A very popular type of paperdoll was a series of children of various countries, with typical costumes. The best of these might include not only ethnically characteristic clothing but also "modern" garments; this was especially significant for Japan, which was modernizing very fast.

Examples can be seen on the older Paperdoll page.

However, sometimes instead of presenting a typical-looking Japanese child with a set of costumes for school, festivals, play, etc., the paperdoll makers used a single child doll to represent several ethnicities, accompanied by a set of costumes associated most strongly with these various groups. This is of interest in that it may reflect several Western cultural ideas:

(1) A vague Orientalism in which there is no need to distinguish between Japanese and Chinese cultures. This is very common in children's books and illustrations.
Example: Nonesuch Mincemeat card of a girl with interchangeable Japanese and Chinese costumes. (probably ca. 1880s).

(2) A general racist concept relating skin color to a hierarchy of evolutionary superiority, so that dark-haired Middle Eastern peoples and East Asian peoples may be equated in terms of their distance from the ideal of blond white-skinned Northern Europeans.
Example: a chromolithographed paper doll of a little girl with long dark hair and Japanese, American Indian (male), and Turkish costumes (she originally had a fourth costume, probably Italian; probably ca. 1890s). Image 1 Image 2

(3) A scientific idea that the ethnic groups represented look alike because they are related.
Example: a child with Oriental features and Japanese, Chinese, and Eskimo costumes (probably ca. 1930s).