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Postby Guy Nacks » Mon Jun 01, 2015 5:48 pm

View Original PostRay wrote:Goku! At his most powerful when he has blonde hair and blue eyes!




Why would Goku look Japanese in the first place? He's a fucking space alien.
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Postby Ray » Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:04 pm

@Donut
I bring this up because there's this jackass on another forum I used to frequent who defends to his dying breath that the Last Airbender, Ghost In The Shell, and Edge Of Tomorrow movies aren't racist. One of his biggest arguments in favor of this is him saying that the anime style is 'ethnically ambiguous' (M.Night Shyamalan used the same argument), and that anyone from any race can see themselves in the characters without having to be of that race and that casting white actors to play the characters in a live action film wasn't racist because of this.

I had to leave the forum because the admins couldn't ban him since he wasn't 'technically' breaking the rules, and he consistently bombarded the forum with holier than thou comments about how we were the idiots for saying Last Airbender was whitewashed when they cast more non-white people in the movie than the show ever did. (nevermind the fact that the movie sucked and all the people of color in the movie were little more than glorified scenery)

He also said that the people who created these properties didn't care about who they cast in the roles of their characters, because Japanese people are more tolerant and understanding of white people playing Asian roles than Asian American's are. In a more condescending prick tone, but that's essentially what he said.

Maybe if more Japanese people (or Asian people the world over in general) cared, we wouldn't have gotten DBE, Or Last Airbender, or this upcoming Ghost in the shell movie. Maybe we'd have as many Asian movie stars in American films as we do Black Actors.

Why aren't Japanese people speaking out against this bullcrap, don't they care about the image of Japan the rest of world sees through it's cinema and pop culture? Don't they care about Japanese people playing Japanese characters in movies based on their properties?

If you couldn't tell already, I'm firmly against whitewashing characters of color. Viscerally in fact, and the fact Japanese creators essentially whitewash themselves in their fiction doesn't help my argument for casting Asian actors as these characters in the movies based on them.

Oh, by the way. The studio that made Last Airbender is producing a Beyblade movie. I know they'll whitewash the cast for that.

I will now get off my soapbox and let the forum continue.

@Guy Nacks
Superman looks white because he crash landed in America and was created by and for Americans. Goku is Asian because he was made in Japan, and crash landed in a fantasy world based on China and Japan.
Last edited by Ray on Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Postby TehDonutKing » Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:10 pm

Red herring. Mukukoseki and whitewashing are unrelated.
/hj

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Postby pwhodges » Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:13 pm

Ray, have you even read either of those articles yet?
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Postby Dream » Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:21 pm

Man, my mother isn't the most avid anime watcher, but she never really commented much on the Mukokuseki characteristic of the characters beyond being intrigued and amused that they drew their characters with such big eyes considering asians have more slinted eyes (or whatever the word was, i don't remember it). She holds nothing less than massive admiration for the Japanese people and our family is overall pretty happy to have someone like my cousin's wife's family linked with ours.

Might have been a bit of a non-sense diggresion but what i think i partly meant with that is that people like my mom are the world... When someone says Japan they're far quicker to think of absolute devotion and "Samurai Spirit" or the many cultural gifts of the Sinosphere than of the worst excesses of Kawaii culture. I don't think a nation that created the Genji Monogatari should have anything to be anxious about in regards to their international image or cultural identity, despite what some elders might fear. Of course it could be argued that the Genji Monogatari isn't exactly pop culture but frankly i think that at the end of the day those things really don't matter all that much. Animu is just animu, i guess.

So yeah, i don't think drawing characters in a way that isn't exactly ethnic (they have been doing things as far back as the Tokugawa era btw) can really put much of a dent in YAMATO DAMASHI!!
Last edited by Dream on Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Kazuki_Fuse » Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:37 pm

Controversial question: is Ray the most vehement anti-white poster on EGF?
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Postby TehDonutKing » Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:39 pm

View Original PostKazuki_Fuse wrote:Controversial question: is Ray the most vehement anti-white poster on EGF?

Reminder, anti-racist is just another word for anti-white, revive the old south, imperialism is good for the economy, and Hitler liked dogs so he was a good person.
/hj

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Postby Bagheera » Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:51 pm

View Original PostKazuki_Fuse wrote:Controversial question: is Ray the most vehement anti-white poster on EGF?


Ray is white. He's just a white guy who recognizes that problems exist and is trying his best to confront and deal with them instead of pretending they're nothing to worry about. I don't usually agree with his conclusions, but at least he's making the effort. That's more than I can say for most.

Ray: You're completely wrong re: Japanese creators whitewashing themselves. Stop being so damn American and consider things from their point of view! The articles Paul linked are very illuminating, and you should read them and think about what they have to say before further working yourself up about this.
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Postby Ray » Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:56 pm

@Donut
Am I using the red herring or was he? They're more closely tied than you think.

