Continuation of the "anime hair" debate

[bspeers]

Okay, it's not terribly important, but I had a few sources to add to what I said in a post a little while ago and wanted to share them, because I think it may inform people about the history of manga in general and the use of symbolism.

It is generally assumed that manga's "western" appearance is a form of self-loathing and western love.  Few sources that seriously study the art-form will say this, however, because the history just doesn't quite support it.  Many societies look to others for inspiration and loath aspects of themselves, and Japanese people do often look to the "west," but it is not a unique or all-encompassing phenomenon.  Anime and Manga often mock other cultures as well.

However, in another post, I said that hair colour was related to shading time, which is still possible.  Original manga hair was left blank or partially shaded.  This didn't just save time shading the hair (blank is faster than any other method I could imagine), but made character identifcation easier.  Maybe speed was not the main (or even the slightest bit a significant issue), but most sources I have found say it is not an issue of envy of the west or any such silly thing.  It may still be so, but people have to realize it isn't "just wrong" to use a variety of sources that you may or may not agree with to form your opinion.

Here are some sources.

http://www.umich.edu/~anime/info_haircolor.html
http://bosp.kcc.hawaii.edu/Horizons/Horizons2001/69LinkPastPresent_Anime.html

Here are some key quotes:

"Back when artists were just starting to draw what we would consider "manga" today, they only had three options for hair color: black, white and grey. It would seem that, when trying to draw Japanese characters, only black could be used, but shoujo manga artists started to leave the hair of their Japanese characters un-inked. Doing this allowed the reader to distinguish between characters easily, and it also helped balance the page and make it more artistic. However, the Japanese characters were still presented as looking traditionally Japanese, and the reader accepted them as Japanese."

Even traditionally Japanese anime characters can have hair of any color, even colors that don't traditionally appear on any real human! Like with manga, assigning different hair colors to different characters allows the viewer to recognize which character is which. Hair color has also traditionally been used to indicate some part of the character's personality.

Hair color is one symbol that can indicate a character's personality type. Although hair color can symbolize different personality traits, it does not have any relation to the ethnicity of a character.

I also reccomend this book.

Despite the fact that I say this is a continuation of the debate, it isn't for me, I just wanted to share that info and people were right in saying the original post was not the place for it.

Perhaps this could lead to further debate about cultural appropriation and national pride issues related to art, however.  Just an idea.

[RickJ]

... It is generally assumed that manga's "western" appearance is a form of self-loathing and western love.

I'm not at all qualified to comment on art or manga  history but I think "Self-loathing" is a bit of a leap.  It's not unusual for people to find traits they don't have,  or that are uncommon in their culture, attractive.   Use a British accent in a US pub and you'll be a chick magnet.   Use a British accent in a Lonon pub and you won't be noticed.   

[Helm]

As you are prepared to admit yourself, speed was hardly the issue. If someone inks blonde hair convincingly (with skillfull line variation of the outlines and such), and then does black hair convincingly, you'll find that the missing step of filling in the blank space with ink doesn't take much time at all. The saving of time between the two scenarios is close to nothing. Also, 'gray' hair as mentioned, would be achieved by the usage of raster tone, which takes up it's own time itself, even moreso if you consider how the majority of manga artists go in and rub out meticulously designed highlights in the tone with sharp and eraser.

Now, having blonde characters, as well as characters with extraordinary hairstyles for distinction issues does make sense, especially since a lot of manga artists draw basically the same face on all the pretty girls, especially in girl-orientated comics. That I can buy.

[Kinoko]

It is my humble opinion that the theory of self loathing or anything like it are ridiculous. It happened over time, with many different artists. MANY different artists. They all had their original reasons for doing it, or they thought others were doing it for different reasons. I can tell you my own personal reason for doing it is because it looks good, and I believe that's why most people today do it. A silver haired chick with red eyes may be in fashion one day, tomorrow a red head with blue eyes. It's cool to play with colour, and lots of people like it. Manga/anime has freed itself from that being a strange thing, so of course they use it. From an inking standpoint, of course there's SHITLOADS of manga out there where all the characters have realistic, Asian hair. A lot of the most popular stuff over the years in Japan is like that but a lot of it doesn't make it into the West because obviously the West tends to like the quirky colourful stuff. However, it's true that it -is- often easier to give your characters different coloured hair to make it easier to draw or distinguish between them.

Sometimes I do it cause it's easier, sometimes I do it cause I want characters with cool hair colour.

EDIT: And sometimes I'll do it specifically so that I can have fun with styling lines instead of colourish black. It just gives you more choice.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Manga/anime has freed itself from that being a strange thing

It has?  I still find whacky hair/eye colors strange in anime.

[Kinoko]

But most Japanese don't ^_^ Whereas something the same in western comics would get a bit more attention.

[Gilbert]

In general I don't see the problem in using different colours for hairs, especially when they're not meant to be serious or realistic (Asian and Western stuff are alike in this aspect).

It is, however, a bit annoying when they're not drawn.

[Kinoko]

Hey, dude, come on, that Sailor Venus is kinda hot.

[Vince Twelve]

My wife, being Japanese, is an expert on what Japanese people think, and can therefore accurately and authoritatively speak for every single person of that nationality.

Me: Hey, Kumi.  Do you hate yourself?

Kumi: What?  No.

Me: 'Kay.

So I think that the self-loathing argument is right out.