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Sorry I`m not trying to be racist in any way or to cause offence to anyone, just been hottest.

In a comment a made about stereotyping in anime, tv,and films, I said that "white male equal some who will stab you in the back for personal gain and female equals damsel in distress"
For the subject at the time was SAO I received a comment saying that all the characters was Japanese, meaning none characters was white ?.
To me the main characters could have been , Kevin and Olivia.
I guess it is my personal naive view of the world , but I guess I call Japanese / Asians white with a little tint, because at school someone moved to my school from hong kong , whose parents own a chips of fish shop, so was give the nickname of yellow chip , and I remember getting two black eyes for that , sorry It was the 70s and I was about 11 or 12.

The point 1.

In Anime can you say by art style that this characters is meant to be of Japanese or western descent ?
In "ai yori aosh" Tina says something like "Being blonde the Japanese know I was American" , which I guess is true, there is many natural blond Japanese girls.

Point 2

In Anime why does anyone look to be the same age, to me the teachers , parents , the younger and older siblings all look to be the same age ?
In the Family guy or Simpsons there are clues to the ages , in anime they all look to be drawn the same.

There is no consistent rule in anime with regard to hair colour. Sometime, a character having blonde hair (almost invariably female) is a visual shorthand to let you know she is either half-Japanese or completely non-Japanese and sometimes it doesn't. I've always assumed that the rainbow of colours we see with hair (again, almost always female) was simply a way to avoid having to have all characters have black hair which might be perceived as visually dull.

I agree that in some cases (not all) the difference between an adult character and a teenage character in terms of appearance is not huge. There seems to be a paradox in Japanese culture: older people are looked up with more respect (generally) than in Western society, yet at the same time anime assures us that everybody wants to be young or thought of as being young.

In anime it is best to assume everyone is Japanese unless it is specifically stated otherwise if the show takes place in Japan and in many cases even if it doesn't. You cannot use either facial characteristics or skin color to determine race unless the stereotype is so broad as to be obvious (Simon in Durarara!!) Part of this is simply anime conventions as to how people are drawn and part is simply the limitations of the manga artist or character designer.

When it comes to age it depends on the individual show. If you watch something like Ranma 1/2 there will be very obvious differences in ages shown. On the other hand a show taking place in a high school will be less obvious. In many cases the teachers are really not that much older than the students.

I don't think I would use Family Guy or the Simpsons as a baseline for reality in character design. They are even more abstracted than anime.

Last edited by peter a on Wed Nov 30, 2016 11:51 am; edited 1 time in total

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a character having blonde hair (almost invariably female) is a visual shorthand to let you know she is either half-Japanese or completely non-Japanese

And a lot get portrayed as a Daisy Duke character , short jeans and tea shirt.

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In anime it is best to assume everyone is Japanese unless it is specifically stated otherwise if the show takes place in Japan and in many cases even if it doesn't.

I guess if it`s Japanese anime then you can take it for granted that the norm is Japanese , Hollywood American , Bollywood Indian.
But who cares ?

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I don't think I would use Family Guy or the Simpsons as a baseline for reality in character design. They are even more abstracted than anime.

What I mean is if you made a poster of all the characters you would be able to identify which is adults or children and have a clue to their ages.

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In many cases the teachers are really not that much older than the students.

In my school all the teachers was a great deal older than the students, so I was using my own personal reality with that.

On the topic of hair color I agree with Blood- and Alan45.
Also, different hair colors and styles are often used simply as an easy way to identify the characters. This is often the case in shows that have a lot of girls.
Foreign characters do often have blond, or red, hair but that is not always the case. But having blond hair does not, by itself, mean that a character is not Japanese.
As Alan45 said you should assume that the characters are Japanese unless something in the show identifies them as foreigners.

As for characters looking to be the same age, that is not something that I have seen.
If anything it is the opposite. In a large group of characters, especially girls, who are the same age there will be some who appear to be much more mature than the others and some who look younger than most.
But usually characters who are older look older and characters who are younger look younger, in my experience.

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As for characters looking to be the same age, that is not something that I have seen.
If anything it is the opposite. In a large group of characters, especially girls, who are the same age there will be some who appear to be much more mature than the others and some who look younger than most.
But usually characters who are older look older and characters who are younger look younger, in my experience.

It also could be I'm really bad at telling people ages in real life too.
In a lot of show where you get the mother visiting and I think you have to be joking !!! , the person who is playing the mother looks younger than the daughter.

The most recent example I can think of with respect to what you are talking about peter a is with a show called ReLife. The premise is that an adult male is given the chance to go back to highschool. Part of the process is taking a pill that turned him from his adult self back into (I believe) a 17-year-old. I could see little difference. But, like I say, it really varies. Sometimes the visual appearance between adults and teenagers is obvious and other times not.

Regarding race (skin tone and hair colors):

A lot of the tropes that anime uses come from manga. And manga is where lighter skin tones and wild hair colors come from.

Unlike American comics, manga is primarily done in black and white. While it's possible to color skin tone darker, one, it would take unneeded time, and two, it could muddy up the page to have a lot of darker tones on it. Manga is designed to be read quickly, so the more contrast on the page, the faster it can be read. That's also part of why backgrounds tend to be more sparse, and less detailed than American counterparts.

