the whitewashing of asian girls
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- Опубликовано: 26 июл 2024
- im kidding shout out to the hazel girlies
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Video Chapters:
0:00 defining 'wasian'
4:16 the genetics of eye colors
9:56 discussing blue-eyed characters
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Fun fact: the creators of Blue Eye Samurai are Michael Green and Amber Noizumi, a mixed couple. They had a daughter many years ago, and to their surprise, she was born with blue eyes, which sparked the idea for the show.
even more fun fact: a lot of babies are born with blue eyes because the melanin for their eyes hasn’t developed yet.
personally, i was born with blue eyes and i wound up having a dark-greenish type of eye color. i’m also wasian, so it was quite the surprise for my parents, lolll
True but I bet that was the only way the show was getting made
Where'd you find that from anyway?
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69my faith in people: 💥😐🔫
I was about to say! Y'all keep Mizu out of this because her creators know what they're doing and they're doing it damn well with representation.
In "Winx Club", all of the main girls were animated to resemble popular 2000's celebrities, namely, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Lucy Liu or Cameron Diaz, so that little girls watching would feel represented. Unfortunately, the recent live action adaptation whitewashed Musa, and had Aisha as the only prominent black character, but she merely existed to prop up other characters, especially Bloom.
Which is exactly why it was a mess because in what world did they think downgrading every character would be successful
As huge Winx fan: this! My fave is Musa shortly followed by Aisha/Layla and Tecna.
The whitewashing is 🤮
Unrelated but trinaq I see you literally EVERYWHERE
flora was whitewashed as well by just being completely replaced by a white character...idk how they thought that was ok. I heard she comes back in the second season but I'm not watching that trainwreck😂
I will only give the live-action Winx Club credit from one thing. They somehow made Aisha darker.
On grey eyes: my grandfather had grey eyes and the color of his clothes would reflect on them. If he was wearing something blue his eyes would look blue, if he wore something green his eyes would look green and if he wore something red I have no doubt the cops were called. He had some weird magical YA novel protagonist shit going on. At this point my family should wait for the next _Chosen One™️_ to be born
.... Welp atleast I know that I am not the only one with that 😊
Except the red but ya
it's so crazy how eyes do that. I'm half Puerto Rican and half Jamaican. My eyes are weird idk what color they are. There's no clear answer but i guess they would be grey but it's the same like your grandfather. my clothes change my eyes. My grandma had purple-ish eyes. The best comparison i can think of is probably elizabeth taylor. My grandma had natural purple eyes and so did elizabeth taylor.
yeah some people have eyes that do that!! very cool tbh
whoaaa thats cool..
I remember I had a whole friend group from my old and new school fighting over if my eyes were blue or green, turns out it was just the colour of the two different uniforms reflecting off them XD
I actually found this video really interesting but just had to say I laughed so hard when you accidentally said eyes instead of BLUE eyes😭
Same! Like I knew what she meant, but when she interjected I realized the mistake and cackled.
"If they have eyes"
White dragon?
same !! lmfao i choked on my hot chocolate
@@thealmightybucket5930noo not the hot coco 😭
"how common is it for an east asian person to have eyes" quickly followed by an exasperated correction of "blue eyes" got me rolling lmfao
Asian skin that never ages, hair made like silk, no odor > blue eyes, skin ages like crap, super hairy, body odor.
@@followthewhiterabbit8561you can uplift a race without putting down others, btw.
Amanda: Blue eyed people who are watching this, you have a safe space
Me, blue eyed: Awww
Amanda: …for now.
Me: 🪬🪬
I have blue eyes and it’s uncommon in my country, I’ve been told “your blue eyes are so beautiful, I wanna pull them off” since I was on kindergarten until last Sunday... insert Amphibia's pops “I don’t feel safe” clip
I have blue eyes, and white hair and people used to bully me calling me a grandma in disguise, and they’d read me their Christmas lists like I was a weird Santa or something it didn’t help that I was great at baking 😓
@@josefagomezschmeisser8356 😭😭
@@HeartOfFire-cp4vf Maybe you ARE secretly santa. The SLAY version of Santa 💅✨ jk jk
🧿👄🧿
Could someone give me other examples? Caitlin and Mizu don't really fit this. Caitlin, as mentioned, comes from a world where people have unatural eye and haircolors. And Mizu was designed and written by a team with many mixed writers who believe that that's the best way to portray her for the story was to give her blue eyes.
Sorry, I can't give any examples, but Marinette from Miraculous has no excuse. She is quite literally a whitewashed characiture of the creator's past friend.
that's true for the league of legends/runeterra, universe but it's interesting to note that irelia and seraphine are also both asian characters who are given blue eyes. akali also gets blue eyes in k/da. I think it'd be cool to have some runeterra characters like brown or darker eyes.
i feel like in general there aren't a lot of characters with this specific ethnicity where it's specifically mentioned in the show/you see the parents. i've found a lot of examples in anime (jojos bizarre adventure, mickasa ackerman (aot)) that i can't really use cause it's anime. one person who does slay all day is reagan ridley (inside job) but in this style of animation everyone's eye is a black dot hehe
Even if there are explanations for certain mixed race Asian characters having blue eyes, I don’t think that fully exempts them from this pattern. The same way there are “explanations” to making an Asian character White in reboots or live action adaptions, it can low key feel like using blue-eyes-a predominantly white feature-to whitewash biracial Asian characters. Marinette and Caitlin are white passing characters.
@@AmandaTodhunterOfficial
Another anime example is Miki from Devilman Crybaby. She’s a white/Japanese girlie with green eyes. Her Caucasian dad has blonde hair and blue eyes. I feel like anime SHOULD count because these cases are also contributing to this phenomena but then again anime will take every excuse to give characters striking hair and eye colors lol
I'm half English half Japanese. Growing up i went to a Japanese club along with all the other Japanese children in the city. Every year we would have events and some other people from other clubs (Chinese, Thai), from other parts of the country, would come to them, and we would go to theirs. My mother is also very extroverted, so i made many friends at these clubs.
The point is I've met hundreds of half east asians and NONE of them had blue eyes.
I'm not saying this means blue eyed half east asians don't, but it leads to believe they're pretty rare.
Likely because brown is a dominant over blue, if one parent can only pass down a brown allele the kid wont have blue eyes
i’m half korean and somehow my sister came out with (dark) blueish greenish eyes. she also ended up with a much lighter hair color than me though, so actually i just think that my mom was fooling around with the milk man
Every person you encounter will not be the majority of said group. I have met dozens of wasians in France, and they were all blue or green eyes, it's all about personal experience
@@marleybeavers In the north-east of Russia there is a racial group of Asians who have their own mutation associated with blond hair and eyes, they periodically mix with other peoples of northeast and East Asia, so perhaps there was someone from the north among your ancestors. Well, your sister won the genetic lottery.
@@Lain_Rockhart my mom (american) is blonde with blue eyes, so it’s mostly that reason. i’m just dramatic.
THIS
Marinette’s design is ahhhh
As a multiracial girly her treatment is frustrating
Edit: i haven't read through most of the replies because I don't care, I made this comment when this video had barely any views and didn't anticipate people noticing it (my mistake). RUclips has done me the favor of notifying me of a couple of the replies and I just want to point out before anyone else comments I am talking about her design, characterization and her treatment. Thomas {Last Name} is a white creator, and a Whedon type at that- if Joss Whedon was less successful. That shows in the way that Marinette's race is tokenized, and only touched on when the writers decide they care again. There are mixed people who are white passing, that's how genes work. But television is not as random as procreation- it's a choice. Also arguing her original design was also white appearing adds nothing to the point... she's not based on a real mixed person she's based on an art choice. So instead of commenting because you're upset the character you stan has critique, keep it to yourself or make your own comment. Don't click on videos you know will upset you if you don't want to be upset that other people have different lived experiences than you. Don't hide your white fragility under my comment or I will delete it. I'm too old for this bs and too tired frankly
She looks fully french, even though there’s nothing wrong with that, just means she got more of her looks from her dad side, it’s really frustrating because when you look at her early designs her eyes are grey making her look more chinese, and it makes you wonder why they decided to change her design to the point where you can’t tell that she’s biracial anymore
Yesss same problem different race but I'm mixed (Black) and I CANNOT STAND IT WHEN THEY ALL HAVE GREEN EYES LIKE LITERALLY SO FEW MIXED GIRLIES HAVE GREEN EYES GIVE US THE BROWN ANIMATED EYES WE DESERVE!!!!!!!
