A minority as one of the main characters, Yay or Nay?

[captainproton]

I think the reason a lot of blonde anime characters are considered to be European is because they are usually blue- or green-eyed, too. Dying your hair is a thing, yes, but not so much the eyes, especially in more medieval settings, before the advent of contacts. I've seen some anime which try to cover this by saying the character is half Japanese, half European.

Because. Y'know. Genetics TOTALLY works that way.

 

[Yui]

I always draw myself with green eyes!!!!.... Green is my favorite color... so....... I can understand the desire to have pretty colors for eyes... and hair

 

[trouble time]

nope I'm just saying people relate to what they're familiar with. Also about names lets take a look at one of my favorite games, Star Ocean. When the game was finally released in the west many of the character's names were changed. YES there is a white person (Ronyx) but the other characters had fantasy names like Radix, and Mils. Which were changed to Millie, and Rodderick.

Does this mean that Rodderick is white? no he's roarkian xD .... but really I know in recent years censorship and localization has been better about keeping original content, but in the past things were changed and removed in bunches to make the content more appealing to a western audience.

Also by projection I am refering to your culture, not your race. If you live in a diverse area, that has more Asians then white people, your mind will automatically assume that a light skinned character is asian. I'm just saying that its all a matter of perception.

ALSO side note, minority doesn't have to mean "someone different" but could also be a belief system, a culture, or anything of the sort. Minorities are groups that are oppressed by the dominate culture. You can be of the "race" that the minority are, but if you participate in the dominate culture, you are not a minority but rather part of the dominate culture.

Why are you assuming what I assume is based on the character's skin color, it isn't.. I don't automatically assume characters in anime are white, but I would assume a character in a medieval European setting would be white especially when there is a whole country or continent that is analogous to Asia where people have a different culture. Especially when characters comment on the other character looking different and identify what country they are from based on their appearance.

I also think you're making a huge assumption when you assume that the Japanese think these characters are Japanese. 

 

[Yui]

no no my whole point was about the don't judge cause the skin tone thing, I'm glad you don't but I've seen so many people ask stupid questions on anime boards, so its sorta made me assume things about the entire interwebs. I'm mostly just saying that you can't project, and its all up to the creator to decide what each character is. That is if they even think about things like race, or real world cultures.

 

[trouble time]

no no my whole point was about the don't judge cause the skin tone thing, I'm glad you don't but I've seen so many people ask stupid questions on anime boards, so its sorta made me assume things about the entire interwebs. I'm mostly just saying that you can't project, and its all up to the creator to decide what each character is. That is if they even think about things like race, or real world cultures.

I agree to that.

 

[captainproton]

Obviously, the creator can decide which characters are what, but if your story is set in the real world, then you really should make an attempt to accurately portray real world phenotypes. While a Japanese person can be as light-skinned as a north European, dark hair and dark eyes are both dominant genetic traits. This is why characters like Tamaki from Ouran High School Host club, Sailor Moon, and Rurouni Kenshin make no sense.

Many anime creators use the rainbow hair and eye colors as a shortcut for not having the skill to draw different facial features. They draw one face over and over again, but with different hair and different eye color.

A fantasy series, however, can be more loosey-goosey, particularly if it isn't Earth. Skin, hair and eye color don't necessarily have to correspond with real-world cultures (though characters from sun-drenched lands should still be darker-skinned, as that still makes sense.) My own game uses edits of the RTP characters, with only some skin color edits, but keeping the full Crayola spectrum of hair and eye colors.

Oh--and actual purple/violet eyes only occur with forms of albinism, btw.

 

[lemongreen]

Actually, I'm pretty sure Tamaki is half-french (so having recessive traits there isn't entirely strange) Also, it could just be that in the early days that was used as a cost effective means to not have to freehand as much (most animation was done by hand at a certain time, after all... though they could very well still be lazy. It could've also been a strange wish fulfilment; after all, media doesn't have to always be 100% accurate and hair and eye colors aren't the weirdest things with anime, especially your other examples) 

Anyway on the actual topic, yes there should be minorities represented and should be in the limelight. The only caveat I have is when they are seen as a main character instead of taken positively (well, at least thankfully some people do accept it a positive)  there's always a group that complies the character down to their basic traits and calls them "just a stereotype" and thus not a good representation. (though, anyone can really be made a stereotype if you just look at them that way)

Though, my biggest problem is the world isn't just black and white, as it seems like some try to force it to be. (and I don't mean color term wise, though that might work, too...)   It's never as easy as just using a minority as a character because it can quickly become a heated mess (usually against you, as the developer) even if you get them right. If you're not from that race/culture, even if you took plenty of time to research (if it's necessary) there's still a high chance for people to claim that your "appropriating" or trying to misrepresent them (sadly on tumblr people sometimes even do this if the creators of the media are of the race/culture being represented; I've seen it... Though tumblr really isn't the best example; I've found people are generally jerks there...) 

There's never a 100% perfect representation, anyway; everyone is going to be different so there's no way in placing in a racially/culturally repetitive character everyone of that group is going to be covered. Nor should a minority character be placed in just to have one (for the sake of "being more deserve") Yes, occasionally this can work, but most of the time the minority character just comes off as flat and you can tell they were just thrown in there, or you can tell they were quickly changed if they weren't a minority character before.

Though another thing is as multiculturally diverse the world is, we (as humans) tend to stick to what's familiar; it's why the adage "write what you know" is so well known. I remember (back when I was still using tumblr) there was a blog called PoC (the mods would take questions on writing character of color) and whenever there was a general "how do I write [insert racial type here]?" non-specific question, I'd always think (without looking through the answer first) "as a human, duh." (though, of course some cultures do need research before writing a character from them just in case) It's strange how we seem to have this disconnect of "Oh, I'm not from this race, I don't even know where to start to look for information..." (I've personally found specific web searches and public libraries are extremely usefully for this.)

... Sorry, I didn't really mean to rant (I'm not even sure if all of that is on topic...)