I hate the concept of "fixing", especially in fandom. Western fandom isn't the target audience for Genshin, who's company is based in the East. HoYoverse is is going to pander to their own demographic so "fixing" their characters really isn't going to change anything. I personally love the Genshin designs for what they are, so there's no point in me (as a black person) changing them.
@@shea9632 Editing a canon character is never going to help and people need to realize that... And when a character does have some melanin, it's NEVER enough. Can't force an entire Chinese company to change plans they made long before the game was publicly accessible.
@@shea9632 I've seen some of these people saying Kaeya and Xinyan "aren't black enough". I was like wtf. And it was on the Sumeru teaser 03 comment section.
Coincidentally, artists that "fix" things also happen to be terrible as far as technical skill goes. (Zee fixes arts feet for example) It's almost like all that moral grandstanding and attention grabbing says something about what that person is compensating for. Certain people nowadays are so rife with obsessions. Instead of focusing on aesthetics, application of race things and artistic principles, they'd rather drag down people way better than them by twisting everything into a race thing.
@@behinasam9337 they either dont know or blatantly ignore facts regarding geography or culture. like seriously the newest garbage some of them claimed is kazuha and his friend tomo are apparently gæ because they have the sleeves on their kimono ripped/cut, because of one story from china that isnt/wasnt even remotely a cultural phenomenon in the country lmao they also claimed ayato is gæ because he has long sleeves and that its apparently "uSEd bY woMEn tO AttRAcT mEn" clowns i swear, not even the funny kind too
As and artist and a black person, as well, it also infuriates me to see these people claim darkening a skin tone is "fixing" a character, as if there is something inherently wrong with having light skin. Additionally, for people who claim to want black characters so much, they barely use the dark skinned characters we already have. Xinyan is the least used character in Genshin, period. She's Chinese and people claiming that she's black is extremely offensive to dark-skinned Asians and black people (as if all of us have dark-skin). The worst part is, all they do is make the skin dark and do nothing about the rest of the color palette which does not suit the dark skin tone. It makes them look fucking hideous. I swear, Genshin fans only fetishize black skin, they don't care about actual black people at all, hence why we get called coons for being against the bullshit blackwashing.
please don't call them genshin fans. Genshin fans are by definition fond of the game. Those twats seem to be more fond of their own unique brand of anti-Asian racism.
@Yoonbum Then don't go around ranting and raving about how bad dark skinned characters have it when you won't even use the ones in the game. Amber is dogshit, worse than Xinyan will ever be and her fans still use her. Why do all of these vocal Xinyan fans not do the same?
It's funny how the fandom is 'loud' about the sumeru 'stereotype' yet they didn't even bother at how Yae dressed. There's no way a shrine maiden in japan dressed like Yae💀.
Can we like talk about Kokomis Dress Like that Sailormoon, Magical girl, Mermaid, Dragon, kami, schoolgirl, Swimmer looking shrine maiden? Like Yae, I can see it to some degree But when I look at Kokomi Shrine maiden is the last thing I think of
@@tirramasu7948 Omg fr💀. Is there any players in JP who complained about the shrine maidens in genshin? none, because they can separate fictional made and reality. Why is it a problem to begin with anyway? this kinda stuff has been going on with other games mostly character oriented gacha games smh
@@zephyrosukishin Actually, I haven't heard anything from the JP side of the fandom Ive heard controversies from CN like Kokomis va but never Jp I guess that's because they accept as fiction like how all anime, games, and manga are
funny enough, the outfits in liyue and inazuma are also based on stereotypes. they are not culturally accurate and even cn players have complained about shenhe's outfit being sexualised lol and no one on the western side bat an eye
Lol! Ikr, I just want to scream at these types of people to use their creative juices and make new, UNIQUE and lovable characters instead of switching the race to ‘fix’ another person’s hard work
they did release dark skinned character right from the release of the game... and that was Kaeya. calling him 'exotic' is not even an insult, because he is from outside of Mondstadt if that was an insult then why no one cared when they called Traveler an "outsider" lol
The MAIN audience will always be the chinese, the koreans and the japanese people., since they are the ones who buy the most stuff in Hoyo's games. Those people only want to see pretty males and females, the ones that they are used to seeing on the streets irl. And since there are basically no black people in any of these countries, there is little to no reason for Hoyo to implement darker shades of skin, since that's not what the highest paying players want
There was actually a guy who went about it the right way, sending an e-mail to hoyoverse concerning representation. He got an answer from hoyoverse saying that they understood the importance of representation and the mail was forwarded to the developer team.
It’s so crazy how people support making characters black when they’re originally a paler skin, but then so against whitewashing. both are pretty racist in my opinion.
Whats wild to me is it's almost always JUST darkening skin. Its literally never adding any other feature related to whatever race they made them. Also I dont know why I added that last bit, cuz they're always "black" (see also: reshaded with whatever random dark skin colour they picked)
eh I think that's more of hoyo having... pretty basic models. the main changes in facial shape for most if not all genshin characters is their eyes so I get why they wouldn't change the features but yeah somd ppl take it too far
Well, I'm sorry if this will come out bad but Hoyoverse/Mihoyo (Genshin's creator) uses an anime artsyle and the most people who use the anime artsyle only draw like big eyes and a thin mouth. Japanese people don't have big eyes even though they are the ones making anime. It's pretty much skin color and hair changing. Check out Hoyoverse's black character from another game called "Carole Pepper". She is black but she doesn't have like big lips. She does however have like a straight hair, most likely due to her lore on how she feels bad for herself because she is black (don't shoot the messenger T-T).
Only darkening the skin is usually the point though lol. Its to show how captivating the color schemes of the characters could be with different skin color choices. Also some pages who recolor characters do add racial features such as deeper lips curly hair alternatives to thier regular hair and etc. It just isnt necessary all the time cause usually thats not the point.
I do hope there will be more diverse skin tones in the future as I find Kaeya and Xinyan to be very nice on the eye so the style isn’t the problem. What I don’t like is when people do exactly this. With a lot more Sumeru in the coming year and later Natlan I hope there will be a lot more variety in skin tones to make more unique and interesting designs.
I think that only amplifies the issue when the fans are making the call on who gets race changed. Genshin could release 5 characters who have darker tones and fit the setting they're going for and then some loud mouthed fan says "We should make Paimon darker." Far from me to decide what China makes for their target audience but it's their game, not Twitter's.
@@Petrico94 To be fair It would have been nice if the NPCs are at least brown or Tan (not really black as Blacks are also a minority here) the playable characters can have lighter skins just like how famous people here use a lot of beauty products to make their skin lighter lol.
I hope they have more characters with Cyno and Dehya's type 4 skin tones and Kaeya and Xinyan's type 5 skin tones in Sumeru but these people on Twitter act like they've never met any pasty Middle eastern and SE Asian people before. My mom has a bunch of Iraqi lady friends who work in the same field as her and most of them have fair skin, darkest are around Cyno and Dehya color. Many Thai, Viet, and Indonesian people I've met have fair skin but I've also met many people who are darker. One of my mom's Indian friends is of Austronesian descent (Melanesian according to him) and he is darker then any African American she'd even met. Sumeru should have a nice rainbow of skin tones based on the regions it takes inspiration from Middle east, South Asian, and SE Asia, so we can hope but them having big baby tantrums won't change anything
@@Petrico94 I saw someone crying over Sumeru chara not having brown skin tones but their profile was full of blackwashing existing genshin characters. Why cry about representation when you can't even respect existing characters with their skin tones when there is nothing wrong in the first place
@@eraba661 I remember scrolling through some of the recent comments on another video covering this topic and someone had proudly admitted that they had ‘fixed’ the design by darkening their skin and that they posted it on their socials or something. Pretty disgusting if you ask me. It’s funny as well because they also mentioned something about putting more Indian culture into it (for context, they also mentioned something about them being offended as an Indian) when it’s suppose to be based on the *middle east* which shouldn’t exclude every other culture and country. Besides that- Genshin isn’t suppose to even represent any cultures or countries- let alone accurately depict them. Genshin only made nations *inspired* by these countries and cultures but it doesn’t mean it’s suppose to represent reality at all. Funny how heated people can get over a *FICTIONAL* world.
The genshin impact community has an hard time accepting that every single region, including liyue isn't good representation. The skin colour is NOT the only key to representation. There are new characters like cyno and Candace who have a tan skintone but people keep complaining that they're not "tanned" enough. They only cared about sumeru characters bring too pale but never east Asians. Most east Asians are light tan, not snow white. It's crazy how an entire community cares more about a skin tone than the actual cultural background to their designs.
i agree with the first part of no genshin region is ‘good’ representation, but even cyno and candace are still very pale, especially given that they’re exposed to a lot of sun.
They lived in the Forrest, covered mostly by the trees from the sun. So it's make sense they light skinned. While on the desert it's also make sense they dark skinned, because they always been bombarded by the sun Light. Like on my place it self, those who live in the jungle usually light skinned and those who got exposed by sunlight have dark colored skin. It's science, it's geography. I know this because I live on a place full of jungle and I see people skins. Sumeru it self are India, middle East, Egypt based region. Even some in the middle East are having light skin color even tho they live in the place that been bombarded by the Sun. Especially Nahida, she didn't that often going out and been hit by the Sun that often, it make sense she have light colored skin. Those American just can't think that much (the stupid one)
@@jeremytheexplorer4689 If I remember correctly, Nahida is supposedly based on a mythological goddess who is described as "pale as the moon" so her having pale skin is totally justifiable. It's sad people don't get that
@@wakkaseta8351 I literally saw someone saying that the East Asian representation in Liyue and Inazuma is horrible because the characters are pal. Like wtf
honestly, i’d love to see hoyoverse make more dark skinned characters, however, if you want more, don’t darken their skintones and say you “fixed” them. that’s accomplishing nothing here, either make your own oc or pray, those are the two only things you can do.
We're on the same boat I definitely would be excited if there was more diversity with the skin tones. But why would you complain about the existing characters, and change their skin tone saying you "fixed" it, as if having white skin is wrong or "culturally inappropriate"? I'm persian but i am white passing, would you really say that "i dont belong to the culture" aswell just because of my skin tone? Instead of letting the wound heal , you're cutting it deeper and deeper
I have friends who play genshin but refuse to interact with it's community because of occurences like this. They make art when they can but when they see people just trying shame other artists and the devs like this my friends just decide "nah i don't need that."
@@arha13 Because twitter gives anybody with an opinion weather it be good,bad, correct or incorrect a way to say what they want and find others to form a brigade to protect their ideals. Either that or shame or others. What should be morally gray discussions get turned into cancel mobs and witch hunts.
Im 100% all for representation dont get me wrong, but doing this....this is why i do not interact with a lot of the community. I love the game, but theyre so toxic it's insane. This is an insult to the person at the company who designed the characters, and they didnt even "fix" them, in fact made them look worse at how poorly it was edited.
@@hadrianhexe9603 NO. As an Arab i don't give a single F if the character has palette number #000000 or #111111. It's a game it doesn't exist, i want endgame, grind & meta characters not color tones.
@@hadrianhexe9603 hoyo didnt even explicitly say that it was going to be based off whatever , it was the community that collectively agreed that it was based of that - so no
Exactly, I hate that I have to mention "I don't interact with the community, just love the game" whenever I tell someone I play genshin, because I just know what people think. Truth is any sane player wants to avoid the community as much as they can
as a POC artist, my favourite character has brown skin. In the two years span that I've been drawing this character, the stylistic, atmospheric and colour choices I've chosen changed the character's skin colour A LOT. But that's natural because skin don't always look brown in every kind of light, right? I'm relatively small artist but every time I draw this character, I ALWAYS, ALWAYS get comments asking "why is he so pale?" "why why why are you making them pale?" "dude, he's supposed to be dark skinned???" as a dark-skinned artist, I wanna know: are the people who leave comments like this also poc? angry bc of lack of presentation? or just the other end of the spectrum who wants to justify bad online behaviour? also pls don't "fix" someone else's art. even if it's an official piece of art, someone still made that and editing their work is just not right :(
to answer your question, the people who leave comments like this are also poc, and they either care that the character is too pale which is reasonable, it is not okay in any circumstance to change the race of a character who already has an established one, or they just dont understand lighting and want the character to be the exact same shade everytime
dude I’m so sorry for how much backlash you’re dealing with because of this video. the people spouting slurs at you seem to preach equality yet are probably some of the most prejudiced people on the planet. you’re awesome, don’t listen to those people.
i mean illiberal progressives are the same people that preach equality and fairness but want a centrally planned economy, they are bound to have some dumb ideas on everything
The thing is, Genshin has great representation in other corners such as Liyue, which is based on China. They hired a professional opera singer to do the voice of Yun Jin, yet the community went out of their way to make fun of her for her singing. Another example. A character named Gaming (pronounced Ja- ming) was made fun of for his name, when it's a Cantonese name that doesn't mean what it looks like in English. Another issue is that the archon (or goddess) of sumeru is white. She (nahida) is based on a Hindu goddess named Aranyani, who was white.
the genshin fandom on twitter literally dont care about “representation”. they only care abt how black/ pale a character is. for example, Yun Jin. she’s a great representation of Chinese people but many people on twitter still ridicules her singing.
If liyue is actually based off china then yun jin’s singing is accurate bc that’s what traditional Chinese opera sounds like (as a Chinese person myself)
@@Idonotknowwhatadmittedly, I don’t like YunJin’s singing. It needs the music to go with it for one, and two, going from normal voice to a totally different voice in the same package is grating on the ears. The two voices don’t mesh.
As a Latino person, it would be racist if the majority of Natlan people were dark-skinned because it is still forcing the stereotype that everyone who is latino is dark skinned. Just commenting for the theories that claimed Natlan is inspired by mesoamerican tribes and Latinoamérica in general. Both latino and Arabic people are an ethnicity, not a race (which is determined by a skin color), so we both have a variety of skin colors. Genshin is not representing those cultures, they are taking inspiration by choosing some aspects of it; we should not expect accurate representation. Just look on the fact that Liyue is inspired by China and the character's designs are not even accurate either. But I do agree we should have a variety of skin colors on the game, but remember tha GI is an Chinese game, so they are mainly focused on their local fanbase and working on their traditional beauty standards.
I mean, true, but you also have to agree that it's a matter of quantity of representation. Yes, not everyone in latinamerica is dark skinned, I'm a latino and I have pale skin for instance, but we can't ignore the fact that the great majority of Latin Americans have darker skin than other cultures. If natlan had 25% of their cast as white, I personally wouldn't have any issue with it, but if the majority of the cast was white (just as what is happening in sumeru) there would definitely be a problem, natlan is based primarily on the Mayans, even the name means "lugar de abundancia/ wealthy place" in nahuatl, it would be really weird and culturally insensitive to make a primarily white cast then because of the historical connotations that would bring (mainly the fact that mayans were slaved by European cultures once it was "discovered"). Case and point, as an artist I get it, sometimes you just want to make a character white and changing their skin tone would completely mess up the design, most likely that's what happening here, is not that hoyoverse is being racist with sumeru, they simply liked those designs more than others, but that doesn't mean we can't criticize them for being culturally inaccurate
@@Someone-wr4ms You're not wrong but I think when we discuss representation we should focus on quality rather than quantity, one of those examples could be the English VA mispronouncing ethnic names so far ( german, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, etc), I was kinda disappointed how they pronounced Sumeru, Al Tighnari, etc, which are not so difficult to pronounce. Having a discussion only on colorskin and nothing at others aspects is still forcing stereotypes ( That's what Twitter is doing). I wouldn't be so sure if Latinoamérica has the majority of dark skinned people on the world, if we look at Asia or Africa which are a lot bigger at territory and ethnicities. Dark-skinned latinos are everywhere but depending of the location could be a higher or lower rate. The majority of black or dark-skinned people could be found on Caribbean countries (both islands and the coast), the majority of people with indigenous features are located on Central America, Mexico, Bolivia and Perú; and there is a higher rate of light skinned people on countries like Chile, Argentina or Paraguay. As you said we must have Hoyoverse accountable for their ethnic inspirations but we should not expecting a 100% good representation when we are not their target and they have a long history with racism and xenophobia. As the video's creator said, the majority people getting offended for this are always white people who are not even part of the culture in discussion. And we as third world countries have a lot bigger and important issues to come through to actually focusing on a Chinese game. Thanks for sharing your thoughts 🥰
They're based off regions, not specific countries. Mondastadt is based off German countries, Liyue is Chinese, Inazuma is Japanese, Sumeru is SWANA, Fontaine looks like it'll be romantic countries (france, italy, spain, romainia, etc etc), Natlan is mezzo-American, and Snezhnaya is supposed to be based on Soviet countries (sorry if that's not the right word for it, I can't remember the exact word). edit to add: Also, people get their panties in a bunch over the outfits in Sumeru, but nobody cared about the realism behind Inazuma's character designs. Not only is that hypocritical, but also it's as if artistic liberties aren't allowed to exist??
Yea just a quick note Germany is one country there aren't multiple countries But ither than that I agree These people claim to be the advocates of representation Meanwhile they take other people's representation away and are the definition of racist
Legit especially when people called it racist for Hoyo to mix different countries of a region for Sumeru, completely unaware that Mondstadt is a mixture of German, other European aspects, Greek and Roman, and no one cared. All the chatacter designs have been stereotypical too, yet no one complained. There's especially A LOT of design liberties taken, like you think people in medieval China wore Gucci dresses and modern suits? Or Inazuma royalty/sacred women were dressing like prostitutes? Or that the 'Germans' of Mondstadt are just typical fantasy RPG characters? And when it comes to mispronunciation of names, pretty sure none of us are even pronouncing most Liyue terms/names correctly yet they don't care either. They very obviously have some bias against pale skin, inadvertently being racist to even other poc people for having pale skin by just saying 'they're white'. Genshin may not be the most diverse in skin tones, but goddamn, did anyone ever care about this in LITERALLY ANY other anime RPG??
Fontaine will be French if it's logic x) First because ''Fontaine'' is french for fountain 👀 And yea bc it was said it's ''romantic'' and France was called the romantic country (even if as a French, idk what's romantic in France 😅😅 or like maybe before 2000, idk) since a long time, etc etc x)
@@peanupbutter2967 yes but it won't JUST be French, which is my point, just like Mondstadt is not JUST based on Germany, and Sumeru has the entirety of SWANA
i love how they tried to "fix" chinese liyue characters by making them black like . . . doesn't that go against their entire point of fighting racism lmaoo
@@ACloud-jg5il it doesn't make feel smart, it just serves as reminder that there are always people who are basically "if you think you are stupid, remember that I exist".
I’m from the Middle East, and seeing sumeru made me excited because it represented the middle eastern culture which made me excited for the upcoming content, I don’t really care about skin color since that doesn’t matter (plus the Middle East is not dark skinned it’s filled with multiple skin colors ranging from white to dark) all that really matters is their clothing design and how it works with their story/origins, and the overall level/world design in sumeru, the Genshin Twitter community is toxic (although there are still people who are nice) so it’s best to ignore them as they do not do anything to benefit representing dark skinned people or middle easterns - from a middle eastern dude (السلام عليكم يا شباب العربيين )
but here's the thing, the skin colour matters too, just taking inspiration for clothes and lores, why not skin as well? the skin colour does matter. representation does matter. p.s i do disagree with people "fixing art" tho
Sumeru is based off South Asia too, also the problem is that the middle east and south asias people have a wide variety of skintones and they are ALL pale, clearly a decision made by mihoyo because they dont like dark skin, thats why theyre upset and rightfully so. However, i absolutely do not agree with the erasing of the skin
A fact about Sumeru: Sumeru has two areas, a rainforest type area, and a desert type area. The light skinned characters are from the rainforest region. A new four star claymore Dehya is from the desert region, she has a darker skin tone. Twitter users are literally idiots, but I expect nothing less. Edit: So Dehya is actually a five star that’s a mistake on my end, so you guys can stop telling me she’s a five star.
To be fair, people native to rainforest regions are dark-skinned irl, so I get why peopel think it's weird that they're light-skinned in the game. Personally, my issue with the Sumeru designs is less the skin tones and more the general fact that MHY decided to make Sumeru a mishmash of unrelated cultures rather than choose one country or culture like with the other regions, so the designs end up feeling very stereotypical.
Yeah but also rainforest region people have tan but not dark skin and light but not pale skin. Since they only have 2 seasons, wet and dry. But if you cover your body a lot and used lotion, your skin will be lighter or paler.
@@kemiandthemachine it's a fantasy game, they're not literally representing a real culture. Why is making it a mishmash of different cultures a problem?
@@atom8248 Because this has been a consistent thing for regions before Sumeru and for those after it. Sumeru is the only region where they're mishmashing cultures. Every other region (besides Nathlan maybe, since we have no info on it) has been inspired by a specific country. Mondstadt is inspired by Germany, Liyue is inspired by China, Inazuma is inspired by Japan, Fontaine is inspired by France, and Snezhnaya is inspired by Russia. It feels inconsistent, especially since they're going back to their usual design philosophy right afterward.
