I hate the "blackwashing doesn't exist" argument just because we dont have a lot of representation. PLEASE make your own OCs (ive been doing ts for YEARS), put them in the Universe of your favorite anime, idc. To me, it seems like entitlement and its hypocricy.
@@Sillybook_faires Some bozo on Twitter was trying to tell me that making your own OC doesn’t work because it’s not in the officials and I was like ….so y’all do realize that this show takes place in Japan of course it’s not gonna have a lot of dark skin individuals.
In fact, blackwashing by black people has been a hot topic in Japan for the past 3-4 years. A famous Japanese manga artist has been subjected to harassment and death threats, so their patience has simply run out.
I would love to see folks who do black edits of characters put that same energy towards making black OCs. But every time that idea gets pitched it’s immediately met with, “people don’t like OCs” or “OCs don’t get attention”. Fam, if you want representation - don’t draw it for attention. Attention is desperate, and people don’t like desperate. 🤦🏾♀️ I’m glad that artists in Asia, especially Japan, have found out about the edits. It’s been crazy for years but now it’s just straight up insane.
@@mariahgordon81 tbf they could literally just trace characters and change certain aspects for it to be their OC. It's a bit conversational but it's better than race swapping imo
But tbh why dose it matter? If people want to draw their fav characters but black why should that matter at all in all honesty. Honestly race swapping inst the issue. In theory swapping a character from one race to white is ok to. It only becomes an issue when there’s racism in society.
@@NoobiaNation black swapping and white swapping both fall under race swapping. Both are two sides of the same coin. Like I said, as long as the person race swapping doesn't b..tch around other people race swapping it's okay.
People have the skills to redraw JAPANESE characters from JAPANESE media into different races. That talent would be much better suited towards idk, making an original character of a specific race? It might be different to get inspo or become popular but it’s much better than erasing a culture for the sake of ‘representation.’
@ Most characters in anime (unless explicitly stated) are Japanese, they’re based in Japan and have Japanese beauty standards such as being fairer in complexion. It’s common is Asian countries to have fair skin as the beauty standard, thus many characters in anime having a light complexion similar to white people. It’s common for people to mistake anime characters as white but they need to realise that anime is from Japan and therefore a majority of the characters are Japanese as a result. I capitalised it because it’s a misconception I see too many times
Nah, their skin edits are sometimes awful. It's as if they used a selector and hue changer and called it a day. They don't even try to touch the rest of the picture and it clashes with the dark skin.
Making a mistake with a character's skin color shouldn't even be in the same ballpark as deliberately editing/redrawing them as a different race. I swear twitter cops are from a different planet lol. Also agree that it's vastly better to just _make your own characters_ if you want something that represents you, because reskinning someone else's character really doesn't add anything to the world.
Indeed. It’s not like the Nessa debacle where one of the retaliators clearly turned her white to mock the mockers. That was just purposeful and wrong. Here, Bkub seems to have genuinely just messed up the color accidentally. And reskinning, yea. I know people do it for fun, I just personally don’t get into it.
@@ReactandDraw blackwashing doesn't exist. Nico Parker is 75% white, she has naturally blonde hair and Scandinavian roots. So is Paris Jackson not white?
I completely agree! people are acting like the Japanese artist personally went to the Splatoon character designers, held a gun up to their heads, and said, "MAKE MARINA WHITE". His art isn't even cannon! Its not like the character's skin is actually going to be lightened just because of one random piece of fan art💀
Funny this “issue” has been going on for years and I’m so happy that Asians are fighting back. I said this before if blackwashing a character is ok then whitewashing a character should be ok otherwise it’s just a double standards. These are drawings, not real people, so people can imagine them however they want. But if we are censoring or demanding something be “our way or the highway” more artists won’t want to draw like that anymore. Art/fiction is a reflection of reality and realistically there are less black people in Japan, pure fact. So they won’t draw us as much in a anime series. Am I mad? No because I fell in love with anime because of the characters, stories, and the ability to be mature with its audience. Not because “oh look there’s a black character in it!”. If you can’t connected to media without thinking “I can’t see myself in these characters because they don’t look like me” then you don’t understand the world yet in my eyes.
Indeed, there will naturally be less characters from other races coming from a country that is predominantly one race/ ethnicity. Like you, I’m not mad in the slightest. This “seeing yourself in the media” thing seems to be a recent focal point. Heck I grew up relating to the struggles of the Ninja Turtles, the Ghostbusters and Batman, lol. Race didn’t cross my mind.
"Art/fiction is a reflection of reality and realistically there are less black people in Japan, pure fact." Not exactly the reason, its because Japan is a very conservative country with immense corporate domination, sexism to the point they have gender segregated public transport, have normalized sexual harassment in their media, as well as a level of racism that has barred immigration into their country despite decades of being under the American sphere. It is a regressive country, but unlike the third world nations (whose bombings Japan supports alongside the USA), they actually have the resources, the time, and the education to socially develop, but this is artificially restricted by their conservative state. International pressures, or internal pressures, by the people, to grow more progressive would create definite changes in the country. "double standards" Racism against the powerful is powerless. Racism against the powerless is powerful. Affirmative action is racist to some extent, but its material effects in the USA has brought real, undeniable, progress. There are no perfect victims, expecting perfect activism is expecting perfection from humanity. The Abolitionist north during the American Civil war merely replaced sl@very with segreg@tion, will you condemn them too? As someone living in a country in south east asia being sucked dry by the USA and its Japanese satellite, I unconditionally support the progressives that try to destroy any inkling of hierarchical attitude in these imperial nations.
White washing? This isn’t that. The characters are Asian. And tbh, I also kinda get annoyed when ppl presume Asian PoC are African. Not every darker skinned person is African. People from South Asia hardly appear in stories, they also try to take away that rep when they get so much more in the West
People just don’t know the difference between miscolouring and racebending, according to the artist’s apology he didn’t suppose to be “racist” or else. Yeah miscolouring or racebending is wrong but we shouldn’t h4r4sss real people over drawings of FICTIONAL CHARACTERS C’MON ARE Y’ALL 12 YEARS OLD. I feel so bad for the artist, shame on chronically online shizos 💀💀💀 Btw from i heard Japanese people aren’t even actually mad for blackface edits, they only despise people who claim they “fixed” the character or hate racebending edits while doing blackface edits (hypocrites). I prefer and support using og design and color palette but i will never h4r4ss someome over some drawing.
To be honest was about to be made a someone for white washing until I stopped and remember the tik tok user said that some people don't know how to color shades of skin and they needed help. Since I read the apology. I have to defend it and I had to apologize japanese people cuz of our behavior. We were cool tho so i was taught to love my neighbors
@@lailaallen6285 great way to look at it. Tbh, at times skin tones may be deceivingly difficult. There were times the browns I used were too dark to be received well in print lol
The funniest part - she is an octopus. They literally by the canon of splatoon NOT HUMANS and DONT HAVE SPECIFIC SKIN COLOR. It's mostly their personal preference for humanoid form.
@@JustDeichan "... when Marina IS a black character inspired by hip hop and urban city culture in the world of Splatoon. She's an octopus who became an idol alongside her white squid friend, Pearl, to spread hip hop and diversify the music world in that universe. There were actually a lot of racist Japanese people in the threads saying 'Marina is an octopus, not black' and posting these unrelated 'blackwashing' edits." - @nymphia
people saying eyedropping off of 3d renders is so easy will never not drive me insane. it's 3d, there's no flat colors, it's all shaded, you will not get the correct color from it. unless there's a reference sheet, you HAVE to either eyeball it or admit being a little off isn't that bad
Agreed. I wanted to say the same thing in the video but didn't get to edit. Selecting from a 3D shaded image will hardly ever be accurate. There's a ton of colors included in the image.
I’m tired of people making excuses to blackwash canon characters instead of making original characters like “b-but wHen wE dO wE gEt cAllLeD wOkE aNd No OnE pAys AtTeNtiOn.” Most people don’t pay attention to my dark skinned OCs, *but did that fuckin stop me when I was a teen and when I became an adult?!*
We need more of your attitude in the world. Never stop. A lot of OCs are hard to promote in general, but trying to get it out there is definitely worth it.
@@xxkankala1671 nuh uh they have a point, this whole thing ab blackwashing and whitewashing has to be talked more, enough of excuses just because one is considered good and the other not.
I dont think it matters to much If people want to draw their fav characters but black for fun. Honestly race swapping isn't the issue. In theory swapping a character from one race to white is ok to. There’s only an issue when there’s racism in society, like black people in a lot of Asian countries are straight up seen as dirty and ugly, while light skin and European features are the beauty standard. Only in this context dose race swapping become an issue. i feel black washing and white washing are different due to the context of the society. But that’s just my opinion.
Original characters are so much more interesting than just race swapping someone else's character. Look at Miles Morales. He isn't just Peter Parker but black. He is a spiderman but a different person with different struggles, relationships, and talents from Peter. He's a person, not a race. Because of that he resonates with many people, not just one demographic.
If whitewashing is abhorrent, then racewashing of any sort should be viewed just as abhorrently, and should have the same level of backlash in my opinion. Edit to add: In my eyes it’s also pretty disrespectful to the original creator.
