Personally, the way I see it, Black People in anime should be drawn the same way everyone else is. If the other characters don't have those huge lips, the black characters shouldn't either.
For me i see African comics and on african comics characters have Big lips so for me if in Africa character are less beautiful than in other country of the World and i don't talk about Big lips then, so for me it isn't thé Big lips or the charicature that bug me it is the intention behind@@jaguarotacoa7538
I'm not so sure that drawing black characters the same as Japanese characters but just giving them dark skin is the answer, but it's certainly better than what they were doing before.
Maybe the reason the donut lips stuck around is because there are ancient Japanese clay figures that have those O faces, so when they saw it in blackface they thought "oh, we have something like that here." Also wow that Hannah design, Japan created Shadow Lisa Simpson BEFORE the Simpsons even existed.
@@TheLostCrsuader21 On one of the Simpsons DVD bonus features someone mentions that a woman wrote in to complain about the bald man with the giant brown lips. She had mistaken Homer's beard line for lips!
Personally, I've never seen his beard that way, but I could kind of understand because it isn't the traditional color of a beard. This is the first time I'm hearing of something like this though
I was defiantly aware of blackface in the world of animation but did not know a lot of the history of it in Japan, this left me with some good creative food for thought! (Also thx for the article links too, those were interesting) The roots of character design in general is always a great conversation, and it’s definitely cool seeing the trend of improvement. Design wise I agree the donut mouth isn’t my favorite, but even for a nonblack person it’s cool to see art rooted in more realism rather than caricature in a sense. I’m glad we’ve come along way from MrPopo lol Amazing video too, of course! I love a good video that gets me thinking.
Thanks for watching, as always! It was really fun to put this one together. I definitely learned a lot along the way too lol it was hard to stay focused at times and not fall into a deeper rabbit hole.
I am really impressed how you were able to tackle this topic with such maturity. No blaming, no complaining, no preaching, just laying down the facts and history objectively. props.
Thank you! I didn’t want this to be argumentative because that would involve too many assumptions about the mindset of the creatives and Japanese ideals. I’ve never been, so I felt it was better to only speak on what I actually know or could prove.
Yeah as a Native Canadian and my Native American brothers you dropped this video well. It was well thought out informed and thorough. In original Dragon Ball I liked that we were represented under Kames tower plain and simple. Great Job!
This is such a well researched video!! Historical context is everything and i learned a lot of new things thru this vid - thank you for making it! This is proof that racism, as an ideology baked into most of American media, travels and sets roots into other cultures, even when there aren't explicit histories of legal discrimination and violence against Black people in Japan. I'm so happy to see more humanized Black characters and designs in newer series 🙏
it's interesting to understand all the context for this, black characters like mr popo or chocolove with the prominent "racist" lips were never treated as less by the characters in universe, you can tell there wasn't any ill will while creating them unlike the american cartoons with those features back then. This just happened to become something iconic in japanese animated media because of america's influence which nowadays they are trying to fix after realizing how bad it was in the modern context of the world, with the recent redesign of Chocolove for the Shaman King remake being one example of that.
@@natalimoina from what I can tell he speaks normally in japanese, he has the accent of an old man, if you are speaking about the english dub that I personally don't know anything about because I didn't grow up with it, blame the people in charge of the american dub lol
@@Matiasfv From what I understand, in the Japanese version, the way he speaks is grammatically incorrect and primitive. This is often lost in the anime subtitles and manga translations. And the dub actually changes it completely to make him speak in sophisticated proper sentences.
Wow, I had no idea about those Takara and Sanrio designs and toys. They really are such old companies. That WAS a really interesting story! Thank you 🙇♀
My wife is Japanese and I'm black. She never understood why Sambo and others were offensive. She said they are just cute. So it's a deep seeded ignorance. But yes over time already in Manga and anime there have been vast improvements in Black character design. And even as far back as the early 80s there were done very respectful depictions like Claudia from Macross and others,even in the 70s. Thanks for the informative video.and even if Popo is. Djinn or whatever, his lazy insulting design is obviously a Sambo,black Arab,or Moorish depiction. Ignorance.
Awwww cry for us I dunno know if you know this.. Japan Okay, cool Do me a favour though and watch food wars, maybe then you’ll stop thinking we only season with salt and pepper,, like bruh.. Historically speaking and with evidence, we can cook.. damn well
Said design was everywhere throughout Toriyama's 80's-90's works, which is a stain on them since as you said, even in those decades there were respectful, much less objectionable designs in those.
I mean, we Europeans never really had minstrel shows, so there was much less of a reason to consider "blackface" offensive. This is just another case of American cultural issues being pushed onto the rest of the world.
@@DaFlo_w Well yeah, most of Europe didn't have any significant black population until the 20th century, and Europeans were divided in other ways. Although, weird how this kept going into the internet era. There was a jarring example of yellowface in an Italian 2007 Mickey Mouse comic. Hobbit sized tech-savvy oriental man with hands hidden inside his sleeves, like he was a time traveler from the 1800s, trying to adapt into an early 2000s stereotype. Slit eyes and buckteeth of course.
@@DaFlo_w Well yeah, but ironically it DID sorta start because of British settlers seeing Native Americans & other tribes. What people call the usual Americans today wasn't there for a while, instead having more tan people we now call Native Americans, or American Indians in some circles. So, was it an American cultural issue? Yes, but those Americans weren't the original discoverers, but were actually just from Western Europe around the time the Native American tribes were thriving all around the Americas. So in a technical sense it was a European issue, just in America.
Lovely video. I really like the straightforward history, with all its negative aspects still intact. I do think it’s very much Americans played a part of introducing them into purely racial stereotypes and the ignorance of not educating them further when said stereotypes were seen as highly offensive until the stereotypes became the norm for them. Props to that one Japanese dude and his wife for spreading awareness of the harmful stereotypes. Glad a lot of old harmful designs on early black characters have been removed and redesigned in a much more tasteful manner with newer adaptations. Also how many newer animanga design them to be a lot more better and normal! Also they tend to have some of the best designs as well. It’s great that anime is modernized so well for its diverse fan base!
I looked up the yokai mr popo an jynx were based off of and that was just an unfortunate cultural missunderstanding between japan and america. Great video. Very detailed professionally produced and yeah that make sense they just didn't have references at the time holds water
In Dragon Ball, in the Red Ribbon Army there is Staff Officer Black. In Japanese his name is a pun: ブラック参謀. ブラック is "burakku", the English word "black", and 参謀 means "Staff Officer", and is pronounced "sanbou". I think they redesigned and renamed him in one of the more recent movie adaptations.
very informative video, but i think there’s one more element that influenced these racist designs in anime - look up japanese kabuki theater masks, the exaggerated features often include weird looking lips and they’ve also existed for centuries so maybe that’s part of the reason this stuff caught on for as long as it did in japanese entertainment and advertising
It is Westerners who unconsciously brainwashed the Japanese, a single-racial nation, into racist stereotypes. That's why Western-style stereotype characters suddenly appear in Japanese comics. What's unusual is that although the character's appearance is a stereotype, there is no Western-style disparagement.
Well narrated blackface is still a global Issue it exists in middle eastern,latin,south and east asian media it does play a role in triggering anti blackness and colorism in their people I pray and hope changes could be made to change perception of us.
Very intriguing video. The one statement I don't fully agree with is the idea that the racial prejudice has to be taught. Maybe when it comes to specific ideas, but I think the "other-ization" of different groups is a natural tendency that needs to be unlearned, but that's not just with race in particular, it's with all cultural differences.
What you are saying is very true but in the particular case of Yasuke, clearly the way he was drawn pre-minstrel exposure gives a good idea of how certain specific racist concept can indeed be taught. I guess it would be more accurate to call it racist stereotypes rather than racial prejudice.