As an artist, I understand both sides. When you base a location off of a region and people, it would be appropriate, and stake holders, especially consumers would expect that those characters and elements would reflect the inspiration somewhat. However, when designing a character, there is a myriad of conscious and subconscious reasons why a character is designed a certain way, color theory, folk tales, mythology, and many other things despite just geographical reasons. The Company is from Asia... South Korea Maybe...- I digress. A people with a history of viewing light and pale skin as beautiful, as well as lithe and skinny bodies for males and females. So obviously that sentiment is going to trickle down to their character design of non muscular men and pale/light skinned characters in general. What I do not agree with, as a black male, an animator, someone who is currently animating a teaser trailer and later a show pilot, as well as just a person with history of liyving cartoons, anime, and animated content; I do not appreciate the race swapping and black washing of characters. Character design and concept art takes much thought, research, and time with various roughs and concepts. You don't have to like it, but at the very least, give it some baseline human decency and a modicum of respect. If you don't like the way a show or game represents a group, you can design an OC, send a review, vote with your wallet, just not indulge... Or... You can get a small team together or just yourself and design a comic or show or game with original characters of the background you want. Make an entire new property for the masses to consume. But don't raceswap. It's lazy and disrespectful. Edit: Yes, I now realize that Genshin Impact was made in China. I was typing my raw thoughts in the moment, and I didn't want to generalize geographical locations in Asia. But yes, thank you all for telling me.
@@tutifruityy I think those characters are from the rainforest part of sumeru, closer to liyue?? but id still like to see some representation. i think the desert is coming out in 3.1 or so, so im waiting for that rn. i saw leaks of NPCs with dark skin so thats my hope rn
@@tutifruityy They are based on Persia, wich had more white people than people of darker skin. So yeah, the representation it's actually perfect, people from both colors of skin...
I'm arab and let me tell you this: we have some people with super white pale skin that are originally arab and have no Caucasian ancestors. And to be honest with you a lot of people I know find it offensive when every single arab character is brown skinned. This is the first time I actually felt that they represented arabs in a non stereotypical way and the American whites on twitter and mad about it.
Year late, but I am also Arab and I agree. My friend who is also Arab, is literally pale as heck, not even just one, multiple. I've seen them literally call Sumeru characters white which upset me a lot, because we aren't white or black, we're Arabs, we have many diverse skin colours.
As a pale middle eastern person I’m so speechless- they don’t have to fight so hard for our representation in a game.. now I know where they’re coming from but those characters they’re changing are from a less dessert like area, the same applies to us real Middle East people lol
we have a huge variety of skin tones but like, "It MuSt AlL bE BlAcK" they can be black, they can be pale, they can be tan. The history of the middle east is nuanced in terms of colonialism and the reason for such variety.
Speaking for India here, since their basis for the rainforest area IS India. It's actually far more common for darker skin tones in the rainforest. It's definitely not climate that skin tones are based of, but genetics.
When ever I see someone rant about Middle eastern characters not being dark enough, I can only wonder if they've never seen a Middle eastern person with their own eyes in real life.
As someone that is very deep in genshin lore iwould say genshin is EXTREMELY accurate in their refrences to history , countries and their mythologies And as some one that LIVES in middle east (i live in iran and thats litteraly persia) seeing dark skin people is very very rare unless you go to the sea side states of iran and arabs are almost completely white skinned (ive been many arab countries)
Hate to break it to you but your experience does not represent the whole thing, it's a fallacy called generalization. Sumeru is inspired by more than just the small landscape you live in.
@@physicssimulator2656 hate to break it to you 2.0 : the comment you replied on doesnt have a single statement about middle east being completely white Hell i only talked about arabs and persians... Its simply the fact they have a lot of whites (just google the statics of iran or uae or even google how they look) Sumeru has the right amount of dark skin people in it and people that say it needs more are simply wrong
There's middle eastern countries that has a majority of dark skinned people not just the middle east sumera is derived from but India is included aswell. Even if the minority has darker skin it would be nice to represent that.
Im a somewhat tanned, middle eastern person and i just want to say that you explained everything in this video so well, ive been trying to make a point that the fact that people assume we are all black/tanned is stereotypical but people refuse to listen to what they dont wanna hear. Anyway thank you for making a video like this, it was very logical more than opinion based which I appreciated.
I am indian and tbh, I myself was expecting to see a wide range of skintones in sumeru, because there are multiple cultures involved, like an entire spectrum. Some people are very pale but some are also very dark. But that didn't happen. I understand it's because of the market but it was a bit of a bummer.
@@gracebres i agree. Why did Mihoyo not even make some NPCs tanned? There's even a Persian named NPC who is significant to the lore of Sumeru and yet he looks like he came from Mondstadt....like what? There is a colorism and representation issue in the designs and color. "Fixing" art isn't the way to go BUT what is, is that Mihoyo makes new characters that represent and compliments the rich lore of Sumeru and upcoming worlds.
@audrey9able there is hella tanned NPCs though. A lot of the people in the forest area are tanned and the Eremites look basically black but all the playable characters are so white like wtf how does that even make any freaking sense in the first place
Most ridiculous thing I've seen today is someone trying to redesign the characters in Sumeru but they don't even know who Al-Haytham and Al-Tighnari the actual people are. They also were picking and choosing random middle eastern outfits without any research into the actual characters and the real world nations their designs were inspired from. I've seen them do Dehya, Tighnari, and Kusanali, and the comments are saying how the redesigns are inaccurate to the nations and the skin is also inaccurate, making Arabic coded characters black and whatnot. Whenever someone questioned what's up with the picking and choosing of cultural clothing and skin tones thing, the person in question basically just called them racist and trying to erase middle eastern culture. Someone from the middle east tried to say that Tighnari's real world counterpart was fairly pale and that not everyone in the middle East is black, and the person defaulted to calling them racist and Arabic history erasure excuses. There was also another incident of them calling Nilou's outfit oversexualized but literally a quick Google search can tell you that similar outfits did actually exist in history. Someone said that and they got the erasure excuse yet again. Default response to people pointing out inaccuracies is "I draw better than you and you are stupid so shit up" and people who show actual evidence of why the redesigns are inaccurate get blocked. I swear, this fandom is ridiculous. They try to redesign something to "be correct" but end up being just as incorrect as Mihoyo and don't even listen to people from the actual regions. Like I don't know what gave them the idea that they're on a high horse but they most certainly are just the other side of whatever part of the spectrum Mihoyo is on. Now, I've seen some very very good redesigns that are actually very accurate to the nation's people the characters are coded to be based on with clothing that fit the characters' roles and a fantasy setting, but my god that specific group of people I mentioned above are dragging the art side of Genshin Twitter through the dirt.
Well if you actually searched up actual persian dancing clothes you would see the problem, like even though nilou has alot accurate persian elements, her general outfit is so very innocurate. Like persian dancers did not show their bellies, they might have showed a little skin but definitely not their bellies.
That's true. The way America views skin colors is wat different from other parts of the world. Like for example a dark-skinned Dominican wouldn't call themselves "black" they would call themselves Dominican.
There's SO much still wrong about what Hoyoverse has done. Why is skin color variation so easily brushed off when it's a fantasy setting? If the excuse is "They can do whatever they want in looks because it's fantasy!" Then clearly, there should've been some characters who are tan and brown, etc. because it's a fantasy setting! Why are elves, catgirls, etc. so readily accepted, yet when it came to asking why aren't there at least some tan NPCs, people who call it out are ignored, insulted and invalidates their opinions, including ACTUAL peoples who come from these countries who got "represented" by a fantasy media? Also I don't think we should take anything substantial from a Hero Hei video when that guy barely talks about anything. He clickbaits Genshin Impact when other more valid Genshin Impact fans who are of POC and from China have more nuanced takes on this Sumeru and Colorism issue. I'm actually really disappointed with this video's take too. I know he means well but he too had brushed aside very tangible problems in Asian media.
@@PeruvianPotato it'll be a double womp womp when Natlan, clearly inspired from Indigenous American and West African cultures, only has pale skinned characters.
I really love Genshin impact design. Those people doesn't even bother to understand that those characters are from China, Japan and europe region of the game. I''m black and I'm a character designer. If I want more black character I design NEW black character. If an Asian character designer want a character that look like his/her ethnicity. Well they will do it !
I’m an artist of color and have always been confused about this sort of thing I suggested the creating a new character idea to someone I know and they said making new characters can be a hassle Edit: also they said it’s easier to claim/“headcanon” their favorite characters as the same race as they are
EXACTLY! i have always love asian characters and aesthetics in their video games, remember applibot? where it was mostly cute girls and demons, why can't we just go back to those times
Mainly I find it problematic because it’s hypocritical and also idk how people can call themselves artists and instead of creating something original, they just change something someone else has created unnecessarily
Just because it is inspired on/by an existing region/culture doesn’t mean it IS that region/culture. It’s a fantasy game. It doesn’t have to be perfect and preach correctness to be a good and enjoyable game. It’s purpose is not to be correct and representative of reality. It’s purpose is to entertain and tell a story in a fantastical setting. I would LOVE to see Hoyoverse create a larger cast of characters with different skin tones and ethnicities; but bashing, harassing and changing the art of the artists that have worked so hard on the game is just disrespectful and irresponsible. Respect and accept it for what it is.
Agree, this is why i delete my Twitter account and never come back. Okay, i might peek Twitter for nudes and anime hentai news that heavily censored for unknown reason while real problem like human trafficking and child grooming + trafficking running amok as long they have LGBT flag.
@@sethsilvermoon4223 Then people will be mad if a european setting will have a lot of black people lol I mean if they are taking inspiration from my region at least make te NPC brown well people who says to make them Black is also full of BS as Blacks are also a minority here lol.
I recently posted an artwork of Tighnari (one of the new characters) because I actually didn’t know how heated everything around him was. I took it down quickly though upon a “friend” of mine warning me…I got scared of a mob taking me apart for drawing a cute character hugging a plushie 💀
im a cosplayer and i find the sumeru characters so so gorgeous! but because of these genshin fans im scared to cosplay them because ive already seen people attack other cosplayers and saying they are racist for cosplaying collei or tighnari 😢idk what im tryna say is ive never seen so much hate in a fandom to the point where people are afraid to dress up as their favorite characters
One of the things I like about Genshin is the fact that they don't differentiate race at all in-game. While yes, some characters have darker skin, they aren't classified as any specific race besides "human". Xinyan (one of my favorite characters) is made fun of for her accent and the fact that she likes to do things out of the norm for girls, and even for her own culture, but she doesn't give anyone lip or bad attitude whatsoever. It's just good vibes from her, and I love that. The developers didn't make it about race and instead made it about character, which is what I'm all about. Should there be some more difference in skin tones? Probably. But is it okay if there's not? Yeah. Because they're all classified as people, and not different races of people, and that's what matters. :) Edit: I have homework for you all that read this comment! Go look up "One Tribe" by the Black Eyed Peas. It's a song that really gives me hope for humanity and it's kind of the vibe I'm trying to give here, too!
Yes and I think people are forgetting what inspired means. They just got INSPIRED by some middles east countries. Which means, it does not have to be entirely the same.
well technically saying all the character are human isnt really true, there are still the adepti and archons who arnt really humans. not trying to argue with your point here, i completly agree with you.
I’m black and believe me, I don’t care. A lot of people in the black community don’t care. But these people make the lack of variety in this game seem like the end of the world. “Why is she so pale” because the artist drew them like that. It’s a video game. Ofc it’s not gonna be accurate. This generation acts like skin tones = everything. No, we’re more than our skin and the way we look lol. Race swapping in art is just bad.
I do like seeing how people are remagining and redesigning their own versions by making actual fanart of what they would have preferred instead of just using the bucket to fill in the colour of the skin. It's not something that I seek to find but I can appreciate seeing people putting effort into trying to share their point instead of acting like they are the saviours of who knows what by colouring over. I do hope like other people that we can see more diversity, tho attacking anyone won't solve a thing. And I don't mind these designs tho I do understand lots of criticism that I didn't think of before (eg orientalism)
thing about orientalism is that it was indeed inspired by western artists but then adopted by certain asian groups as means to boost their tourism, i.e. belly dancer outfits. while it doesn't represent a country's culture accurately, i think it's fine for aesthetic purposes and doesn't have to be tied into "orientalism" itself. i also like redesigning artwork, but some of these captions are so ego-driven like "mihoyo should hire me" or "fixed it and made so-and-so and ACTUALLY well designed outfit" etc etc. which ruins the artwork and effort completely for me. making art out of spite is just.. well, not something i'm into. i wish they wouldn't flood the main tags to try and drag more drama and i don't know why being snobby has become so popular on twitter.
@@liben5052 You see, the only good spite art/character designing I've seen is in the Gacha Club community. There's a gachatuber who's whole thing is basically taking uncommon items that people say can't be used to make a good character and making a character with one or all of the items. I'm still impressed by the jetpack hairtie trick.
Same! I like when artists do their own "take" on the character, my own is when I draw Heizou hes tanned like Bennett because hes always in the sun! But just editing a skin colour and calling it fixing is so wrong. But worse is the d*th threats to artists who drew with 1 shade slightly lighter.
@@liben5052Thanks for explaining to me that stuff! I just see a lot of negativity on those kinds of outfits (eg Alladin and some gatcha Alladin inspired stuff) and I don't know much about these topics so I appreciate reading more about it to get informed. And oh yeah. I totally don't like those captions. Tho I appreciate when they say what they changed: eg. "I put this character with Arabian influences and jewellery" or "I feel like a darker skin tone would have perfectly worked with this design and I do want to see more dark skin rep so yeah." The latter tho not when it comes to just colouring over the character sprite, but actual fanart (bonus if they change the clothes a little for more originality.)
9:50 omg I almost cry of relief! Someone on video actually said it!!! It's INSPIRATION AAAAAAAAAAAA it's literally how most fiction work 😭 they took inspiration from real life!
Mihoyo when you ask them why all the characters inspired by white legends are keep their white skin but not the black ones. Don't get me started on all the food names that are identical to the real world. *coughs* KFC chicken sandwich
@@KakfkaLover > "all the food names that are identical to the real world" > Talk about one that have been from a collab > Africa is not entirely black, most black people are around the EQUATOR, north Africa is tanned, some even white like Persian > And to piss people off, it's pretty much said that the black skin is an evolution to protect people from the heat, which is why in the desert, the character are more dark skinned, as they absord more heat than in the desert > Mondstat is based on Europe, mainly Germany, OR COURSE, they'll be "white legend and culture" > Liyue is based on China, of course they'll be more Chinese legend and culture > Inazuma is based on Japan, of course they'll be Japanese legend and culture > You probably is an American who is obsessed with skin colors and think us, in Europe, have no culture
“Isn’t representative of Arabian culture” Yall. From an Arab, born literally in the Middle East Baghdad,, there are so many differences in clothing and even sub-cultures with different practices all in the same region. Heck even skin tone varies from pale af to black. Just cuz u saw Aladdin doesn’t mean ur suddenly an expert. Stop thinking something is appropriating or not even representative until the culture in question SAYS SO.
@@neu_dae absolutely, as I said there r ones who are white af, toned, dark skinned and then straight up black. Whoever was blessed with a generation of rich melanin or simply worked hard out in the sun for most of their lives, we got them all. It’s why the appearance of characters don’t matter just as long as we get some native tongue being spoken or even hints of familiar life surrounding a culture within the Middle East. Both of which, in regards to Genshin which is a fantasy and made up world, are not present and that’s understandable. Skin tone doesn’t define us as/make us Middle Easterners, no offence
What’s really amusing is how often people are attacking these East Asian properties for only featuring fair skin people yet forget that they have had a history of colorism that goes back centuries even before contact with European cultures. And they have been featuring people of the Middle East and most people in general as rather fair cause they always have. Their art for centuries has only featured it’s fair skin people. What the fans need to do is keep creating fanart and ocs to raise awareness but fixes aren’t flattering but just seen as trivial to insulting. They need to stop calling it “fix” it’s insulting to the artist and media being “fixed” just say that’s how you view them, that lacks a condescending view Fixing always seems like a supremacist view What’s amusing is that the skin tone doesn’t match the range found in the Middle East. As people from middle eastern countries tend to have yellow, to green undertones but the fix is very warm toned which would work for people of south East Asian or Indian. Or just placed a dark fake tan on a pale person. Also the fix just looks like it’s just got a bad spray tan.
Using "History" as an excuse for them not putting darker skin tones makes no sense when Lilith, another game company based in China, has a plethora of darker characters in their games like AFK Arena and Dislyte
@@the_honored_one_06 lighter skin is more favorable to genshin’s main sources of revenue, china & japan. most companies & artists there stick to fair skin, with very few including as much diversity as lilith
@@kilanech6186 when genshin is trying to represent middle eastern culture and take heavy inspiration with middle east cultural clothing and looks, but absolutely refuse to give their characters even a slightly darker tone than super pale; you have to question why. i would understand if it was a completely fictional culture that didnt take any inspo from other cultures, but to be honest its a bit insulting to see them trying to represent this culture in all areas BUT skin tone. its like theyre purposefully making them pale because they simply dont like how dark skin looks. as an arab, i look at these designs and just feel like they only like the aesthetics of our culture, but gag the moment they see skin darker than milk white. edit: not to mention,, their original designs are heavily based in orientalism too. all they did is just mish mash a bunch of cultures together, make stereotyped clothing out of it, and the cherry on top is that they made all of them pale white. in my opinion, they are TERRIBLE designs. yes i am against "fixing" them, but at the same time, i would never praise designs like that.
@@user-kt1kq5ic3p the only reason there even is a "preference" for lighter skin in china and japan is simply because of deeply rooted colorism. it is a reason as to why they refuse to make any of their characters even slightly tanned, but never an excuse
@@the_honored_one_06 right now we know that in sumeru, there’s a lush area full of trees so tall and lots of shade, and a desert bare of shades. In the 3rd teaser I think, tighnari was shown in a shaded forest area meaning he has more room to be away from the sun, meanwhile Cyno who is shown in the desert has darker skin. ALSO I think they mentioned something about a tribe that lives in the desert, they all also have a tan due to not living in the forest and having less shade.
Sumeru is separated by 2 areas. The rainforest (the upcoming area genshin is releasing) and the desert. Which is where the main dark skinned characters are from in the genshin webcomic. Im lokey hoping when part 2 comes out for sumeru we get a few darker characters
Yeah, I was a tad disappointed that we didn't get more darker skinned characters, but changing the skin tone of the ones we got is not the way to fix it at all
the forest Area is based of SA(India to be specific) which are still an area with a lot of brown and tan people so that explanation doesn't make much sense.
For me it would be nice to see a variety of skin tones mainly to open up design options and character variety. Even in the pale character my favorites are rosaria since she has a bluer tone than others. More of that would be cool
I'm Iranian and I have argued with people on Twitter about Nilou's skin tone too many times, I myself have a tan skin but I know people who are pale and even have red hair in my country, the only problem is her clothes but in my idea that isn't much of the problem because when you look at genshin's design not a single one is truly accurate, the clothes are skin showing and fancier than what they should be but that's what makes it a fantasy game, honestly for the first time believe it or not us Iranians/Persians are getting represented in a good way and people who aren't even from our country try to take that away, this is just cruel.
idk still feels colorist to me.... like I get there ARE light skinned people in the middle east.. the point is they're not even the majority, and really none of them are white as an Irish person. any every single playable character from that region happens to be paler than paper. China is a very colorist culture - so it's not shocking or surprising that every character just so happens to NOT be dark skinned.
@@neu_dae I don't have a problem with it myself, as I keep saying I don't care about the skin color, my culture is being represented correctly and that is enough for me
@@yektadrawsstuff8608 that's weird though. The skin tones are right there so don't they put it on the characters. It's like making Itto skinny all over again. Is Mihoyo just racially motivated or jsut lazy
they talk abt how since sumeru characters are from the desert they should be tan, but are they literally ignoring the fact that sumeru isn't even entirely desert? half of sumeru is thick forest while the OTHER half is desert. the forest half of sumeru was released before the desert, and that's why the newly released characters are all lightskinned- yes, environment affects complexion and that's exactly why all the forest characters are pale! they are being protected from the sun by the thick trees and foliage. every single character that we are seeing come out of the desert region is tanned, because there's obviously more sun to skin contact. obviously not all the characters from the forest will be lightskinned and not all the characters from the desert will be tanned, but that's the general direction they r heading in because environment tends to impact skincolor. pls get a life, twitter fandom!!! editing skin colors is only creating more problems. please just enjoy the character as is.
