime Always Blonde? |
They also still think black people look like the way blackface unfortunately depicted them (how did Japan ever find out about blackface during the Famicom era when they were making games like Higemaru in the late 80s anyway?). |
That Is really false. Japan has never really ever drawn black characters like in black face. Everybody just brings up mr. pop as reference, who is not black. In fact there is a black character in dragon ball that shows up before mr.pop named Assistant Black(funny i know). The most you ever see in older anime is a ring around the mouth and a lighter/red tone for the color of the mouth. But They don't Do this anymore(well some do). there have been TONS of black characters in their video games and anime as of late that look really normal, such as the following:
soul eater, sid, kilik,nygus
full metal alchemist.Paninya
Michiko to Hatchin
Afro samurai
JoJo's Bizarre-smokey
black lagoon
Shigi Taishiji - Ikkitousen
Gangsta
Naruto Land of Lightning
Miyuki Ayukawa from Basquash
bleach:Tousen,Zommari Leroux,don kanonji
anything evolving Shinichirō Watanabe(checkout cowboy bepop ep Mushroom Samba).
This is just to name a few.
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AnimeLordLuis
Joined: 27 Jan 2015
Posts: 1626
Location: The Borderlands of Pandora
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Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 2:29 am
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Blood Blockade Battlefront had a pretty good mix of Characters of course if everyone had blonde hair and blue eyes that would just be silly especially since the Show takes place in the Big Apple.
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BadNewsBlues
Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 6224
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Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 2:56 am
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leafy sea dragon wrote: |
As a bonus, here's an American character who isn't blonde (Joseph Joestar from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure).
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Joseph's actually British.....as for him not being blonde he can have whatever hair color Araki wants him to have.
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leafy sea dragon
Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
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Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:00 am
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Is he? I hear some people say he's British and some people say he's American.
Still, Araki's not really going to let nationality determine what hair color his characters will have. Steel Ball Run is set entirely in the United States and is thus full of American characters, for instance, and the full spectrum is there.
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Snomaster1
Subscriber
Joined: 31 Aug 2011
Posts: 2882
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Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:01 am
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I'm not going to get angry about having American characters in anime with blonde hair. To me,that's a minor issue. What gets me angry is that a lot of times,Americans in anime are often portrayed as jerks or villains. I've seen that sort of thing happen even in good anime like "Ghost In The Shell."
I think that America's a far better country than it's given credit for,even by Hollywood. Would it hurt anime writers to put in a friendly American character in once in a while? There are positive American characters in shows like "LBX,""Yu-Gi-Oh!,"and other shows. What's wrong with having the good American character thrash the bad American character around simply because he/she makes other Americans look bad?
Also,there are immigrants in America. It would be interesting to see them portrayed in a foreign production whether as a positive or negative character. Seeing a stereotypically blonde American character in an anime doesn't make me upset. Having an obnoxious twit be the majority of American characters in anime is something that does,even when,in real life,most Americans wouldn't even want to be around that sort of person.
Last edited by Snomaster1 on Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:51 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Savion
Joined: 21 Jan 2016
Posts: 40
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Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:04 am
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@maxs2d2ace
Yes There are examples of non-pickananny type black characters but still there are many anime when black people do appear they are one off characters (often thugs) who have non-descript unhuman blackface like features. They didn't say "all anime black/darkskin characters look like stereotypes" just that there are more than a few examples of such. Denial on either side isn't conductive.
Anyways towards the "Americans are blondes" topic I do agree its lazy writing but I don't agree that "Japanese don't know better" (too broad a statement) or "they're obsessed with blonde westerners" (i'm sure some are ofc).
But writers are supposed to do research, even if they take artistic liberties.
Its usually just just lazy writing or any easy way out lol. I've seen various manga that incorporate depth knowledge of western occult magic, the hundred year war, the bible, WW2 weaponry, german history and language and so on and so forth so I'm very sure the Japanese Wikipedia's article on america has a few blurbs on the diversity of the nation (or even of white people most of whom aren't blonde). Similarly I would frown at an anime fan who thinks japanese culture boils down to Naruto, bushido, harajuku and sushi or whatever.
I don't believe its malicious or intentional but Japan is a highly developed and highly educated nation and any writer/artist could go that "extra" step for a more realistic portrayal or they could rely on their uneducated (perhaps even bigoted) stereotypes.
When you think about it the portrayal of blonde americans/europeans by the Japanese is actually extremely ironic as the USA and parts of Europe are being called to take steps towards greater diversity in media among other things.
For the record I also critize a lot of Western movies and shows for boring portrayals of Japanese people as personality-less tight-lipped swordsmen or genki girls (who are also always swordsmen/martial artists)
Edited to remove excessive quoting. --willag
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BadNewsBlues
Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 6224
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Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:10 am
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leafy sea dragon wrote: | Is he? I hear some people say he's British and some people say he's American.
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You can blame Araki for the confusion.
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