It's also worth pointing out that such behavior is one of those annoying drawbacks we inherit as we evolve into the social animals we're today. In the same way that such behavior made us organize into tribes and helped us survive in times when we were still scratching the concept of civilization, on the other hand, such survival instincts led us to antagonize individuals who were not part of our tribe and who could represent a rivalry for obtaining resources. And unfortunately, such instincts made and still make us resort to the dehumanization of other individuals who seem to us to be "invaders", and as our concept of culture evolved, this peculiarity became entrenched in our sense of socialization and artistic demonstration. It remains for us, Homo sapiens of the present, to strive to reinforce among ourselves that such bias is outdated and comes only from the fear of an unknown that no longer exists.
I almost fell out of my bed from laughing at how insane that was, when I was reading it. What’s even crazier is that’s probably the least offensive thing the manga did, which is saying a lot lol
Wow this is a great video. Thank you for making it! I always wondered what was up with the big lipped characters (the non black ones) it's an ugly/weird design in general that always made me scratch my head. As for the full black face characters, this is pretty much what I expected but didn't know all the details. Thanks for the education!
Thank you for sharing this. I've always believed it wasn't from a place of hatred for the japanese people, just pure unaware ignorance. The creator of Shaman King actually freaked out when he realized what he did to chocolove.
Great video! I appreciate the analysis and research. Also, if I remember correctly, the use of white hair on black anime characters being common is another technical part of japanese artist making black character designs. Since manga is primarily in black and white. But, lately more modern series are more commonly using screentones as a way of darker skin colors
This is another topic that I have been considering discussing for a long time, but I haven't been able to find a clear answer on why. I think the reason may be as simple as the contrast of the hair and skin color being cool haha. Thank you for watching the video btw!
Interesting and very informative. Personally I haven't really gave it much thought since recently especially since there's other types of non black characters drawn with big lips so I just assumed it was character designs.
I agree that it isn’t much of an issue these days, but I was inspired to make this video because I was watching an old favorite anime of mine and one of the characters had the big donut lips. I was curious to know exactly where it came from and I ended up falling down a rabbit hole. I never expected the story to play out the way it did
Thank you for this video. I had the pleasure of being a student of Carole B. Weatherford, the professor and renowned author whose criticism led Pokemon and Viz to touch up their Jynx and Mr Popo depictions in the early 2000s. I can see the effect her critique and that of Japanese activists have even to this day. The most recent Dragon Quest Monsters game released in December 2023 has toned down Akira Toriyama's lip designs for the Cloud Surfer, Low Djinks, Sintaur, and maybe a few other characters, in all versions, including Japan. It makes me think that publishers are recognizing the problem for what it is, keeping the characters, but changing them up a bit to subvert stereotypes & expectations. Of course, there will always be those who cry "censorship!" at the first whiff of change, but it's self-accountability from the creators, and that's a great thing.
This was very educational and entertaining. As an artist myself, I want to make sure the diverse characters I draw in the future will be well received and culturally appropriate, but that takes a lot of research and knowledge to do successfully. Videos like this help with that.
It’s weird how the big lips thing is something that also naturally developed in anime for a type of asian character, but it got read as black. Dex from Mega Man Battle Network was an asian character who just had big puffy lips, for instance. What’s weird with One Piece is how many characters, like the Admirals, get read as black despite being explicitly based on famous Japanese actors’ likenesses.
This is a fantastic and well produced video! I had an intuitive sense as to why black face was prevalent in Japan given what I know about Japan's history of isolationism and forced westernization, so this extra bit of context was very helpful. Shame that many in the comments section are getting defensive, It's something I've noticed in other videos relating to depictions of black face in children's entertainment. I think the defensiveness is a byproduct of cognitive dissonance. For example: - If someone (Lets call them Steve) likes a franchise that features black face - and someone else comes over and points out how that's racist or may be perpetuating racist stereotypes - Steve agrees racism is bad - conversely Steve also likes the franchise in question - so now Steve is wondering if liking it makes them bad - and that feeling makes Steve angry - now we have two conflicting ideas that cause a knee jerk reaction and post hoc rationalization. Sometimes it's easier to go the path of least resistance and admit that things you like may have problematic elements to them. You can still find something of value in something that has problematic elements. Lets not be shitty to each other.
Fantastic video! I would be interested to hear your thoughts on how Asian people were stereotyped/yellow face in Western media in a similar time period. One example being Mickey Rooney playing Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Thanks for watching! That’s another topic that would be really interesting to discuss as well. I’m glad we’ve come a long way from those days and we’re actually getting the right people in the right roles.
Really great explanation, the history behind it is really interesting. I have a lot of respect for that family speaking out on the issue, always heartwarming to see others be nice enough to advocate for something even though they're not part of the group impacted.
This is a great video. I studied this very topic at university 2016~2018. It seems like you looked at similar books i read. Did you look into to works of John G Russell? Hes probably one of the first scholars who really wrote a lot about this stuff.
I actually did not read John G Russel’s work on the subject for this video, but you mentioning this reminded me that I’m familiar with his work because I also read some of it in university as well.
Loved the video. Great rhythm and the topic was really interesting. You gained one more subscriber, keep it up. I Remember watching bleach back in the day and seeing tosen for the first time. Being the only black kid in a white area, seeing him show up in that was like having a new cool colored neighbor arrive in town. Sad how dirty he got done by Kubo.
Man I think we were all hurt that Tosen got wasted lol. He wasn’t even just a well designed black character, he was one of the best designed characters in Bleach period I appreciate you watching the video!
LOVE the video - Though i have to disagree with 17:25 if this had any weight to it, then one basic family of three would not have started a protest. Proving that even in the 80's they knew no human looked the way they drew them
I woke up one morning on my grandparents' hard livingroom floor, squinting up with bleary eyes at a black-face performance on the colorless TV. (It was a dusty old musical.) Thuroughly, I was taken aback. My grandparents aren't racist thankfully, but I was NOT expecting to wake up to that for sure. Gave me some perspective on the whole black-face thing, since I never thought much about it until that moment... 10/10 Thanksgiving experience. 👍 LITERALLY PRESSED PLAY AND TWO SECONDS LATER! (2:53) THIS IS IT! THIS IS THE EXACT MONSTROSITY I WOKE UP TO!
I Think japan are just not the best in that type of charaters (But most of the time that suck yeah they're not the best in) but i think they just need help from people who know more about
i know you gotta do it for the algorithm but even with a gun to my head i don't think i could be compelled to end a video by saying "hey, anime fans, please tell me your thoughts on the history and ongoing cultural impact of racism". youre a braver person than i. good video btw, this is something that had always struck me as odd but i'd never come across much information about, so this was a very interesting watch!
I think it depends on if something is racist based off the intent of the artist or if it is racist based off how it makes the reader feel? Or if neither those matter and racism is something that can be objectively observed by a third party? Maybe a mix of all three?
It boils down to the individual imo. Everything affects different people differently. A non black person might see these examples and not have a care in the world because it doesn't affect them, whereas someone of African decent might feel differently. It might not be intentional considering asian people might not be aware of America's history with blackface and racial charactures.
The comments are so yikes. That’s why it hard connecting as a anime fan while being black. You can tell some people went into this video with complete bias.
@@TheLostCrsuader21 yeah it just makes me sad to be honest. You did your best in trying to get to the other side so your efforts weren't pointless. Thanks man.
