I have three words to say to your friend: Pocahontas and 
Bugs Bunny.  If he can come up with an actual Native
American (heck, any race will do) woman who really looks like
Disney's Pocahontas, I'll eat a floppy disk.  How 'bout Bugs, anybody
seen a rabbit that looks like that?!
  This is *art*, not a documentary and is a complete fictional
creation of an artist/animator.  Nobody is going to use anime
as an actual reference to real life.  (If they do, run away!).
  Besides why is your friend so hung up on appearances?
What I love about anime is that you can have any hair
colour, any skin colour,any unusual physical characteristics
and still be considered perfectly *normal*.  
  Only the characters' personality and behaviour is really
important.  So tell your friend to either stopped worrying
about the "accuracy" of the anime characters or go watch
a documentary 'stead of anime.

  Sorry, don't mean to sound too harsh, but this was 
question was askin' for it! 
--Ilsa, OAA and COR.


At 05:39 PM 30/04/96 -0400, you wrote:
>Hey everyone!
>
>I just have a simple (I hope) question that hopefully someone on this 
>list can answer.  I have a very annoying roommate who keeps bugging me 
>about why characters in Japanese anime don't look Japanese.  We were 
>watching the OAV "Akane and Her Sisters", and he kept on commenting that 
>the characters did not look Japanese.  He specifically pointed out Kasumi 
>and Nabiki, and he stated reasons like wrong skin tone and all that.  I 
>was wondering if anyone can come up with an answer to why characters 
>don't look Japanese.  I tried to tell him, "Who cares?  Just shut up and 
>enjoy it for what it is" but he won't quit bugging me.  Please help...
>
>Thanks,
>
>MIDN Mac O. Quidem
>United States Naval Academy 
>
>
>