It's funny because I have almost *never* seen a respresentation of my people (Southeast Asian). But I have never seen Southeast Asian complain about representation. We just enjoy, not hard
I'm NOT gonna lie some of the black edits of characters look amazing and that's just because I'm a fan of character design, but I do find it to be kind of disrespectful the way people go about it (because sometimes they imply the original design/skin color is inferior.). NO media should obligated to include minorities either.
Im just not sure why equality is so hard for ppl to understand. Equality doesn't mean "oh I'm 'blank' so I get to have loopholes!" Equality is whitewashing bad, mean black washing bad. And vice versa Another thing where I geniunely feel bad for mixed or lighter skinned black individuals. Sometimes there will be a character and people will wash them because "they aren't dark enough!". Not all black people are the same shade? Hello?? It makes me anxious to draw black characters because I just KNOW someone is gonna criticize me if I don't make them "dark enough"
I look at that art piece and think, "okay, their colours are more muted and less saturated than the OG artwork/Model." Though I guess people would argue that the pants are...but at the same time It's still representing the character, I don't think Japanese artists are going out of their way to misrepresent on who they're representing in IRL. Honestly, I wish they would chill...it would be a different story entirely if they went and straight drew her as white. It's funny how they did call out the edits, though. I hope that makes sense...I just think it all comes down to the colouring style. Btw, your art is amazing!
Yea it’s muted. Heck the character I drew there was a time I colored her too dark and it represented really badly in T-shirt print. Browns are tricky at times. And thank you, much appreciated.
Im a mixed artist with mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I understand the backlash at darker skinned characters being lightened whether purposefully or subconsciously, and I do think it shows a lack of care for the character even if it’s well intentioned. On the other hand, I can see why making a Japanese character black could be seen as offensive or erasing East Asian culture. I’m personally not a huge fan of race washing anything, however I have seen a few black anime edits that I thought were creative and unique. The only way to really solve this is to get to a point in society where darker skinned characters are more normalized and accepted in international media so that people don’t have to rely on race swapping other cultures. I do really love when people make original black characters, because it feels incredibly genuine and real that they can write and draw from experience instead of just pasting a different color onto a preexisting character before calling it a day. This conversation is a little more nuanced than I had originally anticipated, but I don’t blame either side for harboring some negative feelings on their own cultures being placed before others. We need to remember that black people and Japanese people are both underrepresented minorities in the west, and have a harder time being valued in media. I think this is also apparent in the fact that anime characters tend to appear more racially ambiguous than East Asian, so there’s a lot of plausible deniability in western media when English dubs kind of just make the characters seem white to an audience that doesn’t know much about anime. And black people are incredibly rare to see in anime because of the fact that Japan is so homogenous. Overall, I don’t think black edits are actually mal intentioned, I think they come from a place of appreciation for the media, but I don’t think that makes it 100% correct if there are Japanese people who might feel offense at the erasure of their own culture in western media.
I agree with you, I would love to see more representation in anime with origins characters, but seeing characters reimagined as being from a different race can be quite fun and interesting, such as Brazilian Miku and all other variants that came with the trend
@@advil9567 Just to preface I'm a black artist but I'm on the side that these things should all be equal, so I think if black edits are allowed and normalized so should white edits be. I've always hated the double standards and hypocrisy people produce and I think in most cases people just assume a white edit or the like has malice behind it, which unless was abundantly clear through an artist's behavior is just an assumption and baseless claim unless the artist has a history of being racist or hateful.
@@Acceleration50 the brazilian miku meme leaned onto smth like culture more rather than race thru artistic interpretation, u could say the same for the mexican goku/evangelion memes as well, they arent stereotyped, its a nationalistic appreciation thing, ur skin colour and ethnic appearance should have nearly nothing to do with smth like that double standards are the absolute pit of hypocrisy tho, i dont wanna trash on ppl but some ppl dont know how their own point stands in any way shape or form and cant form a reasonable argument
I have no problem with reimagining characters as black characters, that's kinda fun sometimes. But a lot of people just trace a screenshot of the show and draw over that. This in my humble opinion is disrespectful
Yea, it’s a lil lazy lol. I will say, while I don’t do this (and probably should) I think tracing for the purposes of learning from an artist is a decent first step. I wouldn’t say anyone should post it or anything, lol, but just to get a handle in private. But yea, I have seen an original reimagining or 2 that was done with great admirable skill though.
@@ReactandDraw I did that when I started off a lot. I agree it can help a lot and yes, tracing is fine as long as you don't act it is your own work online or publicly
God I’m so tired of hearing that, the representation excuse. It’s so bs that they use it when it’s not even true, oh and they are being suppressed. Homie, you are talking on Twitter you aren’t suppressed
@@ReviewwattpadbokLook of course, I agree. But the thing is, people need to be spoon fed, they need to get users to the character. They need to like the character, not be forced to the subject of being. “Oh I’m being oppressed.”
As an Asian I’m so tired of seeing these stupid blackwashing stuff.. like if they have the excuse of it being a fictional character then why is it bad when people whitewash? And don’t you dare say it’s about the history.
I mean I don't care personally and I even find the practice a bit weird but I think it's mostly about quantity / availability. There's so many white characters out there chances are you'll find one you like. But there's hardly any minority ones that are more than just their accompanying stereotype; so people retrofit other actual characters instead.
@ yeah…but I wished people would look and see that maybe there aren’t much characters of a certain race because the people from that race isn’t making characters about that. Like black artists complaining about lack of black characters but instead of trying to make black characters they blackwash other characters instead
I remember someone saying something along the lines that blackwashing doesn’t exist because they were enslaved 💀 yeah! THEY were the ones oppressed, not YOU Sharon
often times one is done out of malice (white edits) while the other is done as a fun little challenge (black edits), that's what the difference is. regardless of what you think of black edits a good chunk of them are done in good faith and that's something that can't be said for artists that go "haha I made [black character] white!!! get angry at me >:)" tho I wont deny I've seen people who do it out of malace too, the ""fixers"" are weird asf cuz its not only disrespectful but you're also fetishizing black ppl by acting like they're inherently better
@@nessmarie6044 I get that not a lot of blackwashing edits are done out of malice, but it’s still disrespecting the original art and the race of the original character. It’s like saying, it’s more important for them to be black than Asian. As if the ‘race hierarchy’ has Asians beneath black people. Yeah whitewashing was a thing, but it was white people doing it. Not Japanese people or Asians.
I saw a video going into deep details about this. They went through american twitter and Japanese twitter. To get both sides. The person who originally drew that Splatoons character is a beloved animator in Japan. They worked in many popular shows. So Japan was confused as to y america was hating on them when they made a black person. Japan then started clowning americans talking about “don’t they know in different lighting ur skin color is brighter??” But then Japan lowkey went crazy when they rediscovered (someone said before Japan complains about this a lot for the last 3-4 years) americans black washing their characters. My problem is the majority of people in america who was crying about the splatoons charcater having a lightwr skin tone were White or, most importantly, NOT BLACK. So for the most part, black people aint have a problem with it but are now catching hate for it even though we weren’t the ones crying about the original problem to begin with
There's like this thing in genshin that is called a boycott because of characters skin tone, and while I have mixed feelings on it I would like to point out that the majority of "boycotters" are white It's like they're trying to seem like good people by using fake activism against character skin color. Instead of, I dunno, focusing on real world problems? There's an unfortunate amount of ppl suffering from racism, why not bring awareness to that instead?
I wish I got the chance to see this earlier because I have straight up gotten tired of this nonsense especially in fandom spaces. The double standards are higher than ever. I understand artists can do what they want but ever since people acknowledge whitewashing but pretend blackwashing is not real (that it's representation) is comical. It's really good to see more people calling this kind of mentality out because instead of going for sloppy seconds and thirds it's much better creative wise like you said to make your own characters. Plus it a character doesnt need to be the same skin tone as me for me to relate I'm slightly lighter than marina in splatoon yet i like shiver in the game more. Thanks for making this video and for the great art you create as well!!
these are some really cool character drawings in the background of the video i just need to say i hate how hard it is for me to care about the "changing character skin tones" since it just boils down to people being stupid on the internet to me like people on Twitter always are, i respect giving it attention a lot though, i just wish this type of stuff stopped and people went back to drawing good art without there having to be a billion rules to it
I'm so glad more people are starting to talk abt this! Before I used to speak up about black-washing but all I got was hate and those annoying 'Black (insert ethnicity here) exist too!' comments. Like omfg ik they exist but that's not the point, literally every race have different heritages, cultures and clothing. So taking away their identity and replacing it w a black character is the biggest and most offensive slap in the face ever known to man.😭 And people have normalised this so badly that people think the only representation and diversity is skin tones, and to them, the only skin tone is dark-skinned and no other else 'It's not diverse and racist' . Because of this as well, people have been over-hyping TV shows with other representations in them. Like fym this TV series shows other cultures, religions, different body types and disabilities, shouldn't that be expected for a diverse show or in fact a normal show in general? Also what I've been realising is that most of the people speaking up about black washing (including myself) are black people🥲 So it's either the black community is split into two abt this or, it's js a different race speaking for black people trying to support them but in reality are making things worse. (also, if you actually read this, thank you for looking at his useless rant lmao)
Im so happy this conversation is finally happening and people are opening their damn eyes.. Just because you're changing the race to a minority doesn't make it NOT racist its very racist like you are erasing the features and culture the character has just by making them a different race and this goes for every single race out there
I get the edits for when you want a pfp of your fav character that looks a bit more like you. That's like cosplayers cosplaying a character of a different race but still keeping their own racial features, e.g. you change your hair colours but not your hair texture or eye shape etc. Changing a characters race is always weird since that's not the character then. If someone is coded a certain race etc. that's a good head canon tho. There is also a historical difference between blackwashing and whitewashing or asianwashing. Both asians and blacks are POC and historically more marginalised than non-POC people. Naturally whitewashing - and pale asianwashing if you keep colourism in mind - feels a bit more petty than blackwashing. The reaction from people who make black edits is understandable but the critique is a natural consequence. Ultimately, I always prefer representation with original characters over editing what's there. Otherwise, this always leads to petty comebacks and shit.
