Are they really Japanese?

[Tartarus]

Stone - American

wut?

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[TrollingSage]

They are all japanese but just being stealthy like NINJAS?

 

['Nāpalm]

they don't live in Japan they live in another world. So their is no japan. I mean they probably aren't asian O_O they don't look at all Asian . Some have blonde hair and clear eyes which doesn't look asian to me lol. So yeah they are probably their own race.

 

[TrollingSage]

wut?

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Problem?!

 

[Sasunarufan13]

In the beginning mangaka drew their characters like Western people to make fun of the West. It was their way of slightly rebelling against the ones who forced them to open their country to the rest of the world.

Nowadays though it's a mix between Japanese and Western looking characters probably because they want to make it a bit more appealing for the Western audience. Also because Japanese people are fascinated by the different colours Western people have for hair for example. They find blond for example very interesting and special, because it isn't in their genes to have natural blond hair. Western people however can have brown hair, black hair, blond hair, red hair ...
So it's because of their slight fascination for different Western looks probably as well that not all characters have Japanese looks.

 

[FXW]

While Japaneses don't all look alike, they do have a somewhat restricted gene pool. Almost everyone has black hair and light skin. Westerners are used to see a much larger palette of colors in a population so they'd have a hard time with characters who all "look the same".

 

[Tapey]

they're not japanese, they're ninja

 

[WhistleBlower]

wait, i don't understand

 

[laharl81]

I think kishi said in an interview once, that if there was a live action movie he'd want naruto to be a white boy, sakura to be european and sasuke to be played by a japanese-american actor.