I'm a white dude, and even I can't connect with other anime fans or gamers. There is definitely a sexism/racism problem in nerd culture. If people can't identify what is wrong with menstrual shows or black face, then we failed as a society 😅
@@SleepyMatt-zzz yeah I feel like it's getting worst though. I think it's best to enjoy anime by yourself than with the community. Idk what happen but we definitely failed lol
It is also interesting to point out that the giving "donut lips" to non black coded characters is not a more modern practice. This had already been a thing possibly as early as the late 60's The most prominent example of this would be the original Kinnikuman (Muscle Man) for 1979, and Wolf Boy Ken from 1963. Obviacly black coded characters got this mouth design most often, but it is inportant to remember that when analizing these characters. For the japanise, this design choice has a cimpleatly different cultural context then for people in the west, which is why "donut lips" is still comman on non black characters to this day
@@Senator-Wary It means character that's ment to represent a black person. Like for example, in any setting that isn't our own world, the idea of races as we know it is not at thing. But you still have characters and peoples that are in design and influence based on black people. Likewise characters like Popo are not human, but there design shares inspiration with blackface. I used "black coded" as kind of an unreal term for all characters that look :black". I'm probably using the word wrong, but I hope this gets my point across😅
Agree with your assessments 100% That said, anime in general has had the quickest turn around (faster than even hollyweird, since it's still mostly the same shi) on a lot of different things like race depictions--some of the best stories come from someone on the outside looking in, as long as they are adjacent, and not at a (perceived) elevation. Great video 💯👍👍
i think this is a really cool and important video that all anime fans should watch. In order to be able to enjoy something you have the responsibility to address and accept that these character designs are problematic. Its fine to still like anime while admitting that parts of it arnt right and need to change. Another example being the 1000 year old in a 5 year old body trope. But thats not what is being discussed rn. Anyways, I think lots of people need to accept this and this video does a great job of laying it all out. Its great!!
As soon as you use the word problematic, you're already out yourself. Your a cultural marxist that wants to be a colonialist and change anime to appealed to their black fragility that Democrats taught you.
Usopp is one of my favorite characters in one piece. I wish Oda would change his lips tho, since we all know at this point he should be aware of its racist history.
I dont think that was the intention behind usopps design, mostly because the few other black characters that do exist in one piece like nojiko or any of the lunarians lack these features common in minstrel iconography, rather it was likely more inspired by the common donut lipped design in a series like kinnikuman which is a series the author grew up on. Im not saying that it isnt an issue at all, but rather at the very least there was 0 harmful intent behind it, especially when you consider the overall anti-racism message that one piece has in the story.
If you look at it from a purely visual design and character design perspective, the pitch black skin with big lips creates a face that is very easily readable. The white eyes create the strongest possible contrast against the black skin, which you can't really do with light skin without having to use outlines, or reducing the eyes to only pupils (like Pac-man or Kirby or early mickey mouse), which makes it harder to show where the character's eyes are pointing. The bright lips then create another strong contrast against the skin. If they weren't there, the only way to make the mouth visible would be to either use a white outline, which might not fit the style, or to keep the mouth open all the time, so you can see the teeth or the inside of the mouth, which isn't as natural as just using prominent lips. So in that sense, this old trope is a really effective way to make a readable face with very few details. Cartoons are all about reducing drawings to as few details as are necessary and abstracting shapes into their most simple forms. That's what the donut lips are, they are a crass and abstract exaggeration of reality. Nobody really has lips like that, but they are easy to draw, easy to read and give the character a certain personality. Of course, that personality is unfortunately linked to an insulting type of media, but at least Minstrel Shows aren't a thing anymore. When I grew up and saw these characters like Mr. Popo, I had no idea what Minstrel Shows were, so I did not think he was tied to anything mean-spirited. I just liked him the way he was and thought he was merely drawn in an exaggerated way. It's kind of ironic that we keep having to introduce new generations of kids to these outdated stereotypes... in order to fight said stereotypes. Same with Tom & Jerry and the Mammy character. Mammies just aren't a thing anymore. So if we didn't explain it, people wouldn't even know it's a stereotype, since it's based on something that doesn't exist anymore. I'm not saying people should act like Minstrel Shows never happened and try to keep them a secret, but we shouldn't forget that the thing that made racist cartoons so insulting was the way the character's personalities were portrayed, not just because they were drawn in a silly way. If a character is drawn that way, but their personality and their story makes them lovable, then what harm are the lips? One of my favourite childhood stories as a kid was Jim Button. In the book, which was published in the early 1960s, the black protagonist Jim was drawn with those same tube-shaped lips, but his story was about fighting prejudice and oppression, and giving a chance to those who are seen as outsiders. It even had messages against segregation and against racial purity in it. So whenever I see that kind of design, I'm first reminded of Jim and his fun and heroic stories, rather than any kind of stereotypes. To an innocent mind, the face is harmless. What's important is the context and characterization. While I totally understand why people think about it the way they do, it's still painful to see people call characters like Jim Button racist without even knowing who he is or what he stands for.
Nowadays. In Japan Black People are now helping Japanese Companies make Anime and it's videos about it and I respect that do to the fact that I'm also a Man of Color myself.
I was wondering if you watched the Pokemon episode where Ash disguises himself as a Passimian. That’s probably a modern example of an anime episode banned for “blackface”
Good job on this video. Cultural ignorance definitely underpins a lot of this issue. Watching it also reminded me of the old Japanese Pop group "Rats & Star" which performed in blackface in the past and stirred up some controversy, even though it might not have been done maliciously.
Really amazing video! I remember hearing an argument at one point about donut lips being designed based on ganguro fashion. I dont know how much water it holds as an argument and i dont know if the roots of the fashion trend are tied to minstrel and the japaneese attitude towards it at the time. But it seems at least tangentially related.
Idk but to me the whole "its just supposed to be cute and silly" doesn't really work as an excuse. Like, sure, it's great if Japanese don't have even worse stereotypes against black people but reducing virtually _all_ portrayals of black people to the features that Japanese people find comical is literally still as bad as the original Americans laughing at minstrel shows. It simply was never relevant enough in Japan (due to the high homogeneity) that it was addressed until that one random Japanese family took action. The fact that donut lips still exist in anime/manga and are a shortened for silly/simple/dumb or otherwise comic relief characters really isn't a good look either
15:43 I would say its more fitting to use Jungle Kurobe here as that was a literal blackface staring a native african caricature anime by the Doraemon guys which had one of Hayao Miyazakis first storyboard credits at his time at TMS
I made my own manga have a black protagonist with donut lips and I thought it was acceptable just because Ussop and Chocolove had them. I've had some people complain, but I figured it was useless to change it because then people would still complain about me doing it at all, plus I'm largely against censorship or sanitization. And its kind of frustrating since sometimes people like sanitized versions better. Like in Willy Wonka, in the original book the Oompa Loompas were African pygmies, but the 1960s film changed them into orange skinned green haired men, and everyone likes that version better... Anyway, I do agree that Japanese portrayals of black people have gotten better since the 2000s. And I think its worth mentioning that a few anime Japanese characters have poofy lips, like Takeo Gouda in My Love Story.
Amazing video. I think it's important to take intent into account. Which you've addressed very well! I've never liked the big lip design on any race personally. Never found it cute or pretty. Glad to see changes made over time to reduce it.
Goofy was designed by Frank Webb & was turned into an explicit minstrel character by Walt & Babbitt, even going as far as to use slurs to describe his character & animating him with watermelons Tho I don't think this was intended for Mickey, it absolutely was for Goofy without a doubt
While the Toriyama thing is prevalent across most all his 80’s-90’s era works… you seemed to gloss over the anime series (without manga) that had non-objectionable designs of the same subject during the same time period. Like Gundam ZZ, Macross, and other such series.
