Anime games are "Too White"

[Nymene]

So we dark skin men from India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, SEA countries, Middle East and Africa have long been complaining about the lack of prominent dark skin characters in all kinds of Fantasy Games or Anime that doesn't take place in Japan, and it's good that now the Japanese themselves have realized the overwhelming representation of pale or white-skinned characters in such games.

Here is a site talking about it : https://togetter.com/li/2041421

Quote :

この『アークナイツ』の魅力の顔となっているキャラクターに関して、私は「むむむ…」と気にな るのはやはり 「白すぎる問題」です。これは『ウマ娘』でも観察できる問題なのですが…。

要するにほとんどのキャラクターの肌が白いということ。アニメだけでなくゲームもどうなのかと 調べたのです けど、有色の肌のキャラはほぼおらず、濃い色の肌にいたってはほんのわずかでした。「そういう 設定なんだよ 」みたいな思考停止の反論は話にならないのでさておき、なぜそうなるのかということです。冷静 に考えれば、 動物を擬人化するなら肌が白くなる方が変です。白い動物はむしろ自然界では珍しいんですから（ 白色個体かア ルビノか）

この「白すぎる問題」は実はアニメ＆ゲーム系の海外メディアではよく問題点として取り上げられ やすく、最近 だとこちらも中国開発の人気ゲーム「原神」においても同様の批判がありました。そちらのゲーム では南アジア をモデルにしたエリアが導入されたにもかかわらず、有色人種キャラが全然いないと指摘されてい ました。

Google Translate :

Regarding the characters who are the face of this "Arknights" charm, what I'm worried about is the "too white problem". This is a problem that can also be observed in "Uma Musume"...

In short, most characters have white skin. I looked into games as well as anime, but found that there were almost no characters with colored skin, and only a few with dark skin.

Putting aside a thought-stopping counterargument like "That's the setting", it's about why it's like that. Thinking about it calmly, if you were to anthropomorphize an animal, it would be strange to have white skin. White animals are rather rare in nature (white individuals or albino)

In fact, this "too white problem" is often taken up as a problem in overseas media related to anime and games, and recently there was similar criticism in the popular game "Genshin", which was also developed in China. Even though your game introduced an area modeled after South Asia, it was pointed out that there were no characters of color at all.



So, what do you guys think of this issue ?

I think the biggest culprit right here is definitely Mihoyo and some other Chinese companies ( except for the game company that made Dislyte which had many POC characters included too )

My opinion is that I hope future Anime games set in an European-like region can include Black and Brown minorities too. Like I'm not expecting an entire city, town or kingdom(like the Moors' Andalucia) to have Majority Brown or Black ppl included, as I just want 1 or 2 black or brown characters ( preferably male for me since I'm a guy and I want to see some interracial stuff with a brown male character for my self-insert) and the rest of the cast 80% can be white/pale in such a setting.

While for a hot desert and tropical setting country, the ideal cast would be around Majority 60-70% tanned, brown and black and the remaining 30-40% can be pale because we have pale-skinned people in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Middle East too.

[Trogdor Jube]

I don't have too much to say other then yes, anime (and lots of western entertainment) tends to cast darker skinned characters of any race to the side. Stuff like Genshin seems to be so obsessed with rigid beauty standards that it is explicitly trying to make every character as light as possible. There's really not much good excuses for it.

And before anyone mentions, yes I know these characters aren't white which is why I am referring to their skin colour being light.

[Void]

"Cartoon artstyle invented by prominent Asian country is too white." In other news, water is wet.

Pointless discussion and really unfortunate title.

[Jaden]

It's related to the tastes of the target audience. As long as the media is produced in Japan, primarily for Japanese otakus, everyone else's tastes and sensibilities are irrelevant. They think of dark skin as a niche fetish/gimmick that has no place in a mainstream work. I guess it's the same for Chinese stuff.

Will change whenever some studios figure out how to capture the Indian or African markets, which are only gonna get bigger.

[Nymene]

For anyone interested, here is the link to the Main Article talking about the "Too White" problem in Arknights and many other Anime games : https://cinemandrake.com/arknights#toc9


Strangely enough, despite him bringing up Uma Musume, I personally don't care if there is no POC representation there because I am not interested in that game by the way, because even with predominantly light skin all the characters in that art-style look too bland and same-faced IMHO so I'm not sure adding dark-skin characters would help make them look not too same-faced as the rest.

Ay least Arknights, Honkai Impact and Azur Lane have more variation in the character designs.

[Mad Pierrot]

Sounds what one Square developer said about minorities in regards to the upcoming Final Fantasy XVI. I don't know why he had to say that line while promoting the game.