Dragon Ball Z

[Marril]

One thing that would bite Japan in the butt would be: who plays goku? Who plays ANYONE? My point being, of course, Japan's unrelenting tendency to have ONLY white people in their anime. DONT YOU DARE DENY IT! I am not trying to slam any race, i am simply reporting the obvious: nearly all anime characters are white IN APPEARENCE, they could be in the thick of Tokyo and they'd all have snow white skin and golden hair. Woo-blasted-hoo. Look at Popo...need i say more? But back to Goku, He looks more white than asian, as well as all the other guys. I dont remeber them saying anything about ANY character being from a foreign land. These guys are in China, or at least in Asia somewhere, so I refuse to believe how un-asian these guys look. Have some pride! Man, how can they deny themselves so frequently and easily?

Because they do? Just because they don't make every character look completely asian doesn't mean they're denying themselves. It doesn't really interfere with the storytelling, either. Lighten up.

Another example is YGO, look at Joey, Yugi, come on now, Yugi!!! WHY would an egyptian be white? Blond? It makes no sense...THey are in Asia, dont deny it! And look at their idea of an american from the US is: Bandit Keith! A bandana wearing, blond/blue/white, catholic?, rebel! How come the strongest fighter in the world is Blond haired, Blue eyed, and white skin (SSJ)? Wait a minute, that sounds like a familiar description..i think it sounds a bit like, yes--BLUE EYES, WHITE DRAGON, the ultimate monster! COME ON! If that isnt proof of anime's warped sense of race is, then you must be tuning out the obvious.

Yugi isn't Egyptian. He's Japanese (Yami Yugi on the other hand, being the Pharaoh, doesn't look Egyptian because he's Yugi's darker half, and therefore has to look more like Yugi). Malik, Isis, and Rishid are all believably Egyptian. BEWD also isn't the ultimate monster. It's worse than the God cards (Osiris, Ra, and Obelisk), and there are stronger legendary Dragons in the next story arc after the next Big Five (Yugi dies to save Yami Yugi after Yami Yugi went insane like Pandora did).

If you look at early DBZ, Goku indeed looks a good deal asian, compared to Cell and beyond, he lost what little asian-ness he had. So theres the question. Who do you cast to be goku? An asian would be nice, and accurate, because thats how it should be, but would he really look like Goku? If they cast a white guy, dye his hair, he'd look more like him, im sure, but would that feel right? Like having an Australian play the role of a US president in a movie. Would that feel right? Be honest. It comes down to race. You may be able to stretch that in a cartoon, but when you cross the threshold into reality, into live action, streching race gets hard. I think whatever their decision is, it will offend someone.

Live-action DBZ wouldn't really be DBZ anyways. How would they do Piccolo? Cell? Frieza? I'd worry more about those sorts of things moreso than if Goku looked completely right.

I know i am NOT the only person to notice this. I am interested to learn what you think of this post.

What I think is that you should lighten up a little. Don't take things so seriously. Just because characters aren't being portrayed as totally realistic to their nationalities doesn't mean that they're degrading themselves in any way.

 

[SailorClef]

My point being, of course, Japan's unrelenting tendency to have ONLY white people in their anime. DONT YOU DARE DENY IT! I am not trying to slam any race, i am simply reporting the obvious: nearly all anime characters are white IN APPEARENCE, they could be in the thick of Tokyo and they'd all have snow white skin and golden hair.

sigh.. this reminds me of an argument on another board where some guy was calling the japanese racist because hardly any animes have black people in them.. -_-;

personally, i don't think that race is really an issue with anime characters.. i have NEVER seen it brought up in an anime..

i think that anime characters are their own race in a since.. they may appear white, but what some people don't realise is that they're drawn based off of japanese body structure (though it is warped.. )

this is how a how one manga drawing site put it:

manga is based primarily on the Japanese form and figure. If we take a picture of a regular Japanese girl standing upright and a rather normal looking anime girl in the same pose, you'll see a lot of similarities in the hips, the rib cage, the legs, etc. Now take an American or European girl and put her on the other side, and you'll notice some differences. Her legs are thicker, maybe longer than her Japanese counterpart, her bust is usually much larger, and her hips are wider. Compared to the anime girl, she does look a little different in structure. When most American or European artists draw manga, their first instinct is to draw their own body shape with an anime head in their own countries style of comic art. A strange hybrid is then created; half-manga, half-American comics style art. In order to make it look more like manga, we need to be careful of what we are using as a base, even when we are drawing non-Japanese characters.

so i guess that you could say that the characters are techinicly japanese, if you wan't to go by their body structure...

 

[Psycho_Lugia_X]

ok, thanks for the great feedback. I wanted to get some responses and i did, great! Thanks for reading and putting thought into my "article." Now to adress:

Ok, In a flashback of the Pharoah himself, he was WHI-ZZ--ITE!!! I do think they did a great job with the Marik family--[/i]kinda[/i] believable. They still made them considerably lighter than they should have been.

Ok, you say Yugi is japanese? HOW DOES HE HAVE BLOND HAIR? RED HAIR? black is accurate, but 1/3 is pretty lame. Can u say denial?