The thing about Sumeru is whilst it is based on the Middle East and Egypt, it is divided into two areas, the desert and jungle. Dori, Tighnari and a lot of Sumeru's light skinned characters live in the Jungle, which would often shield them from exposure to sunlight, so it actually makes sense for them to have light skin. Meanwhile, Sumeru's desert based characters such as Cyno and Candice have darker skin, and their designs are more reminiscent of Egypt, especially Cyno having a design similar to Anubis. Xinyan and Kaeya having different skin tones from other characters in the regions they live in are originally from other countries, Xinyan herself is actually a Sumerun immigrant who is a citizen of Liyue. And additionally Monstadt is based on Germany which has a majority of white people in their population. As for Liyue and Inazuma, the regions based on China and Japan respectively, its pretty common to people who watch anime that have Japanese characters to be of white ethnicities. More to the point, the characters clothing is enough to indicate the countries they're reminiscent of. For example, Diluc looks like a German nobleman. Xinyan has some small ropes that's often used to keep Chinese clothes together and so on. Anyone who is fixated on the race of a character, is probably someone who doesn't care about the character much to begin with
Cyno and Candace aren't dark skinned though. They are tanned. They're complexion is that of the average Middle Eastern and India person even though they're supposed to be African. They only look dark skinned because everyone else is so pale Also dark skinned Chinese and Japanese people exist to but all we have is Xinyan and Kaeya like wtf how is that even fair in the first place Edit: aren't
@@KakfkaLover well that's the thing, a lot of the people complaining about Candace or Cyno's race, is that they're not "dark-skinned enough", which is incredibly racist to real people who have that skin completion. I actually had someone say to me that because Candace is based on a black character (allegedly) that she should be the same skin colour. The thing is even if Candace is inspired by someone from mythology she's still a new character, it'd be like saying that because Cyno is clearly inspired by Anubis, that he should have an actual Jackal head, which is stupid
@Kamen Rider Natsu she's not inspired by mythology like Cyno was she was an actual person. Her being darker skinned because she's African is the bare minimum Mihoyo can make. Even Fate makes their characters dark skinned when they take an African guy and turn him into an anime girl or something I think it's insulting that the playable characters all have light skinned complexions, but the Eremites all have diversity and different types of skin tones represented through them like white, tanned, black, pale and fair skinned
@@KakfkaLover but my question is why does their race matter? Why should the colour of Cyno and Candace's skin colour matter? Surely if they are still well-written characters people can overlook their skin colour. People don't like Zhongli or Diluc because they're white guys or in Zhongli's case having a different skin tone than Chinese people, they like them because of who they are. A characters race should not be their defining trait, it should be how they're written and who they are that matters. And Teyvat even if based on the real world, is still a fictional universe, Genshin is documenting the history and world of Teyvat, not our world
@Kamen Rider Natsu I actually don't have a problem with Cyno's skin color, though. Even if Anubis was black in the mythology, he was still fictional, unlike Kandake (or Candace). Do I wish Cyno skin was darker though? Sure. Dehya was based on a real person to but that's a whole other and completely different conservation for another day. Also, a big part and draw of Genshin is about real world races taken into a fantasy, so race actually does matter to their story. It's the reason Mihoyo hired actual Middle Eastern and black people to voice their Sumeru characters because they wanted it to feel authentic to actual people from those cultures that inspired it. I and many others are not asking to literally be a documentary of the real world we're simply asking for it to have the same amount of representation that other games in the genre do. You can't just take some parts of the culture that you like and leave behind the ones you don't because that's called racism dude. Doesn't help that all the "darker skinned" characters are actually extremely terrible characters to use, so even if they are well written, which I think they are actually there's no reason to ever use them though because that's all they're ever going to have going for for them
I like when people actually put effort in redesigning these characters, not just simply recoloring their skin and called it a day. And calling it fixing is also weird because it seems to saying that certain skin tone is better than the other ones
Tbh I like seeing reinterpretations...as long as the artist isn't obnoxious about it like "I'm better than Hoyo, my design is superior and anyone who says otherwise is racist." Because I've seen them and they're exhausting and obnoxious. Instantly ruins the work, no matter how good it is.
Lmao in genshin Sumeru characters that are light-skinned are from the rainforest which is basically Persia and the characters that are tanned are from the desert which is basically Egypt. Also these folks forget that representation is not only about skin colour and genshin is actually good at representing cultures, mythology and stuff
I’d like to see a video done on the character Genshin just released, Candace. People are claiming that she needs to be darker since she’s based off the Kandakes who usually have dark skin. I’m currently in the middle and am not sure what to believe. Personally, I think her design is fine and doesn’t have to fit the references exactly. I’d like to see a logical, well-informed perspective on it.
It's true Candace us based on a black skin African person. While she doesn't need to be one to one to real life it would have been a start to make her as darker skinned as someone in the game like the NPC or the Eremites. Especially since Lesser Lord Kusanali / Nahida is based on a white skinned fairly so Mihoyo actually keep her skin color accur to the real life story that directly inspired her creation
If I could throw my own thoughts into the mix, I think Candeace's design is fine. I wish she could be a bit darker but it's fine. Same with Cyno. My problem is that Genshin overall has lack of body design in their playable characters. It's true, that there are people of all skin tones all over the world. Is very self evident that it's true. My problem comes from the fact that the dark skin character models are your enemies. And the character line for one of them is a lighter fairer skin one breaking away from their group. It's not so much that I believe their character designs themselves are problematic but more how they handle diversity itself. I'm actually afraid for Khanria because if they are even remotely similar in skin tone to Kaeya, then we really are having ourselves fight the "Undesirable" looks compared to our fair skin, youthful, gorgeous counter part. Which is probably a problem when they released Xiynyan, bless her soul people just do not play her, me included cause I don't play Genshin that much for the reasons stated about. Great character deign, horrible diversity politics and ethics.
@@xenrusxenomorph2268 What you say makes sense, but from theories I’ve heard, I don’t think Khaenrians will be darker skinned. There have been notes in Genshin relating to Khaneriah citizens and describing them as fair-skinned with light hair and blue eyes. We see some evidence of this with Dainsleif and Chlothar. But where does Kaeya come into all this? Well, Khaenriah is located underneath Sumeru, and the majority of darker-skinned characters that we have met hail from Sumeru. Furthermore, we don’t know anything about what Kaeya’s father looked like nor do we know anything about his mother. The theory I mentioned earlier assumes that Kaeya’s father married a darker-skinned woman from Sumeru, which is why Kaeya has darker skin. Also, since Kaeya does not have pure Khaenriah blood, that would explain why he’s not cursed like the hilichurls or even Dainsleif. So, I don’t think Hoyoverse will incriminate darker-skinned people by giving the people of Khaenriah dark skin.
Ohh that's fair. I didn't know that lore. Kaeya being mixed is also interesting. I thought he was just a lucky one who didn't happen to have been affected by the curse. And honestly I blame myself and Mihoyo less for their lack of diversity if it wasn't for the fact that weebs and genuine trash will defend it and even criticize features on others that are darker skin. The fact of the matter is that whether or not Mihoyo is colorist is drowned out by the fact that the game is not only predatorily monetized but sells money that could buy Switzerland. Their lack of diversity sells because it's just what their audience wants. Because they have voted with their wallet. So out enemies are the fatties that only care about food, the muscular thugs that want to take out money, the cocky faceless samurai that are muscular and beefy, and the literal dark skinned desert dwelling theives. Again, because above all else, diversity just doesn't sell with them, and that's the truth.
I personally feel that Genshin Impact does has a diversity issue. There is almost no diversity in heights, muscle mass, builds or weight which gets rather repetitive over time. I would also like to see a wider variety of skintones, not because character XYZ should be this or that colours, but because I just want to see more unique and interesting designs.
In terms of shape, I think that’s because it’s convenient to reuse models, that’s quite a common thing to do. And ya I agree it would be cool to see more diverse characters designs.
Although it would be nice to see more skin tones or even other body shapes: At the end of the day it’s literally just a video game that’s fictional and isn’t suppose to represent reality in any way. I would say just let them do whatever they want- they’re the ones putting the effort into *their* game and none of this should be enforced onto them; especially because Genshin isn’t suppose to depict reality at all (, not to mention the fact Genshin is *free* . You have the free choice to play the game and this is not a scenario where you’ve bought the game to play it- therefore you shouldn’t have expectations to force this on the already hard working team of developers that have put the game out there for no money at all. It’s like if a random person gave you a gift: you shouldn’t complain or tell them what to give you next time; they’ve given it for free, so take it or leave it. Similarly, if you have a problem with the game, then quit and stop nagging on Twitter).
I love genshin, but id like to mention another Chinese game. Dislyte. The characters in that game is so diverse when it comes to skin colour and weight/body build. So sometimes when people say "Theyre only doing this to please asian people" how come another chinese company can be more inclusive? Dont get me wrong I love the characters in game, and I do think "fixing" art is just straight up disrespectful. But I just hope there'd be more diversity with the characters...
I do agree, Most of Hoyoverse's adventure RPGs (Honkai Impact 3rd, Honkai Star Rail, Zenless Zone Zero) Have diverse and different models. I think models are limited because Genshin is a wide open world game with lots and lots of characters compared to the other games. It's probably the most flexible game where you can probably spam attacks. Honkai Impact the 3rd has many different characters but all of them are the same characters, just different kits. e.g, Fu Hua - Azure Empryea, Herscherr of Sentience Azure Empryea is a Fire support Herscherr of Sentience is a Physical Support Honkai Star rail is a turn based game and it does have an open world element on it. It does have many models than Genshin has and I'm pretty of sure they would just reuse them. It's less flexible than Genshin because you can't really just attack freely. Zenless Zone Zero is very diverse and I'm not really sure what kind of gameplay it has since I only saw few videos of it. I would expect it to be like Honkai Impact the 3rd though.
6:31 Call me crazy but as a black artist who already hates blackwashing, this is ASTOUNDINGLY conservative compared to some of the things I've seen on Twitter. Seriously, I don't even know if this is decent or if my eyes have seen so many dumpster fires that a trash fire doesn't look as bad.
I rlly liked the edit, and most of the genshin edits honestly! I rlly hate when people say they "fixed" it, but the edits and drawings are generally rlly cute!
@@Venusflytrap-f2z i agree on that, some are cute, but i do hate the fact that they just change the colorskin and that's it. They don't even try to make it aesthetically pleasing, and to respect the color palette.
@@fatherlessdiluc3249 The colors of her clothes are on the cool spectrum and the saturation of the skin is very red/warm so it clashes so hard... it doesn't accentuate and compliment each other. Idk that's how I see it. In real world fashion there are specialists that help match colors for you to wear to accentuate your skin color or else you'll look like you're wearing a goofy neon sign.
I love how two years later, these same people are back again for "Ethno-Wars 2: Electric Boogaloo." They also have no idea how a boycott works, which just makes the whole thing even more hilarious.
You'd think they learn from that Knuckles fanart 'fix' but a lot of people on twitter are like Sideshow Bob repeatedly walking into rakes and wondering why their face hurts so much.
As a genshin player I 100% would enjoy greater skin tone diversity and I don't think anyone should be shamed for desiring that. However, as a Chinese company, aren't they beholden to specific laws about beauty? Like character exports have to follow the beauty ideal. I get the impression that even if the developers did make characters of darker skin tones (more than tan anyway) then they would be required to white wash them later for the Chinese version. And that's a whole other kettle of fish. Edit: I am well aware of colourism in Asian countries that have a long history, and understand that paler skin has kinda always been the desired thing due to classism. I just knew that China had ideals that had affected genshin stories and character designs before, and had heard of exports having to fit a mold. I also heard about hoyoverse possibly moving out of Shanghai to avoid these requirements. Of course, it's hard to say what's true and what is just anti China propaganda. To clarify, I'm not saying that any devs are racist or anything, I know it's a completely different culture, and even though colourism is obviously bad, marketing wise it makes sense to pander to that. I think the company is doing a great job character design wise and 'fixing' it is just rude and isn't solving anything. I don't see anything wrong with having more diversity down the line, especially as this region has heavy Persian empire influences (which would have contained a wide range of types of people), as long as they aren't darker for the sake of being darker. Apologies if I caused offence by not understanding the way China manage their exports and media!
"as a Chinese company, aren't they beholden to specific laws about beauty?" - Nope not legally but socially yes, many Asian countries have little cultural and societal interaction nor interest in POC it's just how their society has developed which to many of us in EU and the west is absurd. Change happens when you force it too, you want more ethnicity from a primarily Asian focused company then say it loudly too them and the community they cater.
Specific laws? I don’t think you really do know a thing about China. There are definitely no laws against using darker skin tones but obviously if Genshin really wanted to cater towards Eastern Asia’s beauty standards for marketable purposes that’s entirely possible- however again, there are *no* restrictions regarding what skin tones they want to put into the game. It’s just about whether they care about how marketable the characters are.
if anything, this loud crowd makes asian companies want to AVOID western market and AVOID making poc characters because then everything becomes an issue. look at cookie run and how often their fandom blows up over stupid stuff- like concept art of some character potentially having darker colors but not making it to the final draft. its one thing to voice your disappointment, another thing to OUTRIGHT call the devs racist and anti-black on their own damn creative decisions. folks should make their own shit and engage the market into accepting diversity through effort, not hostility and name calling. for example, pokemon sword/shield having more diverse characters definitely introduced some asian players to the diversity that's common in the uk and other european countries. fans went crazy over raihan because the devs put so much love into designing and animating him rather than make him just the color of his skin.
I don’t think it’s a law, it’s actually the Asian beauty standard. White, small, thin, big eyes, pretty, etc. Asian people still appeal on this standard, so I think MHY tried to used these as marketable purposes in Asia. The clothes and stuffs as well, what would make people around ‘here’ want to buy it.
I would love to see these people make ocs for these fandoms... it would show what their thoughts and ideas are! And it helps a fandom strife as well even more when your oc's are interacting with those characters of the fandom!
I think the designs are somewhat problematic, but I wish people would give feedback directly to Hoyoverse, because all I've seen is just people harrassing the VAs and sending people death threats.
Please educate yourself to some background context before drawing to assumptions. The sumeru region is split into two: rainforest and desert. Many of the rainforest characters, which are those that happened to be complained "white-washed" actually fit along with their environments and vocations; collei working as a forest ranger, lurking in the shades of giant trees. Those that spend more time in the desert naturally have a darker shade of skin color such as Alhaitham and Deyha.
@@shikaining1738 in all fairness there are forest/ jungle like areas in the Middle East/ west Asian sector and the people who live there are still pretty dark, also Sumeru is a rain forest, they are extremely warm climates where even deep in the thickets the sun is intense leading to tanner people ALA Latin and South America, I’m against this wack art fixing but I won’t deny that the complaints from Genshins cosplay community of wanting more Middle Eastern looking characters does have its weight, I also think people should not give Mihoyo the props they are given cause they have done some blatantly offensive portrayals of certain things, Inazuma in general is a great design wise but narratively it’s such a blatant jab are Japans not so good history with China, along with Xinyan being “a simple country girl” which is a slang used a lot to darker skinned people in China
@@stevelopez6957 you also have to consider though that again...it's a fictional world. Doesn't matter if rainforest areas in real life have tan people, because that's apparently not how it works in Sumeru. The rainforest area is actually the place with advanced civilisation, while the desert area is left underdeveloped. There's an obvious contrast between the two areas for the sake of their world and story, unlike in real life where it's whatever
idk I just feel like china's colorism isn't cool and like ... they know this game is enjoyed world-wide. I live in one of the whitest states in America, but I still like drawing dark skinned people... probably because colorism isn't a huge part of my culture like it is in china... maybe.
America has the same problem with colorism. Black hair not being seen as "professional" or "appealing". That doesnt mean its okay ignore the black population. Same with China. They shouldnt ignore darker skin ton asians while also stealing their culture for profit.
@@neu_dae they know the Game is enjoyed worldwide they also dont care about our politics, they sell us a product, ir we dont like It we dont buy It, and It aplies with everything
I have actually seen a lot of SWANA people point out the outfits. Skin tones is a separate issue, but if you look at the small pink girl (her name is Dori) her outfit is very orientalist. That's the main complaints I've seen, the orientalism of it all. Especially seeing the orientalism which is often viewed sexually by foreigners on a child's body. But I also do wish they had a wider range of skin tones, it just makes things look nicer in my opinion. Also, everyone deserves some representation, and China has a bit of an issue with making all the skin tones pale (based on my understanding, i could be wrong)
But the outfits were never meant to be a accurate rep of the culture. None of the liyue, inazuma or mondstadt have accurate clothes. Venti, diluc, Jean and ningguang are the only ones I can think of that aren’t just made up stuff. Ganyu is wearing two pieces of cloth, zhonglis clothes are modern, shenhe is wearing a bodysuit, and all the inazuma characters are wearing some weird form of kimono or samurai armor. All of the outfits are taking certain stereotypical points of something and putting a twist on it.
@@N5FX ....? I'm not trying to argue or debate. Just pointing out some stuff that I've seen while scrolling through Twitter. I did end with "From my understanding, I could be wrong."
I’m from Middle East and I was so happy to see sumeru everything about it is so cool the music the food the names I love it and we have all skin Colors but the way genshin fans acting is so embarrassing…
Honestly my biggest complaint with genshin (as a regular player) is the lack of variety with skin tones in general. To be more specific how there are only two tones of skin color(though sumeru’s desert characters are more diverse). There was only pasty white or chocolate brown for like two characters. There is a lot of variety of shades with every race and ethnicity, which I think genshin is moving towards. It was not good for a while but with the newest and the updates to come I see a lot of improvement. Even amongst ethnicities that are seen as “White” they are not all the shade of paper. Some are, but skin tones are varied and are not black and white. Anyway I don’t agree with the changing of existing characters, but so variety would be appreciated.
Dude, I honestly really like your takes on these topics, as a digital artist myself who wants to learn more and grow, I really find these people horrible, it’s nice to see people give criticism that’s deserved for a change and not just “oh they’re bad grrrr”. Keep up the good work!
the worst part of those people is,, they see themselves as the basic standard for all. if anyone insult a black people, that's indeed racism. but if any movie any game don't show black, it's not racism at all. because not all country have people black, not all movie book game need black character in its story. it has nothing to do with racism. and I always wonder, why personal preference would be juded as racism or not. for example, I don't like gay, I get along well with my gay friend. I never show any disrespect to amy gay person. but if I say i don't like gay to others, they will accuse me for discrimination. it's ridiculous. i don't like spicy food i don't like noisy people i don't like many things, it has nothing to do with racism. back to these genshin blacked character, those people tamper others design and accuse for racism, it's wrong
As an Indian myself, I would say Sumeru charecter designs aren't as offensive as these stupid people are making it to be. Art is a subjective topic. Genshin Impact is an artwork in the end and if you don't like the character, just don't play.
Well it look like the community doesn't know what Arabs look like and how many arabic country actually exist . Just the fact that the map is in a forest and not in a desert should make people understand but no .
This take is coming from an Arab,i can honestly see where these people are coming from,i DONT support making characters darker and calling it “fixing”,but i can understand their frustration,Sumeru is based of the Middle-East for the most part,a part where it consists of mostly dark skinned people,and only a couple few of the revealed characters have even slightly brown skin,so I definitely see where they are coming from however,the way they express their frustration is not the way to do it,and it doesn’t help us,at all. Mihoyo is set in China,where the beauty standards are rather colourist,and it always has been this way for decades,so what do we expect from mihoyo in this case? a very minuscule amount of diversity,im not saying every chinese company follows the beauty standards,but Mihoyo definitely does from what we are seeing. this is not even about adding dark-skinned characters for representation,this is about adding dark-skinned characters because thats what they SHOULD be doing,atleast with Sumeru,an area based on the Middle East,where its occupied by mainly dark skinned people. so,do these people have a right to be frustrated? yes. but are they doing the right thing by recolouring existing characters and calling it “fixing”? no.
Unless they are wearing SPF 5000 long exposure to the harsh sun in hard on skin. Though these are the same people who had a tantrum that Rami Malek, an ethnically Egyptian man, was too white to play an Egyptian Pharaoh in Night at the Museum
@@clarehidalgo yeah, a lot of people don't realize the Mediterranean areas are extremely diverse. In the USA atleast, it's a stereotype that Egyptians HAVE TO BE GOLDEN BROWN, due to USA movies and other stereotypes from 'ancient human aesthetic' movies that don't represent the culture at all. I do wish hoyoverse atleast would have designed characters with different hues, if they choose to make them pale. Skin of any melanin amount can be more red/pink, yellow/green, or blue/grey. For example, genetically greek skin can be very pale, but it has a different texture and hue compared to genetically German skin. I have a more yellow hue than my mom's pinker skin, so even though my dad is brown I know I have my dad's velvet texture skin type, just with my mom's paler pigment. Because of this combo tho... I can't tan in the sun like either of them can, I just burn lol. And with all the xenophobia in greece, I can certainly say there IS skin tone diversity. I even see fashion colorism more prominent in the last decade or so. :( straightening curly hair and dying it bleach blonde, lightening skin with makeup, nose jobs, is more and more common. Imo, if a country of artistic inspiration has all kinds of skin tones, there should atleast be one representation of the darker tones, and one representation of the lighter tones, in my opinion. In fact, why not just look up population reports, and in theory: "ok there are a lot of darker skin tones in Brazil, more than 50% are of African descent, so let's create more than one character to have darker skin for the Genshin Brazil region." Lol... Lots of people are sick of colorism irl and in media, so I personally understand the "i fixed it" anger. Yeah it's rude but Genshin is a multimillion dollar franchise, not some small artist, so as a consumer to company i think its okay to loudly criticise colorism in a brand that specifically designs "beautiful characters" so they can earn money from gatcha gambling (predatory gambling in games is a whole other issue, but you get my point). Pale skin isn't more beautiful than dark skin. Dark skin isn't more beautiful than pale skin. There are so many beautiful color pallets out there to choose from when making a character. I think fanart that reinterprets character is fun, and can be really interesting in designs and a good design study to do as an artist to improve skills. Even the edits of changing skin/hair type in SOME cases can be great reference/inspiration for cosplayers. I think edits only becomes an issue when stereotypes are enforced on a design by people who don't understand that culture. Speaking of, the "Arabian princess" aka "belly dancer" outfit is extremely stereotyped, coming from the hypersexualization and REAL cultural appropriation of traditional dances found in and around Africa. In fact, Raqs sharqi is the real name for the Egyptian 'belly dance' you might be familiar with. Raqs Sharqi is a highly respected dance that many professionals travel to Egypt to learn. In Raqs sharqi and other sister dances have specific cultural significance, and within events and daily life are often danced fully clothed with plain clothing, with some specific dances only to be danced by women around women as a form of freedom of expression. seriously though calling raqs sharqi a belly dance is like saying ballet is leg dancing... lol. So yeah there ARE some negative stereotypes in the character clothing designs... it's not JUST the skin tones.