She was definitely white washed if you look at her old design but…
It’s possible she could just represent the wasian girlies who are wasian but don’t look asian. Just because you are mixed doesn’t mean you will always look like it. I have friends who are half filipino but they are very pale, have light brown hair (almost dirty blonde) and green eyes so it’s definitely possible.
And Amanda is kind of an example? Personally, I would’ve never known she was half Korean, I always assumed she was fully white or a white hispanic lol
@@emptyteardrops but what about those who do like more asian then? Why couldn't they have chosen to make her look more non-white? You know the answer, you just don't want to say it.
Besides it was Jeremy's idea to do so. He is so insecure even the animation team has to suffer for this. They have to artificially brighten her eyes in the cutscenes even when its dark with white overlays. He only uses art which have the eye colour brightened to an unnatural degree.
@@keeneyong6580oh pls she is literally HALF, not FULL. You don’t know how genetics work and it shows sometimes you can look like one parent or a mix of both, it rlly all depends. look at cindy kimberly she is half Asian but looks white and also Kristen kreuk. like stop talking about stuff u don’t know !
Hey lore nerd from LeagueOfLegends/Arcane here, Caitlyn actually was always fully white since her release all the way back in 2011, she actually turned half asian until ARCANE's release (2021) and her follow up Visual Update inside the game (yeah, she used to look like Sasha Gray dressed in a slutty purple cop costume before that) , which actually deepened her lore a lot by making her father actually come from a different land where blue hair or purple hues is very common (which is also a very spiritual land). So yeah the blue eyes and hair were always there BEFORE she was turned 'wasian'.
If I remember why the did that to her, it was due to her voice actress being Asian and they essentially redesigned the character to have those features. There's been this trend of making characters in animation and especially games to look close to the models but often it doesn't look right due to ideological reasons.
hey a fellow League nerd lore here I just wanna point something out
I don't remember her dad coming from Ionia? I see a lot of people claiming that her dad is an immigrant from Ionia, but there was never proof of this. And tbh this personally annoys me because not every Asian character in League comes from Ionia like Seraphine or Aphelios for example.
@@alopex7430TIL Seraphine is supposed to be Asian. She just looked like a typical white bubblegum pop-star trying to copy J-Pop to me. Looking at certain pictures, it's really inconsistent with her eye shape. Some of them have the typical folded lid eye, while in others she has super wide anime eyes like every other LoL girl.
@@Ziko577Nimona?
@@anubis7457i mean, if u look at chinese social media and celebrities, i think its pretty accurate to the chinese beauty standard. she looks like a douyin or xiaohongshu model to me.
2:06 Hapa is a native Hawaiian word that means: Half or a fraction of. Hapa when used to refer to people however only means someone of half or partial Indigenous Hawaiian ancestry. Today in Hawaiʻi, where native hawaiians are the minority population, asians are the majority and the hawaiian language is still not as respected as it should be, Hapa is incorrectly used to describe people who are half white and half asian.
For my Hawaiʻi people, Hapa Haole translated means Half Hawaiian Half White. You get white from Haole but there’s no explicit mention of Hawaiian, because there doesn’t need to be as again, Hapa when used to refer to people, means someone of half or partial Indigenous Hawaiian ancestry : )
It is like the Japanese term Hafu
Yes! The way I totally forgot about that lol. I’d say hafu is probably more accurate in this situation though : )
yes! was waiting for this comment
THANK YOU. I keep seeing other people use that term wrong and it's driving me crazy 💀 born and raised in Hawai'i, that's what hapa meant to me
ayyy fellow polynesian! hi from newzealand!
you see this with non-white fashion dolls too, they're given blue, green or fantasy eye colors more often than brown eyes even though that's most common. like with rainbow high dolls. it's weird how we associate eye color with personality (icy blue eyes or innocent blue eyes) and the obsession in media with contrast and novelty. it's cool to hear about your experience and perspective in this video!
i feel like with rainbow high at least, the whole design is supposed to be based off of one color generally. its somewhat excusable there.
I think that's realeted to anime.
@@owo4983 the eye colors don't always match the doll's theme color. like sunny has green eyes but is yellow themed. very few dolls have brown eyes but they keep the dolls' eyebrows their natural colors.
@@halfheartdead7149 huh, i never actually noticed that. good to know, but that means that they should really add more. like for warm colors from red to yellow would really suit some sort of brown eyes
The brown eye erasure is something innit
The trope that you're looking at here fem waisans with blue eyes reminds me of another trope where we see dark skin characters with light / white hair like allura frim Voltron, storm from xmen, water tribe princess/the moon girl from atla etc. I thought it was also interesting when you stop to think about it. Also I wanted to say 13:23 It's always sad here the experience of mixed people they don't seem to fit in on either side and seem almost othered b/c to each side the difference between the mixed individual and them seems noticeable in some capacity.
yes also dark skin girls with light eyes ! harriyanna hook made an excellent video about that issue, and also lots of other issues like the one mentioned in this vid
When I saw this video in my feed I immediately thought of that and was interested to see it happen to a whole other group as well.
I think yue from atla is different cause she’s the moon spirit so her hair was white because of that, but the other examples stand. Even if the dark skin/white hair combo is so stunning
@@alwaysrootingfortheantihero123 yue is literally so gorgeous i luv her character design ! i don’t think the creators were trying to make her look more “exotic” by giving her white hair, it just kind of showed she was special in the water tribe ? because everyone else had darker hair anyway . but who knows lol
Captain Rex? He’s the primary clone trooper in Star Wars: the Clone Wars and he has light blond hair, while most of the other clones have black hair
Rather than being a genetically accurate representation of half white and half Asian features, I wouldn’t put it past the designers or the executives to opt for the blue eyed route for visual shorthand to immediately let the viewer know that characters have European features of some kind. There are definitely more ways to do it though, and it would be nice if designers themselves could have more of a say in it
yeah i fully believe this to be the case as well. it can be hard to create character designs with mixed racial features unless the art style has more realistic designs. even cartoon styles with very varied designs, it can be hard to show a character is mixed race without these instant shorthands (not to say that it can't be done thou!)
i also want to add but blue eyes also works well with dark haired characters bc they don't usually use pure black but instead very dark blue for hair so!! aesthetically pleasing
This but NO of maris features are asian 😭
@@littleleah310the silky dark hair, she has a roundish face.
@@littleleah310she has a round face which is typically an asian feature and has dark silky straight hair which is in general and all round Asian feature.
To be fair, there is an entire plot built around Mizu’s blue eyes, it isn’t put there just as some unthought of decision.
Edit: so she did bring up the topic of it being a crucial part of the plot and well-thought out. So no worries lol.
Anyways really enjoyed this vid :p
This topic is actually really interesting because from what I see and know these companies when portraying Asian characters wanna make them ''exotic'' so they add that to make the characters stand out. Or Americans just don't know about them having a low probability of blue, etc eye color. For Animes, I think it is just Japanese culture.
I also have NEVER seen an Asian with blue or whatever color, it is always brown.
And to finish, I think white people just doesn't care about it, sadly.
I use to watch anime, with a lot of asian characters. And more than worried about the color of their hair or eyes, I'm worried about culture, story, characters,...
For example, Amphibia is a great show and they explore Anne's culture, it's not just the color of her skin or her eyes. She and Marcy are asian americans, and it's a really cool story, really well written.
