Note: I wrote about most of this before but I just had to get this out of my system:
Mukokuseki is Japanese for “stateless”, not belonging to any nation. In English the word is mainly applied to the drawing style in Japanese anime and manga. It is that thing where the Japanese seem to draw themselves as white.
Facial Profiling is the opposite of mukokuseki. It is where you draw characters according to racial and national stereotypes. For example:
- East Asians: slanted eyes, black, straight hair.
- early 1900s: buck teeth, glasses, yellow skin.
- blacks: brown skin, lips drawn in (not just a line), natural hair (Afro, etc).
- early 1900s: jet black skin, huge red or white lips, grinning smile, big eyes.
- Jews: hooked nose, black, curly hair.
- Mexicans: sombrero, moustache, brown skin.
- Native Americans: high cheekbones, red skin, one or more feathers.
- White Americans: tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, big nose (how the Japanese stereotype them).
Japanese and White Americans do not facially profile themselves:
- They do not see themselves as a physical stereotype. They know everyone does not look like that. Most Americans do not have blonde hair and blue eyes – that is just what sticks out to the Japanese because it is rare among themselves. Likewise, only half of East Asians have “slanted” eyes – but because few whites do, they notice it in the Japanese.
- Stereotypes are too limiting, making it harder to tell characters apart – especially in a medium where you can get away with stuff like blue hair.
They see themselves as “just people”, so that is how they draw themselves. They live in countries where they are are the racial default, where they are not constantly reminded of their race, of how they look different. (Notice that stereotyped Jews do not appear in American cartoons.)
Thus they draw themselves in a mukokuseki style, as racially unmarked. Not just the Japanese, but White Americans too.
When Americans look at Japanese anime the characters often “look white”. Because mukokuseki is racially unmarked, because it assumes a racial default. In America that default is white. But it is clear that the characters are not meant to be white because everything else about them is Japanese. Clothes and buildings mostly look Western because in Japan they mostly do.
Expecting the Japanese to draw themselves with slanted eyes and straight, black hair is like expecting everyone in “The Simpsons” to have blonde hair and blue eyes. Hair is too important in making characters look different in such a simple style. And eyes are too important for showing a character’s feelings. So both “The Simpsons” and anime use big eyes and improbable hair.
“Mulan”, set in China, and “Boondocks“, set in Black America, could be done in a mukokuseki style too, but in America, their home market, it would look strange because of how white has become the default. So they facially profile. They have to play to stereotype to “seem real”, just like Fake Indians, black sock puppets or David Carradine in “Kung Fu”.
See also:
And no one in France walks around with a fake “moustache”, a beret, striped shirts and a baguette under the armpit. Playing accordion.
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Has anyone noticed that once the japanese climbed among the richest nations, nobody in the west depicted them as monkeys anymore? Even during WW2 they had cartoons showing japanese as monkeys but after the econimical rise of the 60’s, No more.
Same thing has happened with the chinese more recently. Fewer and fewer carichatures portray them as slant eyed trash etc. Due to the economical rise. Same is happening with indians, that people of India proper. Where as in the recent past they were funny people in turbans, half naked yogis, it is getting rarer to see them portrayed like that anymore. Perhaps funny accents but as half naked skinny gurus sleeping on pincushions and bed of nails… No more.
Thus, it is very clear that once you get into the club of the rich, racist definitions are no longer valid. Once you geti in the bug business, you become a human. It happened to the arabs too after the oil business kicked off.
And that should show all of us what the racism is all about. Just follow the money…
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sam:
This effect seems similar to how the Japanese have stopped referring to westerners as sub-human barbarians. Mostly.
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So if Boondocks was done using Mukokuseki Riley, Huey, and all the other black characters would have light skin and/or straight hair but still be seen as black?
Because if white people weren’t the default we could still see characters with white skin and/or straight hair as black because of context?
So it is the history of African Americans that precludes Mukokuseki from not being seen as some effort to white wash Black characters. Since Japanese people don’t have the same history it would wrong to apply that outlook.
Does this same statelessness apply to the Live Action adaptations of these cartoons? Where the ethnicity of the character is revealed through context not phenotype? At least in Japan? It would seem that this wouldn’t be desirable to Asian Americans since so few of them get work in Hollywood.
Does this statelessness ever manifest itself where Japanese characters have dark skin and Afros? Or is the title reserved for specific traits?
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I am glad you addressed this again. I cannot get why people think Japanese draw themselves as white. I am sure that it doesn’t even enter their minds.
