Hmmm... Speaking of touchy-feely subjects. I won't go into why (and if
it's racist; that is the subject of lots of debates), but on the topic
of African Americans in anime:

[Tenchi material here]
I personally don't think Mihoshi is supposed to be African
American. Deeply tanned, yes, but more of a well-tanned beach
blonde. In the manga series, there in fact is mention of exactly how
tan she is, but I don't remember the details.

[No Tenchi material here]

That said, the only definitely African American Anime characters I can
think of are the lady from Macross (the original) who worked at the
command bridge, the Kami's helper from Dragonball, the friend in
Macross Plus, and Nadia (from "Nadia of the Mysterious Blue
Waters"). An interesting discussion about Nadia's character design is
at Marc Hairston's web site, which you could find via any good anime
links site, like anipike.

Tezuka Osamu often used mixed-blood or full blooded African American
characters as side characters in his series (notably Black Jack; btw,
since part of the skin grafted on him is African American, does he
count? Is it on the basis of skin that we call an African an African,
or a Japanese a Japanese? Tezuka-san is really great because he likes
to ask subtle questions like these). Of course, Tezuka is more the
exception than the rule.

At the very least, a lot of the '70s era manga depictions of blacks
looked a lot like blackface characters. It's unclear to me if that's a
result of stereotyping, lack of observational material (I would guess
most Africans in Japan was(is) concentrated around the US military
bases), printing ink problems, or some combination of all of the
above.

Shuichi

>>>>> "TenchiMP" == TenchiMP  <TenchiMP@gate1.tomatoweb.com> writes:

  >> Too light-skinned.  Or because of fan response, the creators
  >> have decided to make her un-African...

  > fan response? why the hell arent there more black people in anime? Mihoshi
  > is the only african ive seen in anime that i can recall, and she is hot!
  > ..and even though she is obviously black, they gave her blue eyes, and
  > blonde hair?? oh yea, they also made her an air head. i don't think this is
  > very fair. 
  > I realise she isn't even from earth, but still, look at any anime series,
  > how many have ANY black people?

  > i think this is kind of racist, dont get me wrong, im well aware that most
  > anime has lots of unequalaty in it...i.e. the # of male to female ratios in
  > most series, especialy tenchi. i just think its wrong that there arent more
  > black men/women in anime.

  > -Tenchi MP
  > "the carnival comes and goes. If you wait for a while, it'll always come
  > back to you"
  > -Ryoko

  > "what do you mean capital punishment doesn't work? none of the murderers
  > we've executed have killed again have they?"
  > -Bill Maher




-- 
======================================================================
=   Shuichi Koga (That's Shoo eechi) : SKoga@CS.Washington.EDU        
= Graduate Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington 
=        URL: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/skoga/               
======================================================================