I know the "blue" eyes Asians exist, although their blue eyes are, to white people, more like grey. I don't know if that person I met has some white ancestry (I think not, for as much as I know). Point is, they exist although it is extremely rare. Maybe is something like albinism? Idk I'm just some Hispanic
Fiction doesn't usually care about "probability" for specific characters. For general worldbuilding yes, but not actual characters.
The probability of Superman's baby cradle landing on a planet with a species that looks just like his but weak, for example, is quite, quite low.
For character design, we see a LOT more redheads and blondes in fictional works than should really be seen if we're looking at the probability of redheads and blondes existing in that situation. We just add them because redheads and blondes have a distinctive trait that distinguishes them from many other characters in the work. There's also the fact that it's just visually striking and appealing.
Fiction's goal is almost never to create a 1:1 representation of reality, because then... it's non-fiction. And that's fine, but it's.... non-fiction. The personality and experience of the character is much more important than their appearance.
I’ve seen TWO Asians in my predominantly white school (I’m talking counting poc on one hand white) who had blue eyes. They were sisters though, and were also blonde. Crazy how genetics can be.
I think there are a few korean and japanese actresses and/or models that are famous for their hazel/light brown eyes! Dark brown eyes are usually the norm, although I have seen a few blaisians and wasians when I was living in Japan with blue and green eyes
Genetics are a funny thing! My dad was european/japanese but looked white passing with green eyes but thick straight hair, while all his siblings definitely looked asian. My mom was indigenous/black, but when she moved to Japan with my father, she was mistreated because they confused her for a filipina 😱
I somehow ended looking asian but with curly hair and hazel eyes, and my big sis looks blasian with dark skin, slanted eyes and straight hair, even though our dad didn't look asian at all
I am half korean and a mix of Hispanic and Spanish. It's weird to me that the main characteristic that creators pick for mixed asian characters are very commonly black hair with blue eyes. It is not too much of a big deal in my book, but shows could stand to be more diverse.
I’m jealous as a wasian w brown eyes and I have to click off the video or else I’m gonna sulk
Hispanic and Spanish? Huh? The span in Hispanic stands for Spanish. As in: Spanish speaking. I’m just a bit confused
@@RichielaurensIII they probably mean hispanic as in "colonised by spain" and spanish as in "mainland european spaniard"
@@RichielaurensIII colonization
@@DecayOfTheAI ohhh I see alright thanks
I’m a white Latin American. My eyes are brown. When I was little, I remember my brown-eyed, mestiza mom telling me once that she hoped I’d be born with blue eyes since my paternal grandfather has blue eyes 😬 this brown-eyed inferiority complex is super engrained, and we’re kinda taught from a young age. it’s pretty silly
my mother is hispanic and has brown eyes while my dad has green eyes. I remember her telling me once that if I married a man with light eyes there was a chance my children could have light eyes too since I'd be carrying the green eye gene😬 it's overall a trivial topic but I definitely think brown eyed inferiority complex is a thing LOL
Agreed
people just like the color blue
Cause its a very beautiful
Color but so is green &
Brown.
Oh i know
NAW CUZ IM FILIPINO WITH A WHITE BF AND MY MOM WANTS A BLUE EYED GRANDCHILD BUT LIKE THATS NOT HOW THAT WORKS 😭😭
I find this really interesting, and never actually thought about it. My mother is mixed, half native, and half european. My grandaddy is from Belgium, as far as ethnicity, I have no idea. We just say he is Belgian. My mom has olive skin, brown eyes, and black hair. My biological father had blond hair, and blue eyes. He was from England.
I have light brown hair, however it was bleach-white from ages 0-10. I also have blue eyes, and fair olive skin unless I'm in the sun and it gets darker like my mother's.
This is a bit more morbid, my bio dad was abusive and always accused my mother of cheating. He told her if I didn't look like him, he'd hurt us both. I was born with a FULL head of white blonde hair, and my eyes stayed blue. My bio dad was 6'3 and my mom is 5'2, I'm 5'5. And while my colouring matches my bio dad's (I feel that there's a specific reason this happend) my face is the same as my mother's and my nana's.
My grandfather has dark brown hair and blue eyes.
I'm actually the only one with blonde hair in my entire family 😂 at least since the 1930s and 40s.
I know what you mean about the snow blonde hair and blue eyes for biracial. I indefy as white for the fair skin, gray eyes as mixture of white, native and black. I used to call myself a Alien india girl that was mixed up. Plus my hair went from Snow White until 6; then black and in late teens became light brown. Genetics are strange!
Now, I have Silver eyes with golden halos that hide a lot!
i hope you guys are okay :( your bio dad is really awful :(
@@wendyboles5960 ah i'm so glad you get it 😂 My eyes are blueish grey. Depending on the lighting they'll be baby blue, or more dull/greyish blue
Within my native family we've just said "ehh we're just a buncha mutts" but I've always identified as Belgian and Native
@@buuqioyluvsizumireina Thank you, yes we're okay. My mother left him when I was a baby, and got a restraining order so he isn't allwed near either of us. She was remaried to my dad, so she's also doing well now :)
@@curcubeusiiubirea7778 There is a legend too on the white and natives, perhaps Blackfoot mixed too to add.
I am creating a fairytale from this legend . As We speak!
Well, in defense of Caitlyn she did start out white, basically very British steampunk stripper tea-loving pretty girl vibes . And then slowly became more serious and "Ionian", which is where most "asian" characteristics in League come from. So Id say shes more of an "Asianwashing" of a white character, and thank god for that lol (this is a joke btw in case it wasnt clear)
and she is the only character with a british accent in game...she is def not supposed to be asian...
@@metanoiia_ there are british asians tho?
@@Sky-pv3njShe still didn't start Asian.
@@metanoiia_to me a lot of asians i met have a british accent lol
@@metanoiia_ it's more meant to be an "upper crust" rich person accent, like camille kinda has that british accent too
As a bio major it was very funny watching you struggle through the genetics hahaha you did a great job though
Her pronunciation of allele killed me 😂
She tried, bless her ❣️
@@lasagna7704I died a little every time I heard it. Good job on her, though, it just means she reads a lot.
Also the movie memories a Geisha. It was about the life of a little Japanese girl who got sold off into a Geisha house under servitude. Paying off debts & eventually becoming a Geisha herself.
I was pissed that a lot of focus was placed on her blue eyes. Or the fact that they were blue in the first place. It was very inaccurate movie in itself & felt like the White directors were stroking their own blue-eyed egos. Like “look this Japanese girl has blue eyes. Look guys! This is what makes her so special. We already have an interesting plot but why not insert some blue eyes, so we can somehow tie it back to ourselves.” It kind of feels like her story would have never been told had she not had been a blue eyed Japanese girl
Omg I saw the movie years ago and didn't remember this!
when i was a kid in 2nd grade, there was this girl in my class that was asian, and get this...
she had a blue iris in her LEFT EYE and a grey iris in her RIGHT EYE!
talk about rare eye colors!
I'm not asian myself but I understand what you're talking about! I also find a weird trend where black characters in animation are given brown hair that's almost the same character of their skin. sometimes i feels like the character designers are afraid to give them black hair!!
I'm with you on this! I've always found it super odd. I mean it's not like Black people can't have natural Brown hair but its just its weird they are NEVER given Black hair when thats the most common natural hair color we have. And there doesnt seem to be any real reason for it tbh
This has bothered me too especially when most black hair is well very dark brown(almost black) to black.
I don't know if this is 100% true, but I have a friend who is an artist and very into animation. She said that black hair is very hard to animate. Which is why even in anime, they usually make black hair several shades lighter, or a darker shade of blue, purple, brown, etc to make that easier.
That is due to how black hair sort of looks flat in animation/takes a lot of time to put in the details compared to straighten hair.I’m a black woman who is learning to animate and one of the 1st things to realise is that most cartoons are 1 kept in a budget and 2 unless given leniency most are not given the time to animate stuff like this.