@Pwhodges
I'm well aware of ethnic ambiguity /mukukoseki. I understand in Japan, Japanese is the default and they expect their audience to see the characters as Japanese by default. Unless the characters are clearly indicated to be of another race/ethnicity. But in America, not the case . . . Last Airbender took place in a setting inspired by Asia, and everything from the food they eat, to the writing, to the religion, were Asian inspired. Same with Dragon Ball.

When the movies were produced . . . they cast white people because everyone in charge assumed the characters were white. Why? Because they had big blue eyes and weren't stereotypically Asian in appearance. I see characters in an Asian inspired setting as Asian due to cultural context. But few who aren't a fan of anime see it that way, especially Hollywood producers. God forbid they see anything outside of the white gaze! If they don't have obvious ethnic markers, god forbid they be anything but white!

Because of this, in my art. I try to draw my characters to look at least a little vaguely ethnic. To obliterate in the mind of the viewer that they're white people. Because I hate how people instantly assume a character is white and jump head over heels to justify it despite all the friggin' context saying otherwise.

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God bless your mother.

@Kazuki

I have opinions. Those opinions step on the paradigm. The system that supports systematic denial of existence, accomplishment, privilege, and humanity for people of color by the film industry. I don't hate white people. I hate white people being the center of the universe in fiction. I hate how a character, an animated character in a Japanese cartoon created by a Japanese person is considered white until proven otherwise.

If Japanese people don't see their anime characters as white, then why doesn't Hollywood?
Last edited by Ray on Mon Jun 01, 2015 7:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Postby Nuclear Lunchbox » Mon Jun 01, 2015 7:35 pm

Probably doesn't help that we're white. Go read the articles, Ray. They're quite informational, and refute the majority of what you're saying in your posts, like that Japanese people perceive their own characters as Japanese even while we're assuming that they're white..

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Postby caragnafog dog » Mon Jun 01, 2015 7:55 pm

I think this has more to do with you than anything else, Ray.
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Postby Gob Hobblin » Mon Jun 01, 2015 11:33 pm

It's worth mentioning that Japan is one of the most racially homogenous countries on earth...and as a result, tend to have a really awful time demonstrating any sort of nuance or sensitivity towards other ethnic groups on a social level.
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Postby Mr. Tines » Tue Jun 02, 2015 1:23 am

From the start, Japanese animation was heavily influenced by inter-war Disney animation -- it's no exaggeration to say that Betty Boop is the ancestral big-eye small-mouth moe anime girl.

View Original PostNuclear Lunchbox wrote:When Japan wants to show Americans, they draw us differently.
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Postby Falcon_of_the_Sun » Tue Jun 02, 2015 2:45 am

View Original PostTehDonutKing wrote:Oh wow, so edgy and mature! Look at you with your contrarian opinion and baseless generalizations based on people you know nothing about! Makes you look so smart! Congratulations!


Still within the boundaries of not being completely serious, my rants are a matter of inductive reasoning starting from specimen of the Ghibli audience I have met first hand and I know well enough.

I think it's undeniable that the diffusion of Ghibli works goes well beyond what is the genuine, aware and dare I say well-read?, manga/anime audience. Given this, I don't think it's a far cry that this newly reached audience may well be rather clueless about what they are watching, hence the pretended enjoyment, the emperor's clothes-like praise and, ultimately, the overestimation of so much of that work's artistic value.

:devil:

I mean, I do know people who have been into anime/manga since age 10. they do like their Miyazaki stuff, but they don't put it on a pedestal unreachable by any other author.
Likewise, I do know people whose only knowledge of anime comes form Ghibli Studio stuff (whereas I don't know anybody who's so singularly into other anime directors or studios) and there goes the idolatry.

I mean, if you were to be heavily and reclusively into classical music with no interest in rock except for a couple of the the best selling Pink Floyd albums... wouldn't you be really ill-equipped to make any sort of judgments on those two records?

:devil:

The only caveat I can accept on what I am saying is that my experience comes from (north-western) europeans only. Things might be different in other places.

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Postby Defectron » Tue Jun 02, 2015 11:57 am

Whoah, maybe because it's I just got up and was half asleep, but for a moment when I saw you guys talking about Ray being anti white I thought you guys were talking about Rei and trying to americanize her name so for a moment I was like "wait, why are they calling Rei Ray? Isn't Ray a dudes name?" and then I noticed there was actually a guy named Ray here, I never actually looked at his name until now, until now he was just that guy with the mecha bug avatar.

