Elf and Asia Culture

[xww]

Hey guys,When I was playing Elder Scroll 3(Morrwind),I found that there are lots of places that allude to Asian culture like Reincarnation，Dream of God，and Asian-style robe.It is strange to me as a Chinese to find so many Asia culture in a land of Elf. Because in fantasy culture circles of China and Japan,Elf is a a concept entirely of Western origin.

In fact，the word "Elf"itself is come form Norse mythology. And it is The Lord of the Rings, a novel which complete basic on Western Culture,which shaped the Elf of modern fantasy world.BUT today, there are ton of fantasy works like Warhammer,Warcraft,DND,and the Elder Scroll, relate Elf to Asia Culture. Some are intentional like High Elf in Warhammer Fantasy. Who live in a yin-yang island and uphold the concept of Balance. Or Night Elf in Warcraft 3 ,which use Torii (a holy symbol of Japan culture), to decorated their Moon Well.

Not to mention some……em……unfriendly stereotypes like high cheekbones, slanted eyes, mouse-like bread, clothing that confuses Chinese and Japanese styles, in some old school fantasy art like old DND book

Not to say I am offended.In fact lots of them are not hostile, and there are many Elf that just Norse Elf, But I am really curius about When and Why somebody relate a fiction so West to some thing so East,and why it become so papular

 

[minta]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[CupofJoe]

I've never thought of Elves as particularly Asian in look or style.
I used to play a Wood Elf army in Warhammer Fantasy Battle and they were very definitely inspired by the 1938 film The Adventure of Robin Hood. They all looked like The Merry Men, in hues of green and brown.
I do think of Dwarfs as some weird mix of Highland Scottish and Viking. I put that down to imagery used for them in WFB.

 

[xww]

I've never thought of Elves as particularly Asian in look or style.
I used to play a Wood Elf army in Warhammer Fantasy Battle and they were very definitely inspired by the 1938 film The Adventure of Robin Hood. They all looked like The Merry Men, in hues of green and brown.
I do think of Dwarfs as some weird mix of Highland Scottish and Viking. I put that down to imagery used for them in WFB.

Indeed,but I think High Elf used a lot of Asian symbol, in fact, Asur is from Asura, a kind of demon in Hindu culture

 

[Queshire]

Well, I'm not sure about the history, but I can understand why. A lot of traditional Asian cultural aspects are stereotyped as being graceful or elegant. That pairs nicely with the goal of Elves a lot of the time.

 

[Fyri]

This is the first I heard of elves being connected to Asia, actually! I wouldn't think it, since they seem to be stereotypically tall and white from my perspective. However, long hair, flowy robes, and calm, peaceful culture most interested in beauty and etiquette do connect to historical China from my knowledge, at least where it comes to royalty, so I can see the comparison!

 

[Incanus]

In the Osten Ard books by Tad Williams, the immortal Sithi (who are basically elves) are quite obviously derived from Japanese culture. I can only guess at the motives, but I suspect it is a way to make them 'exotic' from the viewpoint of western cultures. I rather like it, and it seems to fit, at least aesthetically.

 

[MSadiq]

If you widen the scope of Asia to mean all of Asia, then you'll come to find that the Dwemers of the Elder Scrolls, at least aesthetically, are quite Mesopotamian. As to why, there are probably deeper reasons that we don't know, but as the others mentioned, it's probably because elves are meant to be "the other" in many stories, and to make them "exotic," they're injected with Eastern influences.

 

[ThinkerX]

'Elves' = 'Gandhrvas/Aparusu' in South Asia, or close enough to make no difference. Gandharvas are male musicians/bards, while Aparasu are dancers.

'Kumbandas' = 'Dwarf' in South Asia, apart from the blue skin and horsemanship.

 

[pmmg]

I suspect someone along the way thought it might be clever to do them differently and put them in a different culture.

I commented in the past that its strange to me so much anime is westernized. I would think it would be more Japanese focused, but...

I suppose, with enough time, it will become harder and harder to find the lines.

 

[Penpilot]

I commented in the past that its strange to me so much anime is westernized. I would think it would be more Japanese focused, but...

I suspect that it might have something to do with the US occupation of Japan after WWII. It planted an admiration for the west and thus a western flavor into parts of their culture. I remember seeing news reports of Japanese people getting operations on their eyes to make them look more western.

 

[Queshire]

Oh boy, I can answer this!

Artistically anime & manga has always had a connection to the west. It's not always easy to see now, but if you look at something like Astroboy you can see how things like the large eyes, small mouth and relatively simplified limbs descend from things like early Disney, and I do mean early here. I'm talking about the black & white rubberhose era of cartoons.

For the fantasy aspect there's generally two paths, though they share similarities; Dragon Quest and Record of Lodoss War.

The Dragon Quest series was the big name fantasy video game series in Japan. It wasn't the first video game series that the developers made. They had experience in the field, however for Dragon Quest they were inspired by video games originally made in the West, (Ultima & Wizardy in particular, I believe,) and sought to make a game in the same genre. Dragon Quest was the result.

Record of Lodoss war has a similiar story, but rather than video games it descends from D&D. There was these guys who wanted to bring D&D to Japan and to help drum up popularity they published an account of their own game in a magazine. Basically it was Critical Role decades before Critical Role. That account was the original Record of Lodross War.

It achieved enough success that the people behind it wanted to publish their own material for the game, but D&D wouldn't allow them. So the people behind Record of Lodoss War made their own fantasy tabletop rpg that they could publish material for instead. (Well, actually they ended up making two different games, but they're set in the same setting.) To my understanding, the current incarnation, Sword World, rivals D&D for popularity in Japan though both lose out to Call of Cthulu.

Record of Lodoss War did not restrict itself to the sphere of table top rpgs either. If you're from the USA and recognize the name then there's a good chance you recognize it due to the 90's anime.

So, in short? Fantasy in anime / manga is often westernized because it's descended from western sources. Not exclusively of course. You still have shows like Inuyasha or Demon Slayer, but there's still a direct line of descent.