Michelle"Anime has frightfully low poc representation"
I-i... You know almost everyone depicted is non-white right
The Book of Kels@tinykinkshamer That must be one of those "Major Kusanagi is white" idiots.
@Nezchan agsgafa OK literally does she think shes asian???
@tinykinkshamer Literally they think "she looks white so it's fine to have a white actress play her".
But it gets worse. In the case of the Major they take it as a Japanese woman's brain in an android shell...and the shell is white despite the source material stating she chose a shell that allowed her to blend into the crowd IN JAPAN!
@tinykinkshamer So literally the American version is a Japanese woman in a white woman's body, PLUS you've got idiots claiming that anime characters are "drawn white" to begin with.
@Nezchan I'm so tired and yeah the post wad complaining that poc were nonexistent in anime so they made a list of black characters which like cool but that's the worst attempt at being woke ive seen in a while
@tinykinkshamer Well, fair enough. They meant well and went badly off the rails.
But y'know, as a lifelong anime/manga fan I'll be among the first to say the Japanese are pretty shit at race-related stuff. So it's kind of surprising they even moved on from stuff like Mr. Popo to better, if too rare, representations of black folks and others.
@Nezchan like tbh I get the idea behind the post but also if u were really interested in anime trying to be diverse you'd look for representation of indigenous Japanese groups like the Ainu (so Samurai Champloo, Golden Kamui both try) instead of basically things on American race relations. Trying to force foreign media to adhere to very-American notifications of diversity is ironically kind of imperialist imo
@tinykinkshamer I'd say their treatment of Korean characters would be worth a look in that context, given there are a lot of Korean or Korean-descended people in Japan. They aren't necessarily treated very well, but they're definitely part of the mix.
@Nezchan yeah def. Like there's definitely space to work considering anti-blackness in Japan or exploration of the obsession with pale skin but trying to look at race outside of the US in the terms of American race relations just. Doesn't work. I cant tell u hard wierd it is to be considered mixed race in my fams home country but monorace (not mixed?) stateswise
@tinykinkshamer Gotta say though, manga authors have improved. Why I read one shounen series that had a character from India in one arc who wasn't exotified at all, and Americans who weren't all boors with big noses (well, one was). So depending on the author, they're getting away from the reflexive racial caricatures.