In Asia, people generally recognize them as Japanese cartoon characters, not white.
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So basically they are doing exactly what white people do, making themselves the “default”, the “normals” in fact “universal”. But they also draw other people of other ethnicity with exotic features. I find it hypocritical for Japanese people to draw themselves as “stateless” then draw people from China, Korea, with “slanted” eyes and straight hair. Also almost every white character is drawn with blonde hair and “ethnic noses”. So every character that is not Japanese is always drawn to point that out, which is based on their own stereotypes of other people. The question is if it’s not OK for white people to do this, why is it OK for Japanese people to do it? Another problem I have with this, is when the Japan was isolated from other countries, they drew themselves as how they look on the traditional wood block paintings. Abagond, are you now saying ancient Japanese people saw themselves as a “physical stereotype”? Were they not painting themselves as the “default.” Lastly, if the Japanese never laid their eyes on white people, would they have drawn their anime, manga characters with white-like features? I doubt it….
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@ Solesearch
In a black mukokuseki style you could give characters straight hair, white skin, thin lips, whatever you wanted short of a stock stereotype of an out-group. You could still give them natural hair, of course, but you could give them blue hair or orange skin just as easily. Whatever you want. But for all this to work people would have to see blacks as the racial default.
Because of the One Drop Rule black people ARE naturally mukokuseki – they have all shades of skin, all kinds of hair, all kinds of noses and lips. There are blacks within “slanted” eyes. There are even blacks who pass for white.
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Abagond:
The titular character in the movie “Mulan” was based on the protagonist in a well-known ~1500 year old story from China. To what benefit would there be in retelling it in a “nationless” manner?
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This is true. When the Japanese draw things that to them would be Japanese when it comes to America the character is turned white. Like the show dragonball z I watched the cartoon and to me the characters were Japanese, but I guess not to whites because when they made that show into a movie it was a white man that played goku. I went to youtube and some of the Asians were pissed about it. Even avatar the last airbender they don’t really have any Asians playing In that movie. it’s mostly whites and they play the good guys while the Asian characters play the bad guys.
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@ Solesearch
Live-action adaptations of mukokuseki is tricky because you are moving to a much more naturalistic medium. The best rule is simply to ask the creator. If that is not possible, then I would say to get them as close to his nationality or race as possible.
This is already done in music videos. Love songs rarely give away the race of the woman (or man) being sung about, yet in most music videos her race is made to match the singer.
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Something like 85% of genetic variation is within races not between them. Facial profiling only works as well as it does because of out-group homogenization – “they all look alike” – which is based on prejudice not fact.
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@ Randy
For all I know a mukokuseki Mulan has already been done. The advantage of mukokuseki is that it gives you more freedom in an already limited style.
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@ Randy
It is like asking what is the advantage of drawing the Simpsons in a way where everyone is not blonde haired and blue eyed.
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Wouldn’t all races be naturally mukokuseki? Isn’t that what you’re arguing?
A mukokuseki style for African Americans would be seen as colorism, shunning typical or stock features of black people for more “exotic” features.
I think the mukokuseki style hinges on drawing people with features no human has, not just shunning stereotypical features. So it works with stick figures and the Simpson’s. You couldn’t draw a person with yellow skin, slanted eyes, black hair and call them white in the United States even though white people are the racial default. People would ask, “why do they look asian?”
But in the America, small lips, small nose, and pink/peach skin are stereotypes of white people, not just blue eyes, blond hair. Those features aren’t stateless to us. You said manga comes from disney, so we are used to seeing those features as stereotypes of white people.
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@solesearch
That’s exactly what I am trying to say if mukokuseki is really about not belonging to any nation, why would they draw people of other races and nations in stereotypical manner? I remember watching Hikaru no Go and there was a character who traveled to China, all the Chinese characters where drawn with stereotypically Asian features except for one exemption, the one who look like a Japanese person. It was so jarring to see the Mukokuseki Japanese character against the Chinese characters with stereotypical features. They do this with all non-Japanese characters. That’s just not necessary, through context and names, one can understand if a character is foreigner so why the need to differentiate?
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I heard that the reason that anime has the large eye trope is because during the early days of Japanese animation, the animators were influenced by Walt Disney’s style of character composition. I wonder if that’s true or just a rumor.
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@ Solesearch
Right, people are naturally mukokuseki, prejudice facially profiles them.
A black mukokuseki style would draw blacks as “just people”, not according to racial physical stereotypes. Colourism could creep into it. Depends how it is handled.