I feel like artist have and are allowed to have freedom when drawing whatever they want. As long as it isn’t illegal there shouldn’t be a problem. The only reason people complain or judge is because everyone is really sensitive these days. Like realistically no one would care black people are creating black versions of Gojo or Tanjiro if black people didn’t complain if someone did the same thing to black characters. Some to most black people are really protective of the fee black characters we got out there, but let stuff like “blackwashing” Japanese characters slide. Overall it’s just hypocrisy. If people were ‘t hypocrite then none of this is a problem. Cause i’m ngl I love seeing black versions of my favorite characters. I person feel like people should treat it like the Brazilian Miku twitter trend. Like I wanna see what Gojo would look like if he was russian or brazilian. We just gotta let artist be free and draw whatever they want. (As long as its legal of course)
Um... The marina drawing, why are they so worried about the skin tone and not how low her pants are? Sure in the original they are low but I dont think they are THAT low but okay go off I guess. Also I make ocs of multiple different ethnicity. I even make up countries woth currency's languages customs just to be original sometimes. Do I ned to spend my time doing exam studies rather than making countries? Yes, will I? No.
i love this, ive seen the drama over the years and hope more peeps take this to heart. Make the characters, make the stories we wanna see(at myself too). Also subbed for your commentary, thank you!
About the "blackwashing japanese characters" all I have to say is this: your ethnicity does not define your nationality. My best friend is asian, but that doesn't make him any less brazilian than me. Also, these are just fictional characters. It's fine if a japanese person feels a bit put off by Gojo as a black person but it's important to keep in mind that people do these edits for fun. Like, I'll not be calling brazilian Miku racist to japanese people 'cause that would be stupid af
Everyone was calling out the hypocrisy of how these activist immediately attack Bkub enmasse because he drew the character skin a few shades lighter, but then they themselves are making edit of Japanese character to intentionally make the character skin black. Besides, nobody have any problem with the Brazilian Miku. Even Japanese people like it.
@@Acueil and that definitely doesn't seem like generalising, because those idiots who had a reaction from seeing Marina in a lighter tone of skin (the same way a stupid nerd like me would have a reaction of the NCR ranger helmet on the Fallout show being all wrong) are *clearly* the same ones who did those edits
@@k0metz590 They definitely praised the black edits. Also are you saying you also send threats to the show runner of Fallout? Because that's what those activists do, and you likened yourself to them.
@@Acueil do you play basketball? 'Cause that's some amazing reach and a cute attempt of putting me in the defensive. Also, stop calling them activists. It's a redflag.
I understand the need for making new black characters (or characters of any race) but I also understand why race swapping a character can be fun. People from different ethnicities and cultures have different hairstyles, clothing, etc that can affect the design of a character drastically to a point where I could say you’re practically designing a new character. That trend a few months ago with Brazilian Miku was pretty cool where people tried to redesign Miku based on their country/ethnicity. It shouldn’t matter either way, since no character anime or otherwise is real, but I do feel like maybe that trend got a pass since Miku is somewhat seen as a blank slate, so people have been designing her based on story, personal preference, etc for years. It is a little bit harder to justify when it comes to characters with established worlds or backgrounds though. For example, I can understand someone wanting to redesign Deku as if he were black and think it would make for an interesting redesign, but it’s also established that in the world of MHA, everyone in the world has super powers/quirks, including America, so then the question is, why not just make an African-American character set in the MHA world? What is the point of specifically designing Deku? The obvious answer, sadly, is that a MHA OC might not get as much attention as a redesign of a main character. Let me be clear that I don’t think that they’re doing it to be controversial, more specifically it wouldn’t tag well. The Brazilian Miku situation was entirely possible due to Miku already being both a popular character and a blank slate that you’re allowed to edit to your hearts content all the way down to her personality. But not every fandom or piece of media has a character like that that people can do what they want with and still get clicks and get little controversy from.
Oh hey, you're the one who did that Concord art. I like that version. I also liked the actual concept art for that character, cuz, yknow, she actually had what looked like *armor* on.
Came for the discussion, stayed for the CHARACTERS! who are these cool af people and where can I read about them ?/??? Edit: found the links in description, still gonna keep the comment cuz nobody is talking about them 😔
Bkub apologized and stated they got Marina's skin color wrong cuz they aren't good at drawing dark skin, and then a Japanese person quote-tweeted them saying "wow, so just because the color is wrong they're called racist! Stupid foreigners." This video is missing the context that Bkub's words were twisted by a malicious individual simply because you do not speak Japanese. The people here have completely changed the topic, complaining about the concept of 'blackwashing art' when Marina IS a black character inspired by hip hop and urban city culture in the world of Splatoon. She's an octopus who became an idol alongside her white squid friend, Pearl, to spread hip hop and diversify the music world in that universe. There were actually a lot of racist Japanese people in the threads saying 'Marina is an octopus, not black' and posting these unrelated 'blackwashing' edits. I encourage you to actually investigate the entire topic and realize you, like the quote retweeter, not only misinterpreted Bkub's genuine apology as 'forced', but took attention away from the actual issue, which is the lack of education on other races in Japan, and how many big-name Japanese artists/creatives have to push for diversity and representation of other cultures within media because of the commercialization of anime lessening that. I'm sure you had good intentions making this video, but that quote-retweeter who started this discussion did not have good intentions in mind. They were indeed racist, and completely took away Bkub's voice on his OWN artwork and his own self-admitted weaknesses in drawing diverse skin tones. The infantilization of artists, even by their own people, is the reason a lot of them do not take accountability and shun criticism even when in the professional world, criticism is encouraged in order to help growth. I'm giving you criticism on this video in the hopes you do better, have an actual Japanese translator look over the subject, and not misrepresent the topic. Hope you have a good day. I do not think you made this video with bad intentions, but this was never about 'blackwashing'.
We really need to talk about how people have every excuse in the book for Japanese artists, who actually have the tools to do better, and the criticisms of black people.
TLDR, people are tired of fake activism which ultimate goal is just to get clout and get accepted into the "elite progressive circle" whose first response to any disagreement to their ideology is to immediately try to destroy the other person's life. Also, I love how you ignored all the responses by the activist attacking Bkub, including the one saying they want to kill them.
I dont know why Twitter makes stuff like this an issue. Sure, they didn't use the right skin tone, but it's not like they made them completely white either. Calling art fixers "artists" is the same as calling a kid coloring in a coloring book an artist.
I’m a rare ADULT splatoon fan and am appalled at the western community’s behavior, i have to remind myself they’re mostly 16 to 20 year olds who are part of a specific ideology… that Japanese artist should not have apologized but I understand why he did. I just stumbled upon your video and wanted to let you know that your art is awesome and you’ve gained a new follower. Thank you for sharing this, I agree with you 100%
Thank you so much for the support! And yea, it seemed most of them are young and well… you already know said ideology has them ready to emotionally flip tables over things lol. Over fan art. The west really needs to take a step back and think on their responses.
Found your channel from Jerrel (Sungrand Studios) giving you a shout-out! As a hobbyist myself, I always love finding artists to follow! Out of curiosity, it looks like you complete the piece around 2:14 but then you go back and redo a lot of it. Were you just not happy with the result, or is that just part of your process? The final version did end up looking amazing!
Personally I actually kinda enjoy seeing black edits LOL. I just see them as proofs of concept for black(-coded?) characters in mainstream anime (even if they don't match the setting at all). And some of the edits here genuinely look nice imo (3:39-3:46), I like how they change up the hairstyle and add extra accessories. To me that's already putting in way more effort than just darkening the skin, filling the lips and calling it a day. Am I saying we should encourage these edits? No, but I think these can be nice inspiration for some original character designs. I've been working on my own designs for a personal project based on my culture, and while a number of my characters have melanin, their skin color is not a focal point; it's just an aesthetic I want to see more of in the anime style lol Love the art btw!!
While it’s not my thing, I have seen a couple of edit iterations that looked cool. And definitely best wishes on your project. Sounds like you going about it in great way. One thing I will admit is it’s far and few examples in anime, which is to be expected from a place that’s mainly Japanese, but the great examples we have like Afro Samurai and such provide a look at how other ethnicities translate in anime style. Thanks for the compliment btw!