Japan is so interesting as a case study because they quote-unquote "don't have racism". When only an estimated 1 million people in the entirety of Japan are from a foreign country, the vast majority of those being either Korean, Chinese, or white nationals, the racial profiling of Japan is so homogeneous that it's easy for stereotype to become ingrained without any of the racial context, as you said. While I definitely think Tezuka was fully conscious of the stereotypical nature of his work at least to some extent, it is worth noting that the modern Internet straight up didn't exist until the 1990s. Blackface had 150 years to root in Japan, and become fully disjointed from its context, before Black people - like, actual Black people - were even beginning to appear in the cultural zeitgeist. I'm not trying to say that Japanese people didn't know Black people existed before the Internet - I'm fully aware that Black people have always existed within the Japanese political and social spheres. Hell, African students came to Japan all the time in the 50s onward. It's just that with the constant reinforcement of these stereotypes divorced from their history and context, the rise of SD as well as Japanese marketing always focusing on the cutesy aspect, and racial homogeneity always permeating the literature of the time, you have to wonder how long the Japanese public were surrounded and accustomed to these characters without ever knowing their history. The persistence of the donut lip could even speak to the reworking of some of these stereotypes as just characteristics of a certain style, completely divorced from their origins.
Now that you've brought up dragon ball I remember recently there might have been a new black character introduced in super who goes to school with goten and trunks, I don't remember if he has donut lips or not
I remember with the recent dragon ball super chapters about goten and trunks going to school, people were celebrating the new black characters designs, it was kinda funny and pretty cool
I am white so this may not hold water but I do feel like the designs of Usopp and Chocolove are more supossed to be exaggerated and goofy. Obviously they do come off as offensive to some and thats valid but I feel it reflects in their characters. I also love those two to death so I may be biased lol.
This video is much appreciated. I feel that with more exposure to America and what is acceptable there is better representation in anime. What I like is that in Japan eventhough they didn't know better they ended up making changes.
I am glad that there has been a bit of progress on this, with manga artists getting a bit more familiar with drawing black people even in their own stylized way. Aye it's not fully there but it's getting there which is good
I love to see anime nowadays having more diversity. Even if the black characters have big ass lips its not as bothering and horrible as it was back in the day. My favorite black character is killik from soul eater btw just to point that out
I just find it really friggin weird that Japanese manga/anime artists will depict themselves as blonde, brown, red haired and multichromatic eyed tiny nosed pale skinned while drawing us like... this. And the whole "its to tell characters apart" argument is just dumb when Otomo, Miyazaki, Kon, and many others could make varied Japanese characters without essentially making them look like white Europeans. Western colonialist standards have touched most nations on this planet its crazy.
It's actually interesting to see how Japanese people view these characters generally. They don't see them as European they see them as Asian. Go look at Japanese art prior to contact with the west, they still depicted themselves as incredibly fair skinned and most often used a singular "J" shaped line to represent the nose. A lot of modern Anime adopted these pre-existing cultural artistic shorthands for depicting themselves used for hundreds of years prior. The hair is really just born out of the fact that so many anime are set in middle/high school having every character essentially looking 5/8ths identical to every other character of the same gender doesn't allow for much creative design space, so that attention went to the hair and that just became associated with the art form more generally kinda like the Kirby crackle in western comic art. Manga and Anime are not art forms focused around realism so you shouldn't expect realism. While I agree with the video that manga/anime depictions of black people have improved moving away from the adopted western stereotyping tropes it still isn't "realistic" it's simply washed in the same genre tropes as every other character. Ethnicity in Anime/Manga is more often shown through cultural objects. Like Full Metal Alchemist, for example, FMA is an Anime depiction of European coded people with their eating of stew, religious iconography, etc...
I feel like that's letting them off the hook a bit too easy. I've lived and worked in Japan for many years and speak fluent Japanese. There is a deeper psychological reason behind all.of this. Smaller eyes n Asian features are not considered attractive to the masses of people in Japan. I'm sorry it's just the truth. Make up and plastic surgery is all to appear more western or white. Student with darker skin are always picked on or bullied in school. It's a serious problem. Anime is another reflection of what they consider cute or good looking,which is in direct contrast to their natural God given appearances. Self hate is a global phenomenon perpetuated by hundreds of years of white supremacy on the planet. After WW2 Japanese society fell even deeper in love with their overlords. It's sad really. The natural beauty of their people is largely lost on a vast majority of their population.
It is rasict, I even draw a anime character of myself but I also like it. It shows the difference between us from everybody else. I accept this and kept the big lips on my anime picture of myself, instead of the pencil thin lips
On a unrelated note, since we’re talking about bad black protrayal I justed learned this, but “the birth of a nation” is why the KKK have got their uniform design from
Personally, the way I see it, Black People in anime should be drawn the same way everyone else is. If the other characters don't have those huge lips, the black characters shouldn't either.
EXACTLY, thank you! Makes a lot of sense
For me i see African comics and on african comics characters have Big lips so for me if in Africa character are less beautiful than in other country of the World and i don't talk about Big lips then, so for me it isn't thé Big lips or the charicature that bug me it is the intention behind@@jaguarotacoa7538
Good logic. Agree
I'm not so sure that drawing black characters the same as Japanese characters but just giving them dark skin is the answer, but it's certainly better than what they were doing before.
Big lips, tiny pupils, and often no eyebrows. Sometimes the art style changes just for those characters
Maybe the reason the donut lips stuck around is because there are ancient Japanese clay figures that have those O faces, so when they saw it in blackface they thought "oh, we have something like that here."
Also wow that Hannah design, Japan created Shadow Lisa Simpson BEFORE the Simpsons even existed.
I like this theory a lot actually. I saw another comment say Hannah looked like Maggie and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head haha.
@@TheLostCrsuader21 On one of the Simpsons DVD bonus features someone mentions that a woman wrote in to complain about the bald man with the giant brown lips. She had mistaken Homer's beard line for lips!
Personally, I've never seen his beard that way, but I could kind of understand because it isn't the traditional color of a beard. This is the first time I'm hearing of something like this though
Fantastic video. I love the idea of Big America yelling at Little Japan.
"How could you make something so horrible?"
"What? I learned it from you!"
💯👍🏿
I was defiantly aware of blackface in the world of animation but did not know a lot of the history of it in Japan, this left me with some good creative food for thought!
(Also thx for the article links too, those were interesting)
The roots of character design in general is always a great conversation, and it’s definitely cool seeing the trend of improvement. Design wise I agree the donut mouth isn’t my favorite, but even for a nonblack person it’s cool to see art rooted in more realism rather than caricature in a sense. I’m glad we’ve come along way from MrPopo lol
Amazing video too, of course! I love a good video that gets me thinking.
Thanks for watching, as always!
It was really fun to put this one together. I definitely learned a lot along the way too lol it was hard to stay focused at times and not fall into a deeper rabbit hole.
Blackface is racist
I am really impressed how you were able to tackle this topic with such maturity. No blaming, no complaining, no preaching, just laying down the facts and history objectively. props.
Thank you! I didn’t want this to be argumentative because that would involve too many assumptions about the mindset of the creatives and Japanese ideals. I’ve never been, so I felt it was better to only speak on what I actually know or could prove.
I would get if he did complain, though
Well put. I was going to write something similar, but I'll just agree with your comment instead.
And yellowace?
Yeah as a Native Canadian and my Native American brothers you dropped this video well. It was well thought out informed and thorough. In original Dragon Ball I liked that we were represented under Kames tower plain and simple. Great Job!
I admit Chocolove looks stupid, but let's not deny he's a badass, SPECIALLY if you read the manga, to me that helped redeem the character.
Chocolove is really badass, especially with his updated design lol
@@TheLostCrsuader21 Nah, I hate that design. Let my boy keep his goofy ass lips.
@@babulbi
🤨
That's weird flex
@@Agee1 What can I say? I'm a sucker for good character design.
@@babulbi 😬
This is such a well researched video!! Historical context is everything and i learned a lot of new things thru this vid - thank you for making it! This is proof that racism, as an ideology baked into most of American media, travels and sets roots into other cultures, even when there aren't explicit histories of legal discrimination and violence against Black people in Japan. I'm so happy to see more humanized Black characters and designs in newer series 🙏
it's interesting to understand all the context for this, black characters like mr popo or chocolove with the prominent "racist" lips were never treated as less by the characters in universe, you can tell there wasn't any ill will while creating them unlike the american cartoons with those features back then. This just happened to become something iconic in japanese animated media because of america's influence which nowadays they are trying to fix after realizing how bad it was in the modern context of the world, with the recent redesign of Chocolove for the Shaman King remake being one example of that.
