News Live-Action ‘Cowboy Bebop’ tv series in the works

[Awesome Possum]

I'm 1/4 Asian (Japanese), and so I can confidently say that Spike does not have any Asian physical features or characteristics whatsoever as animated/drawn.

That's just how anime looks, the character is supposed to be Japanese. Most anime characters are still it's made by Japanese people. Animes tend to point out when a character is another race or they have some weird gimmick like Asuka randomly speaking German in Evangelion.

 

[Skipper]

I'm 1/4 Asian (Japanese), and so I can confidently say that Spike does not have any Asian physical features or characteristics whatsoever as animated/drawn.

Please, point me out the Asian physical features or characteristics in these pictures.

The only times one can (perhaps) discern the ethnicity of a character in an anime it's when they are depicted with a darker skin, and even then it's not sure, because perhaps s/he is a ganguro

 

[captainkirk]

I've only watched a few episodes of the anime, but Cho looks perfectly cast and he's obviously a great actor. Why would anyone take issue with his casting?

 

[Reverend]

I can see the argument they could have found something in between. There’s nothing wrong with dressing sexy, just when you go beyond the point of realism solely for the sake of fan service.

The counter to “It’s part of her character” is “The writers made it part of her character with exploitative motives”. It’s certainly possible to translate those character traits to more comfortable clothes.

Again, it's not about the sexy, it's about the dishevelled. Doesn't matter if she's covered from head to toe, or wearing three handkerchiefs and some dental floss, so long as she looks like she just stumbled backwards out of a lift after having slept in the same outfit for two days in a row and climbed out the bathroom window to avoid paying the cleaning bill.

I'm 1/4 Asian (Japanese), and so I can confidently say that Spike does not have any Asian physical features or characteristics whatsoever as animated/drawn.

And that would be relevant if most anime art styles even vaguely emulated real ethnic facial features. (spoilers; they don't.) IIRC the artist who designed the character model supposedly based his look on the star of some Japanese detective/action TV show from the 70's. So I'm just going to take their word for it.

 

[DigificWriter]

I have uncles and cousins on my mother's side of the family (our history there traces back to Sir Francis Drake) who look exactly like Spike, right down to the curly hair.

I'm clearly alone in rejecting the idea that Spike is Asian, though, so I'm moving on.

 

[Skipper]

And that would be relevant if most anime art styles even vaguely emulated real ethnic facial features. (spoilers; they don't.) IIRC the artist who designed the character model supposedly based his look on the star of some Japanese detective/action TV show from the 70's. So I'm just going to take their word for it.

This is from the anime Jormungand and the characters are virtually from every ethnicity from the world.

I dare anyone to assign the right ethnicity to each character without looking for it first on the internet.

And, by the way, I'm 100% Italian and I couldn't recognize which the Italian character was.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

In a lot of Japanese RPGs and anime the characters are distinctly ambiguous between looking Japanese and Caucasian for the obvious reason of marketing to both audiences.

Especially when it’s a world where natural hair colors use the entire spectrum.

 

[Christopher]

In a lot of Japanese RPGs and anime the characters are distinctly ambiguous between looking Japanese and Caucasian for the obvious reason of marketing to both audiences.

Although that isn't really necessary, since as already mentioned, American viewers frequently mistake Japanese characters in manga/anime as white because we see what our biases predispose us to see. Both Western and Asian cartoonists tend to exaggerate the "different" attributes of other ethnicities while portraying their own attributes in a more "normal" way, so when we see unexaggerated features (at least not exaggerated in any specifically ethnic way), both audiences project themselves onto what they see.

 

[Reverend]

And just in case it wasn't explicit enough, this is apparently the guy they based Spike's design on. Yup, looks like a dead ringer for Sir Francis Drake to me!

In a lot of Japanese RPGs and anime the characters are distinctly ambiguous between looking Japanese and Caucasian for the obvious reason of marketing to both audiences.

Especially when it’s a world where natural hair colors use the entire spectrum.

That plus early anime artists like Osamu Tezuka was inspired by/aped a lot of the character design philosophies of early Walt Disney. Both western and eastern styles have been bouncing off each other ever since, but the net result is still mostly that anime characters tend not to exhibit explicitly Asian features.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

There’s also the fact no animator wants to just put a bunch of black hair on their characters cause hair color and style is often the most distinguishing feature of their animation.

