I just… I love One Piece so much but one thing that's always bugged me is that pretty much every character is white. It's really starting to bug me lately, and I'm just wondering if Oda has said anything about it?
Race and Diversity in One Piece
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[http://www.arlongpark.net/showthread.php?t=3486&page=12
O](http://www.arlongpark.net/showthread.php?t=3486&page=12)ooh look, someone bumped this thread just for you!
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Nationality and Race are two different things, though.
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What about Usopp and Aokiji?
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Ooooh I get it. So this is the thread on whether a fictional character in a remarkably vague universe is white, black, hispanic, asian, or whatever. Okay, I see a future in this thread.
PS: Kinemon and Momo
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Im black and this stuff doesn't really bug me.
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What about Usopp and Aokiji?
Unfortunately…
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Ooooh I get it. So this is the thread on whether a fictional character in a remarkably vague universe is white, black, hispanic, asian, or whatever. Okay, I see a future in this thread.
It doesn't matter if its a fictional universe, I still think there needs to be more diversity.
PS: Kinemon and Momo
Yes, but there's still the matter that Miss Monday is the only canonly dark-skinned character.
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Im black and this stuff doesn't really bug me.
I can see why this wouldn't bother some people. I do have a problem with it all, but it doesn't really take away from the overall experience of One Piece; Oda still has a lot of great messages against hatred based on appearance and race, so I don't think he's really trying to say anything with his lack of diverse characters.
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Eesh not that I don't want to have this discussion but this is only going to lead to stupid arguments with stupid people. We should just pretend that the characters are of indeterminate races and put smiles on our faces.
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I just… I love One Piece so much but one thing that's always bugged me is that pretty much every character is white. It's really starting to bug me lately, and I'm just wondering if Oda has said anything about it?
If anything they're all asian considering the author.
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If the RIGHT person(s) step into this thread, it could end up being 10 pages of bullshit.
PS: the accurate answer to why there aren't a whole lot of darker skinned characters is because…inking them consistently takes a lot of time and a lot of ink. Might as well leave them a ambiguously similar vague skin tone and call it a day.
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If the RIGHT person(s) step into this thread, it could end up being 10 pages of bullshit.
PS: the accurate answer to why there aren't a whole lot of darker skinned characters is because…inking them consistently takes a lot of time and a lot of ink. Might as well leave them a ambiguously similar vague skin tone and call it a day.
Thats a good argument for not having a lot of darker skinned characters.
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If anything they're all asian considering the author.
Did Oda actually say anything about this? If the series is in a fantasy world that's not set in our current world, anything goes for race. If One Piece were set in modern-day japan, yeah, I'd say most of the characters are japanese.
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Did Oda actually say anything about this? If the series is in a fantasy world that's not set in our current world, anything goes for race. If One Piece were set in modern-day japan, yeah, I'd say most of the characters are japanese.
Oda never said anything of the sort. And it's…completely inaccurate with Oda considering he has already has a special "Japan" island.
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Did Oda actually say anything about this? If the series is in a fantasy world that's not set in our current world, anything goes for race. If One Piece were set in modern-day japan, yeah, I'd say most of the characters are japanese.
Not to my knowledge, but he did give the nationalities for the Straw Hats.
Luffy: Brazil
Zoro: Japan
Nami: Sweden
Usopp: "Africa" (LOL)
Sanji: France
Chopper: Canada
Robin: Russia
Franky: USA
Brook: Austria -
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@valiantt:[http://www.arlongpark.net/showthread.php?t=3486&page=12
O](http://www.arlongpark.net/showthread.php?t=3486&page=12)ooh look, someone bumped this thread just for you!
Oooh look, see, I knew this thread is already turning towards irrelevancy with this one around.
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Again, nationality and race are two different things.
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Luffy is Brazilian I always thought he was Japanese.
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If anything they're all asian considering the author.
Did Oda actually say anything about this? If the series is in a fantasy world that's not set in our current world, anything goes for race. If One Piece were set in modern-day japan, yeah, I'd say most of the characters are japanese.
Again, nationality and race are two different things.
You didn't seem to imply that in this post.
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Again, nationality and race are two different things.