Sumeru has two parts though, a flush forest and then theres the desert part. And Hoyoverse has indeed never confirmed what regions represent what IRL The characters they made are accurate according to genshin lore atleast from what i see. The white characters spend most of their time in the forest, whereas the darker skinned character called Dehya grew up in the desert
The problem is NOT just skintones, it's orientalism in general. Sumeru is based on the middle east and north africa. As a person from there, I can assure you skin tone is not the only problem with these designs. They're inspired by orientalist stereotypes - i.e. made up stereotypes by the west to make the SWANA area seem less developed and in need of saving. Orientalism includes made up clothing, culture and all other kinds of stereotypes - that's where the bellydancer outfit every arab character in videogames has. Not only is it stereotypes but hypersexualization of the culture. Skintones are an issue yes, but also orientalism. You can read Edawrd Said's "Orientalism" book to understand.
But these twitter art fixers obviously don't give a fudge about this either or else they would be changing it too. And the skin tone issue is mainly what we are discussing right now, because that's what people are focused on.
I mean, they kinda did this as well with Liyue and Inazuma and the company is China based. I think it mostly is just simplifying and cute-ifying for masses. Like. Say, Ganyu doesn't look like a traditional qilin. Also spirit-hunter Chongyun isn't even given full time explanation about this part of their culture. Idk, that's how it looks for me at least. (And yeah as a real-life Snezhnaya resident i did have some complaints but kinda realised it's mostly because i associate the fictional world to the real one too much)
This. Even is we get characters with darker skintones, it doesn't erase the orientalist depictions that are already there. It also kind of bothers me how Sumeru is just a mashup of many completely different cultures (SWANA, SA and SEA) while Liyue and Inazuma aren't, and see ? The depiction of the cultures these regions take inspiration from isn't as bad (about Monstadt, it is also a mix of multiple countries, european here, but it is mostly Germany, though the german representation is barely there or not that well done ngl). I am not surprised by how they handled the designs of Sumeru so far, but it doesn't make the situation any better. "Our expectations were low but holy fuck"
@@miyulymana They even included SEA ?? Holy shit this region is a mess... Wish hoyo put more effort and love into this region, just like they did with inazuma/liyue. Also yeah mondstadt kinda sucks in that aspect too but it feels more inspired by western fantasy in general than germany so it isn't /as/ bad if you know what I mean. It's more like, this type of fantasy is written by European authors sometimes so it doesn't feel like the same problem.
TBH , I wouldn't want something like Genshin Impact representing my culture but that's just a personal thing. I can empathize with the people who want representation though -- but *FIXING ART IS ALWAYS BAD FAITH* unless the artists asks for it to be "fixed". Make your own Darker Skin characters using the visual library that inspires the official character.
I know its cynical to ask people who have been absent or relegated to side roles throughout pop-cultures history to work harder for Representation. but the odds of this company patching in a darker skin onto another character is about the same as them integrating a Fan Character for representation. -- So the way I see it is : it's better for the community and for people who want representation to make up their own characters and float them around the Discord and Reddits to get one of them into the game , rather than asking for a patch to make characters darker that is just going to upset a bunch of reactionaries who will (in-turn) make their demands...
Yall need to stop thinking they represent you or your country in any way because its all just INSPIRED and not the actuall country. Yall are trippin istg. They can take any part and put it in the game and you have 0 rights to complain about it. They can do a middle eastern themed country and make them all pale af. And do you know why? Bc its a game. Its fictional. Its a whole fucking fantasy world and its not even playing on planet earth. STOP BEING CRINGE. Do something usefull and fight for black rights IRL and not by wasting time on twitter.
As a middle eastern person myself I honestly don’t have a problem with the characters sure i do wish Mihoyo would add more representation but the whole art fixing isn’t doing any good, sumeru is a fictional region that takes inspiration from the middle east and other places They aren’t trying to make it exactly like the places it’s inspired by, it’s just really funny to me how most of the people who are complaining are not even middle eastern 😭 its okay to be upset but dont talk on the behalf of others or claim you made something better 😭😭 anyways thats just my side it’s totally fine if you think differently.
2:40 pretty sure its something like this: Mondstadt: Germany Liyue: China Inazuma: Japan Sumeru: South Asia, Middle Eastern, Northern African Fontaine: France Natlan: Indigenous America, Spain Snezhnaya: Russia Also as someone who plays as Dori most, i love her design and although Genshin should make some darker-toned characters, people shouldn't be changing the skin tones to how they see fit like the did with Candace aswell, drawing her with a much, much darker tone of skin than she actually has & claiming it to be the 'fixed' version.
My only issue with race swapping is if it's done with characters who are canonically POC already. You see it mostly in anime fandoms and adjacent ones like Genshin and it irritates me. Especially when they say they do it to piss off white people when they're more likely to piss off East Asians if anything.
There is no exception for any other races. As an Asian, I feel no necessity to race-swapping characters at all. It doesn't matter if the pre-existing character is white or Asian. It's still very dumb as hell.
I kinda feel pressured to put black characters into my story (my characters are asian) bc of people like this. I tried adding in a black character into my story for "representation" and then I was like "Wait, my characters are a minority". People really do forget that not all white-skinned people are white.
(My opinion as a black person) Adding a black character because you feel pressured to isn't really good representation. Its tokenism, which can be worse. Imo, if you're adding a black character out pressure rather then because you have a idea for a character that adds to your story, its better to just not. I mean, there exist many many many stories where black people aren't represented, so please don't worry about it.
Tysmmmm... I'm definitely subscribing. I do agree that theres not many coloured characters and I like that people are speaking out about that. But when it comes to this level then I'm just disgusted. And it pisses me off so much when people say "hoyo is racist" no it isn't?? They're trying. There aren't many but people need to get it in their mind that nothing is going to change for them.💀
The part I hate most is always when the people who are upset aren't even the ones who should be offended and the ones who supposedly should be offended are just fine with it.
While most of the world can't even tell Japanese, Koreans, & Chinese apart, Chinese can & are notoriously racist against other Asians, including indigenous non-Han Chinese. (Mostly an issue with the elderly & communist conservatives like the Little Pinks). & that's why asking for representation from Chinese games (at least until the CCP is dismantled) is a fruitless cause.
asians typically have racism against each other due to the sheer nature of their history and proximity to each other, but like you said, it's mostly due to the older generations carrying past grudges.
I was really hoping we would get a bit of diversity in color for Sumeru. The designs are really cute tho and maybe we will get some color for some npc's? I do get a bit shocked because some of them dont even look white, they look like they have straight up never seen the sun kind of white. I have seen a lot of really cute fanart where Sumeru characters have darker skin, just wondering if that is seen as rude or bad to do? Because honestly i would like to draw Dori (the girl with purple and pink) a bit darker skinned.
I feel to reimagine a character is perfectly valid! To say you "fixed it" Is where the issue stems from, just don't preface it with superiority(?) I guess?? Idk you do you as long as it's not hurting nobody :)
I don't think they have seen the sun literally bc in the event where we encounter Scaramouche we find out that the sky is fake so the sun would be fake as well so they can't get tanned anymore than someone would get tanned from a giant LED light. But then again Scaramouche could have just been messing with us the entire time.
I personally would like more dark skinned characters, but I know they're a company that is based in the East, so I'm only expecting 3-7, but I think there's a lot of potential! Darker skin could really make certain characters stand out, as well as providing some rep! Hoyoverse makes great character designs, but imagine how a different skin tone could really make an outfit pop! But still, don't "fix" characters. I don't feel like I should have to say that, but ye.
I rarely draw Dark skinned character not because I don't like their Skin tones, but because I need to make them "Look good" as a show of respect to them, the "Fixing" art on Twitter doesn't seem to show an ounce of Respect to the skin tone changes like the majority of the time, while some I have seen looks pretty good, it would be better for them to make their own OC's for Genshin rather than taking and editing a character.
4:15 fun fact none of those characters actaully spend time in the desert- dori (the purple one) usually spends most of her time trying to make mora (money) while collei and tighnari spend most of there time in the forest (with a sort of park ranger job apart from in the forest) covered by trees, characters like dehya, cyno and candace the one who are from/ live in the desert have darker skin tones- I know genshin doesn't have a lot of representation and I'm not saying its a good thing but still.
Honestly the art and in game stuff of sumeru has made me a little more interested and open to learning about some cultures i never really gave much thought about. I’m sure i’ll feel that way about the future regions, i felt that way about China with Liyue.
2:33 i will happily do this for you^^ So we'll start of with Mondstadt, it is the City of Freedom and it is based of Germany. Mondstadt is ruled by Barbatos AKA Venti, who is the Anemo Archon. The next place is Liyue and their Archon is the Geo Archon who is one of the oldest is Morax or zhongli as some other people know. And it is based of China. Next, we have Inazuma, the Land of Eternity and the most hostile region. It is ruled by the Electro Archon Raiden Shougun AKA Ei. It is based of my dream country to visit, Japan. Sumeru which is a mix of a beautiful forest and desert, is ruled by their Dendro Archon (my fav!), Nahida AKA Kusanali, and is based off the SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) regions. Next we have the unreleased Map called Fontaine, the Hydro Archons name is still yet unknown, but the region is suspected to be based off France. Then, we have Natlan, it is not knows much but this is the central ideal place of war. The Pyro Archon of natlan is named Murata which Venti said that they can be pretty obnoxious, and said to be based off Spanish or West African Cultures. Lastly we have Snezhnaya, goverened by the Cryo Archon, the Tsaritsa. This region has the strongest military force, from which the Fatui originates. It is reportedly a mix of Russia and Italy. (if i got anything wrong please let me know, i got all of these from a website sooo thx for reading^^)
Already saw people on tiktok being rude and saying shit about this guy. It’s his opinion. If your opinion matters so much, why can’t his? It’s clear in these comments a lot of poc people also don’t like the edited pictures of some of these characters. Not everyone will like the same thing as you, and you need to learn to grow up and stop acting like children and being chronically online, genshin twitter and tiktok, cause this is getting ridiculous.
I think it just calls attention more to an underlying issue that there are still very much colorist ideals. Because the main argument that people are trying to make about the Sumeru characters is that “While not everyone has a darker skin tone, it doesn’t hurt to add more considering what Sumeru is based on”. There was a chart made for this comparing every characters skin tone before, and out of a range of all the characters so far it’s just less than 10 that have visibly darker skin, and even then it’s just a similar shade to each other. It also gets messy when you consider that people say that they were mixing both Middle East and South Asian culture for this, only causing some arguments to become more messy given that there are some people who argue whether certain designs are Orientalist or not. And while MHY is specifically a Chinese company, you also have to consider that they made this game available worldwide, and that they gave it to the branch of “Hoyoverse” to expand to a wider audience worldwide. And the argument that people are making is that if they were truly practicing what they preach, then a color palette change would probably be one of the easier things. But even if they are originating as a Chinese company there are still games like Dislyte, which is also made by a Chinese company and has at least 20 more varying skin tones than Genshin. While it doesn’t hold the same weight as whitewashing, I do understand though that blackwashing characters isn’t an immediate fix to the problem. There are some redesigns that are actually very enjoyable though! There are people who have done an outfit change for Nahida to which I’ve seen some people who were South Asian players comment on some great aspects of the design that do accurately represent their culture. And don’t get me wrong, I love the majority of Genshin’s designs, it’s just disheartening to hear the outcry of people because they feel as if they’re not being represented properly.
Between the ambiguity of Sumeru's cultural inspirations, intense sentiments from art _"fixers"_ like this one and ignorance towards genuine pleas from South Asian/Middle Eastern players, it's difficult ascertain a common ground to tackle the broader issue of representation. I don't believe Genshin is blameless, neither are the art fixers or those vehemently lashing out against POC's legitimate point of views regarding Sumeru. The only thing I can take solace in are the South Asian and Middle Eastern artists out there, creating their own renditions of characters in Sumeru by gifting them cultural traits inherent to the knowledge generated from personal experiences in whatever cultural identities they believe Sumeru best portrays
Yeah! i’ve mostly seen very odd darker redesigns that just look plain bad. But then i’ve also seen some absolutely amazing culturally accurate designs too! I really wish genshin would add more diversity but at the same time it’s a very dumb thing to fight about lol. I think the main problem is the idea of “fixing” the original design and just plain bad art lol.
2:32 as a person who played the game for almost 2 years now i can explain what each nation is based off of Mondstat- Germany Liyue- china sumeru- south asia/india/egypt inazuma- Japan fontaine- France i don't know whagt Natlan is based off of since it hasn't been release yet. also btw, i do recommend playing the game, regarding the controversies. yes, the community may be toxic but trust me, there are plenty of really nice people
also i forgot to mention. the character you are mentioning in 6:25 actually has a tittle of being the most hated gneshin impact character in the entire game. yes, even 90% of the fanbase hate her for some reason, i honestly don't know why. Her name is Dori btw
Somebody in twitter called me (bootlicker) and (kuffer?) just because i didnt agree with them that semuru is problematic, then blocked me 💀 im arab btw :(
1 yeat late lol, all I have to tell you is just to drop twitter not saying you should but honestly the negativity of that app will really get to you, which is way I left it.
Came from Hero Hei. You are completely right. These people always claim some sort of ist/ism/phobe when it comes to these things while, ironically, being those very same ist/ism/phobes they are so against.
As a middle eastren person, we have a variety of skin tones and colors here, I myself am a pale person, and well, it is a game after all, they did a good job in the clothes and how the area looks, but then again, it is a game, they took inspiration from a lot of places, unlike Liyue where it took from China, or Inazuma where it took from Japan or even Mondstat the starting place has inspiration from Germany, The middle east and Arabian countries are a big majority. They did their research as you can tell, and they did the art their own way, am just happy they took inspiration from my side of the world. Edit: The characters are from the forest side of the Sumeru place, we still don't know much about the place and people are jumping the gun way too fast tbh.
Yes I have to agree, except for the clothing part. Like all regions in genshin, the characters clothing is terrible rep for the region but the NPCs represent them better.
@@kuonjibaskerville2411 There are some aspects of the clothing that are good, but the characters are like the protag of an anime, they want them to stand out, but yes, most of the NPCs are good too, even the names, they just butcher it when saying it in English which is sad-
As someone who’s from Japan, I understand the need for melanin in manga-styled games as especially where I lived, was quite colorist. That said, I feel as if it’s disrespectful to turn a tan East Asian to black and using blasians as an excuse as I see them as an oppressed minority within Japan. There’s already a lot of stigma about mixed children so I just find it rather insensitive when people do that.
I hate everyone who gets mad at a FICTIONAL GAME, for their FICTIONAL CHARACTERS. it is so childish, and besides do they really think hoyoverse will care?, Nope. You cant sue them. you cant change them. anything you do is a waste of finger typing
Something I love is that Kaeya, Xinyan, Candace, Deyha, and Cyno all have slight differing shades of skin. It's not all one shade. I'd also like to mention Bennett and Rosaria. Bennett's skin tone is (I don't know exactly how to describe it) more tanned? not by much, but it's still noticeable. Rosaria has a grey-ish tint to her skin that really fits her character for a reason I can't explain, maybe it's the aesthetic? Anyway, my point is that yeah, representation matters, and there may be stereotypes, but the only reason people are getting angry is because of the regions being based on certain countries and incorperating certain cultures. The anger is directed towards "misrepresentation", and I can see why it can be so upsetting but regions aren't 1:1 replicas of what inspires them. People forget what "loosely based" means.
thank you for talking about this. I'm white and whenever I bring this topc up, people don't take me seriously. I've been seeing this "fixing" everywhere and it gets annoying, especially when the ones doing it think they're doing god's work or something. It's complete bullshit, diversity in Genshin would be really cool, but changing skin tones of existing characters is just plain up useless and stupid.
I hate the concept of "fixing", especially in fandom. Western fandom isn't the target audience for Genshin, who's company is based in the East. HoYoverse is is going to pander to their own demographic so "fixing" their characters really isn't going to change anything. I personally love the Genshin designs for what they are, so there's no point in me (as a black person) changing them.
Like damn... Make OCs instead of doing edits / fixing canon characters.
THIS!! I’m a black artist myself, and I don’t get why changing their skin is gonna help. Even when people saw Xinyan and Kaeya they got mad?
@@shea9632 Editing a canon character is never going to help and people need to realize that... And when a character does have some melanin, it's NEVER enough. Can't force an entire Chinese company to change plans they made long before the game was publicly accessible.
@@shea9632 I've seen some of these people saying Kaeya and Xinyan "aren't black enough". I was like wtf. And it was on the Sumeru teaser 03 comment section.
Coincidentally, artists that "fix" things also happen to be terrible as far as technical skill goes. (Zee fixes arts feet for example) It's almost like all that moral grandstanding and attention grabbing says something about what that person is compensating for.
Certain people nowadays are so rife with obsessions. Instead of focusing on aesthetics, application of race things and artistic principles, they'd rather drag down people way better than them by twisting everything into a race thing.
Bro they even blacked out the characters canonically from liyue which is based of china proceeding to say racism is bad smh
smh bruh
The irony
@@behinasam9337 they either dont know or blatantly ignore facts regarding geography or culture.
like seriously the newest garbage some of them claimed is kazuha and his friend tomo are apparently gæ because they have the sleeves on their kimono ripped/cut, because of one story from china that isnt/wasnt even remotely a cultural phenomenon in the country lmao
they also claimed ayato is gæ because he has long sleeves and that its apparently "uSEd bY woMEn tO AttRAcT mEn"
clowns i swear, not even the funny kind too
NOOOO NOT KEQING
@@theysaidimasian9766 I mean those are Headcanons and don't harm anyone, so :/
As and artist and a black person, as well, it also infuriates me to see these people claim darkening a skin tone is "fixing" a character, as if there is something inherently wrong with having light skin. Additionally, for people who claim to want black characters so much, they barely use the dark skinned characters we already have. Xinyan is the least used character in Genshin, period. She's Chinese and people claiming that she's black is extremely offensive to dark-skinned Asians and black people (as if all of us have dark-skin).
The worst part is, all they do is make the skin dark and do nothing about the rest of the color palette which does not suit the dark skin tone. It makes them look fucking hideous. I swear, Genshin fans only fetishize black skin, they don't care about actual black people at all, hence why we get called coons for being against the bullshit blackwashing.
truer words have never been spoken before
please don't call them genshin fans. Genshin fans are by definition fond of the game. Those twats seem to be more fond of their own unique brand of anti-Asian racism.
They don't even fetishize black skin, they fetishize appearing to be woke
@Yoonbum what's the bug?
@Yoonbum Then don't go around ranting and raving about how bad dark skinned characters have it when you won't even use the ones in the game. Amber is dogshit, worse than Xinyan will ever be and her fans still use her. Why do all of these vocal Xinyan fans not do the same?
It's funny how the fandom is 'loud' about the sumeru 'stereotype' yet they didn't even bother at how Yae dressed. There's no way a shrine maiden in japan dressed like Yae💀.
Can we like talk about Kokomis Dress
Like that Sailormoon, Magical girl, Mermaid, Dragon, kami, schoolgirl, Swimmer looking shrine maiden?
Like Yae, I can see it to some degree
But when I look at Kokomi
Shrine maiden is the last thing I think of
@@tirramasu7948 Omg fr💀. Is there any players in JP who complained about the shrine maidens in genshin? none, because they can separate fictional made and reality. Why is it a problem to begin with anyway? this kinda stuff has been going on with other games mostly character oriented gacha games smh
@@zephyrosukishin Actually, I haven't heard anything from the JP side of the fandom
Ive heard controversies from CN like Kokomis va but never Jp
I guess that's because they accept as fiction like how all anime, games, and manga are
@asu Honestly I heard some people say "Lisa is lesbian coded, because she said good morning to Jean"
I understand wanting representation
But Like...
funny enough, the outfits in liyue and inazuma are also based on stereotypes. they are not culturally accurate and even cn players have complained about shenhe's outfit being sexualised lol and no one on the western side bat an eye
Holy shit they use the bucket tool and did a miracle we are saved REJOICE!
LMAOO
Racism *instantly dies*
we did it boys and girls, racism is no more
Lol! Ikr, I just want to scream at these types of people to use their creative juices and make new, UNIQUE and lovable characters instead of switching the race to ‘fix’ another person’s hard work
@@ploopy6160 sumeru isn't even on earth + it's a pixel, cry about it
What made me think is
If Genshin really did release a dark skinned character or any poc, they'll be cancelled for stereotyping and appropriating
Yea!
which is sad cuz its not that hard to
they did release dark skinned character right from the release of the game... and that was Kaeya.
calling him 'exotic' is not even an insult, because he is from outside of Mondstadt
if that was an insult then why no one cared when they called Traveler an "outsider" lol
They meant dark dark. The problem is probably the modul would be hard to see in certain locations and/or night-time.@@BiBiren
The MAIN audience will always be the chinese, the koreans and the japanese people., since they are the ones who buy the most stuff in Hoyo's games. Those people only want to see pretty males and females, the ones that they are used to seeing on the streets irl. And since there are basically no black people in any of these countries, there is little to no reason for Hoyo to implement darker shades of skin, since that's not what the highest paying players want
There was actually a guy who went about it the right way, sending an e-mail to hoyoverse concerning representation. He got an answer from hoyoverse saying that they understood the importance of representation and the mail was forwarded to the developer team.
