Forum - View topicRole of "foreigners" in anime?
|
Goto page 1, 2 Next |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
riru
Posts: 5 Location: San Diego, CA |
|
|||||
|
I'm writing a research paper on the influence of foreigners in Japanese pop culture, specifically anime. I wanted to focus on the portrayal of non-Japanese in anime/manga/dramas, so I thought I'd ask around here for opinions and examples. :D
What do you think about how foreigners are viewed in Japanese pop culture? |
||||||
|
||||||
ven0m57
 Posts: 98 Location: Okinawa, JP |
|
|||||
|
Well I've been stationed in Okinawa Japan now for almost a year and i have actualy had this conversation with a few local friends of mine.
The veiws you will get depend on the area and in anime's case the Author/Director. For example (though you will probly see this in most country's) foreigner's are considered somewhat "dumb" or "ignorant", though not always the case. Many times foreigner's are looked down upon for their ignorance and many times inability or unwillingness to learn local traditions and culter etc.. To be honest i love the culter and the community out here. A perfect example of the diference ( in my case American being compared to Japanese) if you walk into a resterant or small store such a, say "Coco's" ( a curry house) the entire staff will great you as you walk into the door. My friend Aiko went to the states and said she felt awkward and unwanted when she walked into an American resteraunt and was basicaly glared at by the staff. I was watching a anime short from a friend of mine in which a foreigner shows up and it changes the way ALL the charicters are perceived into somewhat ugly charicters and in a narative voice you hear "and from ----'s view." which i think just add's to my earlier points. Hope this helps, Tried to stay on your topic best i could. lol |
||||||
|
||||||
|
dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
|
|||||
|
Often they are presented as likeable but goofy, providing they are in Japan (i.e. the clueless and quirky foreign transfer student). If a series is set in Europe or North America, like Master Keaton or Red Garden, then the characters will not suffer from that trope and will just be normal.
However, I notice that in many series which are not set in Japan, and which do not feature many Japanese characters (if at all), the characters will still often act in a Japanese way. I'm talking behaviour, disposition, mannerisms, philosophy, et cetera. Doubtless this is partly due to the writers of such shows being Japanese themselves, and little-read, and therefore they just use what they know. So partly that, and partly the audience being more able to identify with characters who act like them (the audience), even though a real Caucasian person hundreds of years into the future would not have a Japanese outlook in life. So reality gets a lower priority. |
||||||
|
||||||
EireformContinent
 Posts: 977 Location: Łódź/Poland (The Promised Land) |
|
|||||
Or because the creator hardly knew how the foreigners should behave? It's extremal difficult to describe person from different time or/and culture with whole characteristic and history setting. Things obvious to person from another culture, described by foreigner can completely change they meaning (like (in)famous Memories of the Geisha) |
||||||
|
||||||
Mister V
 Posts: 1000 |
|
|||||
|
Hmm. For some reason the only foreigners I remember were the Dutch from Samurai Champloo
It's an interesting subject, but considering all characters have more or less similar traits, plus the fact that most come from an unidentifiable spacetime continuum with weird foreign-sounding names, it's going to be hard to single out anything that looks more or less real. |
||||||
|
||||||
DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15523 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
|
|||||
|
I seem to remember Ana from Ichigo Mashimaro who came from England who tries to act foreign and that she can't speak Japanese. Though she actualy can't speak english, knows less about english and keeps getting remarked she is more japanese then the others. Though not a direct role of a foreigner often in anime she is an interesting contrast aswell as displaying the usual traits, that being a bit taller, pale, blonde and blue eyes.
Some of the most common appearances is a tal, pale blonde, pale blue eyed foreigner will show up and make the character anxious by asking for direction in another language. That or being very open people that like yelling what they are thinking, gaining strange looks, this can also be mixed with being upperclass (Ouran high). The English Ojou is also very popular. There is also the brute that is easy to dislike, the strongest ones I can think of were the American soldiers that worked with Sousuke in Full Metal Panic. Though technicly a great range of Character from FMP are foreign, you could probably get a good idea at looking at sme of the members of MITHRIL. |
||||||
|
||||||
Penguin_Factory
 Posts: 732 Location: Ireland |
|
|||||
The role of foreigners in mecha anime is to be insane and have odd names. Seriously though, I think there's a certain mystique around foreigners presented in anime. A recent example is the currently airing Durarara, which uses foreign people and concepts to illustrate the melting pot "anything can happen" aspect of Ikebokuro. |
||||||
|
||||||
Kruszer
 Posts: 7988 Location: Minnesota, USA |
|
|||||
I've noticed this as well. To cite example I'll use the previously mentioned, Red Garden since I just got done rewatching that. I forget which episode it was but it starts snowing and Juan asks Clare if she wants an umbrella. Nobody is the states uses umbrellas for snow, at least nobody around here where it snows all the time, that's what coats and hats are for. I don't live in New York but they're about as north as us in Minnesota here. Plus if it snows here there's generally wind too and that tends to destroy umbrellas so they'd be pretty impractical. If you walked around with an umbrella in a snowstorm here people would probably think it was about as strange as if you had one on a clear sunny day. I still don't know to this day why one would even need an umbrella for snow in the first place. It won't kill you, heck it's not even wet when it's falling, it's frozen, crystallized water. 