An example is Craig of the Creek which yes has black hair it falls out flat (though that could also be due to colour scheme).In animation especially action filled ones motion is very much wanted to not look stiff.
Though I do appreciate it when a cartoon does give a black character black hair.
@@Mialikesthings hello hello from another black girl in animation!! 👋♥️. I do understand a lot of the constraints and problems that comes with animating black hair, but this trope is specifically annoying when there's other main characters in the show who have black hair, yet the dark skinned character always gets brown hair regardless. like talia from lolirock having hair the same color as her skin while lyna has pure black hair. or lance and adam from voltron having brown hair while shiro and keith have black hair as well. or even alya in ladybug vs juleka.
yes for marinette!! as someone who's wasian like she is, her design always frustrated me a little. its possible to have more white features than asian as my sister definitely looks more white that i do but its the why they changed her design to me that matters. kagami a side character looks asian and marinette the main character doesn't at all despite them both being asian. it really feels like to me a case of maybe wanting to appeal more to certain audiences. maybe they thought the show would do better if she looked more white but i'm not going to assume thats the exact reason
That IS the exact reason. To appeal to a broader audience they can’t make the main character too much like their “colored” half.
This happens ALL THE TIME in animated and real life movies and tv shows. Biracial children where one of the parents is white are more white passing and “white acting” and the non-white side is just to give “flavor”. It’s like the non-white side has no impact on their personality or development.
Don’t give money making companies the benefit of the doubt. White people have always gotten their way with characters that are supposed to look like them or have similar lifestyles to them. Creators know that if the characters don’t look, act, or behave “white” then the white audience will feel alienated even though non-white people watch shows with no representation ALL the time.
Whenever Western media has designs that look "Asian" like Kagami, they get called racist stereotypes by people living in Asia, who prefer designs like Marinette or characters you see in anime. It's interesting that Asian Americans have the opposite opinion
The difference between Marinette and Kagami could maybe be explained by the fact that Kagami's father is probebly Asian while we know that Marinette's father is an European
I'm not mixed, but full Chinese, but I feel like this story will still apply here: Growing up, I absolutely hated my brown eyes because I got told they were black, looked gross, etc. (kids suck sometimes.) So many books and shows I loved had characters with dark/black hair and green/blue eyes that I would legitimately wish on birthdays that my eye color would magically switch itself. This was half because I was a pick-me girl and half because I genuinely just did not like my eye color, even though it was the most common of everyone I knew. There was one point where I considered regularly wearing colored contacts with my glasses so that I could have dark green eyes, even though that would have been so not worth it.
I didn't even have many canonically Asian characters to look up to outside of Mulan growing up, but the characters I did look up to almost always had blue or green eyes. Like you said, at the end of the day this issue isn't That Serious, but it does kind of suck because it doesn't Have To Be Like This. This also reminds me of Black characters getting light/white hair and/or light eyes in media time and again, whether it's live action or anime. Obviously, this is possible (my friend is half-Black and has gorgeous blue eyes), but is it common? No.
Again, is it a big deal when it comes to representation vs the very real representation issues POC, women, and queer people face every day? Not really, no. Is it still really annoying to see happen time and again when they could just give these characters some beautiful brown eyes and call it a day? Yes, yes it is and I'm glad you're bringing it up.
this.
and at least you have a representation, as a light-skinned european with dark brown hair and brown eyes i don’t have like at all 💀
@@demihau there's still plenty of good characters you can relate to and enjoy even if they don't look like you
I hate that Marinette wa supposed to have black hair and grey eyes that are slightely long which looks more "chinese". Just look up the2014 version, she was gorgeous
Yeah when they changed to 3D she did seem more Asian than what we have now except the movie
Initially she wasn’t even supposed to be half white. According to concept art, she wasn’t Wasian until later into production.
@@vflowersimp Yes, I know that. And even in her earliest version (2005) she looked very beautiful.
No she wasn't anime version was the first one she looks exactly how she looked in the anime
@@florianadior Anime version isn't the first one. Marinette was supposed to be fully asian in the first drafts. She then had her blue hair in the PV, but they switched to black hair and grey eyes in 2014, and finally they gave her the blue hair and blue eyes again.
"How are we going to get it through to people that this asian character is mixed?"
"Ehhhh slap some blue eyes on em"
I think design conversations go a little like that sometimes lol
The problem is that the unconscious conversation is: Q: "How are we going to get it through to people that this character is _the most special?"_
A: "You ever seen Naruto, Goku, Sailor Moon, and Ed from FMA? Obviously give them blonde hair and blue eyes! Even in regular film posters, why do we often desaturate the environment and increase the saturation on the main character's blue eyes? Why did we give Jesus blue eyes? Duh! To signal that he's _very white_ and that this has something to do with why they're so special!"
The issue at large, as I see it, is Hollywood’s decision that blue eyes= special/heroic character. As a black girl growing up in the 80/90s I noticed that in the few instances where black people were shown more naturalistically (ie with pupils and sclera instead of black dots for eyes) they would always have green eyes. I asked an animation instructor about this and they said the design choice was done for the contrast. I accepted this answer at the time, but it never sat right with me.
Around this time I started paying closer attention to design in animation and saw a pattern where hero characters, be they human animal or inanimate object, tended to have blue eyes. I remember the main penguin in Happy Feet had blue eyes and like this random Rx commercial where even an animated bladder had blue eyes. And then Dreamworks’ Rio came out. And while Blue did have brown eyes Jewel was a blue macaw with blue eyes and nobody worried about her contrast being dull or unengaging.
Because of all this I actually haven’t bothered to watch Blue Eyed Samurai. Unfortunately when it comes to POC it’s often our proximity to whiteness that distinguishes us for greatness in Western narratives. Honestly, my immediate reaction was this was another Tom Cruise/ Last Samurai narrative because of the promo pic and the title, I had no clue that the main character was a woman (which I think is more intriguing than her eye color).
Unlike the rest of your examples the protagonist of Blue Eyed Samurai was based on a real person, i.e. the creators' daughter, it wasn't a design choice. They're a mixed couple who were surprised when their daughter came out with blue eyes. The protagonist also has a very complicated relationship with her genetics.
I'm a mixed race black girl, and personally I could relate to part of Mizu's struggles in relation to her race. Sorry if this is coming off too strong, but there was a lot of thought put into the show and from your comment it sounds like something you'd enjoy
Because in accordance with science called physiognomy blue eyes mean that character has traits of Aquarius. And Aquarious is a zodiac sign that goes against the rules and brings new knowledge. And USA was build on people like that. Of course you can mark it with other specific facial features.
@@karolinakuc4783 Physiognomy has been disproven for like a century. Also the US was built on slavery, genocide, and theft. Nice try.
@@kjarakravik4837 While the spark that inspired the story may have been the creator’s daughter, the actual character of Mizu wasn’t based on a real life person. My above comment was referring to the animation industry/ history at large not just this specific show. I do agree that the show is way more interesting than I initially thought and probably will check it out
@@ourabouras Sorry, I was tired and didn't think about my comment very well before I wrote it, but I probably should have mentioned that I agree with you about the other shows. You made a very insightful point, and I'll pay more attention next time I watch something animated
The thing that stings more with Marinette is the fact that in the concept art, she had black hair and gray/black eyes contrary to the blue color she has now. Yeah, in the Ladybug PV both her hair and eyes are blue, but you can find 2D and 3D concept art of her where they're black/gray. They stuck with the blue cause its easier for the animation, but its still a shame they made her eyes so bright blue to the point she fits the "someone buy them brown contacts please" meme
Nah, now you're just playing. Marinette's eyes are gorgeous, not uncanny.
If Marisue's eyes are "so bright blue" then you'd probably go blind if you saw the character design for one of my book characters lol
I remember once saying 'I don't think I've EVER seen an Asian person with blue eyes!' whilst watching MLB, only for my Wasian father to look me in the eyes and then point to my 1/4 Japanese sister with blue eyes. Apart from her, I have yet to meet a Wasian with blue eyes, and my siblings and I are diluted Wasians!