POV you can handle a problem like a normal person
POV you have common sense
That guy is a true chad
Representation= racist.
If you have a problem with the skin colour of pixels, you didn't make, your a bigot.
Damn present day is stupid.
that guy is a legend thats how you go about it
It’s so crazy how people support making characters black when they’re originally a paler skin, but then so against whitewashing. both are pretty racist in my opinion.
Yess
just because you have an opinion it doesn't make something fact but ok
But in this situation it is fact @@neonraindrop8357
@@neonraindrop8357 remind me where it shows a claim that it's fact?
OMG YOUR PFP
Whats wild to me is it's almost always JUST darkening skin. Its literally never adding any other feature related to whatever race they made them.
Also I dont know why I added that last bit, cuz they're always "black" (see also: reshaded with whatever random dark skin colour they picked)
likeeeeeee...they just edit the skin and thats it. nothing else
eh I think that's more of hoyo having... pretty basic models. the main changes in facial shape for most if not all genshin characters is their eyes so I get why they wouldn't change the features but yeah somd ppl take it too far
It legit looks like they grabbed the model took it to Microsoft paint and used the paint bucket on the skin areas...
Well, I'm sorry if this will come out bad but Hoyoverse/Mihoyo (Genshin's creator) uses an anime artsyle and the most people who use the anime artsyle only draw like big eyes and a thin mouth. Japanese people don't have big eyes even though they are the ones making anime. It's pretty much skin color and hair changing. Check out Hoyoverse's black character from another game called "Carole Pepper". She is black but she doesn't have like big lips. She does however have like a straight hair, most likely due to her lore on how she feels bad for herself because she is black (don't shoot the messenger T-T).
Only darkening the skin is usually the point though lol. Its to show how captivating the color schemes of the characters could be with different skin color choices. Also some pages who recolor characters do add racial features such as deeper lips curly hair alternatives to thier regular hair and etc. It just isnt necessary all the time cause usually thats not the point.
I do hope there will be more diverse skin tones in the future as I find Kaeya and Xinyan to be very nice on the eye so the style isn’t the problem. What I don’t like is when people do exactly this. With a lot more Sumeru in the coming year and later Natlan I hope there will be a lot more variety in skin tones to make more unique and interesting designs.
I think that only amplifies the issue when the fans are making the call on who gets race changed. Genshin could release 5 characters who have darker tones and fit the setting they're going for and then some loud mouthed fan says "We should make Paimon darker." Far from me to decide what China makes for their target audience but it's their game, not Twitter's.
@@Petrico94 To be fair It would have been nice if the NPCs are at least brown or Tan (not really black as Blacks are also a minority here) the playable characters can have lighter skins just like how famous people here use a lot of beauty products to make their skin lighter lol.
I hope they have more characters with Cyno and Dehya's type 4 skin tones and Kaeya and Xinyan's type 5 skin tones in Sumeru but these people on Twitter act like they've never met any pasty Middle eastern and SE Asian people before. My mom has a bunch of Iraqi lady friends who work in the same field as her and most of them have fair skin, darkest are around Cyno and Dehya color. Many Thai, Viet, and Indonesian people I've met have fair skin but I've also met many people who are darker. One of my mom's Indian friends is of Austronesian descent (Melanesian according to him) and he is darker then any African American she'd even met. Sumeru should have a nice rainbow of skin tones based on the regions it takes inspiration from Middle east, South Asian, and SE Asia, so we can hope but them having big baby tantrums won't change anything
@@Petrico94 I saw someone crying over Sumeru chara not having brown skin tones but their profile was full of blackwashing existing genshin characters. Why cry about representation when you can't even respect existing characters with their skin tones when there is nothing wrong in the first place
@@eraba661 I remember scrolling through some of the recent comments on another video covering this topic and someone had proudly admitted that they had ‘fixed’ the design by darkening their skin and that they posted it on their socials or something. Pretty disgusting if you ask me.
It’s funny as well because they also mentioned something about putting more Indian culture into it (for context, they also mentioned something about them being offended as an Indian) when it’s suppose to be based on the *middle east* which shouldn’t exclude every other culture and country. Besides that- Genshin isn’t suppose to even represent any cultures or countries- let alone accurately depict them. Genshin only made nations *inspired* by these countries and cultures but it doesn’t mean it’s suppose to represent reality at all. Funny how heated people can get over a *FICTIONAL* world.
I don't care if someone wants to make their own version for fun but to call it "fixed" as if was broke is just petty
nah they think their versions are always better because the skin is black black
this !! i find edited versions very cool but i hate it when they say it’s “fixing” a character :(
That was obviously for clickbait and always result in more attention (but negative attention) so yeah they got what they deserved
The genshin impact community has an hard time accepting that every single region, including liyue isn't good representation. The skin colour is NOT the only key to representation.
There are new characters like cyno and Candace who have a tan skintone but people keep complaining that they're not "tanned" enough. They only cared about sumeru characters bring too pale but never east Asians. Most east Asians are light tan, not snow white. It's crazy how an entire community cares more about a skin tone than the actual cultural background to their designs.
i agree with the first part of no genshin region is ‘good’ representation, but even cyno and candace are still very pale, especially given that they’re exposed to a lot of sun.
They lived in the Forrest, covered mostly by the trees from the sun. So it's make sense they light skinned. While on the desert it's also make sense they dark skinned, because they always been bombarded by the sun Light.
Like on my place it self, those who live in the jungle usually light skinned and those who got exposed by sunlight have dark colored skin.
It's science, it's geography. I know this because I live on a place full of jungle and I see people skins.
Sumeru it self are India, middle East, Egypt based region. Even some in the middle East are having light skin color even tho they live in the place that been bombarded by the Sun.
Especially Nahida, she didn't that often going out and been hit by the Sun that often, it make sense she have light colored skin.
Those American just can't think that much (the stupid one)
@@jeremytheexplorer4689 If I remember correctly, Nahida is supposedly based on a mythological goddess who is described as "pale as the moon" so her having pale skin is totally justifiable. It's sad people don't get that
Most of the people who cry about representation are ignorant and uneducated Americans. Of course they don't know anything beyond skintone.
@@wakkaseta8351 I literally saw someone saying that the East Asian representation in Liyue and Inazuma is horrible because the characters are pal. Like wtf
honestly, i’d love to see hoyoverse make more dark skinned characters, however, if you want more, don’t darken their skintones and say you “fixed” them. that’s accomplishing nothing here, either make your own oc or pray, those are the two only things you can do.
Make your own oc suggest it make it look for the same aesthetic as the land added but they would integrate lol
And you gotta pray in Chinese 💀
It's also just a big insult to the original artist to begin with.
We're on the same boat
I definitely would be excited if there was more diversity with the skin tones. But why would you complain about the existing characters, and change their skin tone saying you "fixed" it, as if having white skin is wrong or "culturally inappropriate"? I'm persian but i am white passing, would you really say that "i dont belong to the culture" aswell just because of my skin tone?
Instead of letting the wound heal , you're cutting it deeper and deeper
@@aqvanii BTW HYV JUST ANNOUNCED 2 NEW DARKER CHARACTERS WOOOOOO
I have friends who play genshin but refuse to interact with it's community because of occurences like this. They make art when they can but when they see people just trying shame other artists and the devs like this my friends just decide "nah i don't need that."
Should be a rule of thumb to enjoy a game and stay far away from the community
literally. i just got into genshin but after what my friends have told me about the community i keep my art private LOL
I think this is just twitter fandoms in general. Genshin fans are entirely normal from my experience, it’s just the twitter users.
@@arha13 Because twitter gives anybody with an opinion weather it be good,bad, correct or incorrect a way to say what they want and find others to form a brigade to protect their ideals. Either that or shame or others. What should be morally gray discussions get turned into cancel mobs and witch hunts.
Me and one of my friends who's a genshin fan just makes fun of the dumb twitter people.
Im 100% all for representation dont get me wrong, but doing this....this is why i do not interact with a lot of the community. I love the game, but theyre so toxic it's insane.
This is an insult to the person at the company who designed the characters, and they didnt even "fix" them, in fact made them look worse at how poorly it was edited.
Mine's better, i delete my twitter and Facebook account 6 years ago.
They won't let me enjoy escapism and always bringing real politics.
But is it not an insult to the culture that they are pulling from?
@@hadrianhexe9603 NO. As an Arab i don't give a single F if the character has palette number #000000 or #111111. It's a game it doesn't exist, i want endgame, grind & meta characters not color tones.
@@hadrianhexe9603 hoyo didnt even explicitly say that it was going to be based off whatever , it was the community that collectively agreed that it was based of that - so no
Exactly, I hate that I have to mention "I don't interact with the community, just love the game" whenever I tell someone I play genshin, because I just know what people think. Truth is any sane player wants to avoid the community as much as they can
as a POC artist, my favourite character has brown skin. In the two years span that I've been drawing this character, the stylistic, atmospheric and colour choices I've chosen changed the character's skin colour A LOT. But that's natural because skin don't always look brown in every kind of light, right? I'm relatively small artist but every time I draw this character, I ALWAYS, ALWAYS get comments asking "why is he so pale?" "why why why are you making them pale?" "dude, he's supposed to be dark skinned???"
as a dark-skinned artist, I wanna know: are the people who leave comments like this also poc? angry bc of lack of presentation? or just the other end of the spectrum who wants to justify bad online behaviour?
also pls don't "fix" someone else's art. even if it's an official piece of art, someone still made that and editing their work is just not right :(
to answer your question, the people who leave comments like this are also poc, and they either care that the character is too pale which is reasonable, it is not okay in any circumstance to change the race of a character who already has an established one, or they just dont understand lighting and want the character to be the exact same shade everytime
nah people who comment that shit are just chronically online white people just trying to get something to virtue signal about
@@idespisethisapp sometimes they're not poc and just wanna jump into the drama actually,
@@しゅー-y8l also true but sometimes they might possibly care i give it a 1/20 chance
and sometimes its the whites who are worrying for us blacks lol
"The issue isnt the lack of representation it is the lack of respect of the art and artist"
It's actually both
dude I’m so sorry for how much backlash you’re dealing with because of this video. the people spouting slurs at you seem to preach equality yet are probably some of the most prejudiced people on the planet. you’re awesome, don’t listen to those people.
i mean illiberal progressives are the same people that preach equality and fairness but want a centrally planned economy, they are bound to have some dumb ideas on everything
The thing is, Genshin has great representation in other corners such as Liyue, which is based on China.
They hired a professional opera singer to do the voice of Yun Jin, yet the community went out of their way to make fun of her for her singing.
Another example. A character named Gaming (pronounced Ja- ming) was made fun of for his name, when it's a Cantonese name that doesn't mean what it looks like in English.
Another issue is that the archon (or goddess) of sumeru is white. She (nahida) is based on a Hindu goddess named Aranyani, who was white.
the genshin fandom on twitter literally dont care about “representation”. they only care abt how black/ pale a character is. for example, Yun Jin. she’s a great representation of Chinese people but many people on twitter still ridicules her singing.
Don't forget about Gaming :( poor boy is made fun of for his name
@@CassieIsGae our poor boy
If liyue is actually based off china then yun jin’s singing is accurate bc that’s what traditional Chinese opera sounds like (as a Chinese person myself)
@@Idonotknowwhatadmittedly, I don’t like YunJin’s singing. It needs the music to go with it for one, and two, going from normal voice to a totally different voice in the same package is grating on the ears. The two voices don’t mesh.
@@Shawnie_787Again, I think that's an accurate representation...
As a Latino person, it would be racist if the majority of Natlan people were dark-skinned because it is still forcing the stereotype that everyone who is latino is dark skinned.
Just commenting for the theories that claimed Natlan is inspired by mesoamerican tribes and Latinoamérica in general.
Both latino and Arabic people are an ethnicity, not a race (which is determined by a skin color), so we both have a variety of skin colors.
Genshin is not representing those cultures, they are taking inspiration by choosing some aspects of it; we should not expect accurate representation. Just look on the fact that Liyue is inspired by China and the character's designs are not even accurate either.
But I do agree we should have a variety of skin colors on the game, but remember tha GI is an Chinese game, so they are mainly focused on their local fanbase and working on their traditional beauty standards.
I mean, true, but you also have to agree that it's a matter of quantity of representation. Yes, not everyone in latinamerica is dark skinned, I'm a latino and I have pale skin for instance, but we can't ignore the fact that the great majority of Latin Americans have darker skin than other cultures. If natlan had 25% of their cast as white, I personally wouldn't have any issue with it, but if the majority of the cast was white (just as what is happening in sumeru) there would definitely be a problem, natlan is based primarily on the Mayans, even the name means "lugar de abundancia/ wealthy place" in nahuatl, it would be really weird and culturally insensitive to make a primarily white cast then because of the historical connotations that would bring (mainly the fact that mayans were slaved by European cultures once it was "discovered").
Case and point, as an artist I get it, sometimes you just want to make a character white and changing their skin tone would completely mess up the design, most likely that's what happening here, is not that hoyoverse is being racist with sumeru, they simply liked those designs more than others, but that doesn't mean we can't criticize them for being culturally inaccurate
@@Someone-wr4ms You're not wrong but I think when we discuss representation we should focus on quality rather than quantity, one of those examples could be the English VA mispronouncing ethnic names so far ( german, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, etc), I was kinda disappointed how they pronounced Sumeru, Al Tighnari, etc, which are not so difficult to pronounce.
Having a discussion only on colorskin and nothing at others aspects is still forcing stereotypes ( That's what Twitter is doing).
I wouldn't be so sure if Latinoamérica has the majority of dark skinned people on the world, if we look at Asia or Africa which are a lot bigger at territory and ethnicities.
Dark-skinned latinos are everywhere but depending of the location could be a higher or lower rate. The majority of black or dark-skinned people could be found on Caribbean countries (both islands and the coast), the majority of people with indigenous features are located on Central America, Mexico, Bolivia and Perú; and there is a higher rate of light skinned people on countries like Chile, Argentina or Paraguay.
As you said we must have Hoyoverse accountable for their ethnic inspirations but we should not expecting a 100% good representation when we are not their target and they have a long history with racism and xenophobia.
As the video's creator said, the majority people getting offended for this are always white people who are not even part of the culture in discussion. And we as third world countries have a lot bigger and important issues to come through to actually focusing on a Chinese game.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts 🥰
Natlan sounds more like it's based on the Nahua rather than Latinos, so it would be actually accurate to show them with darker skin
@@forodinssake9570 I mean... Not all Latinos are nahuatl, but all nahuatl are Latinos... So...idk...
@@Someone-wr4ms fair point, i just hope they base it more on pre-Columbian America rather than post conquest
They're based off regions, not specific countries. Mondastadt is based off German countries, Liyue is Chinese, Inazuma is Japanese, Sumeru is SWANA, Fontaine looks like it'll be romantic countries (france, italy, spain, romainia, etc etc), Natlan is mezzo-American, and Snezhnaya is supposed to be based on Soviet countries (sorry if that's not the right word for it, I can't remember the exact word).
edit to add: Also, people get their panties in a bunch over the outfits in Sumeru, but nobody cared about the realism behind Inazuma's character designs. Not only is that hypocritical, but also it's as if artistic liberties aren't allowed to exist??
and nobody cares with mondstadt's places that are all named in English instead of German
Yea just a quick note
Germany is one country there aren't multiple countries
But ither than that I agree
These people claim to be the advocates of representation
Meanwhile they take other people's representation away and are the definition of racist
Legit especially when people called it racist for Hoyo to mix different countries of a region for Sumeru, completely unaware that Mondstadt is a mixture of German, other European aspects, Greek and Roman, and no one cared.
All the chatacter designs have been stereotypical too, yet no one complained. There's especially A LOT of design liberties taken, like you think people in medieval China wore Gucci dresses and modern suits? Or Inazuma royalty/sacred women were dressing like prostitutes? Or that the 'Germans' of Mondstadt are just typical fantasy RPG characters?
And when it comes to mispronunciation of names, pretty sure none of us are even pronouncing most Liyue terms/names correctly yet they don't care either.
They very obviously have some bias against pale skin, inadvertently being racist to even other poc people for having pale skin by just saying 'they're white'. Genshin may not be the most diverse in skin tones, but goddamn, did anyone ever care about this in LITERALLY ANY other anime RPG??
Fontaine will be French if it's logic x)
First because ''Fontaine'' is french for fountain 👀
And yea bc it was said it's ''romantic'' and France was called the romantic country (even if as a French, idk what's romantic in France 😅😅 or like maybe before 2000, idk) since a long time, etc etc x)
@@peanupbutter2967 yes but it won't JUST be French, which is my point, just like Mondstadt is not JUST based on Germany, and Sumeru has the entirety of SWANA
i love how they tried to "fix" chinese liyue characters by making them black like . . . doesn't that go against their entire point of fighting racism lmaoo
IKR
its fighting colorism with straight up racism, literally insane
The thing that hurts my soul is that there's people saying that blackwashing doesn't exist 😭
It exists, y'all just need to use the correct word: blackface
Real it makes me feel smart.
@@ACloud-jg5il it doesn't make feel smart, it just serves as reminder that there are always people who are basically "if you think you are stupid, remember that I exist".
I’m from the Middle East, and seeing sumeru made me excited because it represented the middle eastern culture which made me excited for the upcoming content, I don’t really care about skin color since that doesn’t matter (plus the Middle East is not dark skinned it’s filled with multiple skin colors ranging from white to dark) all that really matters is their clothing design and how it works with their story/origins, and the overall level/world design in sumeru, the Genshin Twitter community is toxic (although there are still people who are nice) so it’s best to ignore them as they do not do anything to benefit representing dark skinned people or middle easterns
- from a middle eastern dude (السلام عليكم يا شباب العربيين )
Right at ya man
لمن شفت الصحراء حيل استانست
but here's the thing, the skin colour matters too, just taking inspiration for clothes and lores, why not skin as well? the skin colour does matter. representation does matter.
p.s i do disagree with people "fixing art" tho
Sumeru is based off South Asia too, also the problem is that the middle east and south asias people have a wide variety of skintones and they are ALL pale, clearly a decision made by mihoyo because they dont like dark skin, thats why theyre upset and rightfully so. However, i absolutely do not agree with the erasing of the skin
I am a Pakistan which is from the eastern side and Sumeru feels like home and I’m so happy!
A fact about Sumeru: Sumeru has two areas, a rainforest type area, and a desert type area. The light skinned characters are from the rainforest region. A new four star claymore Dehya is from the desert region, she has a darker skin tone. Twitter users are literally idiots, but I expect nothing less.
Edit: So Dehya is actually a five star that’s a mistake on my end, so you guys can stop telling me she’s a five star.
Also most of the characters from Sumeru are basically not humans. I mean people just need to open their eyes and read not complain
To be fair, people native to rainforest regions are dark-skinned irl, so I get why peopel think it's weird that they're light-skinned in the game. Personally, my issue with the Sumeru designs is less the skin tones and more the general fact that MHY decided to make Sumeru a mishmash of unrelated cultures rather than choose one country or culture like with the other regions, so the designs end up feeling very stereotypical.
Yeah but also rainforest region people have tan but not dark skin and light but not pale skin. Since they only have 2 seasons, wet and dry. But if you cover your body a lot and used lotion, your skin will be lighter or paler.
@@kemiandthemachine it's a fantasy game, they're not literally representing a real culture. Why is making it a mishmash of different cultures a problem?
@@atom8248 Because this has been a consistent thing for regions before Sumeru and for those after it. Sumeru is the only region where they're mishmashing cultures. Every other region (besides Nathlan maybe, since we have no info on it) has been inspired by a specific country. Mondstadt is inspired by Germany, Liyue is inspired by China, Inazuma is inspired by Japan, Fontaine is inspired by France, and Snezhnaya is inspired by Russia. It feels inconsistent, especially since they're going back to their usual design philosophy right afterward.
As an artist, I understand both sides. When you base a location off of a region and people, it would be appropriate, and stake holders, especially consumers would expect that those characters and elements would reflect the inspiration somewhat.
However, when designing a character, there is a myriad of conscious and subconscious reasons why a character is designed a certain way, color theory, folk tales, mythology, and many other things despite just geographical reasons. The Company is from Asia... South Korea Maybe...- I digress. A people with a history of viewing light and pale skin as beautiful, as well as lithe and skinny bodies for males and females. So obviously that sentiment is going to trickle down to their character design of non muscular men and pale/light skinned characters in general.
What I do not agree with, as a black male, an animator, someone who is currently animating a teaser trailer and later a show pilot, as well as just a person with history of liyving cartoons, anime, and animated content; I do not appreciate the race swapping and black washing of characters. Character design and concept art takes much thought, research, and time with various roughs and concepts. You don't have to like it, but at the very least, give it some baseline human decency and a modicum of respect. If you don't like the way a show or game represents a group, you can design an OC, send a review, vote with your wallet, just not indulge... Or... You can get a small team together or just yourself and design a comic or show or game with original characters of the background you want. Make an entire new property for the masses to consume.
But don't raceswap. It's lazy and disrespectful.
Edit: Yes, I now realize that Genshin Impact was made in China. I was typing my raw thoughts in the moment, and I didn't want to generalize geographical locations in Asia. But yes, thank you all for telling me.
The game is made in China.
@@tutifruityy what did that have to do with their statement? (I'm not trying to be mean)
@@tutifruityy I think those characters are from the rainforest part of sumeru, closer to liyue?? but id still like to see some representation. i think the desert is coming out in 3.1 or so, so im waiting for that rn. i saw leaks of NPCs with dark skin so thats my hope rn
@@tutifruityy They are based on Persia, wich had more white people than people of darker skin. So yeah, the representation it's actually perfect, people from both colors of skin...
