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Mukokuseki: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:tokimuko3 3822.jpg|link=Tokimeki Memorial|frame|And the American is...?<ref>[[Phenotype Stereotype|The blonde one, obviously.]]</ref>]]
{{quote|''"The reason Japanese people are so short and have yellow skin is because [[Lamarck Was Right|they have eaten nothing but fish and rice for two thousand years.]] [[Insane Troll Logic|If we eat McDonald's hamburgers and potatoes for a thousand years]] we will become taller, our skin will become white, and our hair blonde."''
|'''Den Fujita''', first president of [[McDonald's]] Japan, 1971.}}
[[Mukokuseki]] is the use of ambiguous racial features in anime, with characters having traits like wide eyes, light skin, great stature, and [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair|various hair colors]]. It literally means "stateless", though the term relates to more abstract anime and is used for hyperbole in this case.
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* Most of the characters in ''[[Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water]]'' are European whites and look the part, with pinker skin and such. All of the characters of different races look like their respective races. The only exceptions are the {{spoiler|Atlantean characters, who are a sort of brown skinned mukokuseki, somewhere between Indian and African.}}
* Most of [[Naoki Urasawa]]'s manga are drawn very realistically. The Caucasian looking people in his work actually are Caucasian (with huge noses though), as many of his manga are set in Europe or other exotic locales. In fact, Urasawa occasionally goes too far in the other direction. ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'' 's Eva Heinemann, a German, has a slightly Asian look to her. Just about the only time he plays this trope straight is with Kana from ''20th/21st Century Boys'', who has more of a typical big eyed, fair haired "anime girl" look to her, resembling ''Monster'''s Anna/Nina, but this is probably to emphasize the character's "otherness", as she has supernatural powers.
** Also played somewhat straight with his redesigns of many classic [[Osamu Tezuka]] characters for ''[[Pluto]]'', especially Ochanomizu & Tenma, due to their comedically oversized schozzes, which could never be reduced to typical Japanese proportions without rendering the characters unrecognizable. So while they do look realistic in a sense, they don't look like people who could realistically be named Tenma or Ochanomizu. Shansaku "Mister Mustachio" Ban also suffers from this, as his character model was recycled from ''Monster'''s Dr. Reichwein, who is in turn based on the American actor Wilford "Diabeetus" Brimley. Urasawa does a surprisingly good job on Inspectors Tawashi
** That being said, Dr. Tenma, of ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'' fame, who is supposed to be Japanese, is drawn stylistically ''very'' similar to several characters who are supposed to be German, even if his skin and hair color are realistic.
* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' mostly avoids this, as it takes place in a [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]] of central Europe and visitors from the east like Ling are stereotypical Asian-looking for the most part. It also inverts this trope with Roy Mustang, who looks more like somebody from Xing than Amestris. [[Fanon]] has it that his mother is from Xing, but within the manga this is never commented on.
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* In ''[[Tsuritama]]'' the Frenchmen and Indians don't look significantly different from the Japanese characters - little things like Yuki's red hair or Akria's darker skin are the only clues to their non-Japanese heritage.
* ''[[Detective Conan]]'' versus ''[[Lupin III]]'' has an egregious example. People from Vespania are portrayed with varying hair colors (while Japanese people in the series all have dark hair), and all the trappings of Vespania are European in style (although no location is explicitly mentioned). Yet Ran, who is Japanese, is a double for the princess of Vespania.
* Played with in ''[[K-On!]]'' -- twice. Tsumugi is ethnically Japanese, but is ''explicitly'' blonde and blue-eyed in-universe despite this -- and no one seems to think it's odd, even though for two seasons of the anime and six volumes of the manga she is the ''only'' natural blonde to appear in the series. Once she heads off to college another in-universe blue-eyed blonde, Sumire, joins the Light Music Club -- whose family turns out to be Australian but who changed their names when they moved to Japan. Despite this, no one even realizes she's not ethnically Japanese until she outs herself.
* [[M. Night Shyamalan]] responded to criticisms of the [[Race Lift]] in his film, ''[[The Last Airbender]]'' with this trope, stating that the characters in the [[Avatar: The Last Airbender|original cartoon]] don't match up perfectly to any real-world race, though they are in many ways [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]]s to a number of real ethnicities.▼
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* The ''[[History Bites]]'' episode ''Samurai Goodfellas'', featuring Ron Pardo as [[The 47 Ronin|Oishi Yoshio]] probably counts as a straight example.
▲== [[Live Action Film]] ==
▲* [[M. Night Shyamalan]] responded to criticisms of the [[Race Lift]] in his film, ''[[The Last Airbender]]'' with this trope, stating that the characters in the [[Avatar: The Last Airbender|original cartoon]] don't match up perfectly to any real-world race, though they are in many ways [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]]s to a number of real ethnicities.
== Video Games ==
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* [[Canon Foreigner]] You Ji from ''Bladestorm: The Hundred Years War'' completely (and pleasantly) averts the Mukokuseki principle - his look is unambiguously and realistically East Asian, amongst a cast of caucasian English and French characters. It's arguably a double aversion in You Ji's case, as Bladestorm originates from the Koei stable, who are ''notorious'' for employing Mukokuseki principles across their hero-series [[Dynasty Warriors]], where auburn/red/light-brown/blond haired, green & blue-eyed asians abound in ancient China....
==
* ''[[Homestuck]]'' would be a rare Western media example. The "playable" human characters are rendered with completely white skin, while actual Caucasians (like Andrew Hussie's [[Author Avatar]] and ''[[Dinosaur Comics]]'' authour Ryan North) are rendered with not-quite-flesh-tone skin that's more orange than anything. [[Word of God]] has specified that the blank white characters [https://web.archive.org/web/20130312064059/http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/15937434515/predictably are supposed to be a-racial], so it's left up to the reader to decide what race they are.
* ''[[Hark! A Vagrant]]'' offers [http://harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=40 a rare non-anime example in Beaton's portrayal of] [[Miyamoto Musashi]].
{{examples|[[Discussed Trope|Discussions]] of this trope}}▼
▲{{examples|[[Discussed Trope|Discussions]] of this trope}}
== Web Original ==
* This blog post entitled [http://kotaku.com/5627268/why-do-japanese-characters-look-white "Why do Japanese characters look white?"] considers two possible reasons for [[Mukokuseki]]. The first is that anime characters don't look white to Japanese people (because the assumption in Japan is "Japanese unless marked otherwise" instead of "Westerner unless marked otherwise" like Westerners are used to). The second is the heavy importation of Western culture to Japan after [[World War 2]].
* An old [[YouTube]] video, entitled "Are anime characters Japanese or Caucasian", argued that large eyes and pale skin are not necessarily Caucasian traits. Though the video has since been removed, some of the responses remain.
== Real Life ==
* As noted above, [[Mukokuseki]] is cited by [[M. Night Shyamalan]] to justify the [[Race Lift]] of characters in ''[[The Last Airbender]]''.
{{reflist}}
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