XENOPHOBIA IN MANGA

NYTimes has a very interesting article about a recent spat of xenophobic manga popular in Japan these days. They basically portray Chinese and Koreans as savages relative to the Japanese, both in words and in pictures. The Chinese and Koreans are depicted with exaggerated East Asian features while the Japanese characters ironically conform to the Caucasoid norm of Japanese cartoons (big eyes, straight and pointed noses, etc.). Xenophobia in Japan isn’t exactly news, and neither is racism in cartooning, but I was particularly interested in the following passages regarding Caucasoid features in Japanese cartooning:

That peculiar aesthetic, so entrenched in pop culture that most Japanese are unaware of it, has its roots in the Meiji Restoration of the late 19th century, when Japanese leaders decided that the best way to stop Western imperialists from reaching here was to emulate them.

…

As those sentiments took root, the Japanese began acquiring Caucasian features in popular drawing. The biggest change occurred during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 to 1905, when drawings of the war showed Japanese standing taller than Russians, with straight noses and other features that made them look more European than their European enemies.

Can anyone validate this? Anyone who knows about the Meiji Era and/or the Russo-Japanese War?