Yeah I trying to say something but this comment system isn’t my forte, I am going to think on it for awhile.
The manga media does have problems with racial insensitivity. I was flipping through an episode of TerraForMars on a flight. My face must have turned bright red when it hit me…
And nobody seems to realize that one of the first manga character to become famous worldwide in the early 90’s is Black : Briareos in Appleseed.
You can hand out your nerd cards on the way out…
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Also Jet Black from Cowboy Bebop. Or at least some of his lines are stereotypically African American, and is voiced by a black voice actor in the english dub, and has darker skin than a lot of the other characters.
IIRC Bri is specifically Afro-Caribbean. His girlfriend/partner and fellow protagonist Deunan Knute had a mixed-raced African mother.
I stand corrected, I’ve never seen either one.
Calcamism Avenue? Did they just grab a handful of Scrabble tiles? Oh Engrish!
I note with curiosity* that your link describes an experience in Korea, and it appears the author is not complaining about his treatment, so much as the Western Media that gave them that impression in the first place.
* I’m being polite. Did you really read it?
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One of my friends has experienced this first hand. She’s half-black, half-asian (korean). Her cosplay wasn’t anime based but video game. She did a great Morrigan cosplay from Dragon Age. When she went to a convention she was heckled repeatedly, and even got even more hate comments when she posted pictures.
There are almost no characters in anything that are half black and half asian.
One thing that struck me as weird about the story is how the interviewer repeatedly said that anime characters “read as white,” and didn’t get any pushback on that. They’re created by Japanese people for a Japanese market. They mostly should be read as Japanese.
I’d certainly concede there are probably more white anime characters than black, but they’re both in the minority (and probably a smaller minority than non-human characters).
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Thinking before Posting…is always a good thing. 
Good catch, inspired me to go ahead and read the whole linked article. There seems to be a surprising number of people who don’t recognize that the vast majority of anime characters are intended to be read as japanese. Especially people who should know better if they are going around interviewing people at anime conventions? I guess I don’t really know what VICE is. But definitely most white cosplayers are not the ‘correct’ race for the character they are cosplaying.
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Well it can be construed that they are the right “skin color” because of how generic anime tends to depict their characters without significant facial or even body features. This means there is a “generic” which is what white folks get to relate with even without the correct ethnicity.
I’ve covered this before. I think a majority of Anime is its own sort of special race. Depending on the location of the story, it makes sense that they may or may not be Japanese. But as far as visual representation, they are their own unique race that I think the average person would Identify as white.
But if you take characters from say Attack on Titan, Ghost in the Shell, Sword Art Online, Robotech, and Full Metal Alchemist - some of the stories take place in Europe, some in Japan, some in a fantasy world, and some in a virtual world - but for the most part all the characters are sort of the same homogenized race you can’t clearly place.
I think you can make that argument… it is, after all, a fantasy world.
But I think people are getting off track with this point. The discussion isn’t about Japan, and whether or not Japanese culture has racist/xenophobic elements, or about the race of anime characters (which, I think you rightly point out, can be specific to the particular anime)… it’s about otaku who are black and are being harassed when dressed at conventions by some white fans in the US (generally, speaking).
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Right, I was speaking specifically to the point brought up as to what race Anime is supposed to even be - or even nationality.
I just came back from a comic convention and there were several black cosplayers, including some anime and a guy dressed up as Tech 9ine. Honestly a lot of them I am not familiar with who they were trying to represent. I took my kid to a Brony convention (in the Midwest), and yes, there are black Bronys and black MLP cosplayers.
Today my kid noted that two people dressed up as Mario and Luigi were actually girls. And I told her some people like the character so much, they just want to make a costume that either looks like them, or makes a costume as a what if Mario was a girl. I saw several men playing women characters. Some quite well. I was really impressed with an early 90s style Mystique who had the skull belt and everything. I don’t know if he was trans, cross dressed a lot, drag queen, or just wanted a challenge, but he totally pulled it off. And there were several other women playing male characters, including Aquaman for some mysterious reason.
Anyway - considering comics have multiple universes, alternate time lines, differences in ages or eras, and even just elseworlds or what if stories, I don’t think anyone should say jack or shit about cosplayers who don’t fit all the original criteria for the characters. Creativity knows no bounds and I honestly don’t know why one would care or have the balls to comment on a character being black or a male when they should be white or a female. There is nothing wrong with taking your own spin on a character. Of course as one shunned for being a nerd, I can’t imagine another nerd shunning some one for that bullshit reason. I guess some might do it just to be the bully for once.
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“But as far as visual representation, they are their own unique race that I think the average person would Identify as white”
The reason this is so wrong is in the words “average person”. The Japanese people who are the primary audience identify these characters as Japanese, not some special race.
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But it happens. We know it happens because people have told us how they have been shunned or bullied. It’s sad and unfortunate that there are some geeks who feel the need to bully others over bullshit reasons. But (as you can see from these interviews) it happens. Being geeky doesn’t magically make someone immune to bad behavior or racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/etc thoughts. I wish it did, but it doesn’t. It’s disappointing, but unfortunately, true.
I think you’re handling it right with your kid - inclusivity is the ONLY way to go, IMHO!
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