As for hair, it's to catch eyes. In the interior pages of a manga, hair will be either lighter or darker. There's no extra options, given that it's black and white. But the covers will have a wild variety of hair colors, to catch the eye. This is why we get technocolor hair (which itself has become a trope beyond just catching the eye of consumers). For more natural hair colors, remember that the Japanese have a bit of an obsession with the blond-haired/blue-eyed American stereotype, so even without wild colors, that's going to catch eyes as well.

Regarding age:

In my experience, the very young and the very old are clearly distinguishable. Then, you have 2 age groups. The "teen/young adult" age group, and the "clearly adult" age group. However, these are mainly identified by character heights and dress, rather than any facial

This comes from real life. Every Japanese person I've met, seems to reach their "peak appearance" somewhere in their late teens, and won't change until they hit "old age."

I was lucky enough to meet Ikue Ohtani (voice of Pikachu) a few years ago. At the time, she was around 40. She looked like she was about 20, if that. Plus, we have a more recent, publicized example, of Kikuko Inoue and her daughter posing as schoolgirls. While yes, you can tell that Kikuko is older, I doubt anyone would guess that she's 52. Nor even that her daughter is 18. If anything, I'd guess an early 20-something and maybe 16.

Last edited by peter a on Wed Nov 30, 2016 5:33 pm; edited 2 times in total

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The most recent example I can think of with respect to what you are talking about peter a is with a show called ReLife.

Before I joined this forum I read about ReLife on one of the posts, and couldn`t stop laughing at some ones comment, you know what they say "if you are going to put your foot in it then use both feet" , and never seen a so polite reply to the comment "well how does he know she is a virgin ?"

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This comes from real life. Every Japanese person I've met, seems to reach their "peak appearance" somewhere in their late teens, and won't change until they hit "old age."

I would say that is correct from my experience, because I`ve been spotted by my school friend and had a "sorry to ask but are you Peter A" when I was in my 40s .

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I was lucky enough to meet Ikue Ohtani (voice of Pikachu) a few years ago. At the time, she was around 40. She looked like she was about 20, if that. Plus, we have a more recent, publicized example, of Kikuko Inoue and her daughter posing as schoolgirls. While yes, you can tell that Kikuko is older, I doubt anyone would guess that she's 52. Nor even that her daughter is 18. If anything, I'd guess an early 20-something and maybe 16.

I`ve been looking who was the English dub actor of the charactors I watch, I`m getting so sad that I know the names of the English dub voice actors.
Like you say , I doubt anyone would guess the ages of any of the voice actor who play high school students.
But a lot are in their 40 / 50s

@peter a

When I went to high school, we had teachers of all ages. While some were in their 60s we had a few who were just out of college and were only five or six years older than the students.

In anime, as a general thing if you see an older teacher they will be male. Most of the female teachers shown are in their 20s or early 30s. They are often shown as panic stricken that they are still single. I'm not sure if the expectation that they will quit and stay home if married applies to teachers but it might explain the absence of older female teachers. If you see a reference to a "Christmas Cake" it is based on the idea that no one wants one after the 25th. The 25 of December in the case of cake, age 25 in the case of an unmarried female. I find that a bit rough but I've seen it mentioned in a couple of anime.

I think that if your eye is well trained in manga character designs it becomes easier to pick out who is older or youger. For example, in Yotsuba, one of the greatest manga ever, it's clear to me who is a young children, who is like 12 years old, who is 17 and who is 20, and older. In Clannad, for example, one can clearly see the characters age and grown older as the story progresses. And in Your Name is easy to see the difference between 16 year old and a 21-22 year old.

In some cases, however, the character design is made in order to confuse the reader/viewer about the character's age (or gender). But in general character design reflects well the age of the character.

Japanese people don't have the gene for blonde hair. Only Western Eurasians (including some Arabs) and Melanesians do, so I don't get the amount of blonde hair in anime. Ditto for blue eyes.

@NearEasternerJ1

No one has a gene for green hair or robin's egg blue hair but you see it all the time in anime. Giving people wild hair and eye color helps to differentiate people, especially if your character designs all look similar.

As I noted above, in many occasions blond hair and/or blue eyes is used to show someone is from Europe or North America. Also for some reason anyone who is half western is usually shown as blond with blue eyes.

As for the remainder, there is bleach and hair dye. If you are willing to go to the trouble almost any color can be obtained.

In rare cases, dyeing hair is actually specifically refered to. I remember in Toradora! one of the core characters dyed his hair blonde and this was widely perceived as "acting out" by the others.

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If you see a reference to a "Christmas Cake" it is based on the idea that no one wants one after the 25th. The 25 of December in the case of cake, age 25 in the case of an unmarried female.

Wow , so cruel !!!, thought we had done away with spinster mentality after Charles Dickens.
Sometimes I think I wish I was a teenager now with the internet and all today's modern technology , but every time I think more about it I really really don`t, before if you was unlucky you was bullied at school now all you life is on show 24 hours a day.

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In Clannad, for example, one can clearly see the characters age and grown older as the story progresses. And in Your Name is easy to see the difference between 16 year old and a 21-22 year old.

I give you that one.

What`s with that akame name ?

Because as far as I know there is no gene for red eye only a medical disorder or the red with anger bit ( Rage )

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