Sumeru is based on the ancient civilizations of India and Egypt.
I'm arab and let me tell you this: we have some people with super white pale skin that are originally arab and have no Caucasian ancestors.
And to be honest with you a lot of people I know find it offensive when every single arab character is brown skinned. This is the first time I actually felt that they represented arabs in a non stereotypical way and the American whites on twitter and mad about it.
Year late, but I am also Arab and I agree. My friend who is also Arab, is literally pale as heck, not even just one, multiple. I've seen them literally call Sumeru characters white which upset me a lot, because we aren't white or black, we're Arabs, we have many diverse skin colours.
As a pale middle eastern person I’m so speechless- they don’t have to fight so hard for our representation in a game.. now I know where they’re coming from but those characters they’re changing are from a less dessert like area, the same applies to us real Middle East people lol
we have a huge variety of skin tones but like, "It MuSt AlL bE BlAcK" they can be black, they can be pale, they can be tan. The history of the middle east is nuanced in terms of colonialism and the reason for such variety.
Speaking for India here, since their basis for the rainforest area IS India. It's actually far more common for darker skin tones in the rainforest. It's definitely not climate that skin tones are based of, but genetics.
@@masked.fool. their not even black more like brown and tan
@@Eurasian_ good luck China hates your place in general so don't expect them to respect your race but not mind stealing your culture for their game.
When ever I see someone rant about Middle eastern characters not being dark enough, I can only wonder if they've never seen a Middle eastern person with their own eyes in real life.
As someone that is very deep in genshin lore iwould say genshin is EXTREMELY accurate in their refrences to history , countries and their mythologies
And as some one that LIVES in middle east (i live in iran and thats litteraly persia) seeing dark skin people is very very rare unless you go to the sea side states of iran and arabs are almost completely white skinned (ive been many arab countries)
Exactly. Were not all dark skinned 💀
Idk what country you’ve been to. I live in the Middle East too and the majority are tan.
Hate to break it to you but your experience does not represent the whole thing, it's a fallacy called generalization. Sumeru is inspired by more than just the small landscape you live in.
@@physicssimulator2656 hate to break it to you 2.0 : the comment you replied on doesnt have a single statement about middle east being completely white
Hell i only talked about arabs and persians...
Its simply the fact they have a lot of whites (just google the statics of iran or uae or even google how they look)
Sumeru has the right amount of dark skin people in it and people that say it needs more are simply wrong
There's middle eastern countries that has a majority of dark skinned people not just the middle east sumera is derived from but India is included aswell. Even if the minority has darker skin it would be nice to represent that.
Im a somewhat tanned, middle eastern person and i just want to say that you explained everything in this video so well, ive been trying to make a point that the fact that people assume we are all black/tanned is stereotypical but people refuse to listen to what they dont wanna hear. Anyway thank you for making a video like this, it was very logical more than opinion based which I appreciated.
I am indian and tbh, I myself was expecting to see a wide range of skintones in sumeru, because there are multiple cultures involved, like an entire spectrum. Some people are very pale but some are also very dark. But that didn't happen. I understand it's because of the market but it was a bit of a bummer.
@@gracebres i agree. Why did Mihoyo not even make some NPCs tanned? There's even a Persian named NPC who is significant to the lore of Sumeru and yet he looks like he came from Mondstadt....like what?
There is a colorism and representation issue in the designs and color. "Fixing" art isn't the way to go BUT what is, is that Mihoyo makes new characters that represent and compliments the rich lore of Sumeru and upcoming worlds.
@audrey9able there is hella tanned NPCs though. A lot of the people in the forest area are tanned and the Eremites look basically black but all the playable characters are so white like wtf how does that even make any freaking sense in the first place
@@KakfkaLover yeah...the only enemies in that area are the only darkskinned ones and are just barely tanned..
hey hey hey not fair. The Eremites are veyr dark skinned. Yet again they are the bad guys so LOL@@neonraindrop8357
Most ridiculous thing I've seen today is someone trying to redesign the characters in Sumeru but they don't even know who Al-Haytham and Al-Tighnari the actual people are. They also were picking and choosing random middle eastern outfits without any research into the actual characters and the real world nations their designs were inspired from.
I've seen them do Dehya, Tighnari, and Kusanali, and the comments are saying how the redesigns are inaccurate to the nations and the skin is also inaccurate, making Arabic coded characters black and whatnot.
Whenever someone questioned what's up with the picking and choosing of cultural clothing and skin tones thing, the person in question basically just called them racist and trying to erase middle eastern culture.
Someone from the middle east tried to say that Tighnari's real world counterpart was fairly pale and that not everyone in the middle East is black, and the person defaulted to calling them racist and Arabic history erasure excuses.
There was also another incident of them calling Nilou's outfit oversexualized but literally a quick Google search can tell you that similar outfits did actually exist in history. Someone said that and they got the erasure excuse yet again.
Default response to people pointing out inaccuracies is "I draw better than you and you are stupid so shit up" and people who show actual evidence of why the redesigns are inaccurate get blocked.
I swear, this fandom is ridiculous. They try to redesign something to "be correct" but end up being just as incorrect as Mihoyo and don't even listen to people from the actual regions. Like I don't know what gave them the idea that they're on a high horse but they most certainly are just the other side of whatever part of the spectrum Mihoyo is on.
Now, I've seen some very very good redesigns that are actually very accurate to the nation's people the characters are coded to be based on with clothing that fit the characters' roles and a fantasy setting, but my god that specific group of people I mentioned above are dragging the art side of Genshin Twitter through the dirt.
Well if you actually searched up actual persian dancing clothes you would see the problem, like even though nilou has alot accurate persian elements, her general outfit is so very innocurate. Like persian dancers did not show their bellies, they might have showed a little skin but definitely not their bellies.
That's true. The way America views skin colors is wat different from other parts of the world. Like for example a dark-skinned Dominican wouldn't call themselves "black" they would call themselves Dominican.
There's SO much still wrong about what Hoyoverse has done.
Why is skin color variation so easily brushed off when it's a fantasy setting? If the excuse is "They can do whatever they want in looks because it's fantasy!" Then clearly, there should've been some characters who are tan and brown, etc. because it's a fantasy setting!
Why are elves, catgirls, etc. so readily accepted, yet when it came to asking why aren't there at least some tan NPCs, people who call it out are ignored, insulted and invalidates their opinions, including ACTUAL peoples who come from these countries who got "represented" by a fantasy media?
Also I don't think we should take anything substantial from a Hero Hei video when that guy barely talks about anything. He clickbaits Genshin Impact when other more valid Genshin Impact fans who are of POC and from China have more nuanced takes on this Sumeru and Colorism issue.
I'm actually really disappointed with this video's take too. I know he means well but he too had brushed aside very tangible problems in Asian media.
@@audrey9ableWomp womp
@@PeruvianPotato it'll be a double womp womp when Natlan, clearly inspired from Indigenous American and West African cultures, only has pale skinned characters.
I really love Genshin impact design. Those people doesn't even bother to understand that those characters are from China, Japan and europe region of the game.
I''m black and I'm a character designer. If I want more black character I design NEW black character.
If an Asian character designer want a character that look like his/her ethnicity. Well they will do it !
I’m an artist of color and have always been confused about this sort of thing
I suggested the creating a new character idea to someone I know and they said making new characters can be a hassle
Edit: also they said it’s easier to claim/“headcanon” their favorite characters as the same race as they are
EXACTLY! i have always love asian characters and aesthetics in their video games, remember applibot? where it was mostly cute girls and demons, why can't we just go back to those times
Mainly I find it problematic because it’s hypocritical and also idk how people can call themselves artists and instead of creating something original, they just change something someone else has created unnecessarily
This is the best comment I've seen all week
Agree, as an artist of colour what they (the people who "fixed" it) did was wrong... It's better to make your own OC tho. :D
Just because it is inspired on/by an existing region/culture doesn’t mean it IS that region/culture. It’s a fantasy game. It doesn’t have to be perfect and preach correctness to be a good and enjoyable game. It’s purpose is not to be correct and representative of reality. It’s purpose is to entertain and tell a story in a fantastical setting. I would LOVE to see Hoyoverse create a larger cast of characters with different skin tones and ethnicities; but bashing, harassing and changing the art of the artists that have worked so hard on the game is just disrespectful and irresponsible. Respect and accept it for what it is.
Agree like someone made a oc with their nationality and the oc is black and their some is mad and whitewash them to fit their "nationality"
Agree, this is why i delete my Twitter account and never come back.
Okay, i might peek Twitter for nudes and anime hentai news that heavily censored for unknown reason while real problem like human trafficking and child grooming + trafficking running amok as long they have LGBT flag.
Keyword is inspired not based off of.
@@sethsilvermoon4223 Very true! I do think ‘inspired’ fits better than ‘based on’ in this case. I might edit that for more clarity.
@@sethsilvermoon4223 Then people will be mad if a european setting will have a lot of black people lol
I mean if they are taking inspiration from my region at least make te NPC brown well people who says to make them Black is also full of BS as Blacks are also a minority here lol.
I recently posted an artwork of Tighnari (one of the new characters) because I actually didn’t know how heated everything around him was. I took it down quickly though upon a “friend” of mine warning me…I got scared of a mob taking me apart for drawing a cute character hugging a plushie 💀
nah u shouldn't be scared u didn't do anything wrong!
I actually want to see that drawing now! That sounds so cute!
I’m a Tighnari enthusiast, I’m sorry that happened I’m sure it’s beautiful!
im a cosplayer and i find the sumeru characters so so gorgeous! but because of these genshin fans im scared to cosplay them because ive already seen people attack other cosplayers and saying they are racist for cosplaying collei or tighnari 😢idk what im tryna say is ive never seen so much hate in a fandom to the point where people are afraid to dress up as their favorite characters
Bro cosplay whatever you want. People have problem. Their in the wrong and should be ashamed
i know im late but as a fellow cosplayer cosplay who you want honestly and ignore those people!!
COSPLAY SUMERU CHARACTERS, IGNORE THOSE HATER GURL ❤️ ❤️
Bruh no one cares if black women can cosplay jean then you can cosplay f*cking collei
One of the things I like about Genshin is the fact that they don't differentiate race at all in-game. While yes, some characters have darker skin, they aren't classified as any specific race besides "human". Xinyan (one of my favorite characters) is made fun of for her accent and the fact that she likes to do things out of the norm for girls, and even for her own culture, but she doesn't give anyone lip or bad attitude whatsoever. It's just good vibes from her, and I love that. The developers didn't make it about race and instead made it about character, which is what I'm all about. Should there be some more difference in skin tones? Probably. But is it okay if there's not? Yeah. Because they're all classified as people, and not different races of people, and that's what matters. :)
Edit: I have homework for you all that read this comment! Go look up "One Tribe" by the Black Eyed Peas. It's a song that really gives me hope for humanity and it's kind of the vibe I'm trying to give here, too!
YESSSS! It’s inspiration! Not “here is China, here is Germany and here is Japan”.
We have to remember that these places are INSPIRED by these cultutes.
Inspired is a very important word
Beautiful description. Thank you
Yes and I think people are forgetting what inspired means.
They just got INSPIRED by some middles east countries. Which means, it does not have to be entirely the same.
well technically saying all the character are human isnt really true, there are still the adepti and archons who arnt really humans. not trying to argue with your point here, i completly agree with you.
I’m black and believe me, I don’t care. A lot of people in the black community don’t care. But these people make the lack of variety in this game seem like the end of the world. “Why is she so pale” because the artist drew them like that. It’s a video game. Ofc it’s not gonna be accurate. This generation acts like skin tones = everything. No, we’re more than our skin and the way we look lol. Race swapping in art is just bad.
in think most people don't gaf. that's why majority of the world isn't on Twitter.
Yeah but you're literally not from one of the culture Sumeru is inspired by
@@acaterpillargivingbirth I’m pretty sure they could care less. It’s a fictional game that doesn’t define their culture.
@@Cicada11011 yeah we don’t care lmao
@@Cicada11011 i am and i care 🤨 i care about the colorism and orientalism.
I do like seeing how people are remagining and redesigning their own versions by making actual fanart of what they would have preferred instead of just using the bucket to fill in the colour of the skin.
It's not something that I seek to find but I can appreciate seeing people putting effort into trying to share their point instead of acting like they are the saviours of who knows what by colouring over.
I do hope like other people that we can see more diversity, tho attacking anyone won't solve a thing. And I don't mind these designs tho I do understand lots of criticism that I didn't think of before (eg orientalism)
thing about orientalism is that it was indeed inspired by western artists but then adopted by certain asian groups as means to boost their tourism, i.e. belly dancer outfits. while it doesn't represent a country's culture accurately, i think it's fine for aesthetic purposes and doesn't have to be tied into "orientalism" itself.
i also like redesigning artwork, but some of these captions are so ego-driven like "mihoyo should hire me" or "fixed it and made so-and-so and ACTUALLY well designed outfit" etc etc. which ruins the artwork and effort completely for me. making art out of spite is just.. well, not something i'm into. i wish they wouldn't flood the main tags to try and drag more drama and i don't know why being snobby has become so popular on twitter.
@@liben5052 You see, the only good spite art/character designing I've seen is in the Gacha Club community. There's a gachatuber who's whole thing is basically taking uncommon items that people say can't be used to make a good character and making a character with one or all of the items. I'm still impressed by the jetpack hairtie trick.
Same! I like when artists do their own "take" on the character, my own is when I draw Heizou hes tanned like Bennett because hes always in the sun! But just editing a skin colour and calling it fixing is so wrong.
But worse is the d*th threats to artists who drew with 1 shade slightly lighter.
Same
@@liben5052Thanks for explaining to me that stuff! I just see a lot of negativity on those kinds of outfits (eg Alladin and some gatcha Alladin inspired stuff) and I don't know much about these topics so I appreciate reading more about it to get informed.
And oh yeah. I totally don't like those captions. Tho I appreciate when they say what they changed: eg. "I put this character with Arabian influences and jewellery" or "I feel like a darker skin tone would have perfectly worked with this design and I do want to see more dark skin rep so yeah." The latter tho not when it comes to just colouring over the character sprite, but actual fanart (bonus if they change the clothes a little for more originality.)
9:50 omg I almost cry of relief! Someone on video actually said it!!! It's INSPIRATION AAAAAAAAAAAA it's literally how most fiction work 😭 they took inspiration from real life!
Mihoyo when you ask them why all the characters inspired by white legends are keep their white skin but not the black ones. Don't get me started on all the food names that are identical to the real world. *coughs* KFC chicken sandwich
@@KakfkaLover > "all the food names that are identical to the real world"
> Talk about one that have been from a collab
> Africa is not entirely black, most black people are around the EQUATOR, north Africa is tanned, some even white like Persian
> And to piss people off, it's pretty much said that the black skin is an evolution to protect people from the heat, which is why in the desert, the character are more dark skinned, as they absord more heat than in the desert
> Mondstat is based on Europe, mainly Germany, OR COURSE, they'll be "white legend and culture"
> Liyue is based on China, of course they'll be more Chinese legend and culture
> Inazuma is based on Japan, of course they'll be Japanese legend and culture
> You probably is an American who is obsessed with skin colors and think us, in Europe, have no culture
“Isn’t representative of Arabian culture” Yall. From an Arab, born literally in the Middle East Baghdad,, there are so many differences in clothing and even sub-cultures with different practices all in the same region. Heck even skin tone varies from pale af to black. Just cuz u saw Aladdin doesn’t mean ur suddenly an expert. Stop thinking something is appropriating or not even representative until the culture in question SAYS SO.
but there are at least SOME dark skinned people in arab countries... yeah?
@@neu_dae absolutely, as I said there r ones who are white af, toned, dark skinned and then straight up black. Whoever was blessed with a generation of rich melanin or simply worked hard out in the sun for most of their lives, we got them all.
It’s why the appearance of characters don’t matter just as long as we get some native tongue being spoken or even hints of familiar life surrounding a culture within the Middle East. Both of which, in regards to Genshin which is a fantasy and made up world, are not present and that’s understandable. Skin tone doesn’t define us as/make us Middle Easterners, no offence
Hello fellow Mesopotamian
Ayoo O7
How’s it going mate
@@stories-kit great mate
What’s really amusing is how often people are attacking these East Asian properties for only featuring fair skin people yet forget that they have had a history of colorism that goes back centuries even before contact with European cultures. And they have been featuring people of the Middle East and most people in general as rather fair cause they always have. Their art for centuries has only featured it’s fair skin people. What the fans need to do is keep creating fanart and ocs to raise awareness but fixes aren’t flattering but just seen as trivial to insulting.
They need to stop calling it “fix” it’s insulting to the artist and media being “fixed” just say that’s how you view them, that lacks a condescending view
Fixing always seems like a supremacist view
What’s amusing is that the skin tone doesn’t match the range found in the Middle East. As people from middle eastern countries tend to have yellow, to green undertones but the fix is very warm toned which would work for people of south East Asian or Indian. Or just placed a dark fake tan on a pale person. Also the fix just looks like it’s just got a bad spray tan.
Using "History" as an excuse for them not putting darker skin tones makes no sense when Lilith, another game company based in China, has a plethora of darker characters in their games like AFK Arena and Dislyte
@@the_honored_one_06 lighter skin is more favorable to genshin’s main sources of revenue, china & japan. most companies & artists there stick to fair skin, with very few including as much diversity as lilith
@@kilanech6186 when genshin is trying to represent middle eastern culture and take heavy inspiration with middle east cultural clothing and looks, but absolutely refuse to give their characters even a slightly darker tone than super pale; you have to question why. i would understand if it was a completely fictional culture that didnt take any inspo from other cultures, but to be honest its a bit insulting to see them trying to represent this culture in all areas BUT skin tone. its like theyre purposefully making them pale because they simply dont like how dark skin looks. as an arab, i look at these designs and just feel like they only like the aesthetics of our culture, but gag the moment they see skin darker than milk white.
edit: not to mention,, their original designs are heavily based in orientalism too. all they did is just mish mash a bunch of cultures together, make stereotyped clothing out of it, and the cherry on top is that they made all of them pale white. in my opinion, they are TERRIBLE designs. yes i am against "fixing" them, but at the same time, i would never praise designs like that.
@@user-kt1kq5ic3p the only reason there even is a "preference" for lighter skin in china and japan is simply because of deeply rooted colorism. it is a reason as to why they refuse to make any of their characters even slightly tanned, but never an excuse
@@the_honored_one_06 right now we know that in sumeru, there’s a lush area full of trees so tall and lots of shade, and a desert bare of shades. In the 3rd teaser I think, tighnari was shown in a shaded forest area meaning he has more room to be away from the sun, meanwhile Cyno who is shown in the desert has darker skin. ALSO I think they mentioned something about a tribe that lives in the desert, they all also have a tan due to not living in the forest and having less shade.
Sumeru is separated by 2 areas. The rainforest (the upcoming area genshin is releasing) and the desert. Which is where the main dark skinned characters are from in the genshin webcomic. Im lokey hoping when part 2 comes out for sumeru we get a few darker characters
Yeah, I was a tad disappointed that we didn't get more darker skinned characters, but changing the skin tone of the ones we got is not the way to fix it at all
its kinda boring and does hurt my eyes seeing light
the forest Area is based of SA(India to be specific) which are still an area with a lot of brown and tan people so that explanation doesn't make much sense.
@@greatninja2590 Rainforest is India and SE asia inspired, Desert is India and Middle east inspired kinda
@@denjidenji9162 atleast people outside of east Asia dosent fear coloring pixels black.
For me it would be nice to see a variety of skin tones mainly to open up design options and character variety. Even in the pale character my favorites are rosaria since she has a bluer tone than others. More of that would be cool
rosaria is HOTT,.
I'm Iranian and I have argued with people on Twitter about Nilou's skin tone too many times, I myself have a tan skin but I know people who are pale and even have red hair in my country, the only problem is her clothes but in my idea that isn't much of the problem because when you look at genshin's design not a single one is truly accurate, the clothes are skin showing and fancier than what they should be but that's what makes it a fantasy game, honestly for the first time believe it or not us Iranians/Persians are getting represented in a good way and people who aren't even from our country try to take that away, this is just cruel.
my annoyance is the NPCs at least make them tan or brown
@@greatninja2590 they have different skin tones from what I've seen on the leaks, from pale to brown
idk still feels colorist to me.... like I get there ARE light skinned people in the middle east.. the point is they're not even the majority, and really none of them are white as an Irish person. any every single playable character from that region happens to be paler than paper. China is a very colorist culture - so it's not shocking or surprising that every character just so happens to NOT be dark skinned.
@@neu_dae I don't have a problem with it myself, as I keep saying I don't care about the skin color, my culture is being represented correctly and that is enough for me
@@yektadrawsstuff8608 that's weird though. The skin tones are right there so don't they put it on the characters. It's like making Itto skinny all over again. Is Mihoyo just racially motivated or jsut lazy
Came over from Hero Hei, who shouted you out and specifically this vid. Subbed!
they talk abt how since sumeru characters are from the desert they should be tan, but are they literally ignoring the fact that sumeru isn't even entirely desert? half of sumeru is thick forest while the OTHER half is desert. the forest half of sumeru was released before the desert, and that's why the newly released characters are all lightskinned- yes, environment affects complexion and that's exactly why all the forest characters are pale! they are being protected from the sun by the thick trees and foliage. every single character that we are seeing come out of the desert region is tanned, because there's obviously more sun to skin contact. obviously not all the characters from the forest will be lightskinned and not all the characters from the desert will be tanned, but that's the general direction they r heading in because environment tends to impact skincolor. pls get a life, twitter fandom!!! editing skin colors is only creating more problems. please just enjoy the character as is.
