



Mukokuseki is the use of ambiguous racial features in anime, with characters having traits like wide eyes, light skin, great stature, and various hair colors. It literally means "stateless", though the term relates to more abstract anime and is used for hyperbole in this case.

This can be seen in fantasy and science fiction anime, where characters are given colored hair, enlarged eyes, and oddly proportioned human bodies. Phenotype Stereotypes are used to differentiate Western characters from Japanese ones, and the actual features are sometimes not intended to be a direct matchup of reality. It can cause some other problems with a Live Action Adaptation... do you cast a character based on canon ethnicity or what they actually look like?

The general reason behind the presence of mukokuseki is to diversify the character roster and distinguish between individuals, which is more often required in works set in the largely homogenous Japan, where hair and eye colours are typically (naturally) black and brown only, respectively. This usually only gets noticeable with a large enough cast that gives a sampling of the artistic style given for a particular ethnicity. You may find two characters who are Asian while one of them has more in common visually with a Caucasian character. Note that just because you perceive someone as being a particular ethnicity despite Word of God saying otherwise doesn't mean it is this trope. The comparison between characters of different races is where this trope is the most obvious.

Arguably started by Osamu Tezuka, whose art style was heavily influenced by the works of Walt Disney, Max and Dave Fleischer and other American cartoonists. The trend was further developed to its modern form by Kenichi Sonoda. Sonoda honed his Signature Style as a character designer for sci-fi anime and adventure series set in exotic locales, where the cast was meant to have a more international flavor, but continued using similar character designs in works explicitly set in modern Japan. Another big Trope Codifier for this was Sailor Moon. Going down our main cast list, we have two blue-eyed golden blondes, a blue-haired trope codifier in her own right (with blue eyes, natch), a dark-red-head, and reddish-brown with green eyes. All five of them have unmistakably fair, caucasian-like complexions and big round eyes... and all of them, to a girl, are supposedly 100% unblemished Yamato in ancestry. SM's all-pervasive influence on Japanese pop culture helped to spread the concept a lot.

This trope has not transitioned well when the time comes around for the Hollywood Live Action Adaptation. As most Western audiences generally perceive all characters to be white unless stated otherwise, whitewashing has become all too common in Hollywood when casting actors to play an otherwise Japanese character (see the controversy around the live action movies of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Dragon Ball and the upcoming Akira for example). See the link under 'Discussions' for more.

Note that even stories that deliberately avoid this may have a main character who fits the bill, especially if that character's design is primarily based on their cuteness or oddity. Heck, another reason this trope is so prevalent is because in Japan white skin is widely considered to be the most beautiful. Some anime even take it to the extent that if they darken the tone of a character that is supposed to look relatively African...the skin is hardly darkened at all, leading to Unfortunate Implications on the author's part...

Compare Ambiguously Brown and Only Six Faces (where there is little difference at all in character designs).

It would probably be easier to list Japanese comics, videogames and anime that don't indulge in pure Mukokuseki, so....

Contents show]

Exceptions to this trope:

Anime and Manga

The History Bites episode Samurai Goodfellas, featuring Ron Pardo as Oishi Yoshio probably counts as a straight example.









Video Games

Webcomics

Homestuck would be a rare Western media example. The "playable" human characters are rendered with completely white skin, while actual Caucasians (like Andrew Hussie's Author Avatar and Dinosaur Comics authour Ryan North) are rendered with not-quite-flesh-tone skin that's more orange than anything. Word of God has specified that the blank white characters are supposed to be a-racial, so it's left up to the reader to decide what race they are.





Discussions of this trope

Web Original

This blog post entitled "Why do Japanese characters look white?" considers two possible reasons for Mukokuseki. The first is that anime characters don't look white to Japanese people (because the assumption in Japan is "Japanese unless marked otherwise" instead of "Westerner unless marked otherwise" like Westerners are used to). The second is the heavy importation of Western culture to Japan after World War 2.

An old YouTube video, entitled "Are anime characters Japanese or Caucasian", argued that large eyes and pale skin are not necessarily Caucasian traits. Though the video has since been removed, some of the responses remain.



