POC representation

[Esmoire]

The general topic of characters that look white to foreigners VS characters looking just Japanese to the Japanese is kind of muddied, anyways. Just talking stuff like global trends in cultural beauty standards, and what they could mean. Like, in Japan or similar countries like South Korea, there's a jarring increase the sales of skin whitening products, surgeries to take a flat nose and make it more like a button, surgeries to open up the eyes more, and stuff like that, that make what we feel an Asian looks like to be less Asian, particularly on women. On the other hand, in the west, a lot of white people find a tan attractive, to the point they'll spray fake tan on themselves. Though we wouldn't say a very tan white person is not white/Caucasian anymore just because their skin is darker.

So like, I do think a variety of skin colours is nice if just for variety sake, though when it comes to reflecting racial identity and characteristics it's a little more nuanced than that.

[Barraind]

l'm pretty sure color is the ONLY teal difference in races. Bone structure is species. i. e. homo sapiens.

Thats not at all the case (theres a few anthropology disciplines that specifically study this), but if you can tell aBMD, vBMD, or hip axis length differences from sight alone, you've got some freaky genetics going on.

[MsQi]

Never heard of a person who wasn't of color.

[Iscah]

I think there's some confusion going on here from two different uses of the term "Caucasian".

From Wikipedia:

The Caucasian race (also Caucasoid or Europid) is a grouping of human beings historically regarded as a biological taxon, which, depending on which of the historical race classifications is used, has usually included ancient and modern populations from Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa.

[...]

In the United States, the root term Caucasian is often used, both colloquially and by the US Census Bureau, as a synonym for white. This usage is considered erroneous by anthropologists and other scientists, who note that it conflates an anthropologically valid category (Caucasoid) with the social construct of the "white race". The conflation of Caucasian with white is also demographically misleading since the category Caucasoid has sometimes been considered to include various populations, such as South Asians and North Africans, that are not considered white in a social sense.

[NessaWyvern]

Final Fantasy is aimed at a Japanese audience, so the characters in the games reflect that. You see in anime time and time again characters that look white, despite being from Japan. It’s kinda weird, but it is what it is.

[Iscah]

Final Fantasy is aimed at a Japanese audience, so the characters in the games reflect that. You see in anime time and time again characters that look white, despite being from Japan. It’s kinda weird, but it is what it is.

That's not necessarily the case.

If the story is set in Japan then yes, characters will look "white" and not Asian to us, but Japanese people will just read that as "default human being" and assume they are Japanese.

But if the story is not set in Japan, then the characters won't be made to look any different, but context will tell you where the story is set. Character and place names, written text, settings, world maps will indicate what ethnicity (or fantasy equivalent) the characters are intended to be.

Eorzea is clearly a European-styled fantasy setting, regardless of who is writing it or who it is targeted at.

[NessaWyvern]

That's not necessarily the case.

If the story is set in Japan then yes, characters will look "white" and not Asian to us, but Japanese people will just read that as "default human being" and assume they are Japanese.

But if the story is not set in Japan, then the characters won't be made to look any different, but context will tell you where the story is set. Character and place names, written text, settings, world maps will indicate what ethnicity (or fantasy equivalent) the characters are intended to be.

Eorzea is clearly a European-styled fantasy setting, regardless of who is writing it or who it is targeted at.

So basically, they’ll make characters look “white” regardless of where they are from? And Japanese people see “white” features as a default human being? Like Suzaku in Code Geass having brown hair and green eyes despite being “Japanese”? That’s still kinda weird.

[Iscah]

So basically, they’ll make characters look “white” regardless of where they are from? And Japanese people see “white” features as a default human being? Like Suzaku in Code Geass having brown hair and green eyes despite being “Japanese”? That’s still kinda weird.

Yes and no. They will draw characters with what we interpret as "white features" but it's not necessarily intended that way. (And whatever the origins, at this point it's just how it works.)

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mukokuseki

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/...-white/340084/


On a similar vein, a while back I attended a talk by a picture-book illustrator and she talked about how one of her books had gone well internationally because people would look at the simply-drawn girl and assume it was "someone like them" - she didn't look like any race in particular, but people assumed their own.

[NessaWyvern]

Yes and no. They will draw characters with what we interpret as "white features" but it's not necessarily intended that way. (And weather the origins, at this point it's just how it works.)

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mukokuseki

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/...-white/340084/


On a similar vein, a while back I attended a talk by a picture-book illustrator and she talked about how one of her books had gone well internationally because people would look at the simply-drawn girl and assume it was "someone like them" - she didn't look like any race in particular, but people assumed their own.

So, according to the articles you referenced, it's either 1. To make characters look distinct, or 2. Japanese animators are appropriating "exotic" features from other races. And I still think it's weird, because the Mukokuseki article, states that they deliberately give Japanese people the "white" features, because they think it looks more desirable, whilst giving Korean and Chinese characters "Yellow skin and smaller eyes".

And you can't really blame people for interpreting the features as "white" for characters who have eye colours that is Blue/green/grey and hair that is blonde/red/brown whilst also having pale skin, as this is typically seen in people of European descent, and not often seen elsewhere.

I grew up watching Inu Yasha, where most characters did have Black hair and dark eyes (minus the demons), and you could tell the characters apart, so it can be done, but for some reason most anime don't do it.

Anyway, back to the OP's statement, the characters are like that due to cultural stuff in Japan, and since Final Fantasy games are primarily targeted at Japanese audiences, that's why you don't see many features from other races, besides Japanese and "white". It is what it is.

[Jennah]

Literally the only time the skin-color thing registered with me was when we saw a flashback of Lyse's father in Stormblood, and I immediately concluded "Welp, she's adopted. Probably secretly the real heir to the Garlean throne or something." And it turned out (hopefully) that she's just inexplicably very white.

But then I made a black miqo'te. Not "appearing to be of African ancestry", but black-black. So what do I know?