fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5396 ]

[ SECRET POST #5396 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5396 ⌋

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

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #772.
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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i've lived in japan. the overall number of immigrants there is tiny and the majority of them are either korean or chinese.

I'm aware of this. Yet, even despite the tiny number of white immigrants, no one argues that Japan shouldn't create white characters. And before you start arguing that all anime characters are supposed to be Japanese, let me remind you that they had to replace the character of Levi in the live-action Attack on Titan, because his name was too foreign. I doubt that Edward Elric was intended to be Japanese either. L from Death Note was explicitly stated by the author to be of mixed ethnicity, near and Mello are white. Even Masashi Kishimoto said in an interview once that if characters in Naruto were any real-life ethnicities, Sasuke would be Japanese, Sakura would be European, and Naruto would be an American. So clearly, the low number of white immigrants in Japan doesn't stop Japanese artists from creating white character in their franchise.

you're moving the goalposts. yes, japan creates white characters, but it's uncommon to have white characters in anime that are set in japan, and when you do see them they're usually treated as a novelty/something strange and foreign.

if the argument behind the racebending is "i want to racebend this character from an ethnic majority into a disenfranchised minority," then in japan that would be ainu, zainichi korean or anyone half-japanese because japan is not the us and does not have the same racial politics as the us. anyone foreign in japan faces a certain amount of discrimination regardless of their ethnicity simply because they aren't japanese. the actual systemic discrimination with a history is against people like the ainu and the zainichi koreans, not black people (or white people) because they're effectively a non-entity in japan.

You're the one moving the goalposts. How else to call it when you're suddenly moving the topic from black characters in anime, to black characters in anime specifically set in Japan. I'm simply pointing out that it's worth to examine why do so many creatives around the world feel inspired to design, create and develop white characters, but never black characters, or other dark-skinned POCs.

I have no doubt that Japanese discriminate against anyone who isn't a full-blooded Japanese and I'm all for creating more Ainu characters, and Korean characters in Japanese media. But it's not an either-or. Creating or "race-bending" a character to be black doesn't take away all available slots for the permitted number of minority characters in the media, and demanding that black anime fans must first accommodate all oppressed people in Japan before they're allowed to accommodate themselves has the same energy as people, who insist that feminists need to first solve the problems of all oppressed groups in the world before they're allowed to focus on women's rights. Black anime fans are going to want to see themselves represented in their favourite media, which already has plenty of representation of white people, there's absolutely nothing morally wrong about that so stop treating it as if it was.

Fucking this!!

they're not moving the goalposts at all, they're responding to what the other anon said.

anon: they're just arguing because they want to keep the status quo and not have characters with "undesirable" social status in their media
other anon: okay, so then why does no one ever racebend characters to [groups with undesirable social status in japan]?

it's a legit question if that is what racebending is supposed to be about. i have a hard time with believing it's really about wanting representation when there are in fact a decent number of non-white/non-japanese characters in japanese media these days and ime they tend to get passed over in terms of fandom attention regardless of how major a character they are. in fact the only ones i see who genuinely do get a lot of fanart are mirko from my hero academia and raihan and nessa from pokemon.

Firstly the goalpost shifting, and now whataboutism, nice. Bringing up "legit questions" that have already been addressed in the same comment you're replying to, real nice. I'm sorry, was any part of my comment not clear? Do tell me what part of "It's not the job of black anime fans to put the needs of other minorities before their own, just like it's not the job of feminists to solve world hunger before they're allowed to fight for reproductive rights" don't you understand? And what part of "creating black characters doesn't use up the slots for other minority characters, so if any Ainu anime fan wants to racebend characters to be Ainu, they are more than welcomed to do so" is not clear to you?

As for why characters are passed over - gee, idk, maybe it's because they're in a work that simply doesn't have a wide appeal? No one should force themselves to watch something they don't enjoy, just because there's minorities in it. I'm a feminist, I care about female representation, but I'm not going to watch every single one of the godawful all-female remakes of 90s films that Hollywood has churned out. I want to see representation in films I can actually enjoy watching. And there's absolutely nothing wrong and immoral about it.

And you know what? I'm pretty sure you don't need me to explain this all to you. It's really not that hard to come up with an answer to the burning question of "why do black people enjoy seeing characters that look like them in their favourite media" that isn't "because black people bad", without needing me to spell it out to you.

i'm not white, lol. and as a poc i get sick and tired of seeing people claim they want more poc characters in things and then when we do get them - major characters, no less, not just side ones - they get passed over in favor of the pretty white boys. it's why i think racebending is performative bullshit and i have serious doubts that most of it is done by anything other than white people.

case in point, fire emblem three houses. one of the three main characters (claude) is poc, and very visibly so. he's one of the main characters so he has an entire route devoted to him, he's romanceable with the mc if you're playing the female version, and he's got plenty of story and background and characterization to play with.

on ao3, he has 3000 fewer fics than dimitri, the white main male character. he has over 1000 fewer fics than felix and sylvain, who are just side characters but who are also pretty and white. it's not because he has less screentime or story than any of them (he doesn't), and it's not because he's not romanceable with a male character because dimitri isn't either.

if people really do want to see more characters that look like them in their favorite media, then why do those characters so often get ignored when we do get them? i know that i personally was thrilled to have a main character in a big-name jrpg series who was very obviously not white, only to be disappointed when fandom zeroed in on the white boy with manpain instead. i'm watching it happen again right now in the tales of arise fandom, where the poc main character (dohalim) is getting only a fraction of the attention of the white-looking ones despite having imo one of the best character arcs in the entire game. that's why i don't believe for one second that racebending has anything to do with wanting actual representation in media versus just wanting brownie points.

Masashi Kishimoto is a fucking idiot if that's really what he said; European and American aren't ethnicities. You can be European or American and also ethnically Japanese.

DA

That was a really dumb thing for him to say, for real.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #5396 ]

Re: SA

Re: SA

Re: SA

Re: SA

Re: SA

Re: SA

Re: SA

Re: SA

Re: SA

Re: SA