Black people are funny!
Same.
I'm glad the anime studios realized why blackface was historically harmful, even if there are no racist intentions.
Wasn't Mr. Popo specifically written to talk very primitively?
@@natalimoina from what I can tell he speaks normally in japanese, he has the accent of an old man, if you are speaking about the english dub that I personally don't know anything about because I didn't grow up with it, blame the people in charge of the american dub lol
@@Matiasfv From what I understand, in the Japanese version, the way he speaks is grammatically incorrect and primitive. This is often lost in the anime subtitles and manga translations. And the dub actually changes it completely to make him speak in sophisticated proper sentences.
Wow, I had no idea about those Takara and Sanrio designs and toys. They really are such old companies. That WAS a really interesting story! Thank you 🙇♀
Thank you for watching!
My wife is Japanese and I'm black. She never understood why Sambo and others were offensive. She said they are just cute. So it's a deep seeded ignorance. But yes over time already in Manga and anime there have been vast improvements in Black character design. And even as far back as the early 80s there were done very respectful depictions like Claudia from Macross and others,even in the 70s. Thanks for the informative video.and even if Popo is. Djinn or whatever, his lazy insulting design is obviously a Sambo,black Arab,or Moorish depiction. Ignorance.
Awwww cry for us
I dunno know if you know this.. Japan
Okay, cool
Do me a favour though and watch food wars, maybe then you’ll stop thinking we only season with salt and pepper,, like bruh..
Historically speaking and with evidence, we can cook.. damn well
@@Ober1kenobi I'm sorry, this comment confuses me, who is this targeted at?
Said design was everywhere throughout Toriyama's 80's-90's works, which is a stain on them since as you said, even in those decades there were respectful, much less objectionable designs in those.
Blackface and yellowface have been even more prominent in European comics, at least until recently.
I mean, we Europeans never really had minstrel shows, so there was much less of a reason to consider "blackface" offensive. This is just another case of American cultural issues being pushed onto the rest of the world.
@@DaFlo_w Well yeah, most of Europe didn't have any significant black population until the 20th century, and Europeans were divided in other ways. Although, weird how this kept going into the internet era. There was a jarring example of yellowface in an Italian 2007 Mickey Mouse comic. Hobbit sized tech-savvy oriental man with hands hidden inside his sleeves, like he was a time traveler from the 1800s, trying to adapt into an early 2000s stereotype. Slit eyes and buckteeth of course.
@@DaFlo_w Well yeah, but ironically it DID sorta start because of British settlers seeing Native Americans & other tribes. What people call the usual Americans today wasn't there for a while, instead having more tan people we now call Native Americans, or American Indians in some circles. So, was it an American cultural issue? Yes, but those Americans weren't the original discoverers, but were actually just from Western Europe around the time the Native American tribes were thriving all around the Americas. So in a technical sense it was a European issue, just in America.
Whoa wait a minute are you telling me yasuke didn't actually fight giant mechs??
It surprised me too, honestly. I almost didn’t post this video because of how shocking that truth was
Lovely video. I really like the straightforward history, with all its negative aspects still intact. I do think it’s very much Americans played a part of introducing them into purely racial stereotypes and the ignorance of not educating them further when said stereotypes were seen as highly offensive until the stereotypes became the norm for them. Props to that one Japanese dude and his wife for spreading awareness of the harmful stereotypes. Glad a lot of old harmful designs on early black characters have been removed and redesigned in a much more tasteful manner with newer adaptations. Also how many newer animanga design them to be a lot more better and normal! Also they tend to have some of the best designs as well. It’s great that anime is modernized so well for its diverse fan base!
I looked up the yokai mr popo an jynx were based off of and that was just an unfortunate cultural missunderstanding between japan and america. Great video. Very detailed professionally produced and yeah that make sense they just didn't have references at the time holds water
Popo is a a Jinn and jynx is base off of a sub culture
In Dragon Ball, in the Red Ribbon Army there is Staff Officer Black. In Japanese his name is a pun: ブラック参謀. ブラック is "burakku", the English word "black", and 参謀 means "Staff Officer", and is pronounced "sanbou". I think they redesigned and renamed him in one of the more recent movie adaptations.
Dude wow, I wish I knew that bit of info when I was putting this together. This is really interesting, thank you for commenting this
Officer Black was changed in Dragon Ball: Path to Power but aside from that movie he still has the "donut lips" design
Yup, they changed his name for the anime. In the manga, his title is ブラク補佐 (BURAKKU hosa).
@@KKHell They just moved the design to Sergeant Metallic. Bad move on Toriyama's part since back then a lot of anime had long moved past that design.
That was deep. I didn’t know that about the minstrel shows that were done in Japan.
very informative video, but i think there’s one more element that influenced these racist designs in anime - look up japanese kabuki theater masks, the exaggerated features often include weird looking lips and they’ve also existed for centuries so maybe that’s part of the reason this stuff caught on for as long as it did in japanese entertainment and advertising
It is Westerners who unconsciously brainwashed the Japanese, a single-racial nation, into racist stereotypes.
That's why Western-style stereotype characters suddenly appear in Japanese comics. What's unusual is that although the character's appearance is a stereotype, there is no Western-style disparagement.
Well narrated blackface is still a global Issue it exists in middle eastern,latin,south and east asian media it does play a role in triggering anti blackness and colorism in their people I pray and hope changes could be made to change perception of us.
Thank you for watching! You’re absolutely right about all of this.
Very intriguing video. The one statement I don't fully agree with is the idea that the racial prejudice has to be taught. Maybe when it comes to specific ideas, but I think the "other-ization" of different groups is a natural tendency that needs to be unlearned, but that's not just with race in particular, it's with all cultural differences.
What you are saying is very true but in the particular case of Yasuke, clearly the way he was drawn pre-minstrel exposure gives a good idea of how certain specific racist concept can indeed be taught. I guess it would be more accurate to call it racist stereotypes rather than racial prejudice.
It's also worth pointing out that such behavior is one of those annoying drawbacks we inherit as we evolve into the social animals we're today. In the same way that such behavior made us organize into tribes and helped us survive in times when we were still scratching the concept of civilization, on the other hand, such survival instincts led us to antagonize individuals who were not part of our tribe and who could represent a rivalry for obtaining resources.
And unfortunately, such instincts made and still make us resort to the dehumanization of other individuals who seem to us to be "invaders", and as our concept of culture evolved, this peculiarity became entrenched in our sense of socialization and artistic demonstration. It remains for us, Homo sapiens of the present, to strive to reinforce among ourselves that such bias is outdated and comes only from the fear of an unknown that no longer exists.
i remember Gantz have a literal character do blackface so they can shoot a mall 💀💀💀
I almost fell out of my bed from laughing at how insane that was, when I was reading it. What’s even crazier is that’s probably the least offensive thing the manga did, which is saying a lot lol
Wow this is a great video. Thank you for making it! I always wondered what was up with the big lipped characters (the non black ones) it's an ugly/weird design in general that always made me scratch my head. As for the full black face characters, this is pretty much what I expected but didn't know all the details. Thanks for the education!
Thank you for watching!
Thank you for sharing this. I've always believed it wasn't from a place of hatred for the japanese people, just pure unaware ignorance. The creator of Shaman King actually freaked out when he realized what he did to chocolove.
Great video! I appreciate the analysis and research. Also, if I remember correctly, the use of white hair on black anime characters being common is another technical part of japanese artist making black character designs. Since manga is primarily in black and white. But, lately more modern series are more commonly using screentones as a way of darker skin colors
This is another topic that I have been considering discussing for a long time, but I haven't been able to find a clear answer on why. I think the reason may be as simple as the contrast of the hair and skin color being cool haha. Thank you for watching the video btw!