Aloha from Hawai’i! Hapa (hah-pah) is a literal hawaiian translation of the English word “half.” It was originally used to describe people who are half-hawaiian (prominent examples are Princess Ka’iulani or Queen Emma Kalanikaumakaʻamano Kaleleonālani Naʻea Rooke).
Though today since most of the population is Asian and we have had plenty of mixing since the 1800s hapa is used to describe anyone who is mixed since you won’t find as many mixed people who are just two things.
The mix of a person can also be clarified ie. “Hapa hawaiian” or “hapa l haole (white).” There was once a subreddit called “r/hapa” which was populated by mix Asian/white men and unfortunately was just another incel community obsessed with the fact that their Asian decent made them less desireable :( they have since been banned.
As someone who is mixed hawaiian, I think it is fine to use that word to describe yourself even as a non-hawaiian as long as you understand it’s history. Even for me, when I look at you, I think “hapa” because you would fit right in as a local in Hawai’i. Though this might be different for other hawaiians who are tired of our language getting co-opted such as the aLoHa sPIriT.
I can also say I have never seen any hapa white/Asian person with blue eyes while still looking hapa. Meaning if they have light colored eyes they probably have other Caucasian features such as lighter hair, lighter or more easily freckled skin etc etc.. I believe the term is polygenic inheritance.
More characters: Musa from Winx Club is fully Chinese yet she has blue eyes. Willow Park from The Owl House is Korean and has green eyes. Katara from Avatar who is Inuit (Asian or American?) and has blue eyes. - that one is fine i guess since it's a stylistic choice to show that she's part of the water tribe.
I think these creators want to give representation but they're stingy with it - close enough but not exactly so they don't make the audience uncomfortable with different ethnicities or some bs (but they have no problem using asian culture hmmm)
Winx.... lots of rhe characters have unnatural eye and hair colors. Like Tecna is a pinkhead with I think purple eyes, so....
Also the Winx creator's wife is Asian
@@finland4ever55 Tecna has blue eyes. The video said that hair colour is definitely different to eye colour, because hair is usually a stylistic choice and can be a range of colours. All the six girls have human eye colours, blue, green and light brown.
I’m pretty sure Thomas Astruc’s wife is Asian too (the creator of Miraculous), doesn’t really mean much.
Adding onto Willow, she’s supposed to be Blasian yet shows 0 Korean or black features.. she looks so white passing that causal viewers of the show mistaken her as being white, myself included
Willow is supposed to be blasian?? Damn I never knew
@@Hana_H yeah, Willow is supposed to be Blasian because she’s related to both of her dads(one is black and the other is Korean) but most people think she’s white because she has 0 black or Asian features. I see fanart giving her more black and Asian features than the actual show.
But to be fair, Dana isn’t that good when it comes to making characters look like their ethnicities. Luz for another example is supposed to be Afro Latina yet shows 0 black features, making people think she’s just Latina up until S3 where she and her mom get their curly hair. It’s interesting that it’s revealed that they often straighten their hair but still not the best excuse for the little black features Luz and her mom has. Anne Boonchuy has more black features to the point where people mistaken her for being black when in reality, Anne doesn’t have any black ancestry. Shes 100% Thai. The fact that a non-black character looks more black than an actual black character is sad.
The only one who genuinely looks like his race is Darius. He does have a lot of black features and it’s easy to tell that he’s black. He IS more of a supporting/background character though so idk if he really counts
Blue eyes are just a simple way for animators to convey that a character is of half-European half-Asian descent. In Mizu's case, it's also relevant for her character as its a distinctive feature of her appearance that betrays her European ancestry and what causes her to be referred to as a demon.
It's interesting how in both western and japanese animation, we consistently see non brown eyes in most partially white asian characters designs. Japanese depictions tend to also give them blonde hair. Being wasian myself I definitely did think about the genetic logistics of Mizu's eyes when I first watched it lol. I would certainly believe it's to create a popping character design but I do agree it would be nice to finally see a brown eyed wasian.
One of the nice things about Invincible was that Mark has his (Korean American) Mom’s eyes, despite his dad having grey eyes and having some pretty strong genetics shall we say.
i think that’s just because japanese culture is so homogenous and same-y that, from the japanese perspective (and their choice of art style), having a wholly realistic wasian person with dark hair and dark eyes would make them look just about the same as everyone else. it helps for distinction and makes for a more eye-catching design, even if it’s completely fantastical genetically.
@@marleybeavers absolutely!
@@mggardiner4066 interesting!! I've been meaning to check this show out.
I know I'm late but there is a reason for this. If you look up "The prettiest boy in the world" there's a whole section of how most anime characters are based after him. I forgot his name but I remember watching a documentary about him.
it’s frustrating that Mizu is included in this, because the whole point of her character is that she’s a mixed race Japanese woman who is constantly battling her white features. She’s not white washed, her having blue eyes actually is a very large plot point, and adds to her character in ways that would be lost if her eyes were a brown. A whole team of people, largely consisting of mixed race creators, worked for a long time to create her character design.
This was brought up in the video
You just didn't bother to watch the video did you
tldr: you didn't watch the video
Maybe watch the whole video before commenting, buddy.
15:19
As a wasian person. THANK YOU. I feel so validated. This is why whenever i make wasian ocs, i give them brown or dark eyes
8:05 this happened with my nephew. We're of south asian decent (mixed here and there) but we're brown. Both his parents have brown eyes. He has faint blue-ish gray-ish eyes. We immediately started looking at old photos to see who in the family had those eye colors
It is not just eye-colour, but the overall Eurocentric beauty standards all over western media. Us Asians had our own idea of beauty. Look at the old Asian art forms that portray features of their own people - For East Asians (which this video seemed to be about, and that West-Asians share similar features to Europeans) it was hooded eyelids and flat brow-bones and a rounded face. Sadly in our current culture we see and pursue a tiny fragment of the overall beauty that diversity offers.
Flat brow bones, small nose bridges, and fuller faces are features that still get a lot of representation tho? Like every character in cartoons or anime have those things, it’s just hair and eyes that are heavily stylized
@@reggoo12 I should've specified semi-realistic/realistic depictions but yeah I get what you mean
Another example of this is Marnie and Anna from When Marnie Was There. Marnie is biracial (Japanese mom, white dad) but has blonde hair and blue eyes, and (spoiler alert) her granddaughter Anna (whose only white relative is Marnie's dad) has blue eyes. I guess it's a subtle clue that they're related, as that's the big plot twist.
For more realistic wasian rep: Mark from Invincible
Also the movie was based on a book that was set in England, they changed the setting to Japan.
*Technically* Mark isn't wasian because his dad *technically* isn't white, on account of being an alien lol
I was under the impression that Marnie was European with two European parents and she married a white man.
@@joshuasgameplays9850Yeah but people probably assumed Nolan was a white man
Yeah if it's the standard anime hair colors that's one thing, but I notice anime that portray characters with realistic hair colors and only have weird colors as a plot point still mess this up. See Bleach as another example
For League of Legends Caitlyn, it is set in a fantasy world with no real connection to the real world.
Which is one reason why in the show the accents are all over the place.
Before Arcane Caitlyn didn't look particularly Asian. Thus the blue eyes, the Mad Hatter style top hat and her strong English accent gave a more European/English impression.
Mizu has blue eyes and it was important as she was bullied and hunted down for it. That was the whole point.