The thing about Sumeru is whilst it is based on the Middle East and Egypt, it is divided into two areas, the desert and jungle. Dori, Tighnari and a lot of Sumeru's light skinned characters live in the Jungle, which would often shield them from exposure to sunlight, so it actually makes sense for them to have light skin. Meanwhile, Sumeru's desert based characters such as Cyno and Candice have darker skin, and their designs are more reminiscent of Egypt, especially Cyno having a design similar to Anubis. Xinyan and Kaeya having different skin tones from other characters in the regions they live in are originally from other countries, Xinyan herself is actually a Sumerun immigrant who is a citizen of Liyue. And additionally Monstadt is based on Germany which has a majority of white people in their population. As for Liyue and Inazuma, the regions based on China and Japan respectively, its pretty common to people who watch anime that have Japanese characters to be of white ethnicities. More to the point, the characters clothing is enough to indicate the countries they're reminiscent of. For example, Diluc looks like a German nobleman. Xinyan has some small ropes that's often used to keep Chinese clothes together and so on. Anyone who is fixated on the race of a character, is probably someone who doesn't care about the character much to begin with
Cyno and Candace aren't dark skinned though. They are tanned. They're complexion is that of the average Middle Eastern and India person even though they're supposed to be African. They only look dark skinned because everyone else is so pale
Also dark skinned Chinese and Japanese people exist to but all we have is Xinyan and Kaeya like wtf how is that even fair in the first place
Edit: aren't
@@KakfkaLover well that's the thing, a lot of the people complaining about Candace or Cyno's race, is that they're not "dark-skinned enough", which is incredibly racist to real people who have that skin completion.
I actually had someone say to me that because Candace is based on a black character (allegedly) that she should be the same skin colour. The thing is even if Candace is inspired by someone from mythology she's still a new character, it'd be like saying that because Cyno is clearly inspired by Anubis, that he should have an actual Jackal head, which is stupid
@Kamen Rider Natsu she's not inspired by mythology like Cyno was she was an actual person. Her being darker skinned because she's African is the bare minimum Mihoyo can make. Even Fate makes their characters dark skinned when they take an African guy and turn him into an anime girl or something
I think it's insulting that the playable characters all have light skinned complexions, but the Eremites all have diversity and different types of skin tones represented through them like white, tanned, black, pale and fair skinned
@@KakfkaLover but my question is why does their race matter? Why should the colour of Cyno and Candace's skin colour matter? Surely if they are still well-written characters people can overlook their skin colour. People don't like Zhongli or Diluc because they're white guys or in Zhongli's case having a different skin tone than Chinese people, they like them because of who they are. A characters race should not be their defining trait, it should be how they're written and who they are that matters. And Teyvat even if based on the real world, is still a fictional universe, Genshin is documenting the history and world of Teyvat, not our world
@Kamen Rider Natsu I actually don't have a problem with Cyno's skin color, though. Even if Anubis was black in the mythology, he was still fictional, unlike Kandake (or Candace). Do I wish Cyno skin was darker though? Sure. Dehya was based on a real person to but that's a whole other and completely different conservation for another day. Also, a big part and draw of Genshin is about real world races taken into a fantasy, so race actually does matter to their story. It's the reason Mihoyo hired actual Middle Eastern and black people to voice their Sumeru characters because they wanted it to feel authentic to actual people from those cultures that inspired it. I and many others are not asking to literally be a documentary of the real world we're simply asking for it to have the same amount of representation that other games in the genre do. You can't just take some parts of the culture that you like and leave behind the ones you don't because that's called racism dude.
Doesn't help that all the "darker skinned" characters are actually extremely terrible characters to use, so even if they are well written, which I think they are actually there's no reason to ever use them though because that's all they're ever going to have going for for them
When I first heard about people 'fixing art', I was like "ok"
Now I'm like "what the fuck".
at first i thought it was honest criticism.. now i'm like fuuuckk.
I like when people actually put effort in redesigning these characters, not just simply recoloring their skin and called it a day. And calling it fixing is also weird because it seems to saying that certain skin tone is better than the other ones
That's true
this!!! i think it’s really nice when I get to see people’s takes on characters or them projecting themselves or people they know onto characters
Tbh I like seeing reinterpretations...as long as the artist isn't obnoxious about it like "I'm better than Hoyo, my design is superior and anyone who says otherwise is racist."
Because I've seen them and they're exhausting and obnoxious. Instantly ruins the work, no matter how good it is.
Lmao in genshin Sumeru characters that are light-skinned are from the rainforest which is basically Persia and the characters that are tanned are from the desert which is basically Egypt. Also these folks forget that representation is not only about skin colour and genshin is actually good at representing cultures, mythology and stuff
I’d like to see a video done on the character Genshin just released, Candace. People are claiming that she needs to be darker since she’s based off the Kandakes who usually have dark skin. I’m currently in the middle and am not sure what to believe. Personally, I think her design is fine and doesn’t have to fit the references exactly. I’d like to see a logical, well-informed perspective on it.
no that false im egyptien (بور سعيد)
It's true Candace us based on a black skin African person. While she doesn't need to be one to one to real life it would have been a start to make her as darker skinned as someone in the game like the NPC or the Eremites. Especially since Lesser Lord Kusanali / Nahida is based on a white skinned fairly so Mihoyo actually keep her skin color accur to the real life story that directly inspired her creation
If I could throw my own thoughts into the mix, I think Candeace's design is fine. I wish she could be a bit darker but it's fine. Same with Cyno.
My problem is that Genshin overall has lack of body design in their playable characters. It's true, that there are people of all skin tones all over the world. Is very self evident that it's true. My problem comes from the fact that the dark skin character models are your enemies. And the character line for one of them is a lighter fairer skin one breaking away from their group.
It's not so much that I believe their character designs themselves are problematic but more how they handle diversity itself.
I'm actually afraid for Khanria because if they are even remotely similar in skin tone to Kaeya, then we really are having ourselves fight the "Undesirable" looks compared to our fair skin, youthful, gorgeous counter part. Which is probably a problem when they released Xiynyan, bless her soul people just do not play her, me included cause I don't play Genshin that much for the reasons stated about.
Great character deign, horrible diversity politics and ethics.
@@xenrusxenomorph2268 What you say makes sense, but from theories I’ve heard, I don’t think Khaenrians will be darker skinned. There have been notes in Genshin relating to Khaneriah citizens and describing them as fair-skinned with light hair and blue eyes. We see some evidence of this with Dainsleif and Chlothar.
But where does Kaeya come into all this? Well, Khaenriah is located underneath Sumeru, and the majority of darker-skinned characters that we have met hail from Sumeru. Furthermore, we don’t know anything about what Kaeya’s father looked like nor do we know anything about his mother.
The theory I mentioned earlier assumes that Kaeya’s father married a darker-skinned woman from Sumeru, which is why Kaeya has darker skin. Also, since Kaeya does not have pure Khaenriah blood, that would explain why he’s not cursed like the hilichurls or even Dainsleif. So, I don’t think Hoyoverse will incriminate darker-skinned people by giving the people of Khaenriah dark skin.
Ohh that's fair. I didn't know that lore. Kaeya being mixed is also interesting. I thought he was just a lucky one who didn't happen to have been affected by the curse.
And honestly I blame myself and Mihoyo less for their lack of diversity if it wasn't for the fact that weebs and genuine trash will defend it and even criticize features on others that are darker skin.
The fact of the matter is that whether or not Mihoyo is colorist is drowned out by the fact that the game is not only predatorily monetized but sells money that could buy Switzerland.
Their lack of diversity sells because it's just what their audience wants. Because they have voted with their wallet. So out enemies are the fatties that only care about food, the muscular thugs that want to take out money, the cocky faceless samurai that are muscular and beefy, and the literal dark skinned desert dwelling theives.
Again, because above all else, diversity just doesn't sell with them, and that's the truth.
I personally feel that Genshin Impact does has a diversity issue. There is almost no diversity in heights, muscle mass, builds or weight which gets rather repetitive over time. I would also like to see a wider variety of skintones, not because character XYZ should be this or that colours, but because I just want to see more unique and interesting designs.
Its a lot of work to add new models to the game, thats why they only use the same base for tall, medium, small and child
In terms of shape, I think that’s because it’s convenient to reuse models, that’s quite a common thing to do. And ya I agree it would be cool to see more diverse characters designs.
Although it would be nice to see more skin tones or even other body shapes:
At the end of the day it’s literally just a video game that’s fictional and isn’t suppose to represent reality in any way. I would say just let them do whatever they want- they’re the ones putting the effort into *their* game and none of this should be enforced onto them; especially because Genshin isn’t suppose to depict reality at all (, not to mention the fact Genshin is *free* . You have the free choice to play the game and this is not a scenario where you’ve bought the game to play it- therefore you shouldn’t have expectations to force this on the already hard working team of developers that have put the game out there for no money at all. It’s like if a random person gave you a gift: you shouldn’t complain or tell them what to give you next time; they’ve given it for free, so take it or leave it. Similarly, if you have a problem with the game, then quit and stop nagging on Twitter).
I love genshin, but id like to mention another Chinese game. Dislyte. The characters in that game is so diverse when it comes to skin colour and weight/body build.
So sometimes when people say "Theyre only doing this to please asian people" how come another chinese company can be more inclusive?
Dont get me wrong I love the characters in game, and I do think "fixing" art is just straight up disrespectful. But I just hope there'd be more diversity with the characters...
I do agree, Most of Hoyoverse's adventure RPGs (Honkai Impact 3rd, Honkai Star Rail, Zenless Zone Zero) Have diverse and different models.
I think models are limited because Genshin is a wide open world game with lots and lots of characters compared to the other games. It's probably the most flexible game where you can probably spam attacks.
Honkai Impact the 3rd has many different characters but all of them are the same characters, just different kits.
e.g, Fu Hua - Azure Empryea, Herscherr of Sentience
Azure Empryea is a Fire support
Herscherr of Sentience is a Physical Support
Honkai Star rail is a turn based game and it does have an open world element on it. It does have many models than Genshin has and I'm pretty of sure they would just reuse them. It's less flexible than Genshin because you can't really just attack freely.
Zenless Zone Zero is very diverse and I'm not really sure what kind of gameplay it has since I only saw few videos of it. I would expect it to be like Honkai Impact the 3rd though.
6:31 Call me crazy but as a black artist who already hates blackwashing, this is ASTOUNDINGLY conservative compared to some of the things I've seen on Twitter. Seriously, I don't even know if this is decent or if my eyes have seen so many dumpster fires that a trash fire doesn't look as bad.
I rlly liked the edit, and most of the genshin edits honestly! I rlly hate when people say they "fixed" it, but the edits and drawings are generally rlly cute!
@@Venusflytrap-f2z i agree on that, some are cute, but i do hate the fact that they just change the colorskin and that's it. They don't even try to make it aesthetically pleasing, and to respect the color palette.
@@fatherlessdiluc3249 The colors of her clothes are on the cool spectrum and the saturation of the skin is very red/warm so it clashes so hard... it doesn't accentuate and compliment each other. Idk that's how I see it.
In real world fashion there are specialists that help match colors for you to wear to accentuate your skin color or else you'll look like you're wearing a goofy neon sign.
Exactly like, if youre trying to put effort into "fixing" smth, at least make it suit the rest of the color palette 😭
I love how two years later, these same people are back again for "Ethno-Wars 2: Electric Boogaloo." They also have no idea how a boycott works, which just makes the whole thing even more hilarious.
Fun fact: black washing is way more frequent than white washing on twitter
stop acting like white people are oppressed, you yts want to act like victims so bad
@@fluffy777aye Struck a nerve there 😂
I genuinely don't think that people who make blackwashing edits do it with bad intentions (most of time).
@@Lyliizz really? It's twitter bro get a grip, it's almost always for some woke white knight bullshit
@@jeezers white people pretending to be victims? it does annoy me
You'd think they learn from that Knuckles fanart 'fix' but a lot of people on twitter are like Sideshow Bob repeatedly walking into rakes and wondering why their face hurts so much.
As a genshin player I 100% would enjoy greater skin tone diversity and I don't think anyone should be shamed for desiring that. However, as a Chinese company, aren't they beholden to specific laws about beauty? Like character exports have to follow the beauty ideal. I get the impression that even if the developers did make characters of darker skin tones (more than tan anyway) then they would be required to white wash them later for the Chinese version. And that's a whole other kettle of fish.
Edit: I am well aware of colourism in Asian countries that have a long history, and understand that paler skin has kinda always been the desired thing due to classism. I just knew that China had ideals that had affected genshin stories and character designs before, and had heard of exports having to fit a mold. I also heard about hoyoverse possibly moving out of Shanghai to avoid these requirements. Of course, it's hard to say what's true and what is just anti China propaganda. To clarify, I'm not saying that any devs are racist or anything, I know it's a completely different culture, and even though colourism is obviously bad, marketing wise it makes sense to pander to that. I think the company is doing a great job character design wise and 'fixing' it is just rude and isn't solving anything. I don't see anything wrong with having more diversity down the line, especially as this region has heavy Persian empire influences (which would have contained a wide range of types of people), as long as they aren't darker for the sake of being darker. Apologies if I caused offence by not understanding the way China manage their exports and media!
Not sure but culturally lighter skin is more appealing
"as a Chinese company, aren't they beholden to specific laws about beauty?" - Nope not legally but socially yes, many Asian countries have little cultural and societal interaction nor interest in POC it's just how their society has developed which to many of us in EU and the west is absurd. Change happens when you force it too, you want more ethnicity from a primarily Asian focused company then say it loudly too them and the community they cater.
Specific laws? I don’t think you really do know a thing about China. There are definitely no laws against using darker skin tones but obviously if Genshin really wanted to cater towards Eastern Asia’s beauty standards for marketable purposes that’s entirely possible- however again, there are *no* restrictions regarding what skin tones they want to put into the game. It’s just about whether they care about how marketable the characters are.
if anything, this loud crowd makes asian companies want to AVOID western market and AVOID making poc characters because then everything becomes an issue. look at cookie run and how often their fandom blows up over stupid stuff- like concept art of some character potentially having darker colors but not making it to the final draft. its one thing to voice your disappointment, another thing to OUTRIGHT call the devs racist and anti-black on their own damn creative decisions.
folks should make their own shit and engage the market into accepting diversity through effort, not hostility and name calling. for example, pokemon sword/shield having more diverse characters definitely introduced some asian players to the diversity that's common in the uk and other european countries. fans went crazy over raihan because the devs put so much love into designing and animating him rather than make him just the color of his skin.
I don’t think it’s a law, it’s actually the Asian beauty standard. White, small, thin, big eyes, pretty, etc. Asian people still appeal on this standard, so I think MHY tried to used these as marketable purposes in Asia. The clothes and stuffs as well, what would make people around ‘here’ want to buy it.
I would love to see these people make ocs for these fandoms... it would show what their thoughts and ideas are!
And it helps a fandom strife as well even more when your oc's are interacting with those characters of the fandom!
It's interesting I'm literally drawing a black skinned oc :) I'm not mad I just wanted to add this
I think the designs are somewhat problematic, but I wish people would give feedback directly to Hoyoverse, because all I've seen is just people harrassing the VAs and sending people death threats.
Please educate yourself to some background context before drawing to assumptions. The sumeru region is split into two: rainforest and desert. Many of the rainforest characters, which are those that happened to be complained "white-washed" actually fit along with their environments and vocations; collei working as a forest ranger, lurking in the shades of giant trees. Those that spend more time in the desert naturally have a darker shade of skin color such as Alhaitham and Deyha.
Whats problematic is the ppl that think so tbh. Its all really nice designs
@@shikaining1738 never said they were offensive and evil bruv
@@shikaining1738 in all fairness there are forest/ jungle like areas in the Middle East/ west Asian sector and the people who live there are still pretty dark, also Sumeru is a rain forest, they are extremely warm climates where even deep in the thickets the sun is intense leading to tanner people ALA Latin and South America, I’m against this wack art fixing but I won’t deny that the complaints from Genshins cosplay community of wanting more Middle Eastern looking characters does have its weight, I also think people should not give Mihoyo the props they are given cause they have done some blatantly offensive portrayals of certain things, Inazuma in general is a great design wise but narratively it’s such a blatant jab are Japans not so good history with China, along with Xinyan being “a simple country girl” which is a slang used a lot to darker skinned people in China
@@stevelopez6957 you also have to consider though that again...it's a fictional world. Doesn't matter if rainforest areas in real life have tan people, because that's apparently not how it works in Sumeru. The rainforest area is actually the place with advanced civilisation, while the desert area is left underdeveloped. There's an obvious contrast between the two areas for the sake of their world and story, unlike in real life where it's whatever
Why would a Chinese company care about representation? It's not as if American opinions on representation matter to them
lmaooo i just kept thinking about this while reading comments on twitter
idk I just feel like china's colorism isn't cool and like ... they know this game is enjoyed world-wide.
I live in one of the whitest states in America, but I still like drawing dark skinned people... probably because colorism isn't a huge part of my culture like it is in china... maybe.
America has the same problem with colorism. Black hair not being seen as "professional" or "appealing". That doesnt mean its okay ignore the black population. Same with China. They shouldnt ignore darker skin ton asians while also stealing their culture for profit.
@@neu_dae they know the Game is enjoyed worldwide they also dont care about our politics, they sell us a product, ir we dont like It we dont buy It, and It aplies with everything
And? That doesn’t mean it’s ok for them to be racist and colorist just because they are Chinese
I have actually seen a lot of SWANA people point out the outfits. Skin tones is a separate issue, but if you look at the small pink girl (her name is Dori) her outfit is very orientalist. That's the main complaints I've seen, the orientalism of it all. Especially seeing the orientalism which is often viewed sexually by foreigners on a child's body.
But I also do wish they had a wider range of skin tones, it just makes things look nicer in my opinion. Also, everyone deserves some representation, and China has a bit of an issue with making all the skin tones pale (based on my understanding, i could be wrong)
But the outfits were never meant to be a accurate rep of the culture. None of the liyue, inazuma or mondstadt have accurate clothes. Venti, diluc, Jean and ningguang are the only ones I can think of that aren’t just made up stuff. Ganyu is wearing two pieces of cloth, zhonglis clothes are modern, shenhe is wearing a bodysuit, and all the inazuma characters are wearing some weird form of kimono or samurai armor. All of the outfits are taking certain stereotypical points of something and putting a twist on it.
@@pewpewpew1834 yeah, the people I've seen complaining about Dori's outfits also complain about other outfits
@@pewpewpew1834 orientalism is racist too
@@librartist4989 Source : Trust me bro
@@N5FX ....? I'm not trying to argue or debate. Just pointing out some stuff that I've seen while scrolling through Twitter. I did end with "From my understanding, I could be wrong."
I’m from Middle East and I was so happy to see sumeru everything about it is so cool the music the food the names I love it and we have all skin Colors but the way genshin fans acting is so embarrassing…
Honestly my biggest complaint with genshin (as a regular player) is the lack of variety with skin tones in general. To be more specific how there are only two tones of skin color(though sumeru’s desert characters are more diverse). There was only pasty white or chocolate brown for like two characters. There is a lot of variety of shades with every race and ethnicity, which I think genshin is moving towards. It was not good for a while but with the newest and the updates to come I see a lot of improvement. Even amongst ethnicities that are seen as “White” they are not all the shade of paper. Some are, but skin tones are varied and are not black and white. Anyway I don’t agree with the changing of existing characters, but so variety would be appreciated.
Dude, I honestly really like your takes on these topics, as a digital artist myself who wants to learn more and grow, I really find these people horrible, it’s nice to see people give criticism that’s deserved for a change and not just “oh they’re bad grrrr”. Keep up the good work!
the worst part of those people is,, they see themselves as the basic standard for all. if anyone insult a black people, that's indeed racism. but if any movie any game don't show black, it's not racism at all. because not all country have people black, not all movie book game need black character in its story. it has nothing to do with racism. and I always wonder, why personal preference would be juded as racism or not. for example, I don't like gay, I get along well with my gay friend. I never show any disrespect to amy gay person. but if I say i don't like gay to others, they will accuse me for discrimination. it's ridiculous. i don't like spicy food i don't like noisy people i don't like many things, it has nothing to do with racism. back to these genshin blacked character, those people tamper others design and accuse for racism, it's wrong
As an Indian myself, I would say Sumeru charecter designs aren't as offensive as these stupid people are making it to be.
Art is a subjective topic. Genshin Impact is an artwork in the end and if you don't like the character, just don't play.
Well it look like the community doesn't know what Arabs look like and how many arabic country actually exist . Just the fact that the map is in a forest and not in a desert should make people understand but no .
@@holypopyhave you ever googled how people in rainforests actually look like?
This take is coming from an Arab,i can honestly see where these people are coming from,i DONT support making characters darker and calling it “fixing”,but i can understand their frustration,Sumeru is based of the Middle-East for the most part,a part where it consists of mostly dark skinned people,and only a couple few of the revealed characters have even slightly brown skin,so I definitely see where they are coming from
however,the way they express their frustration is not the way to do it,and it doesn’t help us,at all.