Japanese people only brought up the black edit because of the activists from twitter attacking Bkub because of the skin color inconsistency. If they are allowed to make a black edit of a Japanese character, Bkub should be allowed to draw the character with lighter skin if he wanted to do so. But nooooo, that's the one huge no no that you cannot do no matter what according to these activists.
i feel like saying a little "hey just as a heads up shes got darker skin" (but phrased better lol coz im bad at phrasing lolol) is fine but you can say it nicely. i know im just seeing the stuff that bleeds over to over socials but god twitter looks so angry, someone can pick a bit to light of a colour and it not be the end of the world. i get with marina shes been officially white washed before (like the sanrio colab just made her white) but its not a reason to be snappy and rude. either way im glad you brought up the topic because the creator obviously didnt mean to do it (hope everyone's having a good day!)
Most of my style started out inspired by 90s anime like Street Fighter 2 the anime, Cyber City Oedo 808, and such, but lately newer anime like the Highlander anime most recently the Jujutsu Kaisen anime series have been added to my list of inspirations.
People get upset about the wrong things. The Squid Girl is Ganguro. Think Japanese, with a dark tan, and dyed blonde hair. Making her dark or lighter in fan art is fine. Kinda fitting too. And Biscuit Olivia is awesome. Just putting that out there.
Marina is not ganguro lol. She's based on Tupac. Her actress is ganguro but not the character. She doesn't even have the tan lines lmao Edit: her actress is more of a gyaru than a ganguro nvm
just stumbled upon your channel today and I am glad I have you are so based brother. i've always thought recoloring fictional characters to the same skin tone as you to get that connection or representation is not a problem at all. if it makes you happy then go crazy and just have fun, but don't go start making online agendas about it you're just bound to start a pointless war to which everyone's just going to waste their time being upset. i remember this one tweet complaining about vivziepop's design for adam in the show hazbin hotel, complaining adam should've been black because that's how he was supposed to be on the bible or something. that person received some criticism but not necessarily being racist just telling her it's no big deal it's just a cartoon show, and she had a whole conniption just cursing out everyone who dared question her. it's unbelievable
This is great. I like the colors you used. I’m actually an art student who is currently studying animation. I wonder, are the smears a stylistic choice?
I think anyone of any race should be able to draw, voice or play any race or gender they want unless it's done to ridicule other groups of people. We don't pick our races or genders but we can pick which media and culture we prefer and want to take part in. I'm from Europe, here most people prefer live action stuff and sports. I couldn't care less for that stuff so I engage in asian and American animation. Since that's what I like and thus consume naturally it influences the stuff I produce myself even though I'm not Asian nor American. It's like Pete seeger said "All the arts, music, the visual arts, acting and dancing arts, cooking arts, and I believe sports, will save the human race because they can leap over barriers, religions, leap over barriers of race, politics."
I do get why some people, particualarly those who are obsessed with black culture, want to change preexisting non-black characters into black characters. Now if to do so, because there is story to tell like Marvel did to Punisher once, then I am okay with. But if its to make non-black character black for the sake of making black, then it better not to do so at all. It would more sense for these artists to create a brand, new African character rather then go after preexisting characters.
I can’t believe how stupid people are, the color is a few tones lighter, like what is the deal? Would anyone complain if it was darker than the original? No. But why? "It’s a wrong representation", isn’t it?
1:39 Why do I feel like this is some skit that bkub would make. Which one the protag draws a fanart on twitter then protag gets burn on a stake by the same twitter mob for their fanart
The representation argument is not valid if the character isn't a cartoonified image of a real person. Representation is showing real peoples, real struggles and their growth. Not showing objects our pattern seeking brain is to delusional to tell isn't what it appears to be at first glance.
I don’t see how ppl thought it was racist If it was racist they would have done something like purposely make her ugly looking At the end of the day the artist still kept her black so I don’t see the problem Tbh I think it’s TWITTER being colourist.
I always found it dumb that these edits were made to begin with like there wasn't already some black anime characters to draw from since some Japanese creators were actually trying to have more diverse cultures in their stories. Sure, they aren't the MC most of the time, but at least there was an effort to have more than just their own race. We should be inspired to make our own characters that are just as good, not recolor other races stuff.
I always get annoying once they always do happens. I’m not saying can’t do this, but I it gets annoying all the time doing this is like saying why can’t anime be black , no that doesn’t make any sense and only makes sense if it was Japanese with Japanese characters sometimes here and there foreigners once in a while black at least be happy there is black anime characters. Don’t just draw over it to make them black. That’s just plain ignorance
Anime is one of those things where, beyond the way someone is drawn, the anime community is very diverse. From things like cosplay to anime-inspired business or various cultures and languages. It's okay to draw fan edits and race swaps if it's in general genuine and a place of loving the I.P. But then there is spite, art fixing, criticizing a work not on how it is made, or portrayed but the small details expelled for things like standards, norms, and harmfully race. "I can do better" or "I can draw better" to "I'm a better person because of diversity," same as A.I. art but so dissimilar, fixing art or in turn fixing culture, it destroys the very foundation of diversity.
People when ya draw a black character brighter or a bit brighter:”You have choosen death” People when ya draw a white character black and changing multiple things :”hell yeah”
And about the marina artist I doubt they did it with a bad intention and not every artist is gonna do it perfectly like the original,specially is there’s different types of shading like that official watercolor Marina drawing which people apparently got so mad(was one of those pastel watercolors drawing of course it was bright dats the point of a PASTEL WATERCOLOR type of drawing) People like this makes other artist scared on drawing any skin color character and may end up not drawing any, so less representation for ya all Plus using the art of another artist to “fix” without permission is RUDE,you don’t like it?then do it yourself,pick a pencil Marina lover?dats kinda Hypocrite from a team love member,Marina would had loved the drawing her fans made no matter what
Seeing this issue just makes me want to post the drawing with dark skinned character at my Bluesky account instead of X , to protect myself from those creepy X woke gangster
Yeah I personally don't understand why it's a big deal. Maybe people are just quick to jump on a perceived hypocrisy. "You wouldn't be okay if somebody white washed a black character!", like honestly I don't think it actually matters, but people are sensitive to it though because it's often done by racists to stir shit. Its a whole mess, they're just drawings.
I think race swapping is in poor taste. I don't really care who does it or why they do it. It is cringe. Post some race swapped art of Miles Moralis, I dare you.
The annoying thing about this lecture is that yes, people do make original shows with black characters. And they get less views because "woke garbage" that's happening nowadays, and most people not wanting to see black characters. And do not use Black Panther as an example. It did well because it was a Marvel movie, back when most people ate up anything that Marvel did.
:T there literally race swapping b/c for the sake of 'representation'. Heck I grew up with little to no representation for my own ethnicity but I don't cry about it. If it's wrong to change a black character to any other race the same should apply to the opposite.
I hate the "blackwashing doesn't exist" argument just because we dont have a lot of representation. PLEASE make your own OCs (ive been doing ts for YEARS), put them in the Universe of your favorite anime, idc. To me, it seems like entitlement and its hypocricy.
@@stephlala094 i agree 100%. it just feels weird to racewash period when all you can do is just create your own character.
😂😂😂😂 oh the irony. History repeats its self.. i agree 100% though
@@Sillybook_faires Some bozo on Twitter was trying to tell me that making your own OC doesn’t work because it’s not in the officials and I was like ….so y’all do realize that this show takes place in Japan of course it’s not gonna have a lot of dark skin individuals.
In fact, blackwashing by black people has been a hot topic in Japan for the past 3-4 years.
A famous Japanese manga artist has been subjected to harassment and death threats, so their patience has simply run out.
Interesting. I wasn't aware of this. So this has been a discussion before then
Who was the manga artist? Was it on Twitter?
I would love to see folks who do black edits of characters put that same energy towards making black OCs. But every time that idea gets pitched it’s immediately met with, “people don’t like OCs” or “OCs don’t get attention”. Fam, if you want representation - don’t draw it for attention. Attention is desperate, and people don’t like desperate. 🤦🏾♀️
I’m glad that artists in Asia, especially Japan, have found out about the edits. It’s been crazy for years but now it’s just straight up insane.
“B-But…I’m not good at drawing OCs” practice. Duh. There’s plenty of black OCs that’s popular and all. What’s the excuse?
@@mariahgordon81 tbf they could literally just trace characters and change certain aspects for it to be their OC. It's a bit conversational but it's better than race swapping imo
I'm personally happy with my black edits. They're nice to use as pfps
Bruh, you sound dumb. It's natural to want attention.
Race washing of any kind makes me remember what people tell AI artists:
Pick up a pencil! Draw something of your own!
Indeed. People need to start making their own stuff instead of co-opting something else.
But tbh why dose it matter? If people want to draw their fav characters but black why should that matter at all in all honesty. Honestly race swapping inst the issue. In theory swapping a character from one race to white is ok to. It only becomes an issue when there’s racism in society.
@@NoobiaNation it's only an issue when the people that engage in race swapping get mad at other people who do basically the same thing
@@VictorParisLlana but thats the thing, its not the same thing. its impossible for it to be due to the societal context.
@@NoobiaNation black swapping and white swapping both fall under race swapping. Both are two sides of the same coin. Like I said, as long as the person race swapping doesn't b..tch around other people race swapping it's okay.
People have the skills to redraw JAPANESE characters from JAPANESE media into different races. That talent would be much better suited towards idk, making an original character of a specific race? It might be different to get inspo or become popular but it’s much better than erasing a culture for the sake of ‘representation.’
