Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Are Americans In Anime Always Blonde?
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13580 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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A case of an American character that isn't blonde: "Kaleido Star" is set in the USA and our lead girl, Sora, isn't blonde.
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1779 Location: South America |
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In Brazil it is the same. Americans "gringos" are usually depicted as blond.
Reason is that it's common for Americans to have blond hair, its rare for Brazilians, impossible for Japanese. So it sticks out. Also, its easy to find examples of American characters with dark hair, in Porco Rosso the American guy had dark hair, in Strike Witches, the American Witches have several different hair colors. |
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Wandering Samurai
 Posts: 875 Location: USA |
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Just my opinion on the portrayals of Americans as white, blond, blue eyed people. I think it may or may not have to do with the types of Americans the Japanese encountered back at the end of WWII when the American Occupation began. If anyone remembers most Americans shown in pictures or media of that era seem to be mostly white and blond of the Caucasian type (not saying everyone). Seeing people in movies like that adds to the perception that the race is portrayed as such.
What people might tend to forget about the US then and even now is that the country is built on immigration, so not everybody is going to be white Caucasian anymore. But as Japan gets older every Japanese person is not going to go on the internet to find out about that. And Japanese media has Japanese internal affairs to worry about rather than talking about what goes in the US. |
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rinmackie
 Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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But Sora was a Japanese girl who joined an American circus. True, she didn't look like a typical Japanese but she was one. |
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 308 |
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Chibodee Crocket is still the most "American" American in anime. Drives a robot with football pads, rides a flying surfboard, shoots revolvers, and boxes as his primary fighting style.
And his mother sang him freaking America The Beautiful as a lullaby. God I love G Gundam so much. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9875 Location: Virginia |
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Of course the fun thing about anime, is that while most Americans are blond, being blond doesn't mean you are not completely Japanese. In the more fanciful anime, almost any color is possible for hair. However, even when they are trying to be realistic, it is not unusual to have a character with dyed blond hair. Not infrequently it is the main character, it shows his bad boy credentials.
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Kadmos1
Posts: 13580 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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@Wandering Samurai: I agree. Also, since Japan was allied with Germany and since Nazism stressed the blue-eyes, blonde hair thing, maybe this image also stuck with Japan.
In a 1/12/15 online Daily Mail article called "America's men describe their 'perfect woman' as blonde, with blue eyes - and a graduate degree", 145,000 were surveyed. In the article, men would pay to have a woman with certain traits. Collectively, they would pay $330.39 for blonde hair, blue-eyed college-grad woman who has a slender body and is a social but doesn't smoke. |
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Hektor6766
 Posts: 25 |
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Hmmm...no mention of the Yanki, the stock American blonde-haired leather bomber-jacket wearing delinquent character derived in the 1970s based on the occupying American soldiers who cruised Japan after WWII anywhere. It's a trope. Might as well ask why washtubs fall and hit people on the head.
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Tsuruhami
Posts: 30 |
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I am Chinese. I've never been to America. The closest thing I got to western country is Australia and New Zealand. So I only know about America and it's people from Hollywood movie. I must admit when I was just a little girl, I thought that 99% people In America is white with blonde hair. Why? Well, almost all Hollywood movie have predominantly 'white' cast. Sure, there's one token Asian/Mexican/Black but they only appear for like 5-6 minute or died at early movie. Black/Latina/Native American women??? What. Beside Disney and Legend of Korra, I barely see American show with dark skinned women as protagonist so yeah. That's it. |
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