That was a joke, I hope you wrote it with that in mind
Only knew because you made sure to mark it as such.
People on this forum are crazy, after all ;)
That was a joke, I hope you wrote it with that in mind
Only knew because you made sure to mark it as such.
People on this forum are crazy, after all ;)
So cosplay as a black version of a white character?
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.
People always suggest that…And I don't want to.
So that's entirely on you… people with almond eyes don't seem to complaint about that as much.
See, the difference between this thread and the gender one is that while our notions of gender transport to the One Piece world (obviously), our notions of race don't. Assigning races to characters based on how they look and are inked is fairly arbitrary, and using it as a stick to beat Oda with for not introducing racial diversity is an extremely fallacious argument.
Oda has tackled race. Kokoyashi and Fishman Island is all about that. Hell, he has explored themes of slavery and a rigid class structure based on race. He just chose to create his own races and not use the ones from our world. In the One Piece world, humans are all one race; fishmen, dwarves, giants, longarms, longlegs etc. form the others. And they have prejudice and other issues among them. So I don't see the problem here, apart from, "I don't see a stereotypically Slavic character in a Japanese comic! The author is so racist!"
LOL. I didn't expect that from Oda. Maybe he simply forgot about the South in South Africa.
But then is Usopp Afrikaner or Zulu or Xhosa or Ndebele or a Bushman or one of the other myriad ethnicities there?
So that's entirely on you… people with almond eyes don't seem to complaint about that as much.
Nobody in real life has anime eyes…Not sure what your point is really. When I cosplay I want to look as close to that character as possible. I think a lot of fans want to be able to pull off an convincing real life representation of a character they like. It would look weird if I showed up dressed like Nami... sigh People like you are difficult to discuss these sorts of things with.
A black Nami could look realy great. Instead of blaming it on me being difficult, be open to alternative things, as you won't be able to change the characters looks nore will the number of non-white colored characters greatly increase in the near future. What if I really want to look like a famous black character? Go as a blackface? No be a white version of him/her/it. My body type won't look good with 80-90% of characters, do I go blame it on the designers/mangaka? No I don't.
As in life, you will get nowwhere in life blaming things on not being to your liking.
@CCC:
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.
Yeah, to the point that non-Japanese characters have to be stated that they aren't Japanese.
Name or language spoken doesn't even work anymore because the half-Japanese, half-European/American trope is also so popular.
Nobody in real life has anime eyes…Not sure what your point is really. When I cosplay I want to look as close to that character as possible. I think a lot of fans want to be able to pull off an convincing real life representation of a character they like. It would look weird if I showed up dressed like Nami... sigh People like you are difficult to discuss these sorts of things with.
You would probably look gorgeous.
It all comes to perception, and perception is based by norms. It's a norm to cosplay gender swapped version of the character, or a character of different sex (if everyone thinks you can pull it off), but it's against norm to cosplay character of different color or shape of body. So fat people cosplaing slender characters are laughed at and black people cosplaing fair skin characters, are told to look weird, as they go against the norm.
A black Nami could look realy great. Instead of blaming it on me being difficult, be open to alternative things, as you won't be able to change the characters looks nore will the number of non-white colored characters greatly increase in the near future. What if I really want to look like a famous black character? Go as a blackface? No be a white version of him/her/it. My body type won't look good with 80-90% of characters, do I go blame it on the designers/mangaka? No I don't.
As in life, you will get nowwhere in life blaming things on not being to your liking.
I just said I want to look as close to the character as possible. I'm not going as a black version or a character who doesn't look anything like me. Perhaps I should have put the ninja face in my other post, but it's just a pet peeve that I have so few options. I don't necessarily want to be pinpointed as black Nami, black Tashigi, black Robin, because that's what happens. Body type is a different issue than facial features or skin tone in my opinion, especially in One Piece's case since it's very stylized.
I'm not blaming things on not being to my liking. I'm just don't cosplay from One Piece, simple as that. It was just a lamentation that I don't have options in a series I really love. Once upon a time I was excited about being able to cosplay as Yoroichi from Bleach, but the quality in the series has gone so far down hill I wouldn't want anything to do with it lol.
I'm not expecting Oda to happen upon this thread and be all "Oh yeah. I totally should add more diversity among my obviously human characters." I don't expect that from any anime/manga series. But ho boy am I pleased when I do find a anime where there are positive darker or obviously African based characters. Options!
You would probably look gorgeous.
It all comes to perception, and perception is based by norms. It's a norm to cosplay gender swapped version of the character, or a character of different sex (if everyone thinks you can pull it off), but it's against norm to cosplay character of different color or shape of body. So fat people cosplaing slender characters are laughed at and black people cosplaing fair skin characters, are told to look weird, as they go against the norm.
I think I'd look weird with that color of hair lol. I just used Nami as an example for that reason.
I've got a fairly thick skin, but I don't want people bashing me left and right. Nerds are some of the harshest critics and unrelenting. I'd just rather avoid it. It's a headache I can avoid.
The truth is there is in fact very few black characters in anime, especially women. One, that comes to my mind first is April from Darker than Black
Yeah stylized with thin "ottermode" legs, so it's pretty much a defining body type problem for the huge majority of characters in this series. Got to love Mashima for that, most of his male characters have some thicker legs. So Mashima:1, Oda: 0. hehe
Speaking of Black cosplayers. http://cosplayingwhileblack.tumblr.com/archive
Yeah Mashima has more balanced men, but overall most characters look the same. Oda does have odd men body porportions, remember when that chapter with that gladiator/marine that had a muscular torso and legs that looked like they belonged on his body? That shouldn't have been so notable lol. Everyone other overly buff guy seems to skip leg day lol. I personally think Sanji should have had legs like that one Bruce Lee-ish Long leg by this point :ninja:.
Personally I think cosplays look ridiculous these character designs don't translate well in real life.
@Red:
But, look at his picture:
http://media.animevice.com/uploads/3/31686/701597-5537-1359362783.png
So does the OP of this thread hate white people or something?
@kuma:
why would that bug you are you racist?
, 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.
You're right, I was wary about even posting this thread, but I was hoping AP could take it. But pretty much what you said about pretending that the character's races are w/e is what I normally do, anyways, I just wanted to see what discussions we could have.
Assigning races to characters based on how they look and are inked is fairly arbitrary, and using it as a stick to beat Oda with for not introducing racial diversity is an extremely fallacious argument.
Oda has tackled race. Kokoyashi and Fishman Island is all about that. Hell, he has explored themes of slavery and a rigid class structure based on race. He just chose to create his own races and not use the ones from our world. In the One Piece world, humans are all one race; fishmen, dwarves, giants, longarms, longlegs etc. form the others. And they have prejudice and other issues among them. So I don't see the problem here, apart from, "I don't see a stereotypically Slavic character in a Japanese comic! The author is so racist!"
?
Oh, no, I'm not trying to use this thread to bash Oda at all! If it seemed like I was calling him racist, I wasn't, and I apologize. I thought the whole theme of the Fishman Island Arc was amazing, and I loved it. I've just always wondered why eveyone seems to have the same skin tone. Honestly, I do think the most likely explanation is probably time constraint, and even if it isn't, the man does so much for One Piece and for his fans, I wouldn't really put too much judgement on him.
And just so its all clear, I'm referring to the colors of the actual colorspreads and volume covers, not the, y'know, black and white colors.