Why did you capitalize japanes?
@ Most characters in anime (unless explicitly stated) are Japanese, they’re based in Japan and have Japanese beauty standards such as being fairer in complexion. It’s common is Asian countries to have fair skin as the beauty standard, thus many characters in anime having a light complexion similar to white people. It’s common for people to mistake anime characters as white but they need to realise that anime is from Japan and therefore a majority of the characters are Japanese as a result. I capitalised it because it’s a misconception I see too many times
this ain't erasing tho
Nah, their skin edits are sometimes awful. It's as if they used a selector and hue changer and called it a day. They don't even try to touch the rest of the picture and it clashes with the dark skin.
@@av3_ther What race is Goku?
Making a mistake with a character's skin color shouldn't even be in the same ballpark as deliberately editing/redrawing them as a different race. I swear twitter cops are from a different planet lol. Also agree that it's vastly better to just _make your own characters_ if you want something that represents you, because reskinning someone else's character really doesn't add anything to the world.
Indeed. It’s not like the Nessa debacle where one of the retaliators clearly turned her white to mock the mockers. That was just purposeful and wrong. Here, Bkub seems to have genuinely just messed up the color accidentally. And reskinning, yea. I know people do it for fun, I just personally don’t get into it.
@@ReactandDraw blackwashing doesn't exist. Nico Parker is 75% white, she has naturally blonde hair and Scandinavian roots. So is Paris Jackson not white?
I completely agree! people are acting like the Japanese artist personally went to the Splatoon character designers, held a gun up to their heads, and said, "MAKE MARINA WHITE". His art isn't even cannon! Its not like the character's skin is actually going to be lightened just because of one random piece of fan art💀
Right? I can’t imagine losing my mind off of fan art with all the problems that exist in the world lol
Funny this “issue” has been going on for years and I’m so happy that Asians are fighting back. I said this before if blackwashing a character is ok then whitewashing a character should be ok otherwise it’s just a double standards. These are drawings, not real people, so people can imagine them however they want. But if we are censoring or demanding something be “our way or the highway” more artists won’t want to draw like that anymore.
Art/fiction is a reflection of reality and realistically there are less black people in Japan, pure fact. So they won’t draw us as much in a anime series. Am I mad? No because I fell in love with anime because of the characters, stories, and the ability to be mature with its audience. Not because “oh look there’s a black character in it!”. If you can’t connected to media without thinking “I can’t see myself in these characters because they don’t look like me” then you don’t understand the world yet in my eyes.
Indeed, there will naturally be less characters from other races coming from a country that is predominantly one race/ ethnicity. Like you, I’m not mad in the slightest. This “seeing yourself in the media” thing seems to be a recent focal point. Heck I grew up relating to the struggles of the Ninja Turtles, the Ghostbusters and Batman, lol. Race didn’t cross my mind.
You freakin get it.
"Art/fiction is a reflection of reality and realistically there are less black people in Japan, pure fact."
Not exactly the reason, its because Japan is a very conservative country with immense corporate domination, sexism to the point they have gender segregated public transport, have normalized sexual harassment in their media, as well as a level of racism that has barred immigration into their country despite decades of being under the American sphere. It is a regressive country, but unlike the third world nations (whose bombings Japan supports alongside the USA), they actually have the resources, the time, and the education to socially develop, but this is artificially restricted by their conservative state.
International pressures, or internal pressures, by the people, to grow more progressive would create definite changes in the country.
"double standards"
Racism against the powerful is powerless. Racism against the powerless is powerful. Affirmative action is racist to some extent, but its material effects in the USA has brought real, undeniable, progress. There are no perfect victims, expecting perfect activism is expecting perfection from humanity. The Abolitionist north during the American Civil war merely replaced sl@very with segreg@tion, will you condemn them too?
As someone living in a country in south east asia being sucked dry by the USA and its Japanese satellite, I unconditionally support the progressives that try to destroy any inkling of hierarchical attitude in these imperial nations.
White washing? This isn’t that. The characters are Asian.
And tbh, I also kinda get annoyed when ppl presume Asian PoC are African. Not every darker skinned person is African. People from South Asia hardly appear in stories, they also try to take away that rep when they get so much more in the West
Well said❤ glad there are still sane people who understand
People just don’t know the difference between miscolouring and racebending, according to the artist’s apology he didn’t suppose to be “racist” or else. Yeah miscolouring or racebending is wrong but we shouldn’t h4r4sss real people over drawings of FICTIONAL CHARACTERS C’MON ARE Y’ALL 12 YEARS OLD. I feel so bad for the artist, shame on chronically online shizos 💀💀💀
Btw from i heard Japanese people aren’t even actually mad for blackface edits, they only despise people who claim they “fixed” the character or hate racebending edits while doing blackface edits (hypocrites). I prefer and support using og design and color palette but i will never h4r4ss someome over some drawing.
To be honest was about to be made a someone for white washing until I stopped and remember the tik tok user said that some people don't know how to color shades of skin and they needed help. Since I read the apology. I have to defend it and I had to apologize japanese people cuz of our behavior. We were cool tho so i was taught to love my neighbors
@@lailaallen6285 great way to look at it. Tbh, at times skin tones may be deceivingly difficult. There were times the browns I used were too dark to be received well in print lol
Yeah.. :c
The funniest part - she is an octopus. They literally by the canon of splatoon NOT HUMANS and DONT HAVE SPECIFIC SKIN COLOR. It's mostly their personal preference for humanoid form.
@@JustDeichan "... when Marina IS a black character inspired by hip hop and urban city culture in the world of Splatoon. She's an octopus who became an idol alongside her white squid friend, Pearl, to spread hip hop and diversify the music world in that universe. There were actually a lot of racist Japanese people in the threads saying 'Marina is an octopus, not black' and posting these unrelated 'blackwashing' edits." - @nymphia
people saying eyedropping off of 3d renders is so easy will never not drive me insane. it's 3d, there's no flat colors, it's all shaded, you will not get the correct color from it. unless there's a reference sheet, you HAVE to either eyeball it or admit being a little off isn't that bad
Agreed. I wanted to say the same thing in the video but didn't get to edit. Selecting from a 3D shaded image will hardly ever be accurate. There's a ton of colors included in the image.
I’m tired of people making excuses to blackwash canon characters instead of making original characters like “b-but wHen wE dO wE gEt cAllLeD wOkE aNd No OnE pAys AtTeNtiOn.” Most people don’t pay attention to my dark skinned OCs, *but did that fuckin stop me when I was a teen and when I became an adult?!*
We need more of your attitude in the world. Never stop. A lot of OCs are hard to promote in general, but trying to get it out there is definitely worth it.
Yo blackwashing doesn’t exist for many reasons
Also people are making original characters so you can shut that shit up right now
@@xxkankala1671 nuh uh they have a point, this whole thing ab blackwashing and whitewashing has to be talked more, enough of excuses just because one is considered good and the other not.
I dont think it matters to much If people want to draw their fav characters but black for fun. Honestly race swapping isn't the issue. In theory swapping a character from one race to white is ok to.
There’s only an issue when there’s racism in society, like black people in a lot of Asian countries are straight up seen as dirty and ugly, while light skin and European features are the beauty standard. Only in this context dose race swapping become an issue. i feel black washing and white washing are different due to the context of the society. But that’s just my opinion.
Original characters are so much more interesting than just race swapping someone else's character. Look at Miles Morales. He isn't just Peter Parker but black. He is a spiderman but a different person with different struggles, relationships, and talents from Peter. He's a person, not a race. Because of that he resonates with many people, not just one demographic.
If whitewashing is abhorrent, then racewashing of any sort should be viewed just as abhorrently, and should have the same level of backlash in my opinion.
Edit to add: In my eyes it’s also pretty disrespectful to the original creator.
I’ve never seen a black person get mad over black characters not being drawn in the exact shade they are. 😂
It's funny because I have almost *never* seen a respresentation of my people (Southeast Asian). But I have never seen Southeast Asian complain about representation. We just enjoy, not hard
they should come to you for drawing black characters better than taking other peoples work
Another black person speaking against toxic activism? AND he can draw good?
Sub earned.
lol, Thank you! much appreciated. Twitter has no shortage of toxic activism
I'm NOT gonna lie some of the black edits of characters look amazing and that's just because I'm a fan of character design, but I do find it to be kind of disrespectful the way people go about it (because sometimes they imply the original design/skin color is inferior.). NO media should obligated to include minorities either.
Im just not sure why equality is so hard for ppl to understand. Equality doesn't mean "oh I'm 'blank' so I get to have loopholes!" Equality is whitewashing bad, mean black washing bad. And vice versa
Another thing where I geniunely feel bad for mixed or lighter skinned black individuals. Sometimes there will be a character and people will wash them because "they aren't dark enough!". Not all black people are the same shade? Hello?? It makes me anxious to draw black characters because I just KNOW someone is gonna criticize me if I don't make them "dark enough"
I look at that art piece and think, "okay, their colours are more muted and less saturated than the OG artwork/Model." Though I guess people would argue that the pants are...but at the same time It's still representing the character, I don't think Japanese artists are going out of their way to misrepresent on who they're representing in IRL. Honestly, I wish they would chill...it would be a different story entirely if they went and straight drew her as white. It's funny how they did call out the edits, though. I hope that makes sense...I just think it all comes down to the colouring style.