Interesting and very informative. Personally I haven't really gave it much thought since recently especially since there's other types of non black characters drawn with big lips so I just assumed it was character designs.
I agree that it isn’t much of an issue these days, but I was inspired to make this video because I was watching an old favorite anime of mine and one of the characters had the big donut lips. I was curious to know exactly where it came from and I ended up falling down a rabbit hole. I never expected the story to play out the way it did
Incredible video
Thank you!
Thank you for this video. I had the pleasure of being a student of Carole B. Weatherford, the professor and renowned author whose criticism led Pokemon and Viz to touch up their Jynx and Mr Popo depictions in the early 2000s. I can see the effect her critique and that of Japanese activists have even to this day. The most recent Dragon Quest Monsters game released in December 2023 has toned down Akira Toriyama's lip designs for the Cloud Surfer, Low Djinks, Sintaur, and maybe a few other characters, in all versions, including Japan. It makes me think that publishers are recognizing the problem for what it is, keeping the characters, but changing them up a bit to subvert stereotypes & expectations. Of course, there will always be those who cry "censorship!" at the first whiff of change, but it's self-accountability from the creators, and that's a great thing.
Very mature and well historically and contextually researched video.
Ah, yes. America sharing good ol' racism. Their best export. /s
😂
Spoken like a true European with no rights
This was very educational and entertaining. As an artist myself, I want to make sure the diverse characters I draw in the future will be well received and culturally appropriate, but that takes a lot of research and knowledge to do successfully. Videos like this help with that.
Thank you for watching! I'm sure your audience appreciates the extra effort you put into getting things right.
Man this was such a great video! I'm glad it was recommended to me!
I could see this being used in college courses honestly! Well done!
I'm really glad that you enjoyed the video, thank you for watching!
One of the best video essays I’ve ever seen
Good job
It’s weird how the big lips thing is something that also naturally developed in anime for a type of asian character, but it got read as black. Dex from Mega Man Battle Network was an asian character who just had big puffy lips, for instance. What’s weird with One Piece is how many characters, like the Admirals, get read as black despite being explicitly based on famous Japanese actors’ likenesses.
Great video!
Thanks!
This is a fantastic and well produced video!
I had an intuitive sense as to why black face was prevalent in Japan given what I know about Japan's history of isolationism and forced westernization, so this extra bit of context was very helpful.
Shame that many in the comments section are getting defensive, It's something I've noticed in other videos relating to depictions of black face in children's entertainment. I think the defensiveness is a byproduct of cognitive dissonance.
For example:
- If someone (Lets call them Steve) likes a franchise that features black face
- and someone else comes over and points out how that's racist or may be perpetuating racist stereotypes
- Steve agrees racism is bad
- conversely Steve also likes the franchise in question
- so now Steve is wondering if liking it makes them bad
- and that feeling makes Steve angry
- now we have two conflicting ideas that cause a knee jerk reaction and post hoc rationalization.
Sometimes it's easier to go the path of least resistance and admit that things you like may have problematic elements to them. You can still find something of value in something that has problematic elements. Lets not be shitty to each other.
Very well said
This is exactly it. Thank you for commenting this!
Thats because you're kneel to other people opinion. If japan are free, why they still controled by rules from usa?
donut lipsなんて別にアメリカの例のデザインを知らなくても誰でも思いつくデザインだぞ
narutoのハンドサインはギャングのハンドサインをもとにしてるとか言ってるようなもんだ
narutoのハンドサインのモデルとなるものは数百年以上前に存在してたが、ギャングはそれに触発されて彼らのハンドサインを作ったのか？違うだろ。
なんでもかんでもアメリカが起源で、世界中に影響を与えてるとか思わない方がいい
よくこの話題で他に挙がるのがポケモンのJynxだが、あれも日本のyamanba gyaruがモチーフになってるのにろく調査しないアメリカ人が勝手によく文句を言ってる
殆どの日本人はアメリカの事なんて大して知らないし、興味もない。アメリカ人が日本人と中国人をしっかり識別できないのと同じだ。
また日本で幼稚園児が描いた似顔絵を見てると動画で出て来るような唇の描き方してる奴たくさんあるし、
日本人キャラに対してもこのデザインを適用してるケースはある(まあ日本人の唇は大体みんな小さめだから適応されるチャンスは低いが)
何よりdonut lipsは作画の手間を省きつつ厚い唇を表現する最も合理的なデザインともいえる
ドラゴンボールのタオパイパイだってofficer blackと同じ方向性のデザインが適応されてるし、そういう事が悪いことだと日本人はそもそも思ってない。
ステレオタイプが悪いっていう価値観自体アメリカ人特有のものだ。全世界が共有しているものではない。
つまり、単なる文化の違いって奴だ。
Imma be honest until oda said ussop be from Africa I never knew he was black
Great video
Fantastic video! I would be interested to hear your thoughts on how Asian people were stereotyped/yellow face in Western media in a similar time period. One example being Mickey Rooney playing Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Thanks for watching! That’s another topic that would be really interesting to discuss as well. I’m glad we’ve come a long way from those days and we’re actually getting the right people in the right roles.
Really great explanation, the history behind it is really interesting. I have a lot of respect for that family speaking out on the issue, always heartwarming to see others be nice enough to advocate for something even though they're not part of the group impacted.
Yeah I agree, it takes a special type of person to take the jump and advocate for others. Thank you for watching!
This is a great video. I studied this very topic at university 2016~2018. It seems like you looked at similar books i read.
Did you look into to works of John G Russell? Hes probably one of the first scholars who really wrote a lot about this stuff.
I actually did not read John G Russel’s work on the subject for this video, but you mentioning this reminded me that I’m familiar with his work because I also read some of it in university as well.
New sub via Adelaide!😅
Great job uncovering the history of these brands & companies.✊🏾
I would also highly recommend James' other channel, Mixed Up Media as well. Really fantastic work.
Loved the video. Great rhythm and the topic was really interesting. You gained one more subscriber, keep it up.
I Remember watching bleach back in the day and seeing tosen for the first time. Being the only black kid in a white area, seeing him show up in that was like having a new cool colored neighbor arrive in town. Sad how dirty he got done by Kubo.
Man I think we were all hurt that Tosen got wasted lol. He wasn’t even just a well designed black character, he was one of the best designed characters in Bleach period
I appreciate you watching the video!
LOVE the video - Though i have to disagree with 17:25 if this had any weight to it, then one basic family of three would not have started a protest. Proving that even in the 80's they knew no human looked the way they drew them
I woke up one morning on my grandparents' hard livingroom floor, squinting up with bleary eyes at a black-face performance on the colorless TV. (It was a dusty old musical.) Thuroughly, I was taken aback. My grandparents aren't racist thankfully, but I was NOT expecting to wake up to that for sure. Gave me some perspective on the whole black-face thing, since I never thought much about it until that moment... 10/10 Thanksgiving experience. 👍
LITERALLY PRESSED PLAY AND TWO SECONDS LATER! (2:53) THIS IS IT! THIS IS THE EXACT MONSTROSITY I WOKE UP TO!
I can imagine the whiplash that caused you to experience😂. What a crazy coincidence
I Think japan are just not the best in that type of charaters (But most of the time that suck yeah they're not the best in) but i think they just need help from people who know more about
i know you gotta do it for the algorithm but even with a gun to my head i don't think i could be compelled to end a video by saying "hey, anime fans, please tell me your thoughts on the history and ongoing cultural impact of racism". youre a braver person than i.
good video btw, this is something that had always struck me as odd but i'd never come across much information about, so this was a very interesting watch!
you were so real for this m8
I think it depends on if something is racist based off the intent of the artist or if it is racist based off how it makes the reader feel?
Or if neither those matter and racism is something that can be objectively observed by a third party?
