I did a couple of posts about Matt Thorn’s classic essay, The Face of the Other, in which he explains:
I have given presentations on manga to Western audiences many times, but regardless of the particular themes of my talks, when the floor is opened up for discussion I am invariably asked the same question: “Why do all the characters look Caucasian?” You may have asked yourself the same question.
I answer that question with a question of my own: “Why do you think they look Caucasian?” “Because of the round eyes,” or the “blonde hair,” is the common response. When I ask then if the questioner actually knows anyone, “Caucasian” or otherwise, who really looks anything like these highly stylized cartoons, the response may be, “Well, they look more Caucasian than Asian.” Considering the wide range of variation in the features of persons of both European and East Asian descent, and the fact that these line drawings fall nowhere remotely within that range, it seems odd to claim that such cartoons look “more like” one people than another, but I hope you will see by now that what is being discussed has nothing to do with objective anatomical reality, but is rather about signification.
Still, this can be a hard sell;a cartoon character with wide eyes looks white to us; it’s hard to believe they look Japanese to the Japanese. As commenter awb says:
The article seems to be telling me not to believe my lying eyes. I think he is saying that people are trained to accept the western european look as “standard” or even preferred and because Japan was never dominated by a western society the see themselves as the “standard” and therefore their manga is reflective of that. But, jeez, they don’t look asian! Yes, there are some Japanese without the folds on their eyes and those with frizzy hair but is he telling me the vast majority don’t?
After a whole thread of my constant nagging, awb did eventually (and perhaps just to shut me up) agree to accept Matt’s expert opinion that the Japanese see the manga characters as Japanese. But…it’s not that easy to shut me up. And, moreover, I’ve thought of a really good example to explain how it is possible for the Japanese to see the round-eyed manga characters as Caucasian. So, I give you….the Japanese Superman.
That’s the original Joe Shuster version of Superman, of course. And if you’ll look closely, you’ll see that…he looks Japanese. He’s got dark hair. He’s got narrow slanting dark eyes. Shuster’s ideal man is Asian. An inferiority complex, perhaps?
No, of course not. Even though Superman iconographically “looks” like he could be Asian, we see him as white, because of the context and because our iconographic default is “Caucasian”, even when, as in this case, the signs actually point somewhere else. In Japan, it works the same way, but in reverse; Japanese is the default, and if you want to represent, say, a Caucasian, you have to take some specific steps to get there.
So why is Superman stylized like that? I don’t have any idea, really…but I’d like to think it’s for the same reason that manga characters look “white”. That is, there’s iconographic influence. Tezuka borrowed his iconography from Disney; it’s not impossible to believe that Shuster got some of his iconography from a generalized Art Nouveau illustrational milieu, which was in turn heavily indebted to Japanese prints. Those older prints represent Japanese faces in a way similar to what we still (perhaps influenced by those very prints?) think of as iconographically Asian.
Update: In comments, Tom undoes my elegant theory with a tiny little squiggle. Darn it.
Update 2: But…Mitch defends the Japaneseness of the design. Phew!
Yeah, he’s got black hair, but it’s wavy black hair. Hair-wise, Superman’s most notable feature is that curl on his forehead. There isn’t a Japanese person anywhere whose hair naturally falls into a curl on the forehead. A very small percentage of Japanese do have wavy hair, but the waves are so extreme as to seem corrugated. There aren’t any blond Japanese either.
I would read the Shuster Superman as an example of how the meaning communicated by a given mark can change depending on the other marks that surround it. Sorry for the cumbersome construction, but you get the idea. A pair of brief straight lines can look like one sort of pair of eyes when there’s a forehead curl drawn above them, another sort when the character’s hair is represented by a simple black space.
Well, pooh.
Superman looks nothing like the unflattering manner Asians were typically drawn by American cartoonists in that time period.
Good points all around!