You're pretty much grasping at straws. :L
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Instead of race(only 4 exist)/ethnicity, I really want to know where some of the designs for the buildings come from.
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If anything, the whole fishmen vs. humans thing was the "race" part. It's difficult to argue your point with skin colour when the primary form of the work is black and white with greys spread around.
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If anything, the whole fishmen vs. humans thing was the "race" part. It's difficult to argue your point with skin colour when the primary form of the work is black and white with greys spread around.
Not to mention, completely irrelevant in the OP's depiction of race to be based on Height/width, human vs animal features, and having long legs or double joints in your arms.
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So does the OP of this thread hate white people or something?
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Again, nationality and race are two different things.
Yes that's true… And I know it better than almost anyone else on this site.
I tried to warn you, I really did, but you didn't listen to me. You've already been accused of reverse racism by the rape apologist, though it might have been sarcastic, I can't tell anymore. Either way, it's all downhill from here. You should take all issues and gripes to the Women thread, which we've actually managed to keep alive and safe for far longer than should have been possible.
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You should take all issues and gripes to the Women thread, which we've actually managed to keep alive and safe for far longer than should have been possible.
You forgot to add ":ninja:" at the end of your post.
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Yes that's true… And I know it better than almost anyone else on this site.
I tried to warn you, I really did, but you didn't listen to me. You've already been accused of reverse racism by the rape apologist, though it might have been sarcastic, I can't tell anymore. Either way, it's all downhill from here. You should take all issues and gripes to the Women thread, which we've actually managed to keep alive and safe for far longer than should have been possible.
Since when did that thread become a trash bin for controversial topics?
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You forgot to add ":ninja:" at the end of your post.
Why, what are you implying right now? I was serious, that thread is a miracle. This whole place is kind of a miracle, though some people have already left due to "bullshit" that I'm sure will become less tolerable to me in time, and the manga forum is usually seen as a blight in comparison to the rest, but STILL…
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This forum is getting worse and worse, bad times, definetely.
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/me wanders back into the "Woman thread" sees stuff on dragonball criticism, bikini-mail's functionality, and Schabarak/Universalshadow posts.
It's a miracle alright. A "special" miracle.
PS: And some dumbass just bumped it from it's 2 week-ish slumber. Goddammit.
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/me wanders back into the "Woman thread" sees stuff on dragonball criticism, bikini-mail's functionality, and Schabarak/Universalshadow posts.
It's a miracle alright. A "special" miracle.
PS: And some dumbass just bumped it from it's 2 week-ish slumber. Goddammit.
No problem.•666•
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Oh before I forget:
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Chopper represents the crew not caring about race/ethnicity. Because they accept any type of person (they even have a skeleton) it would be unnecessary to have a different race simply for the purpose of diversifying the series, as we already know it doesn't matter. This represents the crew dealing with the issues of race.
For societies dealings with race, Fishmen have represented the discrimination present, as well as how to deal with it. Because we're at a point in the series where the characters don't care about race, it would be fruitless to pointlessly add races to the series, unless it contributed something meaningful to the plot.
Nothing more needs to be said.
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Because it's not a country.
I wasn't aware that the SBS'er specifically asked for a country
**@SBS:
Nice to meet you, Oda-sensei. I have a question. If One Piece was set in the real world, which countries would the nine Straw Hats come from?** LOL. I didn't expect that from Oda. Maybe he simply forgot about the South in South Africa.
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I just… I love One Piece so much but one thing that's always bugged me is that pretty much every character is white. It's really starting to bug me lately, and I'm just wondering if Oda has said anything about it?
why would that bug you are you racist?
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I can not stand this comparison of the characters and races in One Piece with those of the real world. But that's just me.
Of course Oda is obviously inspired by the real world, but the world of One Piece is a world with its own races and cultures (Skypieans, Fishmen, Giants, Dwarves).If you speak about races I belive OP world has many different races (a truly absurd number actually).
If you speak about skin color then humans range from white to black as in real world, although it is rare to see black ones. Fishman has random skin color. I don't know for other races yet.Maybe it's just an OP human specific characteristic being white, in Sabaody archipelago auction people recognized Hatchan by the color of his skin first, rather than by his arms.
