Its already started. That's why I posted the pics of the anime character, nothing about her looks particularly Japanese to me, and certainly a number of other characters in the series are Anglos, so why the butthurt over ScarJo, I don't understand.
Anime exists, and has its big-eye style because the Japanese "culturally appropriated", Disney films in the 50's. So, even if "cultural appropriation", were a thing, it cancels out in this case.
it's the weird thing about Anime - when they do realistic and not exaggerated characters, they almost never look Asian (at least of the stuff that ends up popular in the West) and yet much of the time - as in this case - they have Asian names, so what was the intent, really? As noted above, the character doesn't really look Japanese much at all, so I don't think the complaints hold up...but I do understand the concern.
Probably the same reason many immigrants to the US give their kids American names, so that they're better able to blend in with the dominant culture.
The only thing that really bothers me is that it doesn't make any sense for a Motoko Kusanagi to be non-Japanese, unless her parents were just complete weebs or something. And I guess to me it wouldn't really be "The Major" unless it was Kusanagi.
IIRC, in the original movie the body she selected was one she found to be interesting looking, not that it was based on what she would have looked like had she been fully human.
And in the TV show, she was converted as a little girl, and has swapped out bodies for every phase of growth and puberty. And in the movie of the show, she has spares with different looks she remote puppets.
The worst case of white-washing I've ever seen? An obscure 1977 film called Star Wars that totally appropriated Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress and replaced all the Japanese characters with white ones. Seriously, if you can't handle film producers casting actors popular with their target audience in their adaptations, you really need to get a life. And something I thought of this morning: people recently objected to Emma Stone playing a half-Asian character. Would they object to her playing a half-white character? It's the same thing, just a matter of perspective.
I saw some bitching on YouTube over Tilda Swenton in the Dr. Strange trailer. I don't really care because I'm not a fan of the comics, but it would make more sense to have an Asian actor in that role. Then again, you'd get more bitching that they just ripped off Nolan again.
I get the frustration, though. Hollywood, for all of its progressive advertising, still falls back on old tropes that we should have moved on from as a culture. Sometimes it's fine to use a white person in a character that can be anything, but there are assloads of Asian actors and actresses in Hollywood, a large number of them well-known in action roles. Is it really so hard to find one that accommodates a character based on a Japanese manga? The thing is, I could have let it slide for the most part, but then there were talks of how, in makeup and CG tests, they tried to make her look "more Asian," because the easiest and most reasonable way to find an Asian role for a Japanese character is to get a white girl and then CGI her to look Asian. That's the ball kicker, right there. Oh, if only there were Asian actresses in Hollywood, this could have been avoided! /sarcasm So yes, sometimes people yell for no reason, but sometimes they still have a pretty good reason. I think this is one of those reasons to get at least a bit rankled about it. YMMV, of course.
First and main point, I personally could care less. But to anybody who thinks this casting offensive, they should explain why they can be so certain that the character is is in fact Asian. Then they should go see a show on Broadway, where they can watch a man of Puerto Rican ancestry portray a founding father to much acclaim. Race is an artificial construct. Who gives a fuck? Nobody should.
Wait! What happened to "any actor can play any roll" as we were so convincingly told when Johnny Storm and Heimdalr became black guys? Is that now not true?
Remember Miss Saigon on Broadway? Jonathan Price played a Eurasian character, which, I think, he actually is. All the sensitive liberals complained about the white guy playing an Asian, and wanted the show shut down - which would have put 25 fully-Asian actors out of work!
Remember Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (bad version of the Destroyer character from the line of pulp novels) and Joel Gray playing the Korean Chiun? They glued some prosthetic epicanthal folds over his eyes and called it good.
No problem with that at all. That's a terrific performance. It's not the same thing as Mickey Rooney's turn in Breakfast at Tiffany's or someone doing a minstrel show in blackface.
Regarding Emma Stone, that actress doesn't look even remotely Asian ( I don't know of she is IRL or not). Most of the biracial people I know retain some features of both cultures. I don't care about the actual ethnicity of an actor in a role, but they should be some degree of believability. Marlon Brando was a Hispanic man playing a character of Indian decent for WoK, IIRC. I had the same issue when one of my soap operas were trying to pass of a very lovely actress who was Denzel Washington's complexion as the daughter of a Scottish man that was polar bear white and a woman who was very clearly mixed.
Was Johnny or Sue adopted into the family? There ya go. That was the absolute least of that movie's problems, though.
Even if it's impossible for a half-white/half-Asian person to look like Emma Stone (it isn't), who cares? What difference does it make if she's playing a fictional character in a make-believe world? Perhaps in the universe depicted in that film, a person who looks like Emma Stone could be half-Asian. Burt Lancaster believably played a Mexican in Valdez is Coming, ditto Charlton Heston in Touch of Evil. As long as the character is well-played (and not as a demeaning racial stereotype), it makes no difference to me. I mentioned above that I love Joel Gray's performance as the Korean Chu'un in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. How about Jeff Goldblum's daughter in The Lost World: Jurassic Park who didn't look very mixed at all. Perhaps he wasn't her biological father? Who knows? Really, who cares?
Everyone shit their pants over black Johnny Storm, then after the flick came out . Conversely, people were shitting their pants over Finn in TFA, then when it came out .
First example, that movie tanked hard so no-one cared any more. Second example, that movie made a kajillion dollars, and so no-one cared any more.