In mukokuseki you generally avoid drawing in-group characters as an out-group stereotype. But it can be done: Naruto is blonde haired and blue eyed and yet thoroughly Japanese. He might be saved by his small nose and short stature.
Anime did grow out of Disney’s style. I think that accounts for some of its apparent whiteness, but not most of it.
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@abagond
Mukokuseki doesn’t exist in a vacuum, how its used, the good and the bad reflects its people. Also not every manga/anime artist draw their characters with white like features. For example Ghibli studios, Hajime no Ippo, Wolf Guy Ookami no Monshou, Otoyomegatari, Vagabond, and others.
Also, why haven’t you answered my questions? There are not unreasonable questions to ask, it makes it seems that you don’t know much about anime and manga.
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@ Brothawolf
The creator of Astro Boy, the first anime, said he was influenced by Disney and Max Fleischer (Betty Boop).
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If naturalism(the woman up top looks pretty natural to me) doesn’t matter in the drawing, why should it matter in the Live Action adaptations? If the only rule in the drawings is to not look like a stereotype(I really hate calling it stereotype. Usher and Lucy Liu aren’t stereotypes of their ethinicities to me. They are just people. Sambo is a stereotype.) why doesn’t it apply to Live Action?
Unless the love song includes a description of the woman I don’t think you can compare it to a mukokuseki drawing. Most male black artists don’t use black women in their videos do and it’s seen as self-hatred and racist.
What is “just people”? It seems you’re defining “just people” as excluding typical black features or the typical features of a people. While half of Japanese people might not have slanted eyes the other half does, so still typical.
Unless you include non-human features, I don’t see how you can avoid out-group stereotypes. Well, yes I do. I think you avoid stereotype by adding detail and variety, not by avoiding the typical features.
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@ Dauphine
1. I never said it was all right for the Japanese to facially profile. Drawing your people in a mukokuseki style and others as stereotypes is clearly prejudiced, a double standard.
2. Anime is nowhere near as naturalistic as older drawing styles. In a completely naturalistic style a person’s race would be just as apparent as when you look at them in real life.
3. I think anime has been whitened by its Disney and Fleischer roots, but I do not think that is the main reason it “looks white”. That has more to do with the White Default. That is clear from the fact that Americans see them as white-looking while the Japanese do not.
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@ Solesearch
I am not excluding them. Not at all. I am saying that in a black mukokuseki style you would not HAVE TO always put them in. You could draw black people more according to the full range of their looks.
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Isn’t Mulan wearing a japanese kimono???
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@ Solesearch
Live-action is a zillion times more naturalistic because it shows people to a photographic level of detail. So long as they do not look ambiguous, their race is no longer a matter of guesswork.
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I grew up watching anime in France. From the age of three I was watching Dragon Ball, Princess Knight, Saint Seiya and other anime. At the time I didn’t know that they were Japanese anime…to me they were just beloved cartoons that I watched when I wasn’t in school. In France, most the titles and most characters’ names were changed to suit the french language. Hence Saint Seiya, was called Les Chevaliers du Zodiaque, City Hunter was Nicky Larson, Maison Ikkoku was renamed Juliette Je T’aime and so on. So when you remove the language, names of the characters, names of the settings, there wasn’t anyway to tell they were Japanese so I took them as white characters because that is what they looked like. It wasn’t until I was ten did I learn that they were from Japan and therefore represented Japanese characters. Thankfully, the young mind is flexible and I was able to make the switch no problem. But I will never forget my initial impression…
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This is an interesting post. I remember Speed Racer. I remember someone saying it was Japanese. There was another kid’s show from back in the day. 8 Man. It looks like Speed Race. So this style is called mukokuseki. Learned something new today.
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@ kiwi and Najiyah; Reading your comments about the white substitute teacher. I sounds to me like he didn’t know what he was talking about. Well that’s sad. An instructor who didn’t know what he was talking about. But that’s the American school system for you.
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Abagond:
Unlike with the Simpsons, for both Mulan and The Boondocks cultural context is integral to the story, so it would seem naturally beneficial to draw the characters as Chinese and Black, respectively.
Someone could push back on that claim and ask, “what exactly is Chinese and what is Black? There’s a wide range of phenotypes for each”.
I’m guessing that if presented with 100 photos of random black people mixed with 100 photos of random Chinese people, you’d probably have little difficulty correctly identifying members of each group.