Btw, your art is amazing!
Yea it’s muted. Heck the character I drew there was a time I colored her too dark and it represented really badly in T-shirt print. Browns are tricky at times. And thank you, much appreciated.
Im a mixed artist with mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I understand the backlash at darker skinned characters being lightened whether purposefully or subconsciously, and I do think it shows a lack of care for the character even if it’s well intentioned.
On the other hand, I can see why making a Japanese character black could be seen as offensive or erasing East Asian culture. I’m personally not a huge fan of race washing anything, however I have seen a few black anime edits that I thought were creative and unique.
The only way to really solve this is to get to a point in society where darker skinned characters are more normalized and accepted in international media so that people don’t have to rely on race swapping other cultures.
I do really love when people make original black characters, because it feels incredibly genuine and real that they can write and draw from experience instead of just pasting a different color onto a preexisting character before calling it a day.
This conversation is a little more nuanced than I had originally anticipated, but I don’t blame either side for harboring some negative feelings on their own cultures being placed before others.
We need to remember that black people and Japanese people are both underrepresented minorities in the west, and have a harder time being valued in media. I think this is also apparent in the fact that anime characters tend to appear more racially ambiguous than East Asian, so there’s a lot of plausible deniability in western media when English dubs kind of just make the characters seem white to an audience that doesn’t know much about anime. And black people are incredibly rare to see in anime because of the fact that Japan is so homogenous.
Overall, I don’t think black edits are actually mal intentioned, I think they come from a place of appreciation for the media, but I don’t think that makes it 100% correct if there are Japanese people who might feel offense at the erasure of their own culture in western media.
I agree with you, I would love to see more representation in anime with origins characters, but seeing characters reimagined as being from a different race can be quite fun and interesting, such as Brazilian Miku and all other variants that came with the trend
@ I really love Brazilian Miku! Seeing everyone’s thoughts and interpretations of their own culture through vocaloid is really cool
@@advil9567 Just to preface I'm a black artist but I'm on the side that these things should all be equal, so I think if black edits are allowed and normalized so should white edits be. I've always hated the double standards and hypocrisy people produce and I think in most cases people just assume a white edit or the like has malice behind it, which unless was abundantly clear through an artist's behavior is just an assumption and baseless claim unless the artist has a history of being racist or hateful.
@@Acceleration50 the brazilian miku meme leaned onto smth like culture more rather than race thru artistic interpretation, u could say the same for the mexican goku/evangelion memes as well, they arent stereotyped, its a nationalistic appreciation thing, ur skin colour and ethnic appearance should have nearly nothing to do with smth like that
double standards are the absolute pit of hypocrisy tho, i dont wanna trash on ppl but some ppl dont know how their own point stands in any way shape or form and cant form a reasonable argument
I agree with this.
I have no problem with reimagining characters as black characters, that's kinda fun sometimes. But a lot of people just trace a screenshot of the show and draw over that. This in my humble opinion is disrespectful
Yea, it’s a lil lazy lol. I will say, while I don’t do this (and probably should) I think tracing for the purposes of learning from an artist is a decent first step. I wouldn’t say anyone should post it or anything, lol, but just to get a handle in private. But yea, I have seen an original reimagining or 2 that was done with great admirable skill though.
@@ReactandDraw I did that when I started off a lot. I agree it can help a lot and yes, tracing is fine as long as you don't act it is your own work online or publicly
The day twitter gets removed is the day we advance as a species.
It’s already beginning. Everyone is moving to Blue Sky
@@Euphoryaaa I can't wait 😁
God I’m so tired of hearing that, the representation excuse. It’s so bs that they use it when it’s not even true, oh and they are being suppressed. Homie, you are talking on Twitter you aren’t suppressed
lol, indeed. it's the victimhood mentality.
I realized representation matters better when the characters are original the way they are.
@@ReviewwattpadbokLook of course, I agree. But the thing is, people need to be spoon fed, they need to get users to the character. They need to like the character, not be forced to the subject of being. “Oh I’m being oppressed.”
@@kaijukingdom2686 I agree on that it becomes over used and annoying to the point people give up on the plot of the stories because of it.
@@ReviewwattpadbokLook exactly, which is so fucking stupid.
As an Asian I’m so tired of seeing these stupid blackwashing stuff.. like if they have the excuse of it being a fictional character then why is it bad when people whitewash? And don’t you dare say it’s about the history.
I mean I don't care personally and I even find the practice a bit weird but I think it's mostly about quantity / availability. There's so many white characters out there chances are you'll find one you like. But there's hardly any minority ones that are more than just their accompanying stereotype; so people retrofit other actual characters instead.
@ yeah…but I wished people would look and see that maybe there aren’t much characters of a certain race because the people from that race isn’t making characters about that. Like black artists complaining about lack of black characters but instead of trying to make black characters they blackwash other characters instead
I remember someone saying something along the lines that blackwashing doesn’t exist because they were enslaved 💀 yeah! THEY were the ones oppressed, not YOU Sharon
often times one is done out of malice (white edits) while the other is done as a fun little challenge (black edits), that's what the difference is. regardless of what you think of black edits a good chunk of them are done in good faith and that's something that can't be said for artists that go "haha I made [black character] white!!! get angry at me >:)"
tho I wont deny I've seen people who do it out of malace too, the ""fixers"" are weird asf cuz its not only disrespectful but you're also fetishizing black ppl by acting like they're inherently better
@@nessmarie6044 I get that not a lot of blackwashing edits are done out of malice, but it’s still disrespecting the original art and the race of the original character. It’s like saying, it’s more important for them to be black than Asian. As if the ‘race hierarchy’ has Asians beneath black people. Yeah whitewashing was a thing, but it was white people doing it. Not Japanese people or Asians.
Twitter art cops are so embarrassing 😭
They say the most unnecessary things
I saw a video going into deep details about this. They went through american twitter and Japanese twitter. To get both sides.
The person who originally drew that Splatoons character is a beloved animator in Japan. They worked in many popular shows. So Japan was confused as to y america was hating on them when they made a black person. Japan then started clowning americans talking about “don’t they know in different lighting ur skin color is brighter??” But then Japan lowkey went crazy when they rediscovered (someone said before Japan complains about this a lot for the last 3-4 years) americans black washing their characters.
My problem is the majority of people in america who was crying about the splatoons charcater having a lightwr skin tone were White or, most importantly, NOT BLACK. So for the most part, black people aint have a problem with it but are now catching hate for it even though we weren’t the ones crying about the original problem to begin with
There's like this thing in genshin that is called a boycott because of characters skin tone, and while I have mixed feelings on it I would like to point out that the majority of "boycotters" are white
It's like they're trying to seem like good people by using fake activism against character skin color. Instead of, I dunno, focusing on real world problems? There's an unfortunate amount of ppl suffering from racism, why not bring awareness to that instead?
I wish I got the chance to see this earlier because I have straight up gotten tired of this nonsense especially in fandom spaces. The double standards are higher than ever. I understand artists can do what they want but ever since people acknowledge whitewashing but pretend blackwashing is not real (that it's representation) is comical.
It's really good to see more people calling this kind of mentality out because instead of going for sloppy seconds and thirds it's much better creative wise like you said to make your own characters. Plus it a character doesnt need to be the same skin tone as me for me to relate I'm slightly lighter than marina in splatoon yet i like shiver in the game more.
Thanks for making this video and for the great art you create as well!!
these are some really cool character drawings in the background of the video i just need to say
i hate how hard it is for me to care about the "changing character skin tones" since it just boils down to people being stupid on the internet to me like people on Twitter always are, i respect giving it attention a lot though, i just wish this type of stuff stopped and people went back to drawing good art without there having to be a billion rules to it
I'm so glad more people are starting to talk abt this! Before I used to speak up about black-washing but all I got was hate and those annoying 'Black (insert ethnicity here) exist too!' comments. Like omfg ik they exist but that's not the point, literally every race have different heritages, cultures and clothing. So taking away their identity and replacing it w a black character is the biggest and most offensive slap in the face ever known to man.😭
And people have normalised this so badly that people think the only representation and diversity is skin tones, and to them, the only skin tone is dark-skinned and no other else 'It's not diverse and racist' . Because of this as well, people have been over-hyping TV shows with other representations in them. Like fym this TV series shows other cultures, religions, different body types and disabilities, shouldn't that be expected for a diverse show or in fact a normal show in general?
Also what I've been realising is that most of the people speaking up about black washing (including myself) are black people🥲 So it's either the black community is split into two abt this or, it's js a different race speaking for black people trying to support them but in reality are making things worse.
(also, if you actually read this, thank you for looking at his useless rant lmao)
Im so happy this conversation is finally happening and people are opening their damn eyes.. Just because you're changing the race to a minority doesn't make it NOT racist its very racist like you are erasing the features and culture the character has just by making them a different race and this goes for every single race out there
Sometimes I edit characters to look like me for profile pictures, but that's kinda it.
I get the edits for when you want a pfp of your fav character that looks a bit more like you. That's like cosplayers cosplaying a character of a different race but still keeping their own racial features, e.g. you change your hair colours but not your hair texture or eye shape etc.
Changing a characters race is always weird since that's not the character then.