I’m only an eighth Thai (and frankly so white-passing that it doesn’t even count) but this has annoyed me for years and I’m so glad that people are finally talking about it. There are ways of portraying characters as mixed in a way that is relatable and authentic WITHOUT essentially white-washing them for the aesthetic.
loving the self awareness here lol (i’m also a VERY white passing wasian)
Me, a Thai artist who designs a Thai-Swedish character with blonde hair and blue eyes: 💀
This conversation is so interesting to me as a Native American and Chinese mixed fem, I’ve always been confused why when a mixed Asian fem presenting character is in media she usually is show with light colored eye shade (blue, gray, green). Especially if they are a main character or “important character”. Rarely do I see brown, dark brown, black which are the dominant eye color within east and south East Asians. On top of that, rarely do I see the impression of the eye color ever brought up unless the media or story is centered on talking about it. Such as in the recent Blue Eye samurai.
In this essay I will be breaking on the intersection of representation of Asian fem presenting/coded characters, the impact of character design highlighting eye shape and color, and the role of westernization/legacy of asian fetishization.
What annoys me is that half-Asians are always portrayed as half-white in mainstream media. I would like to see more diversity among Asian woman portrayal. (I'm a Chinese female)
That is a very interesting ethnic background you have.
@@NisarKhan-jm1uhthere’s actually a lot of Native American mixed people, we’re just not talked about. To put in perspective, in the USA only about 20% Native Americans live on reservations full time. Lots of us are urbanites, living in cities or suburbs.
@@audreyluan5325So true! Its crazy to me why it’s not talked about more
@@gamer242mooo I see. That's cool. I wished more people knew that.
As a wasian person, thank you for bringing up this topic, but I personally don’t think Mizu should be included in this discussion. As you said, her being mixed race and her blue eyes are features that further the meaning of her story. Also, the creators were actually came up with the idea for blue eye samurai when they had a daughter who is wasian and has blue eyes, so it wasn’t part of this “trend” in animated characters (I’m not sure when they came up with the idea, but still)
Strong Arguments tend to have some section for refuting, so discussing mizu serves as that…
@@dotcom3015No they don't. Otherwise they're not strong arguments. They're strawmen.
@@PickyVickyVindictive what? Did you not write any argumentative essays in school. You’re supposed to have a section before the conclusion that refutes your argument. Strawman is misrepresenting the other persons argument
@@dotcom3015 How is she gonna argue that there's racism in blue eyed Asian characters, if all she has for her point is biracial characters who have a REASON for being Asian with blue eyes?
Add to that people are saying the girl from arcane wasn't even asian in the OG series and her race Isn't important to her character if you watched the show. I dont even know what brought up the Winx. That girl from the Winx literally looks Asian. Its also not important to her character.
Miraculous doesnt even seem racist. Thomas does incorporate her culture in there. The basis of a miraculous comes from her culture. Tons of Asian people born in America dont know everything about THEIR culture, why would being born in France be any different?
@@PickyVickyVindictive the other examples didn’t have a reason to use blue eyes, blue eyed samurai was the only one that did have a purpose. Because that is the counter argument to her overall video. And she didn’t argue that blue eyes on characters were actually racist, if you listened to the beginning. Look I can’t really teach you English lit rn, you’ll have to learn argumentative essay format to comprehend her point better. Or don’t. You can continue to misunderstand this video
They get blue eyes because it is the most visual way to show that they are mixed. Their physical traits gives that their are asian, the blue eyes remind of the white part. It is mostly because every anime character is stylized and it is super hard to make a character stand out as "mixed" by themselves, especially if you want them to REALLY stand out because it's the main protag. It's not about reality. It's about character design.
Also, even if neither of your parents has blue eyes, you can still get them because every individual get two alleles. So both parents can have the recessive blue allele hidden in their genetic code. Lowest probability, sure, but it still happens.
you are the first chanel that I'm subscribed to who talked about blue-eyed Samuri its so underrated
Wasn’t the whole point of Blue Eye Samurai the fact that she does have blue eyes? 😂
Edit: Ah, never mind.
literally lol
Does that exclude her from the list somehow?😅
yeah and shes a woman, they made it a big part of the plot and stuff
15:19 Watch this part
@@shawnnbitsyes actually it does and if you look at her it’s clear as day that she’s Japanese and looks mixed so how is she whitewashed? She is literally based of off the creators own daughter who is mixed so saying she’s whitewashed is actually rude and insulting 😅
As someone who has never watched miraculous i had no idea marinette was half asian… and as a character designer thats a big nono. There’s so much they could’ve done to make her look less white, from her name to her appearance, but they just didn’t. And its so easily fixable, it feels like they just didn’t want to and just gave her the surname.
Same, I only got it when I saw her mom. Especially because Marinette has blue hair
They could have tanned her skin a bit
@@PotatoNuggetConsumer literally 😭 its not that hard
I was able to tell she's half Asian and the first episode made it even more obvious.
I'm sorry but if you didn't notice her VERY asian mom and her VERY asian last name then idk dude
Blue Eye'd samurai doesn't count as "Whitewashing" since the whole plot and film revolves about Mizu (who is mixed. Asian/white) finding the 4 white men that raped her mother and made her who was considered a disgrace for the color and shape of her eyes. saying she is a demon etc. without the features she has. shed be seen more normal and not as a demon
I know this one! The answer is visual storytelling and character design. This is something people in animation studios specialize in, and their main focus is to get as much across about the character JUST from their design. So when wanting to have their character where their mixed race on their sleeve, it's easy to come to the conclusion of straight, black, east asian hair + bright white blue eyes, even if it's not genetically common or the experience of most kids. Not defending this mindset here; I think visual storytelling should come second after accurate representation. But it's an explanation why this seemingly happens so often. If you think about biracial anime characters, it feels like a lot of them have straight up bright blonde hair and big blue eyes. This is coming from the same mindset- wanting to visually show this character is from another place with as little effort as possible.
Pretty Sure Japanese Anime has Japanese characters with eye colors of the rainbow.
But it's only considered offensive when westerners do it. Just like how anime is full of scatily clad women and femme fatales who are Japanese but if a westerner makes an Asian woman the same way it's "offensive" and wrong...
Gray eyes can turn to blue eyes, and sometime green can turn blue, not sure why. but i know someone who had green and are now blue.. and sometime you can have red eyes when you have albino..
Fun fact: Albino people's eyes can appear red because you see their bloodvessels
It’s all about melanine concentration
Well, in the case of Mizu and Caitlyn, they are of mixed race, plus Caitlyn lives in a fantasy world where people regardless of race have all possible hair and eye colors.
Also, I am personally sure that in the real world there are people of color who have blue and green eyes (with no white ancestors), they are just extremely rare and also victims of discrimination in their communities.
And we can also talk about the average anime, where even a slice of life, in more or less realistic anime, the characters often have unusual eye and hair colors.
i thought the blue hair was because black hair is more expensive to animate ?? am i wrong ??
i think its still harder to see sometimes
I always thought the blue hair was an aesthetic choice, that still kind of resembles black hair
@yahoodotcom5321it still cost more, and its harder to get details in dark settings with black hair.
@yahoodotcom5321 do you think studio budgets stopped existing after the 80s ??
it’s easier to animate but it’s strange when a wasian/asian character has blue hair and there are characters with black hair
Another funny thing I've noticed in animation is that black and biracial black characters are drawn with green or blue eyes. Blue or green eyes are rare in black people even if they're half white. Granted, it's more common in mixed half white and half black people, but it's still not common
I think it’s done not to represent reality but to pop out.Due to those features being rare in reality when in media it somewhat grabs our attention.
You could also include stuff such as colours and how character design.
Icy blue ice-cold and mystic
Brown-warm and familiar
and etc.
@@Mialikesthings then why are white characters often drawn with brown eyes?
@@crazylizze98 If we are talking in the realms of animation.It depends on white the character designer and director wanted.
Usually characters with brown eyes are either meant to represent normal people.
(See how when talking of POC characters we usually are talking about main characters not side characters).
Or it could be due to how the colour brown gives a more warm and effection with some sort of earthly comfort.
This of course is in the realms of magical if not supernatural animations,if we were to talk about ‘slice of life’ to say cartoons most POC and white people do not in fact have rare colours to their race.
@@Mialikesthings that's a really bad excuse
@@crazylizze98 It is nit an excuse it is basic character design.