Maybe a mix of all three?
It boils down to the individual imo. Everything affects different people differently. A non black person might see these examples and not have a care in the world because it doesn't affect them, whereas someone of African decent might feel differently. It might not be intentional considering asian people might not be aware of America's history with blackface and racial charactures.
So do you think it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t affect you. That’s not good logic.
"Cute and fantastic stories, without all the racism," is good model for future art.
The comments are so yikes. That’s why it hard connecting as a anime fan while being black. You can tell some people went into this video with complete bias.
It was to be expected unfortunately. A lot of people can’t talk about race without describing it as a “political issue.”
@@TheLostCrsuader21 yeah it just makes me sad to be honest. You did your best in trying to get to the other side so your efforts weren't pointless. Thanks man.
I'm a white dude, and even I can't connect with other anime fans or gamers. There is definitely a sexism/racism problem in nerd culture.
If people can't identify what is wrong with menstrual shows or black face, then we failed as a society 😅
@@TheLostCrsuader21 You did this video in the absolutely most non-controversial way possible.
@@SleepyMatt-zzz yeah I feel like it's getting worst though. I think it's best to enjoy anime by yourself than with the community. Idk what happen but we definitely failed lol
We needed a video like this great job💪🏾
I’m glad I randomly decided to make it😂. Thanks for watching🙌🏾
It is also interesting to point out that the giving "donut lips" to non black coded characters is not a more modern practice.
This had already been a thing possibly as early as the late 60's
The most prominent example of this would be the original Kinnikuman (Muscle Man) for 1979, and Wolf Boy Ken from 1963.
Obviacly black coded characters got this mouth design most often, but it is inportant to remember that when analizing these characters. For the japanise, this design choice has a cimpleatly different cultural context then for people in the west, which is why "donut lips" is still comman on non black characters to this day
The hell is black coded
@@Senator-Wary
It means character that's ment to represent a black person.
Like for example, in any setting that isn't our own world, the idea of races as we know it is not at thing. But you still have characters and peoples that are in design and influence based on black people.
Likewise characters like Popo are not human, but there design shares inspiration with blackface.
I used "black coded" as kind of an unreal term for all characters that look :black".
I'm probably using the word wrong, but I hope this gets my point across😅
@@viktormadzov5286 is curious George black coded?
Excellent work, definitely a great discussion
Agree with your assessments 100%
That said, anime in general has had the quickest turn around (faster than even hollyweird, since it's still mostly the same shi) on a lot of different things like race depictions--some of the best stories come from someone on the outside looking in, as long as they are adjacent, and not at a (perceived) elevation. Great video 💯👍👍
i think this is a really cool and important video that all anime fans should watch. In order to be able to enjoy something you have the responsibility to address and accept that these character designs are problematic. Its fine to still like anime while admitting that parts of it arnt right and need to change. Another example being the 1000 year old in a 5 year old body trope. But thats not what is being discussed rn. Anyways, I think lots of people need to accept this and this video does a great job of laying it all out. Its great!!
As soon as you use the word problematic, you're already out yourself. Your a cultural marxist that wants to be a colonialist and change anime to appealed to their black fragility that Democrats taught you.
Usopp is one of my favorite characters in one piece. I wish Oda would change his lips tho, since we all know at this point he should be aware of its racist history.
I dont think that was the intention behind usopps design, mostly because the few other black characters that do exist in one piece like nojiko or any of the lunarians lack these features common in minstrel iconography, rather it was likely more inspired by the common donut lipped design in a series like kinnikuman which is a series the author grew up on. Im not saying that it isnt an issue at all, but rather at the very least there was 0 harmful intent behind it, especially when you consider the overall anti-racism message that one piece has in the story.
Love this vid, was much needed.
You did a great job with this video. Excellent research
Thanks for watching, it was a lot of fun to put together!
Bro that beyblade twist holy fuck
If you look at it from a purely visual design and character design perspective, the pitch black skin with big lips creates a face that is very easily readable. The white eyes create the strongest possible contrast against the black skin, which you can't really do with light skin without having to use outlines, or reducing the eyes to only pupils (like Pac-man or Kirby or early mickey mouse), which makes it harder to show where the character's eyes are pointing.
The bright lips then create another strong contrast against the skin. If they weren't there, the only way to make the mouth visible would be to either use a white outline, which might not fit the style, or to keep the mouth open all the time, so you can see the teeth or the inside of the mouth, which isn't as natural as just using prominent lips.
So in that sense, this old trope is a really effective way to make a readable face with very few details.
Cartoons are all about reducing drawings to as few details as are necessary and abstracting shapes into their most simple forms.
That's what the donut lips are, they are a crass and abstract exaggeration of reality. Nobody really has lips like that, but they are easy to draw, easy to read and give the character a certain personality.
Of course, that personality is unfortunately linked to an insulting type of media, but at least Minstrel Shows aren't a thing anymore.
When I grew up and saw these characters like Mr. Popo, I had no idea what Minstrel Shows were, so I did not think he was tied to anything mean-spirited. I just liked him the way he was and thought he was merely drawn in an exaggerated way.
It's kind of ironic that we keep having to introduce new generations of kids to these outdated stereotypes... in order to fight said stereotypes.
Same with Tom & Jerry and the Mammy character. Mammies just aren't a thing anymore. So if we didn't explain it, people wouldn't even know it's a stereotype, since it's based on something that doesn't exist anymore.
I'm not saying people should act like Minstrel Shows never happened and try to keep them a secret, but we shouldn't forget that the thing that made racist cartoons so insulting was the way the character's personalities were portrayed, not just because they were drawn in a silly way. If a character is drawn that way, but their personality and their story makes them lovable, then what harm are the lips?
One of my favourite childhood stories as a kid was Jim Button. In the book, which was published in the early 1960s, the black protagonist Jim was drawn with those same tube-shaped lips, but his story was about fighting prejudice and oppression, and giving a chance to those who are seen as outsiders. It even had messages against segregation and against racial purity in it.
So whenever I see that kind of design, I'm first reminded of Jim and his fun and heroic stories, rather than any kind of stereotypes.
To an innocent mind, the face is harmless. What's important is the context and characterization.
While I totally understand why people think about it the way they do, it's still painful to see people call characters like Jim Button racist without even knowing who he is or what he stands for.
Nowadays. In Japan Black People are now helping Japanese Companies make Anime and it's videos about it and I respect that do to the fact that I'm also a Man of Color myself.
And sadly there are weirdos that complain about that online
Very nice video! Keep it up
I appreciate this, thank you!
I was wondering if you watched the Pokemon episode where Ash disguises himself as a Passimian. That’s probably a modern example of an anime episode banned for “blackface”
No I haven't, but I will be looking it up
Good job on this video. Cultural ignorance definitely underpins a lot of this issue. Watching it also reminded me of the old Japanese Pop group "Rats & Star" which performed in blackface in the past and stirred up some controversy, even though it might not have been done maliciously.
wow, what a fantastic and informative video :)
I’m glad you enjoyed it, thank you for watching!
Really amazing video!
I remember hearing an argument at one point about donut lips being designed based on ganguro fashion. I dont know how much water it holds as an argument and i dont know if the roots of the fashion trend are tied to minstrel and the japaneese attitude towards it at the time. But it seems at least tangentially related.
Idk but to me the whole "its just supposed to be cute and silly" doesn't really work as an excuse. Like, sure, it's great if Japanese don't have even worse stereotypes against black people but reducing virtually _all_ portrayals of black people to the features that Japanese people find comical is literally still as bad as the original Americans laughing at minstrel shows.
It simply was never relevant enough in Japan (due to the high homogeneity) that it was addressed until that one random Japanese family took action.
The fact that donut lips still exist in anime/manga and are a shortened for silly/simple/dumb or otherwise comic relief characters really isn't a good look either
I was trying to remain as neutral as possible in this video, but I agree with you.
