[ SECRET POST #4713 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4713 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 35 secrets from Secret Submission Post #675.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. https://66.media.tumblr.com/568e45223a97128d7a9ee9edd8fc35f1/ea35182acf8378bb-91/s1280x1920/6de1012f211a0a7c3b660c49a300281117fb828a.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Oh boy. I anticipate a calm and respectful comment section...

[(Anonymous)]

On one hand, adding a variety of facial structures instead of animu sameface, regardless of race, does look better in general in a group shot like that. If you were gonna make an International Sailor Scouts group AU, then why not?

On the other hand, yeah, the mentality of "they're pale and peach colored so they're basically white people and we're totally not erasing cultures and ethnicities by bending them into other races and declaring this is how it should have been all along" in anime fandoms is... lol. It gets real ironic when POC artists do it too

Bonus lol points if they're the same ones that get mad when Japanese artists draw Lion King human forms as anime characters with pale skin. Because you're only allowed to go Japanese->Black, not the other way around. Cause that's racist ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[(Anonymous)]

I saw a post that racebended Esmeralda into a black woman and it pissed me off. Roma barely get representation but sure, let's erase her race, why not.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Some people seem to think the only two races that exist are black and white, it's ridiculous.

[(Anonymous)]

I can't wait for race bending and all the absolute bullshit, blindly US-centric rhetoric on both sides of the argument to die.

[(Anonymous)]

I think when it comes to fan-art and fanfic if you choose to racebend than you can racebend however you want, but you don't get to get upset at how someone else chooses to do it.

[(Anonymous)]

^ This

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[(Anonymous)]

I'm over fandom choosing new races for established characters too.

But I did think they were supposed to be white when I was a kid, and looking at the character designs as an adult I still think they look white... and terribly drawn. They're like 80% leg.

I know a lot of people are nostalgic over this show but it's ugly as hell to me.

And the secret art looks like a row full of mens faces.

[(Anonymous)]

My rule personally is that you should not raceswap characters if and only if the original race of the character is underprivileged, underrepresented or repressed in the country of origin

[(Anonymous)]

And it's doubly ironic when they fall back on super stereotypes designs- like in this fanart. Big hook nose here, huge pouty lips there... not to mention none of them appears to actually be Asian in this picture now. Yikes.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not too sure, but I think Usagi is supposed to be Asian here.

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder what the artist thought drawing Mercury black while also putting an aggressive look on her face. She has the gentlest personality though?? Wtf??

[(Anonymous)]

I feel you're projecting your own biases onto the picture. They're more or less sporting the same expression... Also, despite being a nerd, Mercury is able to furrow her brow too.

[(Anonymous)]

I personally don't really mind. If it's just fanart, then the characters are still there in canon, with their original race. The biggest problem I have with those kind of pieces is that the art tends to be pretty ugly. But if the artist is skilled I'll appreciate it aesthetically. Won't give them any brownie points for it, though.

[(Anonymous)]

It's stupid as shit and also more than a little offensive because it implies that POC don't count unless they're obviously visibly dark, which has some pretty bad implications.

[(Anonymous)]

There is something about this piece of art that's profoundly unappealing to me. I think it's the eyes and how close they are to the eyebrows, or how the characters seem to be frowning but their eyes are wide open.

[meadowphoenix]

*cough*Big Hero 6*cough*
i mostly agree that diversity shouldn't come at the expense of other marginalized groups, but i also think most of the time people think the characters are supposed to be renditions of white people, which is another problem.

[erinptah]

I get the annoyance, I do. But it almost feels like it's not a fair comparison...

Because -- okay, given, the US and UK (maybe English-speaking countries in general) produce a lot of series that are "mostly-white ensemble, maybe a couple nonwhite characters thrown in around the edges." Which inspire a lot of racebending into multi-ethnic ensembles, both in reboots and in fanworks (e.g. She-Ra, Harry Potter).

And Japan produces a lot of series that are "mostly-Japanese ensemble, maybe a couple non-Japanese characters thrown in around the edges." Many of which get English-language versions (whether that's a dub, a remake, or something else). Those also inspire racebending-to-a-multiracial-group, sometimes officially (e.g. Power Rangers, Voltron, that one pitch for an American Sailor Moon adaptation).

So when it comes to series with an ensemble cast that's mostly the same race, but that race is not "white" or "light-skinned East Asian"...how many of them are (a) the kind of canon that inspires fandoms, and (b) readily available in English?

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any at all. There's probably something obvious that I'm blanking on, but even so -- it's not exactly a big category. Not much of a sample size to work with, here.

[(Anonymous)]

Weirdly, it's how completely different Usagi and Minako look that's getting to me here. They're supposed to look practically identical. It comes up in the manga/anime like... a lot. The whole joke was that Sailor V and Sailor Moon looked so exceedingly similar. So making them totally different races is stupid. Either make Usagi white like they did with Minako, or make Minako Asian.

As for the secret itself: yeah fuck off they're all Japanese girls I don't care how "white" people think they look, they're not. oh but blonde hair and blue eyes oh sorry can you please tell me what race has naturally occurring blue hair? They're fantasy designs. But they're Japanese girls. (ps many Japanese people are quite pale, pale ≠ white, please for the love of god stop imposing your weird American race issues on completely unrelated countries.)

And since I 100% know someone's going to say it-- no, I'm not white.

[(Anonymous)]

> it pretty much only happens to Japanese characters

well, yeah, because anime is basically the only genre that's popular in Western countries that has primarily non-white characters

[(Anonymous)]

Being charitable here, but sometimes the reason is just wanting to experiment with making a character a different race than they are drawn canonically, not because the original character isn't "POC enough" but just as a fun exercise. Like how genderbending gets a lot of shit for being transphobic or wanting to erase female characters but most of it isn't deeper than "I want to see what this character would look like as the opposite gender, for fun."

Another thing is that lots of anime fans grew up with dubs (like Sailor Moon) that did essentially erase the fact that the characters were Japanese, so they grew up watching what they thought was a cast of white characters. There is nothing essentially Japanese about the character designs in anime any more than there's anything essentially white. Finding out later that they were originally Japanese may be not good enough and I wouldn't blame fans for that, blame the dubbers.

Also always love how these threads have benevolent racists coming outto pre

[(Anonymous)]

Not gonna lie, that art is pretty shitty.