Nadia from āNadia: seeker of blue waterā is African. A big issue manga artists usually have is shading black characters, so they generally end up with lighter skin tones and either over exaggerated features or under exaggerated out of habit and time. Then if there is an anime adaptation it dosnt always translate well.
Yeaahhhh, youāre not wrong at all. Thereās definitely much worse examples to bring up, I was more trying to touch on one of the reasons why a lot of black characters can get overlooked. Hell it took a Netflix adaptation for a lot of people to realize Usopp is black.
Can't rememeber. There's manga all over ebay tho. I just had one in black and white. In fact, some of the manga in color I saw have a "white nadia" so it was like that.
Who is bringing up americans in this conversation?
It's a pretty well known fact how racists and xenophobes the japanese are in general toward other races and countries. And even to other japanese that have lived too long outside of the "home country".
If you're black you should go to Japan sometime. Be it Tokyo, Kyoto or any rural region of your choosing. They're hilariously racist towards black people to a degree they'll make you chuckle.
Not all is bad, tho, it's a country were you will also find quite a few instances of "positive racism" (aka. Tokenization), were just for being a foreigner, if you find the right crowd you're gonna be quite the popular one, so if you don't mind to be fetishized, it's an interesting experience.
See how during this whole explanation I didn't bring up americans even once? Not everything revolves around them, as much as they'll like to believe.
Anyways:
Yourichi (Bleach)
Butch (Black Lagoon)
Dough (Lazarus)
Nadia (Secret of Blue Water)
Carole (Carole and Tuesday)
Simon (Durarara)
Anthy (Revolutionary Girl Utena)
Oob (Dragon Ball)
Usopp (One Piece)
Maine (Edgerunners)
Sithole (Legend of the Galactic Heroes)
I could go on, but I've gone through the trouble of making sure I was picking some representation from popular shows both new and old.
They are not common, nor they should be unless the setting calls for it, but they're not unicorn level rare, and many authors, specially the most internationally literate ones, have moved from just having the one black guy as a token gag character into making them actual, real characters, which is a sight for sore eyes.
Any questions? Because I have one of my own. What do you think you were going to accomplish with bringing up americans as a counterpoint of japanese people being hella racists?
Well, reddit is half american.So you know, i'm just saying the japanese are not the only racist people. Since you guys were saying that the japanese are racist against blacks.
Of course they are not the only racists. In my experiences there are racists in every single country on earth against all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons.
But we are talking about a Japanese show in a subreddit dedicated to memeing on said japanese show. I'm not sure bringing up the yanks was the right move there, chief.
But it is true that reddit is half american, I'll give you that.
Also, it's not just us saying japanese are racists against blacks. Hell, go to any japanese subreddit and ask any japanese about their sentiment towards foreigners in general and black people in particular, since you seem to remain so unconvinced.
I feel like I have in Cowboy Bebop, in the blaxploitation episode
It's a little ambiguous but I have always thought of the titular Nadia from Nadia: the Secret of Blue Water as black
one of the available party members in Valkyria Chronicles 4 is a black woman; one of the romanceable heroines in Sakura Wars 5 is a black woman, although these are games and not anime
Yeah, she was born in Baghdad. Honestly, a few of these characters are more like the designated character in the cast in possession of melanin in their skin.
For example, I donāt think Casca (āBerserkā) is necessarily the African equivalent within the setting of that universe, but she is most certainly one of the significant characters amidst a broad cast of white European equivalents that was purposely designed to stand out with darker skin at all points within the story.
Ah fair, didn't know that about Casca! Then again my only exposure to berserk is watching hbi2k's abridged series and trying to watch the anime it was spoofing afterwards back when I was like 12 or something (I was barely able to follow it and outright forgot to finish watching it) (I swear I'll actually read the manga eventually I'm just incredibly lazy)
They are really rare, off the top of my head there's Semiu Grier from Gatchiakuta (gorgeous btw) and Cithis an elf in Delicious in Dungeon (some background characters too), both really GOATED anime with some main characters who are black
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u/SinclairSummerset 1d ago