About BEWD, he was introduced as the ultimonster!!! Of course later we see that its nice, but not the best.

I do think Japan and China, and probably more asian nations, have a serious problem with race. They are all about denial. They deny themselves SOOOO much!!! They make themselves white as rice on a paper plate in a snowstorm! They warp their physical appearence so much...even a blind man could see that! They always have blonds and blue eyes. They make their eyes round. In a CARTOON you can warp the physical as much as you want cuz it AINT real!!! They have even said it, white/blond/blue is great, darker/darker/darker isnt. Thats why the white stereo type can make it big there. if they can learn the language then their set! U can base a TURTLE off a HUMAN's design and warp it all u want ok? Once u pass a certain point, its something entirely different ok? The teenage mutant ninja's are neither human or turtle. Would u beleive it was a human if u saw one in real life? A turtle? My point is warp something too much and its no longer true to itself. Thus, their self denial shows in so much of their anime...again: DONT DENY IT!!!

Ok, lets get serious: racism. Yes, they are. Not all of them, but enough so that you know about it. One of their leaders ON RECORD made a racist comment about the US's problem being that they had Mexicans. He later had to make a public apology! Hmm. I believe we can file that under racism. It seems it slipped out by---let's be nice and assume---accident.

As for lightening up, i think im pretty casual here. I just want to make my point and make it clearly. Because theres streching the truth and then there's LYING! I cant stand the latter, but i can tolerate the former.
I'm saying make your characters look like they have a chance of coming from their home town. Not, "Well, if you poke out your left eye and squint a little while hopping on a pogo-stick, he kinda looks asian..." ---NO! not that. i mean like "hey, yeah, ok, he could pass for asian, yeah..."

[imitates Uncle from Jacki Chan] One more thing:[/uncle] I can see how they can make a Piccolo, frieza, etc. CGI! Come on i think they did remarkably well with Gollum from Lord of the Rings, and Jar Jar looked pretty realistic. I know they can do a piccolo if they TRIED! Sometimes you ever get the feeling whenever people make an adaptation of something like from a game to movie, cartoon to game, etc. it feels like the makers never even experienced the original source? That is my only fear: they wont do their homework and blindly create a terrible product.

 

[Marril]

Ok, you say Yugi is japanese? HOW DOES HE HAVE BLOND HAIR? RED HAIR? black is accurate, but 1/3 is pretty lame. Can u say denial?

I'll put it in your volume: HAIR DYE/BLEACH. It's not that hard.

As for lightening up, i think im pretty casual here. I just want to make my point and make it clearly. Because theres streching the truth and then there's LYING! I cant stand the latter, but i can tolerate the former.
I'm saying make your characters look like they have a chance of coming from their home town. Not, "Well, if you poke out your left eye and squint a little while hopping on a pogo-stick, he kinda looks asian..." ---NO! not that. i mean like "hey, yeah, ok, he could pass for asian, yeah..."

I'm not even going to dignify this or the rest of the post with a response. Come back when you can state your arguments in a calm, mature manner, without shouting every two or three points. I can see where you're coming from, but it makes me care a lot less than I actually do when it's being presented in such a way.

--

Don't even think of bringing up Eiri Yuki from Gravitation. I'm not joking.

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EDIT: I also think that Shoujo Kakumei Utena would be a good example of an animé that doesn't have mostly white people. Just sayin'.

 

[Psycho_Lugia_X]

HA! The joke's on you, responding "im not givin' that a response" IS a response! LOL, jk.

I am not shouting!!! I AM NOT SHOUTING!!!!!! sarcasm, gotta love it.

Look, im not trying to sound like im yelling at you, i just need someway to highlight the points i feel are very important to consider. I dont want to go all caveman/Chris Matthews on you...relax. reread it, but think of me as sitting in a chair gesturing where you think i may be shouting the stupid off a circular rectangle.

Now, if you'll excuse me, im going to go outside and shout at some cars, Yuh'wabbadaHAHbah!

 

[Marril]

Despite the fact that you aren't intending to shout, all-caps words online is generally considered shouting. Going LIKE THIS is considered the same as shouting.

In the future, use the italics tag to emphasise words, not the caps lock (or holding shift) button.

 

[Psycho_Lugia_X]

well ok, point taken. I was a little excited, lets just put it that way. Well, any thoughts on the post now that we have cooled off?

 

[johnznothere]

Uh if you have a Problem with Japanese people making cartoons look like americans,

LOOK AT THE FRICKING OTHER SHOWS AMERICANS TRY TO MAKE LOOK JAPANESE! examples:

Powerpuff Girls
That robot girl show on Nickelodeon
Samurai Jack
Dexter's Lab

HAHA theyre Pathetic! If you have seen Cartoon Net a couple months ago, you seen the music videos where they make Japanese Words on the Music videos and make Japanese People say some weird stuff we cant understand... and that's what we call cool...

 

[Psycho_Lugia_X]

it's satire, my friend, satire.

They are making fun of it.

Some also see the potential behind the facade of anime: Totally retarded--er, i mean spies-- capitalizes on the anime craze to attract viewers. Its either satire or greedy attempts at rock and rolling the style from japan. as in stealing rock and roll from certain people...never mind.