Character/drawing style in Japanese anime and comparison with western anime/comic

It is true that the faces between Asian and Western are totally different, for example, some of the physical characteristics are the space between the eye and the eyebrows, a loosely defined jawline, and noticeable nose and cheek features. Hence, we can see the characters in Japanese comic and western comic looks totally different. The picture above, left side is Japanese character in comic book or animation, while, the right side is western characters in comic or animation.

Normally, the Japanese's characters mainly contain larger eyes with brighter eyebrows. While western's characters usually have stronger eyes with darker eyebrows. Moreover, the two pictures below are some examples to show the main different characteristics between Japanese and western, the main difference must be the "noticeable nose". It is true that most Asian doesn't have a noticeable nose as western, hence, the Japanese anime characters usually don't really focus on the nose. 

For people who like Japanese anime/comic must know that those characters look similar to a cat’s profile, calling the angle “Neko-gata” (猫型) or “cat-shaped”. It is just because in Japanese anime/comic, characters usually draw with big eyes and small noses. In Japanese anime characters, animators put more effort into the eyes part as they consider larger eyes beautiful which is like an ideal.

Among Japanese traditional art techniques, line drawing has large influences on today’s Manga and Anime. “Drawn only with outlines, Manga contains the characteristic of Japanese-style painting made up of lines seem three-dimensional; drastically simplified and yet it forms curious profoundness,” says Sugiyama Tomoyuki, president of Digital Hollywood University. 

For western anime/comic, they were using light and shadow and have long been paying more attention to volume than flat spaces. They don't pay that much attention to the lines. Japanese believe that even if they change a shape a bit, it still looks like the same thing. While westerners think in terms of light and shadow. If they change the light, everything changes. 

Japanese Line art

Western anime drawing