Instead of posting two of Olivia Munn, you should've posted Kristen Kruek(Dutch/Chinese) Shannyn Sossamon(Hawaiian-Filipino/English/German/French/Irish) or Vanessa Hudgens(Irish/Native American/Filipino-Chinese-Spanish)
There are a lot of Latin-Americans that are of mixed heritage, Native American(as in the natives of the Americas and not just the United States and Canada) and Spaniard(or Portuguese and some Black, which I've found out I have some from my mom's side, which is also where I get my Navajo blood from), which is a good indication of many Latin-Americans with Mediterranean features(curly locks, thick facial hair and being overall, very body-hair heavy). And the American Indians, despite living in the Americas for thousands of years, migrated to the Americas from Asia and share common ancient(and I mean REALLY ANCIENT) ancestors with the Asian people there. We got some Asian in us. Yeah, it might go WAY WAAAAAAAAY back, but it's in there!
I don't see it as white washing because I have always viewed the characters of FFXV as white to begin with. The European setting, culture and appearances make it difficult for me to imagine the characters as Japanese. The only other Final Fantasy that I have played is FFXII where I assume the characters were Arab (correct me if I'm wrong). Is the default ethnic group Japanese for Final Fantasy titles? I always figured that it was white like Metal Gear Solid...
During the Versus years I assumed Noctis and co. (Regis, Daddio etc) were Asian because of the devs, but some of them just looked White because of course most cool characters in media are White and if people wanted to make their characters look cooler they gave them Caucasian features. I didn't put much thought into it though and it was just something that just sat in the back of my head.
I was hoping to find a nice list of examples, but it's way too late for that. There is definitely a tendency for foreigners or those with foreign heritage, in anime and manga, to be depicted as blond, blue eyed, and/or busty.
Those were the worst examples ever. Big boobs doesn't hint towards American, big boobs is just something japanese people like to add to a lot of people. For each example I was given, I could list hundreds countering with japanese "looking" people in mangas/animes with big boobs. Is that trait alone inherent in depicting America? Wrong. Blue eyed and or/blonde? Sure
Those were the worst examples ever. Big boobs doesn't hint towards American, big boobs is just something japanese people like to add to a lot of people. For each example I was given, I could list hundreds countering with japanese "looking" people in mangas/animes with big boobs. Is that trait alone inherent in depicting America? Wrong. Blue eyed and or/blonde? Sure
Blue eyed and blonde is indeed the much more common trope of depicting Americans who for some reason came overseas to study in the specific school the MC studies in. Pure coincidence that Prompto and Noctis were switched to blue eyes but the King's eyes were switched to brown.
Those were the worst examples ever. Big boobs doesn't hint towards American, big boobs is just something japanese people like to add to a lot of people. For each example I was given, I could list hundreds countering with japanese "looking" people in mangas/animes with big boobs. Is that trait alone inherent in depicting America? Wrong. Blue eyed and or/blonde? Sure
One could say a lot of the characters in anime could dye their hair or wear contacts(and I mean anime set in on Earth), which is a good point to why some anime characters were born to look certain ways. Usagi was born this way, though. As was Minako. Sure, they are reincarnated from aliens, but Naru was born with red-hair and blue eyes(and she's supposed to be a normal Japanese girl):
Meh, I don't think features in anime are much telling of a character's nationality/race more than the stereotype. They've got the Yankee stereotype to peg "American" characters in. Japanese characters can still be born(naturally) with blond hair and green/blue eyes. I think the multi-colored hair thing is to add variety and spice up a group of characters. It's not against a specific race because you get one of a certain people from a certain area, country or such together and they tend to look similar. How many Japanese girls have long black or dark brown hair and dark eyes? How many groups of white guys have similar looks, either go dudebro or hipster, but still kinda have similar hair styles and clothing taste? When you are designing characters(as an artist), you have to make them stand out visually(they have to pop). That's why the wacky Japanese hair(corkscrews and high spikes that defy gravity) comes into play, that's why you have characters with purple or green hair, and people with eccentric sense of clothing style. Especially ins something like fantasy, any old layman or laywoman just wouldn't cut it, artistically.
Those were the worst examples ever. Big boobs doesn't hint towards American, big boobs is just something japanese people like to add to a lot of people. For each example I was given, I could list hundreds countering with japanese "looking" people in mangas/animes with big boobs. Is that trait alone inherent in depicting America? Wrong. Blue eyed and or/blonde? Sure
I'm not even sure what the argument is here. At no point did I say those traits alone indicate that a character is foreign. I just asserted that there is a tendency for foreign characters to be given those traits. Obviously there are a number of traits that define characters in fiction in addition to their appearance.