Anime: Origin of Culture

In response to a post by my dearest Shireen,
" why do anime characters look caucasian?"

Large round eyes, chiselled jaw lines, non-black hair. We all know that most anime characters don't look the least bit Asian, much less Japanese. But why on Earth is this so?

Upon first glance, many might jump to the conclusion that Japanese are culturally insecure. They are not satisfied with themselves, as such they borrow features from all around to create their own dream utopia.
Others even claim that anime is a reflection of today's society. A simple reflection of how today's youth go for dyed hair and artificial make-up.

Wait. Hold your horses everyone. Before we jump the gun, we need to analyse anime from a historical perspective. What many people do not know is that anime isn't a recent invention. Anime has been on the air ever since the late 1950s, straight after the world war II.
It should be noted that at that point of time, Japan was undergoing an economic restructuring. Exports were crucial in her market recovery.
To call anime a reflection of today's society cannot be further from the truth.
As such, the primevial anime wasn't Japan-centric at all. In fact, if we take a look, we'll realise that many anime were made specifically (ironicaly) for a general audience. Rose of Versilles recounted the French Revolution, Starship troopers told a story of a Fillipino soldier in the global confederacy. Lupin told the story of French thief. Kimba told the story of a white African lion.
Anime was the Japan's window to the world, and the window for world to Japan. While they tried to export these products beyond Japan's water, Japanese became more and more fascinated with the foreign culture.
How did the purple and weird hair colours come in?
When we look at traditional anime, caucasian characters are not unusual. Many main protagonists were outrightly foreign. Blond, brunette and other foreign body features were drawn in for accuracy. However , with the rise of sci-fi anime, more and more weirder features started appearing. This is called a culturally utopia setting (napier, 2001).
Anime started to create a whole new culture with totally alien ethnics. Blue hair. Enormously large eyes. With these feature, character are not bound to any ethnical groups and cultures. They transcend all previous stereotypes that racial and gender grouping have imposed on our perceptions.
We'll see that in anime, there are many strong-willed, sassy, independent and strong women. Japan, however, still remains as a strongly patriachal society with strong respect for the male gender. What anime is doing, is that it is intentionally creating an alternate reality to the real world rather than emulate it. By intentionally destroying what viewers recognise as watermarks of reality, anime is able to break away from the laws of the real world.

This, of course, is just one of the many theories in a nutshell. I personally go with this one though. Anime characters look weird due to their very early cosmopolitican heritage. Today's characters are an evolution of what was percieved as an overall global culture over 50 years.