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Why are all anime characters so good looking?


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Cloe
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Joined: 18 Feb 2004
Posts: 2728
Location: Los Angeles, CA
PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2005 12:15 am Reply with quote
Ohoni wrote:
What, you think that anime should have a misproportionately high number of black people for no other reason than because America has a whole bunch more of them than Japan? That's just wierd.


I think The Frankman is more concerned with the fact that black people are poorly written and stereotypical as opposed to the fact that they don't appear often in anime. (If that's not what you meant, Frankman, feel free to chastise me. ^^) I agree with him. But I think he has more of a right to complain than I do...

Ohoni wrote:
That's just a stylistic choice, made because the original anime gurus were impressed with Disney's work, and mimicked that style, so the anime "style" tends to be round/square eyed rather than elyptical.


I agree with this, actually. Anime today would have an extremely different look (I theorize, at least) had it not been for the MAMMOTH influence of Osamu Tezuka, who was influenced heavily by Disney. I think it's smart to attribute today's anime style to animation history.
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Ohoni



Joined: 10 Jun 2003
Posts: 3421
PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2005 12:45 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
I think The Frankman is more concerned with the fact that black people are poorly written and stereotypical as opposed to the fact that they don't appear often in anime.


Well, I agree that this is the case, but honestly, if you expect black characters to be well writen whenever they appear in anime, expect to never see one again. It's just too hard to properly research for a Japanese writer. The chances of a mangaka to actually KNOW a black person are pretty damned slim, so they'd have to make a significant effort to track one down and do some research. I can't imagine they'd care that much.
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Red Coat



Joined: 17 May 2005
Posts: 21
Location: Fresno Ca
PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2005 4:49 pm Reply with quote
The resaon they look so good is because they are animated and are depected as what some can image to be the prefect person they almost never have any physical flaw and it not ment to be watched for the person looks but for how they act with other character as well as the conflict that they have with in themselves

Last edited by Red Coat on Wed May 18, 2005 10:23 am; edited 1 time in total
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.Sy



Joined: 11 Mar 2005
Posts: 1266
PostPosted: Tue May 17, 2005 5:47 pm Reply with quote
Ohoni wrote:
What, you think that anime should have a misproportionately high number of black people for no other reason than because America has a whole bunch more of them than Japan? That's just wierd.
That's not really what we were going at, actually. I was personally just wondering about the fact that there aren't many blacks in anime, how Japanese look less Asian, etc.
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The Frankman



Joined: 19 Sep 2004
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PostPosted: Wed May 18, 2005 8:43 pm Reply with quote
Cloe wrote:
Ohoni wrote:
What, you think that anime should have a misproportionately high number of black people for no other reason than because America has a whole bunch more of them than Japan? That's just wierd.


I think The Frankman is more concerned with the fact that black people are poorly written and stereotypical as opposed to the fact that they don't appear often in anime. (If that's not what you meant, Frankman, feel free to chastise me. ^^) I agree with him. But I think he has more of a right to complain than I do...

Cloe hit the nail on the head. I don't really care that much if there aren't any black people in a given Japanese anime. But in the new millenium, to 1) drawn them with less of a style than their Japanese/Caucasian counterparts 2) kill em off in 5 minutes (though Hollywood has done that for decades) is a little . . . annoying. It doesn't help when you see something impressive that seems of capture the hip-hop style like Samurai Champloo (which CANNOT be easy); that just makes me wonder exactly how hard it is to animate features on a African-American:

a) Goto Google.com
b) Type in PICTURE OF BLACK PERSON
c) Volia!

damn, I gotta save this for the article. Twisted Evil
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Ohoni



Joined: 10 Jun 2003
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PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 10:52 pm Reply with quote
Are you an artist? I can tell you as an artist that trying to accurately depict race (without overly sterotyping or just drawing white people with deep tans) is very tricky business. It's doable, but it's hardly trivial.
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.Sy



Joined: 11 Mar 2005
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PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2005 11:29 am Reply with quote
In the manhwa Soul to Seoul, the artist does a fine job depicting people of different races. It's one of the few I've come across.
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