Yes, Pinkhamster, that’s the point. Even though Superman has a couple of characteristics which could be considered Japanese by some viewers (black hair, slanted eyes), he’s not *actually* supposed to be Japanese, just as manga characters aren’t *actually* supposed to be white. Superman
When manga artists want to draw white people, they have iconographic ways of doing it (large jaws, I understand) just as Western artists had (and have) iconographic ways of signaling that a character is Asian.
The point is that these are iconographic markers; they have little to do with the way people actually look, and everything to do with illustration conventions.
Noah, forgive me for not having the specifics, but Superman is modeled after a popular actor of the 20’s/30’s. Not Spencer Tracy, but someone similiar who was had a squnity-eyed look. Also, it seems to a drawing convention of the time to have tough characters drawn with narrow eyes. Someone like Bill Blackbeard could give you all the details.
Hey Ed. I know Clark Kent was supposedly modeled after Cary Grant….
Noah, that might be who I’m thinking about. Thanks.
Another tack might be checking out Bat-Manga!, which collects Batman stories drawn by a Japanese mangaka for a Japanese audience, and would be an actual example of a famous Western comics character seen from a different perspective. Does Batman become Asian?
Actually, he looks like one of those yanki punks with the exaggerated perms. I call ‘no sale’ on the spitcurl excluding the Shuster design from looking “Japanese”.
On the other hand, isn’t there some sort of involved critical theory that the Shuster Superman is supposed to “code” as “immigrant”? Is Shuster’s Superman supposed to look like a stereotypical American? He’s kind of swarthy.
Ha! Take that Tom!
Siegel and Shuster were Jewish, and the Superman origin is often read as a tale of assimilation; boy from distant world where the people have funny, Jewish sounding names, comes to the U.S. and makes good.
To me he looks more like Roy Rogers or Clint Black than asian. Also, this is particular artists rendition rather than a whole “style” of cartooning.
What are the markers in a Street Fighter manga that make Ken a white dude and Ryu Japanese. You can through in Vega if you want. If you didn’t know the history of those particular characters what how would you know? The blonde hair? I’ve seen plenty of manga with characters that had blonde hair that, I guess were supposed to be Japanese (Naruto, maybe).
When manga artists want to draw white people, they have iconographic ways of doing it (large jaws, I understand) just as Western artists had (and have) iconographic ways of signaling that a character is Asian.
Since I’ve still got Monster on the brain, my example is that series, in which almost all the European characters have huge noses.
Hey AWB. Of course he looks Caucasian…to you! The point is that a Japanese viewer unfamiliar with American comics could well look at Superman and say…hey, he’s got narrow eyes, clearly he’s supposed to be Asian — what’s up with that?
I don’t know the characters you mentioned. I do know that manga-ka often give characters blond hair to distinguish one from the other — and sometimes simply as a design element.
he looks like one of those yanki punks with the exaggerated perms. I call ‘no sale’ on the spitcurl excluding the Shuster design from looking “Japanese”.
Those are perms, not a casual bit of hair falling as it may. The reasoning behind Superman’s curl was that he had just been exerting himself so his hair had flopped around a bit. Find me a Japanese whose hair falls into a curl on his forehead because he just punched somebody.
I think caucassian characters more often have blond hair or light hair in anime, but my guess is aside from that there are no rules and no particular differences.
Here’s 3 caucassian characters from 3 different anime series (obviously there is a greater variety of styles in some manga, though many of these anime have manga adaptations)
ken
Drake
Rosetta
You’ve never heard of Street Fighter? Or Naruto? Ken is a blonde haired character in manga and anime based off of a video game and Naruto is…well my son says he is a ninja that likes ramen who is blond also. Ken is an especially good example as he is supposed to be a white guy yet he is indistiguishable from Ryu the japanese guy. And Naruto-well I guess i’m still at a loss to see what markers are there to id him as Japanese. It occurs to me that maybe the markers are just that most manga or anime artists draw in the big/round eye style and THAT is what signifies that you are quite possibly . But how do you explain Naruto or Ken.
