"First, by leveraging the scientific concept of
the 'Kindchenschema' (schema of childlike characteristics) to invoke protective/nurturing feelings in the viewer. In short, this means "huge eyes, small nose, small mouth, unpronounced chin, unpronounced lower forehead". It's a deeply hardwired biological mechanic that also makes kittens or young animals look cute for us. It's subconscious, so it works each and every time.
Second,
by further maximizing eye size to convey emotion. Anime has actually turned this into a whole language - but simply put, we as humans react extraordinarily well to eyes. More so than to mouths, even. The eyes are usually the place where our gaze wants to spends the most time in any given face.
Why western-looking is usually not considered an ideal:
It's true that Japanese consider larger eyes beautiful (us Westerners do so too, by the way) and some Japanese even undergo surgery to achieve this.
Still, it's not to look "western". It's to have larger and thus more expressive eyes.
For example asians also have smaller noses than western people, but you won't ever find a Japanese woman who enlarged her nose to look more western. Similar things
The same goes for anime faces. They are heavily stylized and exaggerated. Yes, the eyes are big and sometimes blue. But thats where all similarities to "western"faces end.
Male Leads: First off - yes, there are prominent blond leads. Like the eponymous Naruto, Elric from FMA or Ichigo from Bleach.
But their hair is not blond/orange because it is supposed to be western, it is because it hints at them being delinquents/rebels. For a long time, bleached hair was the clear sign of a rebel in Japan. Look up "Yankee subculture" for more on this.
The most widespread male anime lead of the past decades is of average height, slender build and sports brown/black hair. It's technically "the everybody", allowing the Japanese male audience to relate to him easily.
There is no leading single archetype for female leads.
They literally come in all hair colors (pink's currently all the rage though), body heights and bust sizes.
Noticed the catch? While many casts feature a blond or busty heroine, they are typically relegated to being side cast - or even foes. By and large, it's a very solid pattern ever since the invention of anime.
Of course, as always, there are exceptions to the rule (Sailor Moon, Gosick, Fortune Arterial...), but even there: note that there are always in-universe reasons in place why the girls are blond and leads. None of them is blond just because it would make them popular. As it doesn't. By default, blond girls are considered scary and rude (=foreigners). As such, to the average Japanese girl, this is not considered an image to strive for."
https://www.quora.com/Are-anime-and-...y-the-Japanese
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