I belive this is "racism" in One Piece, so… I do not mind if humans are all white or sort of. -
Luffy will always be Japanese to me.
I dunno what exactly makes Luffy be Japanese to you.
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I think that we forgot about one of the characters that was African: Daz Bones
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It's that, when you grow up and function in certain environment, you don't realise certain things may be a problem. You understand that racism is bad thing, from history lessons, common sense, whatever, but if for all your life you only see faces with more or less skin tone, it won't occur for you that representation of people of different skin tones matter, as this problem simply don't exist in your world. Japan has history of racism, but it mostly was racism against people with more or less skin tone. Almost all anime have only characters with light skin.
It's obvious that One Piece takes place in multi racial and multi cultural world, even if you take away fantastic races, like Fishmen or Giants. It's dumb to assume, that everyone is member of one race, just basing on the fact that they have same skin color, it's just differences only come into play, when there is situation of the conflict, and otherwise, they just blend. It's even dumber to assume, that everyone is white - that white-centric. Only person under influence of white culture would assume that. -
I wrote up a long response to this topic when it appeared last night and then decided against posting.
Because in the end, this is the only correct answer.
Eesh not that I don't want to have this discussion but this is only going to lead to stupid arguments with stupid people. We should just pretend that the characters are of indeterminate races and put smiles on our faces.
Dark Falcon's answer is pretty good too, just sayin'.
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We should just pretend that the characters are of indeterminate races and put smiles on our faces.
To be fair, this is actually, at least to a certain extent, exactly true. Insomuch as race is even some hard and fast thing in the first place, and insomuch as it can be determined by appearance, it has just as much to do with aspects of one's phenotype beyond simply the color of their skin. Of course, with characters in a manga, especially in the more 'traditional', stylized sense, there are traits that simply can't be applied to any real phenotype whatsoever, such as the obvious example of 'anime eyes'.
It's an interesting phenomena, that illustrates this point quite well – and which Falcon alluded to -- that often a white audience will question why an anime ostensibly set in Japan will have characters that 'are all white'. Of course, the truth of the matter is that this isn't the case at all; the characters are stylized representations of people, and any race assigned to them is more a projection of the viewer's worldview than an inherent aspect of the characters themselves.
Obviously, again, this only holds true to a certain extent, and of course it becomes less and less applicable with more realistic art styles, but you frankly come across as completely dismissive of the concept in your post, which I don't think is being particularly fair.
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@Panda:
such as the obvious example of 'anime eyes'
I actually read an article for a college class about how despite moe anime eyes not really resembling anything remotely human, the Japanese audience still accepts/believes that all those characters are obviously Japanese (also applies to the crazy hair colors and styles, even in a real life population that only has black hair). The hair variation was actually a phenomenon that came about when artists needed to differentiate many characters with sameface.
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I blame it on black hair being drawn as blue. j/k
/me wanders back into the "Woman thread" sees stuff on dragonball criticism, bikini-mail's functionality, and Schabarak/Universalshadow posts.
If you got a problem you might take part in the discussion instead of badmouthing people in different threads? :)
Oda hates Usopp, why else would he be the only one drawn from the side? haha [not serious]
I dunno what exactly makes Luffy be Japanese to you.
Because he speaks japanese obviously.
Unfortunately…
Light skinned blacks or mulatto offspring?
Sorry, I laughed too much for such a serious topic already.
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I don't typically have an issue with an anime series not having more darker skinned characters. But I'll tell you what bugs me about the ratio of darker skinned characters to light. Lack of characters I can cosplay as from series I actually like. I would love to do a cosplay from One Piece. But I'm not tall enough or buff enough to be Miss Monday.
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Usopp's jolly roger is also the only one with the skull in profile (and 3/4 view pre-timeskip).
Obviously because of his nose. -
So cosplay as a black version of a white character?
@CCC:
Usopp's jolly roger is also the only one with the skull in profile (and 3/4 view pre-timeskip).
Obviously because of his nose.That was a joke, I hope you wrote it with that in mind. Of course he had to put the details in profile, his hair, hat and nose.
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@Red:
I think that we forgot about one of the characters that was African: Daz Bones
If anything, he's Asian, based on his attire.