But yes in regards to white washing anime characters, to a degree I suppose you could make shymalans argument about not being able to tell what race a character is based on how their drawn, unless you happen to be Shymalan because the water Tribe don't have white skin, you don't need to look at their eyes to see that. Also there are cases where characters have names associated with non white countries such as Japan and china where unless they are adopted it can be assumed they probably are of the race associated with that area.
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Postby Tankred » Tue Jun 02, 2015 12:07 pm

Controversial opinion: I don't think there's anything that wrong with how Japanese animation tends to portray people, especially since I'm living in a country that pushes a hard politically correct stance, so it's actually a breath of fresh air compared to the bile trickled down from the upper echelons of the media and education services and the stepford students who propagate that kind of drivel. They can portray their designs however they damn well like.
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Postby Bagheera » Tue Jun 02, 2015 12:14 pm

View Original PostRay wrote:I'm well aware of ethnic ambiguity /mukukoseki. I understand in Japan, Japanese is the default and they expect their audience to see the characters as Japanese by default. Unless the characters are clearly indicated to be of another race/ethnicity. But in America, not the case . . . Last Airbender took place in a setting inspired by Asia, and everything from the food they eat, to the writing, to the religion, were Asian inspired. Same with Dragon Ball.


Right, but that was produced by Americans. They whitewashed the cast, no doubt about that, but that says nothing about Japanese creators whitewashing their own work.

I have opinions. Those opinions step on the paradigm. The system that supports systematic denial of existence, accomplishment, privilege, and humanity for people of color by the film industry. I don't hate white people. I hate white people being the center of the universe in fiction. I hate how a character, an animated character in a Japanese cartoon created by a Japanese person is considered white until proven otherwise.


But he isn't, at least not in Japan (the target audience for these works). If you want to talk about the arrogance of white folks assuming Japan defaults to a white appearance for characters I think there's something to it, but that's far, far different than saying Japanese creators are whitewashing their own work (which is a claim you made earlier). They are not.

If Japanese people don't see their anime characters as white, then why doesn't Hollywood?


Because most of Hollywood comes from a different culture, obviously. Things would be no different in Japan if they were viewing imported work: they would assume the characters are Japanese unless explicitly told otherwise.
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Postby Rosenakahara » Tue Jun 02, 2015 12:25 pm

View Original PostFalcon_of_the_Sun wrote:I'd wager that no more than 20% of the Studio Ghibli audience really likes what they see, but it's an obvious "The Emperor's New Clothes" effect. More specifically, the critical mass of Ghibli fans in the Western world must have come from girls (because, again, there's no sex, violence and perversion in Miyazaki's stuff so it's socially ok for girls to watch it) with an air of pretension and a desire to look smart, with ensuing hoards of boys complying to the new creed that "Miyazaki is God" in a desperate attempt to get into said girls' pants.

*sigh*
I barely even know what to say to this, im cherry picking yes but there is a very distinct air of sexism in this (incoming "sjw" comment) and so its hard to take your post seriously but for the sake of discussion and not acting like a child i will.

See the thing is, if this was just a case of people loving ghibli films because other people love them, then i imagine they would be hard pressed to properly describe what they love about them, yet every time i have talked to a friend or family member about a ghibli film they have always described to me what they liked and disliked about the movies and opinions are still a factor in here there is no ruleset that says that everyone must love every ghibli movie.
heck im one of the few people who actually really likes howls moving castle yet porco rosso which a lot of people really like just doesn't click with me, yet if i asked my brother he thinks porco rosso is his favourite one (mine would be princess mononoke).

You are allowed to dislike the movies if you want but im just going to semi-echo something back from when this forum told me a similar thing when i called FF7 overrated: dont call something overrated if you cant viably back up the reasons why you think something sucks, and the reasons you gave are 90% your own opinion.

If anything with the way you worded this, talking way more about the audience than the movies it feels like you more seem to hate the ghibli movies BECAUSE so many people love them, which is something i see a lot, if something gets super popular then people will inevitably decide to be contrarians and decide it sucks instead, something i myself am guilty of doing (the FF7 thing) and if you tell yourself something enough times you start to believe it, see the people who constantly insist FNAF is the worst game ever the moment it get a second game for this effect.
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Postby Fireball » Tue Jun 02, 2015 5:24 pm

Ghibli tells modern fairy tales with animated devotion but without the icky stuff many anime is plagued with. Everyone of all ages likes fairy tales and you don't have to be ashamed to watch something animated with your family. There isn't some secret conspiracy behind its success or whatever your hipster brain is making up. Ghibli is good in entertaining the masses. Might not be your thing, that's okay.
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Postby TehDonutKing » Tue Jun 02, 2015 6:24 pm

The Haruhi anime is total shit, but the novels are amazing.
/hj

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