Echoes of the Mind's Eye

Posting tonight may be just a delay tactic to avoid studying for my midterm. My latest obsession seems to be anime and manga. I have been watching films by Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Howle's Moving Castle, Castle in the Sky). Tonight I am watching Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. These are great fantasies and I am really getting into them.  I think these films/tv shows are helping to fill the void left by the lack of any worthwhile  animated films from the west. I know CGI animated films require artistic abilities, but they just lack the warmth (or maybe just comfort) of hand drawn animation.

I do have one question: Why do so many Japanese animation films have main characters of European decent