The fact that you see it as an excuse just shows that
1. You really want to be a victim
2. You don’t really understand film nor art in general when it comes to film.
It also seems like you did nit read my comment nor try to understand but I take my case.
I appreciate that you specified east asian girls in the video! it bothers me sometimes when people think korean, chinese, and japanese people are the only kind of asian people - so thank you!
To my knowledge, I think this phenomenon of making characters look purposefully racially ambiguous or just plain white passing is called “Not Too Foreign”. So foreign enough to elicit interest but not too foreign to alienate domestic audiences because ‘ethnic appearances are not marketable’.
Examples of this are obviously Marinette, I think Miguel O’Hara, any protagonist from a Jenny Han novel and many characters of colour you can see on television/cinema who are commonly played by half-white mixed/multiracial actors, and then this conveniently plays into colorism and featurism. so basically, the proximity to whiteness makes characters more palatable for certain audiences.
The proximity thing is sickening!!!!
@@audreyluan5325 Yeah, it's an unfortunate truth about a lot of people's capacity for empathy that they can't deem a character as 'relatable' unless they're European or European-adjacent. Dork Diaries' team is entirely of African American women yet the protagonist of the books, Nikki, noticeably has no named ethnic identity and is mostly believed to be white. I believe that the books wouldn't have been half as successful if Nikki was explicitly marketed as black.
Well to be fair Marinettes hair are actually Black in anime and stuff get Black hair really often depicted as blue
Yeah so maybe her eyes are actually really dark brown to the point they look black but they gave her blue eyes to counteract that
@@riddlerosehearts8277 Yeah true
@riddlerosehearts8277 nah now yall are stretching it 😭 they purposely gave her blue eyes. Also the black hair thing is completely possible since characters like jeulika and Natalie AND marinettes mom have black hair.
@@dramadrama1986 No Marinette's mum's hair is navy blue, so it's still blue just not the bright blue Mari has & I'm not stretching my second eldest sister has extremely dark brown hair that looks black so it's entirely possible they made it blue to work better, yes Ik there is characters with black hair but cmon, her hair should be navy blue not the bright blue they chose, if they can make black hair a navy blue they can totally do it with eyes too
@@dramadrama1986 also why are you moaning about Mari not having brown eyes but completely ingnoring Juleka having fucking red eyes, end of they day they're fictional why do they need to look like actual half asians, they don't need to
no this is literally one of my pet peeves
like you say, it's _possible_ for mixed asians to have different colored eyes, but its so uncommon for them to not be brown. I think it comes from anime honestly, where anime characters constantly have different colored eyes. they just want to make asian people more "interesting" to look at
i didnt even realize cait was asian 😭
ok why are you including blue eye samurai in the thumbnail. the whole point of the show revolves around the plot point that mizu is of mixed race. she is supposed to be like that its part of her story and character. I understand the other examples though but blue eye samurai shouldn't be here.
she is race baiting because she is plain
Exactly THANK YOU!
"How common is it for an East Asian person to have eyes?"
I was looking for something that talked about this, and I’m so glad that i found you.
7:37 Incorrect as there are 2 different alleles (Ah-LEE-ul) can cause blue eyes so you'd have to have the matching allele. One is the gene that creates the pigment and one is the gene that makes the enzyme that folds the pigment. One of my friends has brown eyes from 2 blue eyed parents because their blue eyes were caused by different recessive genes. Their brother has blue eyes so for those 2 genes, so at least one of the parents is heterogeneous for the other gene. Think aa Bb + AA bb or aa BB + Aa bb or aa Bb + Aa bb
You did so well discussing the genetics!! I’m a biochemistry major in a specialized biology program at a big ten school. If for any reason you want to talk about this again, the word allele is pronounced like Al-Eel. I know it doesn’t look like that it’s a weird one 😅
"Mizu slays all day, everyday."
I know you didn't mean that as a pun, but .... Yep, that is .. VERY accurate
It's also common in anime to have a character that is half white half Japanese to have blue eyes. Anna from When Marnie Was There, Naozumi from Kodocha, Tamaki from Ouran High School, Asuka from Evangelion, etc. In anime, I think it's an easy way to make a character stand out from the cast. A lot of anime I named will have characters with hair colors that would be unusual in Japan, but characters only ever comment on the eye color because all the other characters have brown eyes. When it's in a western cartoon where there are white characters, it's less about making the character stand out. With Caitlyn, I think it was a color pallette thing. All the main characters had a color pallette they kept to which being based on a video game, it makes sense. Games where you can play as various different characters usually assign the different characters a color pallette to make it more visible on screen who you are and keep track of your character. With Marinette, I know her hair was based on old comic books that colored Wonder Woman with a dark blue color pallette. Her design did at one point have brown eyes and I think they worked in the blue eyes to match her hair. Also romance between a blue eyed and green eyed person is sooooo common that it's cliche. Brown eyes in romance is under represented.
While I do get the reasoning behind the decision to give them blue eyes in these examples, it is worth noting that no matter what the reason is, it has the same end result. A lot like the Asian character with a streak in her hair. This is also very common like Gogo from Big Hero 6, Juniper from The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Fei from Miraculous Ladybug Shanghai, etc. It's been done so much that we really need to do some other tropes because this one has been done way too much.
This does not apply to mizu tho...the entire story of Blue Eye Samurai is centered around the fact that she's mixed during a time when being mixed was seen as something horrible or monstrous. She's not whitewashed, she's mixed.
I rarely feel represented by characters, and when I do, it's never because of something like eye colour. It's personality, and not surface level 1-dimensional stuff, but something genuine that makes me believe they're just like me.
Okay, for caitlin, her fandom is known for their strange colore and styles, all of them would be sort of out of place
And Mizu, her being mixed and having blue eyes is one of the major plot points. Also, the idea apparently comes from the creators own child, who is mixed race and has blue eyes
on the blue hair: its not a design choice, black hair is just nearly impossible to animate (if anyone was wondering)
I don't think I've ever seen a RUclips video that's filmed from bed lol. The level of comfort on display is inspiring.
I can't explain the first two but the Blue eye Samurai is meant to look like that because it's a huge part of her story about being a mixed raced asian.. and it even comes from the writers own experience of being mixed raced herself. So that has purpose and it doesn't make her any less Japanese
Though blue can often be used in place of black for animation many anime characters who technically have black hair have a blue highlights.. because it pops out better than black (especially with 2D.. since no one had perfectly black eyes.. that be weird..)
Wouldn't call it white washing unless the character had been written to look a certain way and the production ignores it and just makes her blonde 😅
First things first, thank you for this video:]
As a green-eyed wasian, for a long time I was a bit ignorant of my heritage because the only asian person I've ever seen was my mom. And due to the country I grew up in socially erasing people like us in the 30s I've never known my culture or why my classmates and a teacher were calling me a "kitayoza"(a slur aimed at asian people). So, the first time I've seen someone like me in a show was when I've watched Winx Club for the first time and it's been a wild ride since then lmao.