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@ Randy
1. Cultural context is hugely important to the Simpsons too. Maybe less than for the Boondocks but certainly way more than for Mulan.
2. Growing up I never had any trouble understanding that anime characters were Japanese. They did not have to be drawn to fit American stereotypes – especially since I knew those stereotypes were wildly inaccurate anyway.
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@ Najiyah @ Kiwi
I was wondering about her dress. Thanks.
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To Abagond:
@ Najiyah @ Kiwi
I was wondering about her dress. Thanks.
I thought Kimono also until I looked styles of dress spanning the Han to the Ming dynasty. (Anachronisms in the story make it hard to place which exact era Mulan was supposed to take place…)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ruqun.svg
http://cn.hujiang.com/new/p452213/?op
But the cherry blossoms do seem to be Japanese.
Anime, I basically thought was a genre unto itself that had been influenced by early American cartoons.
Moving away from Japanese Anime let’s look at Chinese animation since Mulan is a supposed to be Chinese:
I looked at some cartoons from China which came from here:
http://www.china.org.cn/top10/2011-06/15/content_22791091_2.htm
and here:
http://www.lovehkfilm.com/panasia/princess_iron_fan.html
Contrast with the Chinese portrayal of a Turkish character:
To me at least, most of the images do not look racially ambiguous and the Turkish character is quite distinct from the Chinese character.
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Abagond, you miss the real issue. The real issue is that many Japanese don’t hate their own culture, they just hate their own Asian faces. That is why, in anime, they seem Japanese in all aspects except appearance. You don’t have to be self-hating about every single aspect of your life.I have seen ancient Japanese paintings and there is no ambiguity about them. This is a recent phenomenon (post W.W.II). See what I’m getting at?
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Kiwi you hit on something there about how things got reversed when it comes down to gender appeal of Asian people. If I recall correctly, Asian women were rather ridiculed for their bone structures, hair etc and then after WWII these attributes started becoming attractive.
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How many of you know-it-alls on the comment section are actually Japanese or Chinese?
Mulan is wearing a hanfu-style dress, which is VERY Chinese, and it’s also very bizarre to me that cherry blossoms are meant to only denote Japanese-ness when they also grow in China. It also could easily be plum blossoms, which are used often in traditional Chinese art.
The implication that non-whites must all aspire to look like whites is a disgusting, racist, and condescending one as well. I’m impressed at how gross y’all are being.
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[…] while ago Abagond made a post about mukokuseki, the drawing style of modern Japanese cartoons (anime) that makes the characters “look […]
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Still condescending. Still making and looking for excuses for obvious Japanese racism BS that you wouldn’t do for anyone else, I see.
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@ Symphonic
What do you mean?
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He doesn’t know.
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Oh, don’t I, Herneith? I mean if it’s whites, arabs, hispanics, other blacks Abagond has no problem calling out racism or white worship, even tearing through claims or pretty sounding excuses for what is still obviously racism. But for this even when he clearly knows that Asians are capable of the same prejudices and racial identity issues that Americans are. I’ve expressed disagreement on this same exact topic on the White Default post.
Reading stuff like this feels like there’s a break in that “looks like a duck, quacks like a duck” basic logic and instead you want me to believe it’s a giraffe. It feels like being told one of those sweet, sugary lies the adults tell 4-year-olds, but I’m a functional grown man. ‘If you don’t eat your veggies I’ll tell Santa no presents for you this year!’ – it feels like contempt. Consider these articles for instance:
So if Japanese people get eyelid surgeries and draw white characters claiming them to be Asian then someone can claim the same thing about black people in America; lightening their skin and straightening their hair isn’t out of emulation of whiteness! They’re just stateless! They’re black it’s just us who is IMAGINING they’re trying to look white! Japan is a magical place where racism doesn’t exist!
Mukokuseki is just another excuse. The white anime characters are white. That’s fine, but it’s also not a coincidence that they often import animes with white characters to the west. A better question would be are Asians too Asian even for anime? Is their Asian-ness somehow threatening? What is up with those people who are so put of by stuff like that?
It also goes against the logic of racial isolation. We’ve seen all throughout history, including in Japan that when people tend to be surrounded by others that look like themselves then in art that’s what the people look like. Why not here? It doesn’t seem to be about a lack of markers, but deliberating choosing traits common in another group.
I’M SORRY this post is so long. You can believe what you guys want.
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When I was younger I didn’t care about the races of characters, though I did notice them. Now I feel like ‘sigh still? white people continue to be the center of everything?’
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