If someone is coded a certain race etc. that's a good head canon tho.
There is also a historical difference between blackwashing and whitewashing or asianwashing.
Both asians and blacks are POC and historically more marginalised than non-POC people. Naturally whitewashing - and pale asianwashing if you keep colourism in mind - feels a bit more petty than blackwashing. The reaction from people who make black edits is understandable but the critique is a natural consequence.
Ultimately, I always prefer representation with original characters over editing what's there. Otherwise, this always leads to petty comebacks and shit.
I feel like artist have and are allowed to have freedom when drawing whatever they want. As long as it isn’t illegal there shouldn’t be a problem. The only reason people complain or judge is because everyone is really sensitive these days.
Like realistically no one would care black people are creating black versions of Gojo or Tanjiro if black people didn’t complain if someone did the same thing to black characters. Some to most black people are really protective of the fee black characters we got out there, but let stuff like “blackwashing” Japanese characters slide. Overall it’s just hypocrisy. If people were ‘t hypocrite then none of this is a problem. Cause i’m ngl I love seeing black versions of my favorite characters. I person feel like people should treat it like the Brazilian Miku twitter trend. Like I wanna see what Gojo would look like if he was russian or brazilian. We just gotta let artist be free and draw whatever they want. (As long as its legal of course)
Um... The marina drawing, why are they so worried about the skin tone and not how low her pants are? Sure in the original they are low but I dont think they are THAT low but okay go off I guess. Also I make ocs of multiple different ethnicity. I even make up countries woth currency's languages customs just to be original sometimes. Do I ned to spend my time doing exam studies rather than making countries? Yes, will I? No.
Twitter being twitter as usual, move along folks.
i love this, ive seen the drama over the years and hope more peeps take this to heart. Make the characters, make the stories we wanna see(at myself too). Also subbed for your commentary, thank you!
About the "blackwashing japanese characters" all I have to say is this: your ethnicity does not define your nationality. My best friend is asian, but that doesn't make him any less brazilian than me.
Also, these are just fictional characters. It's fine if a japanese person feels a bit put off by Gojo as a black person but it's important to keep in mind that people do these edits for fun.
Like, I'll not be calling brazilian Miku racist to japanese people 'cause that would be stupid af
Everyone was calling out the hypocrisy of how these activist immediately attack Bkub enmasse because he drew the character skin a few shades lighter, but then they themselves are making edit of Japanese character to intentionally make the character skin black. Besides, nobody have any problem with the Brazilian Miku. Even Japanese people like it.
@@Acueil and that definitely doesn't seem like generalising, because those idiots who had a reaction from seeing Marina in a lighter tone of skin (the same way a stupid nerd like me would have a reaction of the NCR ranger helmet on the Fallout show being all wrong) are *clearly* the same ones who did those edits
@@k0metz590 They definitely praised the black edits. Also are you saying you also send threats to the show runner of Fallout? Because that's what those activists do, and you likened yourself to them.
@@Acueil do you play basketball? 'Cause that's some amazing reach and a cute attempt of putting me in the defensive. Also, stop calling them activists. It's a redflag.
@@k0metz590 Activists are redflag?
I understand the need for making new black characters (or characters of any race) but I also understand why race swapping a character can be fun. People from different ethnicities and cultures have different hairstyles, clothing, etc that can affect the design of a character drastically to a point where I could say you’re practically designing a new character.
That trend a few months ago with Brazilian Miku was pretty cool where people tried to redesign Miku based on their country/ethnicity. It shouldn’t matter either way, since no character anime or otherwise is real, but I do feel like maybe that trend got a pass since Miku is somewhat seen as a blank slate, so people have been designing her based on story, personal preference, etc for years. It is a little bit harder to justify when it comes to characters with established worlds or backgrounds though.
For example, I can understand someone wanting to redesign Deku as if he were black and think it would make for an interesting redesign, but it’s also established that in the world of MHA, everyone in the world has super powers/quirks, including America, so then the question is, why not just make an African-American character set in the MHA world? What is the point of specifically designing Deku?
The obvious answer, sadly, is that a MHA OC might not get as much attention as a redesign of a main character. Let me be clear that I don’t think that they’re doing it to be controversial, more specifically it wouldn’t tag well. The Brazilian Miku situation was entirely possible due to Miku already being both a popular character and a blank slate that you’re allowed to edit to your hearts content all the way down to her personality. But not every fandom or piece of media has a character like that that people can do what they want with and still get clicks and get little controversy from.
Oh hey, you're the one who did that Concord art. I like that version.
I also liked the actual concept art for that character, cuz, yknow, she actually had what looked like *armor* on.
Came for the discussion, stayed for the CHARACTERS! who are these cool af people and where can I read about them ?/???
Edit: found the links in description, still gonna keep the comment cuz nobody is talking about them 😔
Bkub apologized and stated they got Marina's skin color wrong cuz they aren't good at drawing dark skin, and then a Japanese person quote-tweeted them saying "wow, so just because the color is wrong they're called racist! Stupid foreigners." This video is missing the context that Bkub's words were twisted by a malicious individual simply because you do not speak Japanese.
The people here have completely changed the topic, complaining about the concept of 'blackwashing art' when Marina IS a black character inspired by hip hop and urban city culture in the world of Splatoon. She's an octopus who became an idol alongside her white squid friend, Pearl, to spread hip hop and diversify the music world in that universe. There were actually a lot of racist Japanese people in the threads saying 'Marina is an octopus, not black' and posting these unrelated 'blackwashing' edits.
I encourage you to actually investigate the entire topic and realize you, like the quote retweeter, not only misinterpreted Bkub's genuine apology as 'forced', but took attention away from the actual issue, which is the lack of education on other races in Japan, and how many big-name Japanese artists/creatives have to push for diversity and representation of other cultures within media because of the commercialization of anime lessening that.
I'm sure you had good intentions making this video, but that quote-retweeter who started this discussion did not have good intentions in mind. They were indeed racist, and completely took away Bkub's voice on his OWN artwork and his own self-admitted weaknesses in drawing diverse skin tones. The infantilization of artists, even by their own people, is the reason a lot of them do not take accountability and shun criticism even when in the professional world, criticism is encouraged in order to help growth.
I'm giving you criticism on this video in the hopes you do better, have an actual Japanese translator look over the subject, and not misrepresent the topic. Hope you have a good day. I do not think you made this video with bad intentions, but this was never about 'blackwashing'.
We really need to talk about how people have every excuse in the book for Japanese artists, who actually have the tools to do better, and the criticisms of black people.
TLDR, people are tired of fake activism which ultimate goal is just to get clout and get accepted into the "elite progressive circle" whose first response to any disagreement to their ideology is to immediately try to destroy the other person's life. Also, I love how you ignored all the responses by the activist attacking Bkub, including the one saying they want to kill them.
I dont know why Twitter makes stuff like this an issue. Sure, they didn't use the right skin tone, but it's not like they made them completely white either. Calling art fixers "artists" is the same as calling a kid coloring in a coloring book an artist.
I’m a rare ADULT splatoon fan and am appalled at the western community’s behavior, i have to remind myself they’re mostly 16 to 20 year olds who are part of a specific ideology… that Japanese artist should not have apologized but I understand why he did.
I just stumbled upon your video and wanted to let you know that your art is awesome and you’ve gained a new follower. Thank you for sharing this, I agree with you 100%
Thank you so much for the support! And yea, it seemed most of them are young and well… you already know said ideology has them ready to emotionally flip tables over things lol. Over fan art. The west really needs to take a step back and think on their responses.
What's with the teeth of the black Deku? It looks like a racist caricature.
Looks like braces. I've seen braces drawn like that on characters teeth before.
if it weren't for double standards, folks wouldn't have any...lol
lol, touché
Found your channel from Jerrel (Sungrand Studios) giving you a shout-out! As a hobbyist myself, I always love finding artists to follow! Out of curiosity, it looks like you complete the piece around 2:14 but then you go back and redo a lot of it. Were you just not happy with the result, or is that just part of your process? The final version did end up looking amazing!
Instead of redrawing the original characters black, just make your own character in your own style,
What's so hard about that?
Theres fanart.. then theres the problem of clakmimg to "fix" someone else's art then color changing the skin.
Personally I actually kinda enjoy seeing black edits LOL. I just see them as proofs of concept for black(-coded?) characters in mainstream anime (even if they don't match the setting at all). And some of the edits here genuinely look nice imo (3:39-3:46), I like how they change up the hairstyle and add extra accessories. To me that's already putting in way more effort than just darkening the skin, filling the lips and calling it a day.
Am I saying we should encourage these edits? No, but I think these can be nice inspiration for some original character designs. I've been working on my own designs for a personal project based on my culture, and while a number of my characters have melanin, their skin color is not a focal point; it's just an aesthetic I want to see more of in the anime style lol
Love the art btw!!
Then we agree that the same thing should be allowed vice versa.
While it’s not my thing, I have seen a couple of edit iterations that looked cool. And definitely best wishes on your project. Sounds like you going about it in great way. One thing I will admit is it’s far and few examples in anime, which is to be expected from a place that’s mainly Japanese, but the great examples we have like Afro Samurai and such provide a look at how other ethnicities translate in anime style. Thanks for the compliment btw!