I feel like this trend goes further back and comes from other media. Like in a lot of the first American books about Asia like A Japanese Nightingale, there was this idea that the perfect woman was a combination of the east and west or whatever (which is stupid) because it would be like "bad" to be attracted to a purely asian person, so characters were made to be mixed race so that they were desirable in lasting relationships. A Japanese Nightingale is the most prominent example of this. It was published in 1904 and the main girl (half Japanese half white) has black hair with a "tinge" of red so like dark brown i guess? and blue/purple eyes? This also happens with Trouble in Madame Butterfly (the main couple's mixed race child)
i could listen to you talk about whatever for hours why are you so good at talking
did you really put BLUE EYED SAMURAI in the thumbnail?? thats literally the whole point of the show... like she needs to have something very obvious and different to show shes mixed AND it shows here resemblance to that monster (i forgot the name) and lady bug, it looks coll with her eye mask and again makes her stand out and shes mixed as well.
my guy, she says it in the video that it is justified
Fr, it’s so damn stupid
Girl I didn't know you were half korean half white, me too! Also, this blue eyed trope has been a thing I've noticed for a while now as well. I've always wondered why. I figured it's because maybe it's hard for animators to show that someone is half white half asian since animation is so stylized and simple. If you just give a character brown eyes and hair, then what makes them look different from a fully asian character, you know? So I think they give them blue eyes to symbolise their whiteness, like it's more of an artistic choice or something. However, I personally think that you can give these characters brown hair and eyes and they can still be wasian because truly I don't think there's such a big difference in half asian vs fully asian appearances a lot of times. I honestly think it's more important they write them as a half asian than make them look realistically half asian. But like you said, it would be nice to see a wasian female character with dark brown eyes and hair for once to feel a little seen:)
That would be nice to see since blue eyes are extremely rare in real life. It's crazy that blue eyes is always chosen for half Asian female characters....
In the case of Blue Eyed Samurai, her blue eyes are an important detail in the story and one of the main reasons why she was discriminated against in Japanese society.
Thanks for the biology lesson, genuinely enjoyed it and actually finally understand the punnet square tyyy
Fellow Wasian girlie here, half Filipino half French and this video made me so happy. Everything you said I was like *YES THANK YOU*
While I myself am heavily white passing, my dark brown eyes are a feature of mine that stand out, and are definitely a dominant gene. Blue Eye Samurai I figured it was fine they gave Mizu blue eyes because it of how it worked with the story, Arcane it didn't matter to me, and Miraculous I just didn't care because I already don't think very highly of the creators so them giving Marinette blue eyes to make her "more appealing" or whatever just gives me another reason to dislike them.
The vibe of this video is everything lol, also you look very comfy thats good
as a wasian girlie this video is so therapeutic
like nobody gets my frustration with this shit and they always say that i’m overreacting
you are. you are definitely overreacting.
@@roronoa876 oh boo hoo so sad
off topic but I love this setup it feels like we're all having a sleepover and we made presentations and you're showing us yours
In the DC animated adaptation “Young Justice”, one of the leads is a half-Vietnamese half-Caucasian girl named Artemis Crock; she has dirty-blonde hair like her white father, but her mother’s complexion and brown eyes (and dark eyebrows). She also has a sister who takes more strongly after their mother… Artemis was apparently based on a girl one of the creators knew - her parents were half-white and half-Asian and she had blonde hair, so not entirely the same but… not impossible.
A lot of Asians in animation get the blue treatment. like their eyes are blackish/blue or greyish and their hair is blue. It's probably for aesthetic purposes, and sometimes I fall into using bluish tones too as short cuts especially if it's an anime-inspired style. Somehow did not fall into giving my Wasian characters blue eyes (yet). It does make me happy to see Asians with black hair and brown eyes so sometimes I do give them those traits.
Honestly think this is being looked into too much. As a poc and artist myself It's just character design, make the characters pop and draw peoples eyes in 🤷♀
I can only think of like two mixed asian characters with brown eyes and that's Mark/Invincible and Jake Long. I pretty sure there is more but, my spoons are low☹️
Mimi Tachikawa from Digimon is the only 1/2 white 1/2 Asian that has brown eyes in the franchise, Matt and TK from the same series are only 1/8th french but have blond hair blue eyes
Completly missed the point with Mizu. Her blue eyes are a plot point - and an occurence in reality with children from mixed couples.
I honestly dont think the show producers cared enough for the logistics of Marinettes blue eyes, given that her mom also has grey eyes and theres also Juleka who just straight up has red eyes. For the most part I think its just a character design choice, since blue eyes look striking compared to the rest of the characters colour palette, and are an iconic eye colour in fictional characters in general. I dont think their intention was to necessarily whitewash her. As for Mizu, doesnt her whole character and story revolve around the fact that she has blue eyes? I dont consider this that deep, at the end of the day they are just fictional characters, most of which come from magical fictional worlds, where perhaps, it is more common to get specific eye colours. I mean, are we really only focusing on Catlins blue eyes when so many other characters in LoL have like straight up unreal eye colours.
The video is all over , and i dont get why she used Cat as an exemple cuz she has blue eyes when in LOL people are born with blue and pink hair.
As an artist the topic of eye color is from my pov a style choice when you create a character, you eitger go real life or fantasy with the eye colour.
This video is unecessary long and you just ramble too much.
I agree plus it’s just a stupid thing like if you don’t like that the character is “wHitEwAshEd” or whatever bullshit then maybe don’t watch the damn show? 😒
YOUR EXPERIENCE OF BEING MIXED IS SO REAL!!! I never fit in anywhere haha
Mizu's eyes are the ENTIRE POINT of the story🙄
As someone that plays League of Legends, and likes the Lore, Caitlyn is not Asian.
Piltover and Zhaun are located rather in the central of this world so I guess we could equal it to Europe. It also has its Asia, I don't have the map in my head right now, but I know for sure that one of these "countries" is Ionia, that def is supposed to be an Asian country, hence its traditions and "politics".
Its rather unusual for these people to "immigrate" to another country, so we can assume Caitlyn's parents are both Piltovian and therefore she is just dark haired and blue eyed.
Thanks for coming to my ted-talk
Maybe she was not initially supposed to be in LoL but Arcane seems to present her as mixed race, and she is voiced by an actress of Chinese descent so it’s pretty clear that this video is a valid criticism of her presentation as a mixed race character
@lucacroft4455 Arcane now is canon LoL lore so that's up to debate, but the voice actress being a reason for this is making sense.👍
(this is meant genuinely)
Deadass I am beyond tired of media making so many non-white/mixed/black/poc characters all have eurocentric features. WE DON'T NEED EVERYONE TO HAVE BLUE EYES, WHITE HAIR, AND SKIN AS PALE AS SNOW BRUV 😤😮💨
I 100% agree with you on that. Whenever I see a "diverse" portrayal of characters on TV, it's always eurocentric.
What about biracial people who aren't half-white???!!!!!!!
Where's the representation of them in Hollywood???!!!
No seriously why does every mixed person have to be mixed with white? @@audreyluan5325
Are you kidding me? The only thing I see on tv is black people and morbidly obese chicks with blue hair and 3 chin rolls. Oh, can’t forget that all television apps such as Disney are accustomed specifically to “POC” aka black people and mexicans and Indians or whatever. Like there are sPeCiaL little categories like “bLacK sToriEs” or whatever the fuck. Quit acting like the world revolves around you.
yo fellow half-korean! i've watched all of these shows and had like these exact thoughts thank you for putting it into words i feel so seen rn
11:30 “I didn’t believe for the longest time that hazel eyes are a thing”….“you’re either brown or green, pick a side”
Me with hazel eyes: you know what, you kinda got a point
Also me: oof
Also hazel reporting in lol. On my drivers license I’m brown eyed since there is no hazel category. But my eyes do not behave like “light brown” my eyes look different colors depending on lighting. In fluorescents it’s more green, in the sun it’s more yellow, in low light it’s just plain ol brown. But someone with just one homogenous pigment would not have this amount of variation
As a biracial person, I 100% agree with this!
11:07 blue eyes can def produce green eyes
My granddads eyes are blue, my grandmas are brown, but my father has green eyes and I have green eyes and my aunt has blue eyes
As someone who only knew about ladybug in passing, I had NO idea she was supposed to be Asian.
it’s so weird reading the comments and having such a different experience. my fathers’s filipino and i grew up in a filipino church. i LOVED brown eyes, my childhood best friend has big dark ones. my father had them as well as all my cousins and friends i looked up to. i always wanted them instead of my bright and “creepy” blue ones and still kinda do. they’re just so soulful and deep looking, like melted chocolate. or the soil of the earth. absolutely beautiful.
that being said, it is annoying to see them being overlooked constantly by media. fr slept on just for being “common”, blue eyes are common as hell too and have never been “special” in my opinion