 

[Skipper]

Especially when it’s a world where natural hair colors use the entire spectrum.

I once read the story of a Japanese girl with a foreign father. She had taken her facial features from her mother but her hair from her father, which was very light brown. Well, the school didn't want to believe it was her natural hair color so to avoid trouble she had to dye it black.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I've only watched a few episodes of the anime, but Cho looks perfectly cast and he's obviously a great actor. Why would anyone take issue with his casting?

1) too old
2) doesn't look laid back
3) Korean, not Japanese
4) reduced chance of next harold & kumar movie

Actually, I don't have an issue with him really at least at this stage but trying to play along. Without even allowing that an adaptation is going to sometimes intentionally introduce changes the characters look closer than I ever would've imagined going into this.

 

[Saul]

the artist who designed the character model supposedly based his look on the star of some Japanese detective/action TV show from the 70's. So I'm just going to take their word for it.

Yes, the look and style of the character was based on Yūsaku Matsuda from Tantei Monogatari. Matsuda was pretty bad ass. He was in 'Black Rain' (1989) if anyone wants to check him out. Cowboy Bebop was inspired by a vast array of genres from Noir, Westerns, Science Fiction, Detective movies, has a Jazz soundtrack and many clear homages to western and other foreign movies.

I'm clearly alone in rejecting the idea that Spike is Asian, though, so I'm moving on.

I don't think you are wrong. The character was born on Mars, has green hair and doesn't have a Japanese name. That's not to say he isn't descendant from Japanese. But it doesn't mean he inherently is Japanese also.

Anyway, the real argument shouldn't be about if all anime characters are Asian or not. The point is diversity in casting in Western movies and TV. They succeeded here in that respect.

 

[FreezeC77]

If you want to talk about Spike and whether or not he looks Japanese... The next series anime that Cowboy Bebop's director did was Samurai Champloo and Mugen looks similar to Spike... but looks like a more obvious Japanese version of Spike.

That's just how anime looks, the character is supposed to be Japanese. Most anime characters are still it's made by Japanese people. Animes tend to point out when a character is another race or they have some weird gimmick like Asuka randomly speaking German in Evangelion.

Asuka was raised in Germany and her mother was mixed (Japanese/German) and Asuka's Father also had a foreign name(Langley) so it's possibly Asuka may actually only be 1/4 Japanese.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Asuka was raised in Germany and her mother was mixed (Japanese/German) and Asuka's Father also had a foreign name(Langley) so it's possibly Asuka may actually only be 1/4 Japanese.

Her father is American, it’s mentioned a few times on the show.

 

[valkyrie013]

well in some japanese schools, its Regulated to have black or dark brown hair. A person of mix ancestry who had naturaly lighter hair was told to dye it black because they didn't belive she was lighter haired. So just putting that out there.
And i agree, unless its notated, pretty much any race looks the same in anime, though they do try ocasionally if its a plot point.

 

[Christopher]

If you want to talk about Spike and whether or not he looks Japanese... The next series anime that Cowboy Bebop's director did was Samurai Champloo and Mugen looks similar to Spike... but looks like a more obvious Japanese version of Spike.

"Obvious" to Western eyes, perhaps, but Spike's look is entirely consistent with how Japanese characters are routinely depicted in anime. I mean, naturally Japanese character designers are not going to base their artistic choices on "how Japanese" characters look, because that's just the default to them; they'd focus more on how to individualize them as characters. And there's a lot more variety in Japanese features than Westerners often assume. There isn't only one way to "look Japanese."

 

[Skipper]

Probably one of the few "realistic" (I use this term loosely) mangaka is Ryoichi Ikegami, the artist for Crying Freeman



But really, he's more the exception.

 

[Saul]

well in some japanese schools, its Regulated to have black or dark brown hair

Almost all schools are. Uniformity is the way in Japan.

 

[Skipper]

Almost all schools are. Uniformity is the way in Japan.

So they take out their color-less frustration on anime. Like all those yuri and yaoi manga, where it seems that the homosexual love is the most and natural thing in the world while in the real life they have marriage agencies specialized in connecting gay men and lesbian women, so that they can contract a sham marriage and live a "normal" life.