@@Acceleration50 The white man part of the majority wants more white men in media again.
Japanese people only brought up the black edit because of the activists from twitter attacking Bkub because of the skin color inconsistency. If they are allowed to make a black edit of a Japanese character, Bkub should be allowed to draw the character with lighter skin if he wanted to do so. But nooooo, that's the one huge no no that you cannot do no matter what according to these activists.
i feel like saying a little "hey just as a heads up shes got darker skin" (but phrased better lol coz im bad at phrasing lolol) is fine but you can say it nicely. i know im just seeing the stuff that bleeds over to over socials but god twitter looks so angry, someone can pick a bit to light of a colour and it not be the end of the world. i get with marina shes been officially white washed before (like the sanrio colab just made her white) but its not a reason to be snappy and rude.
either way im glad you brought up the topic because the creator obviously didnt mean to do it
(hope everyone's having a good day!)
Oh heck no. They turned prince Boji black. He already has enough struggles.... 😢😢😢
This is the reason why I don't use twitter
Hopefully those idiots move to bluesky but I doubt it
What anime were you taking inspiration from for your drawings?
Most of my style started out inspired by 90s anime like Street Fighter 2 the anime, Cyber City Oedo 808, and such, but lately newer anime like the Highlander anime most recently the Jujutsu Kaisen anime series have been added to my list of inspirations.
@ReactandDraw That's sick! I love your artstyle, is it okay if I use it as inspiration myself?
@@crxnchii8209 thanks! And certainly. I’m honored. Feel free to do so.
Cowboy Bebop is so diverse that's why I love it sm
People get upset about the wrong things. The Squid Girl is Ganguro. Think Japanese, with a dark tan, and dyed blonde hair. Making her dark or lighter in fan art is fine. Kinda fitting too. And Biscuit Olivia is awesome. Just putting that out there.
Yea I heard that too, which makes all the fuss even more useless.
Marina is not ganguro lol. She's based on Tupac. Her actress is ganguro but not the character. She doesn't even have the tan lines lmao
Edit: her actress is more of a gyaru than a ganguro nvm
Huh. Not she isn't. ^^;
Marina is not ganguro but okay!
To add on to these responses, she's also not a squid. She's an Octopus. No offense OP, but i don't think you've played the game
Dope stuff. 100% agree be creative and stop tripping. And congratulations on the channel growth!!
just stumbled upon your channel today and I am glad I have you are so based brother. i've always thought recoloring fictional characters to the same skin tone as you to get that connection or representation is not a problem at all. if it makes you happy then go crazy and just have fun, but don't go start making online agendas about it you're just bound to start a pointless war to which everyone's just going to waste their time being upset. i remember this one tweet complaining about vivziepop's design for adam in the show hazbin hotel, complaining adam should've been black because that's how he was supposed to be on the bible or something. that person received some criticism but not necessarily being racist just telling her it's no big deal it's just a cartoon show, and she had a whole conniption just cursing out everyone who dared question her. it's unbelievable
This is great. I like the colors you used. I’m actually an art student who is currently studying animation. I wonder, are the smears a stylistic choice?
I think anyone of any race should be able to draw, voice or play any race or gender they want unless it's done to ridicule other groups of people. We don't pick our races or genders but we can pick which media and culture we prefer and want to take part in. I'm from Europe, here most people prefer live action stuff and sports. I couldn't care less for that stuff so I engage in asian and American animation. Since that's what I like and thus consume naturally it influences the stuff I produce myself even though I'm not Asian nor American.
It's like Pete seeger said
"All the arts, music, the visual arts, acting and dancing arts, cooking arts, and I believe sports, will save the human race because they can leap over barriers, religions, leap over barriers of race, politics."
”You know what, Sean...?” 😁
I do get why some people, particualarly those who are obsessed with black culture, want to change preexisting non-black characters into black characters. Now if to do so, because there is story to tell like Marvel did to Punisher once, then I am okay with. But if its to make non-black character black for the sake of making black, then it better not to do so at all. It would more sense for these artists to create a brand, new African character rather then go after preexisting characters.
melanin patrol 💀
A lot of Japanese artists realized they were getting harassed and policed by people who do this
Going back to the obama pic, the marina fanart could just have different lighting to give her a lighter tone.
I can’t believe how stupid people are, the color is a few tones lighter, like what is the deal? Would anyone complain if it was darker than the original? No. But why? "It’s a wrong representation", isn’t it?
1:39 Why do I feel like this is some skit that bkub would make.
Which one the protag draws a fanart on twitter then protag gets burn on a stake by the same twitter mob for their fanart
The representation argument is not valid if the character isn't a cartoonified image of a real person.
Representation is showing real peoples, real struggles and their growth.
Not showing objects our pattern seeking brain is to delusional to tell isn't what it appears to be at first glance.
The commander is stupid. Color doesn't change anything as long as the picture is drawn beautifully.
I don’t see how ppl thought it was racist
If it was racist they would have done something like purposely make her ugly looking
At the end of the day the artist still kept her black so I don’t see the problem
Tbh I think it’s TWITTER being colourist.
I always found it dumb that these edits were made to begin with like there wasn't already some black anime characters to draw from since some Japanese creators were actually trying to have more diverse cultures in their stories. Sure, they aren't the MC most of the time, but at least there was an effort to have more than just their own race. We should be inspired to make our own characters that are just as good, not recolor other races stuff.
Another excellent video, Sean. 👌
Thanks man!
I mean, how hard is it to make it dark tho😂💀💀💀
Man. Well said. Keep it up!
I think you should draw and color what you want but don't be a hypocrite about it.
People forget that jojos bizzare adventure exist and it has a decent representation ‼
I always get annoying once they always do happens. I’m not saying can’t do this, but I it gets annoying all the time doing this is like saying why can’t anime be black , no that doesn’t make any sense and only makes sense if it was Japanese with Japanese characters sometimes here and there foreigners once in a while black at least be happy there is black anime characters. Don’t just draw over it to make them black. That’s just plain ignorance
This whole issue isn’t even that deep to begin with. Why are people going ballistic over a simple mistake or just nothing fr???
Anime is one of those things where, beyond the way someone is drawn, the anime community is very diverse. From things like cosplay to anime-inspired business or various cultures and languages. It's okay to draw fan edits and race swaps if it's in general genuine and a place of loving the I.P. But then there is spite, art fixing, criticizing a work not on how it is made, or portrayed but the small details expelled for things like standards, norms, and harmfully race. "I can do better" or "I can draw better" to "I'm a better person because of diversity," same as A.I. art but so dissimilar, fixing art or in turn fixing culture, it destroys the very foundation of diversity.
People when ya draw a black character brighter or a bit brighter:”You have choosen death”
People when ya draw a white character black and changing multiple things :”hell yeah”
And about the marina artist I doubt they did it with a bad intention and not every artist is gonna do it perfectly like the original,specially is there’s different types of shading like that official watercolor Marina drawing which people apparently got so mad(was one of those pastel watercolors drawing of course it was bright dats the point of a PASTEL WATERCOLOR type of drawing)
People like this makes other artist scared on drawing any skin color character and may end up not drawing any, so less representation for ya all
Plus using the art of another artist to “fix” without permission is RUDE,you don’t like it?then do it yourself,pick a pencil
Marina lover?dats kinda Hypocrite from a team love member,Marina would had loved the drawing her fans made no matter what
Man this is an non issue it’s just petty at this point
Seeing this issue just makes me want to post the drawing with dark skinned character at my Bluesky account instead of X , to protect myself from those creepy X woke gangster
The entire situation is stupid, why are people on both sides so dead set on changing the skin color of a character 😭
What both sides? Bkub did not do it intentionally. You do know this, right?
Big fan of that character design, good stuff
*consumes your art* thanks for the meal and for spreading your opinion on the subject
Can nobody draw and have fun anymore? So what if people draw characters in their race? Just as long As we're not erasing the original character.
Ikr
Yeah I personally don't understand why it's a big deal. Maybe people are just quick to jump on a perceived hypocrisy.
"You wouldn't be okay if somebody white washed a black character!", like honestly I don't think it actually matters, but people are sensitive to it though because it's often done by racists to stir shit. Its a whole mess, they're just drawings.
Black edits should be banned fr
Omg Black Anya Q0Q Little princess
Your art is amazing 🥰
I think race swapping is in poor taste. I don't really care who does it or why they do it. It is cringe. Post some race swapped art of Miles Moralis, I dare you.
A tonnof anime characters look hella white tho...¿
people who care dont have jobs.
Ngl that doesn't make any sense because I'm sure most people don't work 24/7 around the clock so yes they'll have time to care....
@@citrus3603 get employed. the world has better things to worry about.
🦝
1:38
34
black wash characters look awesome I think people should never stop
The annoying thing about this lecture is that yes, people do make original shows with black characters. And they get less views because "woke garbage" that's happening nowadays, and most people not wanting to see black characters. And do not use Black Panther as an example. It did well because it was a Marvel movie, back when most people ate up anything that Marvel did.
This is a non issue lmao
It still is a non issue
Dislike and down vote idgaf
:T there literally race swapping b/c for the sake of 'representation'. Heck I grew up with little to no representation for my own ethnicity but I don't cry about it. If it's wrong to change a black character to any other race the same should apply to the opposite.