A meme titled “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” The image features four different adaptions of popular animes and one American animated tv show. Left to right, Death Note, Dragon Ball, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Ghost in the Shell are the adaptions featured, all of which have been heavily criticized for casting white main actors/actresses, and whitewashing in general.
i read an article around the time of scarlett johansson’s casting as the main lead of the US’s rendition of Ghost in the Shell that i found really insightful for both the decision of the director to cast johansson as the lead, as well as the reasoning behind there being a lot of fair-skinned, light haired, blue and green-eyed characters in animes that i’ve watched growing up.
many asian cultures, due to exposure and often intervention of various european and/or US forces in their countries, are very interested in whiteness, with fair, light skin and hair being the some of the most desired beauty standards in asian communities. this does not necessarily mean that asian people desire to be white (aside from this man here), but it does show a certain amount of eurocentrism*, colorism and internalized racism that is part of a large issue in the asian and asian american community.
these beauty standards apply to the medium of anime as well, because many of the characters in anime have white or pale features, with some stories actually heavily focusing on european history or mythology. one manga artist (read: mangaka) that i know of in particular, the author for Shingeki no Kyojin or Attack on Titan in english has been the face of rumors claiming him and his work to be pro-imperialist and japanese nationalist in nature (see here and here), which, if true, would be extremely concerning for many groups of people considering the manga’s almost all-german cast, sans the one japanese character in the entire story.
for many international fans of anime, especially fans from the US where the constructs of race and ethnicity are much more rigid and compartmentalized than in the homogeneous country of japan, this can be a lonely experience of enjoying and consuming the media but either never seeing themselves represented, or getting horribly stereotyped on the occasion where they are represented.
i wonder if we’ll ever see a change in the folks who get represented in these kinds of media, or if putting in asian representation in media will even make a difference. in any case, this’ll all be something to think about as the same issue inevitably happens in the future.
*eurocentrism: “centered or focused on Europe or European peoples, especially in relation to historical or cultural influence (thefreedictionary.com)”.