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
riru
Posts: 5 Location: San Diego, CA |
|
|||||
The first characters I thought of while I was thinking of this were Tamaki and Renge from Ouran, though I have to admit Full Metal Panic didn't cross my mind (I haven't watched it since high school! D:). I've been trying to find academic articles about this, but most scholars seem to want to focus on the impact of anime on the west rather than the impact of the west on anime. :/ |
||||||
|
||||||
EricJ
 Posts: 876 |
|
|||||
Also like the "Love Hina" example, that you can identify Americans not only by their blue eyes, but that they all have last names beginning with "Mac-", and tend to be violent lunatics. Not to mention Prof. Stresseman in "Nodame Contabile", who is identified as German, but also happens to be an unpredictable lunatic and first arrives displaying every horny/clueless-American-tourist stereotype. ("It's all about the geishas and sushi!") And for some strange reason, the very thought that Americans might wear their shoes indoors really does fill them with horror. Seriously--They bring that right to the table and get morally judgmental about it, every time it's culture-bashing time...
There's a mystique that the Japanese feel they should interact with Westerners, to fulfill Their Place On The Global Stage, and put that high-school English to use-- But culturally, they still don't want to, and arrogance still prefers to de-threatenize foreigners by showing them baffled by dear old Japanese traditions, comically impotent to the situation around them (frequently if Catholic), and often overreacting with "Ohh my Goddo!  "
(Although Kaleido Star, with an international characters set in the US, pokes fun at what the Japanese think Western stereotypes of them are: "But I thought everyone in Japan had a black belt in karate!") |
||||||
|
||||||
dewlwieldthedarpachief
 Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
|
|||||
|
My experience with Japanese television is quite limited (it is, ah, an acquired taste) however it's worth bringing up the outrageous "Mr. James" of Japanese McDonald's commercials during 2009. The character was an overweight balding white American male who came to Japan "just for the burgers" or some nonsense and spoke Japanese with katakana subtitles - just to underline the fact that he was FOREIGN.
If you're doing some serious work on this topic I'd hope you'd at least make some mention of the impact this must have on Japanese youth who are spoon fed by the feckless, moronic members of Japanese media that do their part to keep the status quo. It's not all like that, but Japan is still in a transition towards being a place that recognizes human rights issues on the level of a place like the United States legally. There's a really powerful bureaucracy to contend with, which is also probably worth investigating for your writing. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Penguin_Factory
Posts: 732 Location: Ireland |
|
|||||
Of particular interest to mein terms of naming are the few Irish characters you see around the place, who tend to have truly bizzare names- "Kanon Memphis" from Fafner comes to mind, as does spoiler[Neil Dylandy] or however the hell you spell that from Gundam 00. Celty Sturluson from Durarara is another recent example, although she's a fairy so maybe she can get away with it. The insane thing definitely applies here as well- Black Lagoon had an Irish mercenary who was totally out of his gourd. Although from what I can gather most of the characters in that show were insane to some degree. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
EricJ
Posts: 876 |
|
|||||
|
Was trying to point out the parallel with the live-action comedy "Welcome Back, Mr. MacDonald" (hysterical, btw
 ), where a radio-drama actor decides he wants his fisherman character last-minute rewritten into a big-city American: "Donald MacDonald".
(Also worth noting is the cultural puzzlement over humor: Japanese get culturally smug over how Westerners don't understand why Osakan duos hitting each other with paper fans is intrinsically funny... But in one episode of Sgt Frog, a device has Natsumi speaking in an American accent and telling American standup jokes: "So, I said 'Hey, Charlie, that wasn't a bear, that was my wife!'"...The listening audience is puzzled silent. )
|
||||||
|
||||||
Dark Paladin X
 Posts: 268 |
|
|||||
|
I was wondering, has anyone noticed when it comes to depictions of "foreigners" in Japan when it comes to anime, Americans and Europeans seems to be the most common and Chinese being number two, while depictions of Koreans seems to be the least? I'm not sure why it is double standard for commonly depicting Americans and Europeans in Japan in anime while they seem to ignore their largest ethnic minority in Japan which makes up about less than 1% of the population.
But I do know there are some anime that depicts black people (which is slightly more common than Koreans). Black Lagoon and Afro Samurai is most noticeable. Although being said, the said two anime I've mentioned are meant for western viewers anyways. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
EireformContinent
Posts: 977 Location: Łódź/Poland (The Promised Land) |
|
|||||
|
I personally think that European and Americans* are still "cool and exotic" in Japan that they may be an attractive part of the show. I don't think that typical anime watcher who looks for pure entertainment thinks about "portrait of minority" in his favourite cartoon.
*Especially that USA diplomatists won't demand cancelling airing new show because of "portrait of Americans" like it was with Hetalia |
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group