Mihoyo is set in China,where the beauty standards are rather colourist,and it always has been this way for decades,so what do we expect from mihoyo in this case? a very minuscule amount of diversity,im not saying every chinese company follows the beauty standards,but Mihoyo definitely does from what we are seeing.
this is not even about adding dark-skinned characters for representation,this is about adding dark-skinned characters because thats what they SHOULD be doing,atleast with Sumeru,an area based on the Middle East,where its occupied by mainly dark skinned people.
so,do these people have a right to be frustrated? yes. but are they doing the right thing by recolouring existing characters and calling it “fixing”? no.
Unless they are wearing SPF 5000 long exposure to the harsh sun in hard on skin. Though these are the same people who had a tantrum that Rami Malek, an ethnically Egyptian man, was too white to play an Egyptian Pharaoh in Night at the Museum
@@clarehidalgo
yeah, a lot of people don't realize the Mediterranean areas are extremely diverse. In the USA atleast, it's a stereotype that Egyptians HAVE TO BE GOLDEN BROWN, due to USA movies and other stereotypes from 'ancient human aesthetic' movies that don't represent the culture at all.
I do wish hoyoverse atleast would have designed characters with different hues, if they choose to make them pale. Skin of any melanin amount can be more red/pink, yellow/green, or blue/grey.
For example, genetically greek skin can be very pale, but it has a different texture and hue compared to genetically German skin. I have a more yellow hue than my mom's pinker skin, so even though my dad is brown I know I have my dad's velvet texture skin type, just with my mom's paler pigment. Because of this combo tho... I can't tan in the sun like either of them can, I just burn lol.
And with all the xenophobia in greece, I can certainly say there IS skin tone diversity. I even see fashion colorism more prominent in the last decade or so. :( straightening curly hair and dying it bleach blonde, lightening skin with makeup, nose jobs, is more and more common.
Imo, if a country of artistic inspiration has all kinds of skin tones, there should atleast be one representation of the darker tones, and one representation of the lighter tones, in my opinion. In fact, why not just look up population reports, and in theory: "ok there are a lot of darker skin tones in Brazil, more than 50% are of African descent, so let's create more than one character to have darker skin for the Genshin Brazil region." Lol...
Lots of people are sick of colorism irl and in media, so I personally understand the "i fixed it" anger. Yeah it's rude but Genshin is a multimillion dollar franchise, not some small artist, so as a consumer to company i think its okay to loudly criticise colorism in a brand that specifically designs "beautiful characters" so they can earn money from gatcha gambling (predatory gambling in games is a whole other issue, but you get my point).
Pale skin isn't more beautiful than dark skin. Dark skin isn't more beautiful than pale skin. There are so many beautiful color pallets out there to choose from when making a character. I think fanart that reinterprets character is fun, and can be really interesting in designs and a good design study to do as an artist to improve skills.
Even the edits of changing skin/hair type in SOME cases can be great reference/inspiration for cosplayers.
I think edits only becomes an issue when stereotypes are enforced on a design by people who don't understand that culture.
Speaking of, the "Arabian princess" aka "belly dancer" outfit is extremely stereotyped, coming from the hypersexualization and REAL cultural appropriation of traditional dances found in and around Africa. In fact, Raqs sharqi is the real name for the Egyptian 'belly dance' you might be familiar with. Raqs Sharqi is a highly respected dance that many professionals travel to Egypt to learn. In Raqs sharqi and other sister dances have specific cultural significance, and within events and daily life are often danced fully clothed with plain clothing, with some specific dances only to be danced by women around women as a form of freedom of expression. seriously though calling raqs sharqi a belly dance is like saying ballet is leg dancing... lol.
So yeah there ARE some negative stereotypes in the character clothing designs... it's not JUST the skin tones.
Sumeru has two parts though, a flush forest and then theres the desert part.
And Hoyoverse has indeed never confirmed what regions represent what IRL
The characters they made are accurate according to genshin lore atleast from what i see.
The white characters spend most of their time in the forest, whereas the darker skinned character called Dehya grew up in the desert
The problem is NOT just skintones, it's orientalism in general. Sumeru is based on the middle east and north africa. As a person from there, I can assure you skin tone is not the only problem with these designs. They're inspired by orientalist stereotypes - i.e. made up stereotypes by the west to make the SWANA area seem less developed and in need of saving. Orientalism includes made up clothing, culture and all other kinds of stereotypes - that's where the bellydancer outfit every arab character in videogames has. Not only is it stereotypes but hypersexualization of the culture. Skintones are an issue yes, but also orientalism. You can read Edawrd Said's "Orientalism" book to understand.
But these twitter art fixers obviously don't give a fudge about this either or else they would be changing it too.
And the skin tone issue is mainly what we are discussing right now, because that's what people are focused on.
Sumeru is also based on india
I mean, they kinda did this as well with Liyue and Inazuma and the company is China based.
I think it mostly is just simplifying and cute-ifying for masses. Like. Say, Ganyu doesn't look like a traditional qilin. Also spirit-hunter Chongyun isn't even given full time explanation about this part of their culture. Idk, that's how it looks for me at least.
(And yeah as a real-life Snezhnaya resident i did have some complaints but kinda realised it's mostly because i associate the fictional world to the real one too much)
This. Even is we get characters with darker skintones, it doesn't erase the orientalist depictions that are already there. It also kind of bothers me how Sumeru is just a mashup of many completely different cultures (SWANA, SA and SEA) while Liyue and Inazuma aren't, and see ? The depiction of the cultures these regions take inspiration from isn't as bad (about Monstadt, it is also a mix of multiple countries, european here, but it is mostly Germany, though the german representation is barely there or not that well done ngl). I am not surprised by how they handled the designs of Sumeru so far, but it doesn't make the situation any better.
"Our expectations were low but holy fuck"
@@miyulymana They even included SEA ?? Holy shit this region is a mess... Wish hoyo put more effort and love into this region, just like they did with inazuma/liyue. Also yeah mondstadt kinda sucks in that aspect too but it feels more inspired by western fantasy in general than germany so it isn't /as/ bad if you know what I mean. It's more like, this type of fantasy is written by European authors sometimes so it doesn't feel like the same problem.
TBH , I wouldn't want something like Genshin Impact representing my culture but that's just a personal thing.
I can empathize with the people who want representation though -- but *FIXING ART IS ALWAYS BAD FAITH* unless the artists asks for it to be "fixed".
Make your own Darker Skin characters using the visual library that inspires the official character.
I know its cynical to ask people who have been absent or relegated to side roles throughout pop-cultures history to work harder for Representation.
but the odds of this company patching in a darker skin onto another character is about the same as them integrating a Fan Character for representation.
--
So the way I see it is : it's better for the community and for people who want representation to make up their own characters and float them around the Discord and Reddits to get one of them into the game , rather than asking for a patch to make characters darker that is just going to upset a bunch of reactionaries who will (in-turn) make their demands...
They can literally do the same thing without being toxic as hell, it is called "making an AU / OC"
Teyvat OCs are so common, no idea why they don’t just run wild with the pretty Sumeru motifs.
Yall need to stop thinking they represent you or your country in any way because its all just INSPIRED and not the actuall country. Yall are trippin istg. They can take any part and put it in the game and you have 0 rights to complain about it. They can do a middle eastern themed country and make them all pale af. And do you know why? Bc its a game. Its fictional. Its a whole fucking fantasy world and its not even playing on planet earth. STOP BEING CRINGE. Do something usefull and fight for black rights IRL and not by wasting time on twitter.
ifbyoubwant representation. make your own damn game .
As a middle eastern person myself I honestly don’t have a problem with the characters sure i do wish Mihoyo would add more representation but the whole art fixing isn’t doing any good, sumeru is a fictional region that takes inspiration from the middle east and other places They aren’t trying to make it exactly like the places it’s inspired by, it’s just really funny to me how most of the people who are complaining are not even middle eastern 😭 its okay to be upset but dont talk on the behalf of others or claim you made something better 😭😭 anyways thats just my side it’s totally fine if you think differently.
2:40
pretty sure its something like this:
Mondstadt: Germany
Liyue: China
Inazuma: Japan
Sumeru: South Asia, Middle Eastern, Northern African
Fontaine: France
Natlan: Indigenous America, Spain
Snezhnaya: Russia
Also as someone who plays as Dori most, i love her design and although Genshin should make some darker-toned characters, people shouldn't be changing the skin tones to how they see fit like the did with Candace aswell, drawing her with a much, much darker tone of skin than she actually has & claiming it to be the 'fixed' version.
My only issue with race swapping is if it's done with characters who are canonically POC already. You see it mostly in anime fandoms and adjacent ones like Genshin and it irritates me. Especially when they say they do it to piss off white people when they're more likely to piss off East Asians if anything.
There is no exception for any other races. As an Asian, I feel no necessity to race-swapping characters at all. It doesn't matter if the pre-existing character is white or Asian. It's still very dumb as hell.
"they do it to piss off white people" the problem is the fact that they're white too...
Doing x to piss of y is petty on its own
I kinda feel pressured to put black characters into my story (my characters are asian) bc of people like this. I tried adding in a black character into my story for "representation" and then I was like "Wait, my characters are a minority". People really do forget that not all white-skinned people are white.
Don't feel pressured. You don't have to black people in your story if you do not wish to.
@@kev95 I know but I still feel pressure.
Don't, do the story you want to tell. That's where your artistics authenticity is at.
(My opinion as a black person) Adding a black character because you feel pressured to isn't really good representation. Its tokenism, which can be worse. Imo, if you're adding a black character out pressure rather then because you have a idea for a character that adds to your story, its better to just not. I mean, there exist many many many stories where black people aren't represented, so please don't worry about it.
The worst part is that Genshin has dark characters and you can ask for more.
If you promote the actual dark characters they will make more.
Tysmmmm... I'm definitely subscribing. I do agree that theres not many coloured characters and I like that people are speaking out about that. But when it comes to this level then I'm just disgusted. And it pisses me off so much when people say "hoyo is racist" no it isn't?? They're trying. There aren't many but people need to get it in their mind that nothing is going to change for them.💀
The part I hate most is always when the people who are upset aren't even the ones who should be offended and the ones who supposedly should be offended are just fine with it.
Exactly.
While most of the world can't even tell Japanese, Koreans, & Chinese apart, Chinese can & are notoriously racist against other Asians, including indigenous non-Han Chinese. (Mostly an issue with the elderly & communist conservatives like the Little Pinks). & that's why asking for representation from Chinese games (at least until the CCP is dismantled) is a fruitless cause.
asians typically have racism against each other due to the sheer nature of their history and proximity to each other, but like you said, it's mostly due to the older generations carrying past grudges.
I was really hoping we would get a bit of diversity in color for Sumeru. The designs are really cute tho and maybe we will get some color for some npc's? I do get a bit shocked because some of them dont even look white, they look like they have straight up never seen the sun kind of white.
I have seen a lot of really cute fanart where Sumeru characters have darker skin, just wondering if that is seen as rude or bad to do? Because honestly i would like to draw Dori (the girl with purple and pink) a bit darker skinned.
I feel to reimagine a character is perfectly valid! To say you "fixed it" Is where the issue stems from, just don't preface it with superiority(?) I guess?? Idk you do you as long as it's not hurting nobody :)
I don't think they have seen the sun literally bc in the event where we encounter Scaramouche we find out that the sky is fake so the sun would be fake as well so they can't get tanned anymore than someone would get tanned from a giant LED light. But then again Scaramouche could have just been messing with us the entire time.
Bro, natlan is exist, jus waiting for natlan region and your dream representation is come true
@@fumiko203 and when that doesn't happen? Also, dark skinned people are not interchangeable 😬
@@fumiko203 we were also told before sumeru release to wait for the region to come out bc then we would have some rep and then look what happened
I personally would like more dark skinned characters, but I know they're a company that is based in the East, so I'm only expecting 3-7, but I think there's a lot of potential! Darker skin could really make certain characters stand out, as well as providing some rep! Hoyoverse makes great character designs, but imagine how a different skin tone could really make an outfit pop!
But still, don't "fix" characters. I don't feel like I should have to say that, but ye.
I rarely draw Dark skinned character not because I don't like their Skin tones, but because I need to make them "Look good" as a show of respect to them, the "Fixing" art on Twitter doesn't seem to show an ounce of Respect to the skin tone changes like the majority of the time, while some I have seen looks pretty good, it would be better for them to make their own OC's for Genshin rather than taking and editing a character.
9:39 for me i think people are forgetting the nations are Based of and not a copy of culture
Fans don’t want to admit that this game doesn’t like dark skin so bad any excuse
What I kinda don’t understand your comment
@asu idk about not liking
4:15 fun fact none of those characters actaully spend time in the desert- dori (the purple one) usually spends most of her time trying to make mora (money) while collei and tighnari spend most of there time in the forest (with a sort of park ranger job apart from in the forest) covered by trees, characters like dehya, cyno and candace the one who are from/ live in the desert have darker skin tones- I know genshin doesn't have a lot of representation and I'm not saying its a good thing but still.
I was in pinterest and i saw a picture of furina black washed and when i told them you cant just do that they said who's gonna stop me?
Honestly the art and in game stuff of sumeru has made me a little more interested and open to learning about some cultures i never really gave much thought about. I’m sure i’ll feel that way about the future regions, i felt that way about China with Liyue.
2:33 i will happily do this for you^^ So we'll start of with Mondstadt, it is the City of Freedom and it is based of Germany. Mondstadt is ruled by Barbatos AKA Venti, who is the Anemo Archon. The next place is Liyue and their Archon is the Geo Archon who is one of the oldest is Morax or zhongli as some other people know. And it is based of China. Next, we have Inazuma, the Land of Eternity and the most hostile region. It is ruled by the Electro Archon Raiden Shougun AKA Ei. It is based of my dream country to visit, Japan. Sumeru which is a mix of a beautiful forest and desert, is ruled by their Dendro Archon (my fav!), Nahida AKA Kusanali, and is based off the SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) regions. Next we have the unreleased Map called Fontaine, the Hydro Archons name is still yet unknown, but the region is suspected to be based off France. Then, we have Natlan, it is not knows much but this is the central ideal place of war. The Pyro Archon of natlan is named Murata which Venti said that they can be pretty obnoxious, and said to be based off Spanish or West African Cultures. Lastly we have Snezhnaya, goverened by the Cryo Archon, the Tsaritsa. This region has the strongest military force, from which the Fatui originates. It is reportedly a mix of Russia and Italy. (if i got anything wrong please let me know, i got all of these from a website sooo thx for reading^^)
Already saw people on tiktok being rude and saying shit about this guy. It’s his opinion. If your opinion matters so much, why can’t his? It’s clear in these comments a lot of poc people also don’t like the edited pictures of some of these characters. Not everyone will like the same thing as you, and you need to learn to grow up and stop acting like children and being chronically online, genshin twitter and tiktok, cause this is getting ridiculous.
we need a sequel to this video now for the Natlan controversy. cause its hilarious how bad this silly little boycott failed.
REAL
I think it just calls attention more to an underlying issue that there are still very much colorist ideals. Because the main argument that people are trying to make about the Sumeru characters is that “While not everyone has a darker skin tone, it doesn’t hurt to add more considering what Sumeru is based on”. There was a chart made for this comparing every characters skin tone before, and out of a range of all the characters so far it’s just less than 10 that have visibly darker skin, and even then it’s just a similar shade to each other.
It also gets messy when you consider that people say that they were mixing both Middle East and South Asian culture for this, only causing some arguments to become more messy given that there are some people who argue whether certain designs are Orientalist or not.
And while MHY is specifically a Chinese company, you also have to consider that they made this game available worldwide, and that they gave it to the branch of “Hoyoverse” to expand to a wider audience worldwide. And the argument that people are making is that if they were truly practicing what they preach, then a color palette change would probably be one of the easier things. But even if they are originating as a Chinese company there are still games like Dislyte, which is also made by a Chinese company and has at least 20 more varying skin tones than Genshin.
While it doesn’t hold the same weight as whitewashing, I do understand though that blackwashing characters isn’t an immediate fix to the problem. There are some redesigns that are actually very enjoyable though! There are people who have done an outfit change for Nahida to which I’ve seen some people who were South Asian players comment on some great aspects of the design that do accurately represent their culture. And don’t get me wrong, I love the majority of Genshin’s designs, it’s just disheartening to hear the outcry of people because they feel as if they’re not being represented properly.
Thank you. Nahida redesigns make me really happy as a south asian because they make her so beautiful.
Between the ambiguity of Sumeru's cultural inspirations, intense sentiments from art _"fixers"_ like this one and ignorance towards genuine pleas from South Asian/Middle Eastern players, it's difficult ascertain a common ground to tackle the broader issue of representation. I don't believe Genshin is blameless, neither are the art fixers or those vehemently lashing out against POC's legitimate point of views regarding Sumeru. The only thing I can take solace in are the South Asian and Middle Eastern artists out there, creating their own renditions of characters in Sumeru by gifting them cultural traits inherent to the knowledge generated from personal experiences in whatever cultural identities they believe Sumeru best portrays
Yeah! i’ve mostly seen very odd darker redesigns that just look plain bad. But then i’ve also seen some absolutely amazing culturally accurate designs too! I really wish genshin would add more diversity but at the same time it’s a very dumb thing to fight about lol. I think the main problem is the idea of “fixing” the original design and just plain bad art lol.
2:32 as a person who played the game for almost 2 years now i can explain what each nation is based off of
Mondstat- Germany
Liyue- china
sumeru- south asia/india/egypt
inazuma- Japan
fontaine- France
i don't know whagt Natlan is based off of since it hasn't been release yet.
also btw, i do recommend playing the game, regarding the controversies. yes, the community may be toxic but trust me, there are plenty of really nice people
also i forgot to mention. the character you are mentioning in 6:25 actually has a tittle of being the most hated gneshin impact character in the entire game. yes, even 90% of the fanbase hate her for some reason, i honestly don't know why. Her name is Dori btw
Somebody in twitter called me (bootlicker) and (kuffer?) just because i didnt agree with them that semuru is problematic, then blocked me 💀 im arab btw :(
Sounds like twitter, sorry yoo had to go thorug that. People on twitter are just hypocrites.
yea...
expect that from the bad eggs of the community, a lot are just entitled , self-righteous pieces of garbage
1 yeat late lol, all I have to tell you is just to drop twitter not saying you should but honestly the negativity of that app will really get to you, which is way I left it.
Came from Hero Hei. You are completely right.
These people always claim some sort of ist/ism/phobe when it comes to these things while, ironically, being those very same ist/ism/phobes they are so against.
As a middle eastren person, we have a variety of skin tones and colors here, I myself am a pale person, and well, it is a game after all, they did a good job in the clothes and how the area looks, but then again, it is a game, they took inspiration from a lot of places, unlike Liyue where it took from China, or Inazuma where it took from Japan or even Mondstat the starting place has inspiration from Germany, The middle east and Arabian countries are a big majority. They did their research as you can tell, and they did the art their own way, am just happy they took inspiration from my side of the world.
Edit: The characters are from the forest side of the Sumeru place, we still don't know much about the place and people are jumping the gun way too fast tbh.
Yes I have to agree, except for the clothing part. Like all regions in genshin, the characters clothing is terrible rep for the region but the NPCs represent them better.
@@kuonjibaskerville2411 There are some aspects of the clothing that are good, but the characters are like the protag of an anime, they want them to stand out, but yes, most of the NPCs are good too, even the names, they just butcher it when saying it in English which is sad-
@@narukoxfox lol yes…
TIE-nari 😭
@@kuonjibaskerville2411 The paaaain aaaaahhhh
THEY DID NOT JUST DO THAT TO MY BOY ZHONGLI!
As someone who’s from Japan, I understand the need for melanin in manga-styled games as especially where I lived, was quite colorist. That said, I feel as if it’s disrespectful to turn a tan East Asian to black and using blasians as an excuse as I see them as an oppressed minority within Japan. There’s already a lot of stigma about mixed children so I just find it rather insensitive when people do that.
I hate everyone who gets mad at a FICTIONAL GAME, for their FICTIONAL CHARACTERS. it is so childish, and besides do they really think hoyoverse will care?, Nope. You cant sue them. you cant change them. anything you do is a waste of finger typing
Exactly. Just DONT PLAY THE GAME if you don’t want white characters
Something I love is that Kaeya, Xinyan, Candace, Deyha, and Cyno all have slight differing shades of skin. It's not all one shade. I'd also like to mention Bennett and Rosaria. Bennett's skin tone is (I don't know exactly how to describe it) more tanned? not by much, but it's still noticeable. Rosaria has a grey-ish tint to her skin that really fits her character for a reason I can't explain, maybe it's the aesthetic? Anyway, my point is that yeah, representation matters, and there may be stereotypes, but the only reason people are getting angry is because of the regions being based on certain countries and incorperating certain cultures. The anger is directed towards "misrepresentation", and I can see why it can be so upsetting but regions aren't 1:1 replicas of what inspires them. People forget what "loosely based" means.
Rather than fixing art or feeling misrepresented, lets make our own games, shows and entertainment. Bashing others creative work is just lazy
thank you for talking about this. I'm white and whenever I bring this topc up, people don't take me seriously. I've been seeing this "fixing" everywhere and it gets annoying, especially when the ones doing it think they're doing god's work or something. It's complete bullshit, diversity in Genshin would be really cool, but changing skin tones of existing characters is just plain up useless and stupid.