As far as Supes, I would submit that he doesn’t look asian to anybody. Particularly to Japanese as his eyes aren’t big enough which I am told is a marker for a character being Japanese. Note also that he as a “square jaw” which according to somebody indicates his “caucasioness” or at least his non “Japaneseness”. Actually he just looks like he needs some sunglasses.
“Particularly to Japanese as his eyes aren’t big enough which I am told is a marker for a character being Japanese.”
Pretty sure this is not true as in many anime/manga series non Japanese characters that have big eyes as well. See above.
Here’s another example:
Tetha
I wouldn’t be surprised if there were manga artists who non japanese foreigners as having small eyes, but this is hardly a consistent cultural language.
You make an interesting case, but I lose the thread when I look at the thousand years of Japanese art before manga, in which the Japanese portrayed themselves as recognizably Asian even to Westerners–straight black hair, epicanthal folds, etc. There’s no ambiguity. Presumably (and I am presuming, my ignorance on this point is large), manga artists are brought up in this tradition much as a western comic book artist might study the iconography and linework of Leonardo or N.C. Wyeth. And yet, manga is unique (AFAIK) among Japanese art in its stylization of round-eyed blond Japanese. If I saw it anywhere else in Japanese art, I’d buy your point that it’s a cultural perspective thing. As it is . . . I dunno.
Isn’t 90’s Superman Dean Cain 1/2 Japanese? Just a random tidbit I thought I’d toss into all this chatter…..
Has anybody seen this? It sort of factors into this discussion.
Brian, you should read Matt Thorn’s essay if you haven’t.
Manga characters are drawn that way because Tezuka drew characters that way. It’s an iconographic tradition, rather than a sign that the characters are supposed to be white.
Anon, that’s an interesting tidbit about Dean Cain. I hadn’t known that, though it makes sense when you look at him. There’s another discussion to be had here about how Asians are becoming effectively white…but maybe another day….
yeah, & kristen kreuk, who plays lana lang on "smallville," is half chinese i believe. "lang" at least sounds like it could be a chinese name, so maybe the character was secretly of chinese descent all along!
Pallas,
I was responding (I hope) to something else that was posted on this site. The “big eyes” in manga and anime was one of the things Japanese identified as a japanese character. I actually disagree.
AWB, the point is that for Japanese the default is Japanese. Big eyes, small eyes, no eyes at all; if you’re Japanese, you identify it as Japanese unless there’s something there telling you otherwise. Similarly, in the West, if the character has big eyes, they’re considered Western; if they have narrow eyes they’re considered Western…they’re always considered Western unless there’s an iconographic tip-off (like exagerrated caricature) which tells you it’s not.
“But how do you explain Naruto or Ken.”
Explain what about Ken and Naruto?
Actually big round eyes in manga are a visual clue for youth and innocence. Narrow eyes represent age, evil intent, strength and determination, stuff like that. Westerners in manga don’t have bigger eyes than their Japanese “co-stars” of same age/evilness level; if anything, they have bigger noses. More often they need to be textually identified as foreign as there are no visual clues at all.
Actually, most characters in any given manga (except villains) have very similar facial structure and need variety of hair colours and props to tell them apart, of which blond is only one of the tools available. And, especially in black-and-white print, uncoloured hair doesn’t necessarily stand for blond. It’s more likely to designate brown as opposed to black, and it’s implied in a way uncoloured areas of human skin are supposed to be skin-tone, not actually white.
People tend to see their own race when they see a face that has no exaggerated stereotypical features.
When caucasians are represented in anime they’re not usually drawn with bigger eyes. Either they’re the same size as the japanese or they’re squintier. So the japanese don’t see “big eyes” as a caucasian trait.
And if you’d look at most hollywood male celebrities, (tom cruise, brad pitt,clint eastwood) you’d notice that a lot of caucasians in mainstream media tend to be quite squinty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKTvFhRbBt8