I always assumed that anime characters were Japanese, even though they look "white".

From that guess, I would say that live-action versions of anime characters would be Japanese people (who would of course look Japanese). It seems strange to me that anyone would say "if a character looks white in anime, a white person should play the character in a live-action film."

The obvious reference is to Ghost in the Shell, but Motoko Kusanagi's cybernetic body is not the topic here. The question is about anime characters generally, since the vast majority of them are drawn in a certain way (large round eyes, small nose, small lips, pale skin). Most Japanese people don't usually have those features (clearly the eye shape, although it's obviously exaggerated in anime).

So do you think of anime characters as Japanese people, or as white people who live in Japan?