"In the west" like anime wasn't a thing over a decade ago in all of Latin America.
15:43 I would say its more fitting to use Jungle Kurobe here as that was a literal blackface staring a native african caricature anime by the Doraemon guys which had one of Hayao Miyazakis first storyboard credits at his time at TMS
I made my own manga have a black protagonist with donut lips and I thought it was acceptable just because Ussop and Chocolove had them. I've had some people complain, but I figured it was useless to change it because then people would still complain about me doing it at all, plus I'm largely against censorship or sanitization. And its kind of frustrating since sometimes people like sanitized versions better. Like in Willy Wonka, in the original book the Oompa Loompas were African pygmies, but the 1960s film changed them into orange skinned green haired men, and everyone likes that version better...
Anyway, I do agree that Japanese portrayals of black people have gotten better since the 2000s. And I think its worth mentioning that a few anime Japanese characters have poofy lips, like Takeo Gouda in My Love Story.
Amazing video. I think it's important to take intent into account. Which you've addressed very well!
I've never liked the big lip design on any race personally. Never found it cute or pretty. Glad to see changes made over time to reduce it.
reminds me of how adolf hitler uunona apparently didn't know the person he was named after was LITERALLY HITLER lol
Man how crazy😂
There was an election in India a few years ago where a guy named Adolf Hitler beat guys named Frankenstein and Billykid.
@KasumiKenshirou 😂😂😂
Goofy was designed by Frank Webb
& was turned into an explicit minstrel character by Walt & Babbitt, even going as far as to use slurs to describe his character & animating him with watermelons
Tho I don't think this was intended for Mickey, it absolutely was for Goofy without a doubt
I didn't know this about Goofy, thanks for sharing!
Great video, Lost man! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
While the Toriyama thing is prevalent across most all his 80’s-90’s era works… you seemed to gloss over the anime series (without manga) that had non-objectionable designs of the same subject during the same time period.
Like Gundam ZZ, Macross, and other such series.
18:55 HELL YEAH, IT'S AVDOL TIME
Always has been and always will be😤
Japan is so interesting as a case study because they quote-unquote "don't have racism". When only an estimated 1 million people in the entirety of Japan are from a foreign country, the vast majority of those being either Korean, Chinese, or white nationals, the racial profiling of Japan is so homogeneous that it's easy for stereotype to become ingrained without any of the racial context, as you said. While I definitely think Tezuka was fully conscious of the stereotypical nature of his work at least to some extent, it is worth noting that the modern Internet straight up didn't exist until the 1990s. Blackface had 150 years to root in Japan, and become fully disjointed from its context, before Black people - like, actual Black people - were even beginning to appear in the cultural zeitgeist. I'm not trying to say that Japanese people didn't know Black people existed before the Internet - I'm fully aware that Black people have always existed within the Japanese political and social spheres. Hell, African students came to Japan all the time in the 50s onward. It's just that with the constant reinforcement of these stereotypes divorced from their history and context, the rise of SD as well as Japanese marketing always focusing on the cutesy aspect, and racial homogeneity always permeating the literature of the time, you have to wonder how long the Japanese public were surrounded and accustomed to these characters without ever knowing their history. The persistence of the donut lip could even speak to the reworking of some of these stereotypes as just characteristics of a certain style, completely divorced from their origins.
Now that you've brought up dragon ball I remember recently there might have been a new black character introduced in super who goes to school with goten and trunks, I don't remember if he has donut lips or not
Pan’s teacher and Trunks/Goten’s classmate are drawn amazingly well. No donut lips there
I remember with the recent dragon ball super chapters about goten and trunks going to school, people were celebrating the new black characters designs, it was kinda funny and pretty cool
They came from Toriyama, which is a turnaround considering what he used to do in the 80’s-90’s period.
(Of course, now he’s gone)
I am white so this may not hold water but I do feel like the designs of Usopp and Chocolove are more supossed to be exaggerated and goofy. Obviously they do come off as offensive to some and thats valid but I feel it reflects in their characters. I also love those two to death so I may be biased lol.
They’re both amazing characters in my opinion as well
This video is much appreciated. I feel that with more exposure to America and what is acceptable there is better representation in anime. What I like is that in Japan eventhough they didn't know better they ended up making changes.
wow its amazing that Winky came from the same firm that made Bayblades
Chocolove in the Latin American Spanish dub was given a cuban accent 😂😂😂
This sounds amazing 😂
Ethopian Serenaders, Shenendoah Minstrels were just a few acts back in thr day..
I am glad that there has been a bit of progress on this, with manga artists getting a bit more familiar with drawing black people even in their own stylized way. Aye it's not fully there but it's getting there which is good
Well done video 👍
"that was actually the name they name up with" lmao
I love to see anime nowadays having more diversity. Even if the black characters have big ass lips its not as bothering and horrible as it was back in the day. My favorite black character is killik from soul eater btw just to point that out
I just find it really friggin weird that Japanese manga/anime artists will depict themselves as blonde, brown, red haired and multichromatic eyed tiny nosed pale skinned while drawing us like... this. And the whole "its to tell characters apart" argument is just dumb when Otomo, Miyazaki, Kon, and many others could make varied Japanese characters without essentially making them look like white Europeans. Western colonialist standards have touched most nations on this planet its crazy.
It's actually interesting to see how Japanese people view these characters generally. They don't see them as European they see them as Asian. Go look at Japanese art prior to contact with the west, they still depicted themselves as incredibly fair skinned and most often used a singular "J" shaped line to represent the nose. A lot of modern Anime adopted these pre-existing cultural artistic shorthands for depicting themselves used for hundreds of years prior. The hair is really just born out of the fact that so many anime are set in middle/high school having every character essentially looking 5/8ths identical to every other character of the same gender doesn't allow for much creative design space, so that attention went to the hair and that just became associated with the art form more generally kinda like the Kirby crackle in western comic art.
Manga and Anime are not art forms focused around realism so you shouldn't expect realism. While I agree with the video that manga/anime depictions of black people have improved moving away from the adopted western stereotyping tropes it still isn't "realistic" it's simply washed in the same genre tropes as every other character. Ethnicity in Anime/Manga is more often shown through cultural objects. Like Full Metal Alchemist, for example, FMA is an Anime depiction of European coded people with their eating of stew, religious iconography, etc...
I feel like that's letting them off the hook a bit too easy. I've lived and worked in Japan for many years and speak fluent Japanese. There is a deeper psychological reason behind all.of this. Smaller eyes n Asian features are not considered attractive to the masses of people in Japan. I'm sorry it's just the truth. Make up and plastic surgery is all to appear more western or white. Student with darker skin are always picked on or bullied in school. It's a serious problem. Anime is another reflection of what they consider cute or good looking,which is in direct contrast to their natural God given appearances. Self hate is a global phenomenon perpetuated by hundreds of years of white supremacy on the planet. After WW2 Japanese society fell even deeper in love with their overlords. It's sad really. The natural beauty of their people is largely lost on a vast majority of their population.
Just watch Love Live when theres scene when they come to u.s.a
Bro watch anime from the 70s
Yea, those designs weren’t that present when international characters were featured.
9:38 I just realized their's a fight in Yu Yu Hakusho that ends in what i think is a direct reference to this!!
It is rasict, I even draw a anime character of myself but I also like it. It shows the difference between us from everybody else. I accept this and kept the big lips on my anime picture of myself, instead of the pencil thin lips
Black characters from bleach 🎉
I don't think you saw that picture well dude holding the umbrella
I just learnt usopp has black face stereotypes. Long nose for big nose and donut lips. I never noticed that before.
On a unrelated note, since we’re talking about bad black protrayal I justed learned this, but “the birth of a nation” is why the KKK have got their uniform design from
I loved chocolove. The Netflix shaman king doesn’t feel the same without the same look
So uncivilised kenobi moments