Forum - View topicREVIEW: Terra Formars GN 1
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daichi383
 Posts: 313 Location: England |
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That is not what he's saying. Your views are just as valid as his so please stop oversimplifying and misquoting to try and devalue his points. It makes you come off rather badly. |
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ChibiKangaroo
 Posts: 2941 |
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That is exactly what he is saying. He is attacking the people who spoke out to remove offensive stereotypes and caricatures of African Americans. He finds fault with them, because he believes they have removed some kind of "authentic" representations of the African American persona or experience from American media. He lambasts them as some kind of PC police who have somehow ruined things for everyone. Had those people not spoken out as they did, minstrel shows and blacksploitation films would probably still be considered acceptable. So by ranting against those accomplishments, he is also voicing his opposition to the removal of such racially offensive media. Additionally, he goes a step further in actually praising Japanese artists who engage in offensive caricatures of black people. He finds pleasure in that, apparently because he sees it as some great strike against the "PC Police" who have gotten racially offensive content removed from American media. Again, he's clearly in favor of bringing back the materials that we now see as offensive. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2245 |
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Yeah, I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here. Anybody watch Space Brothers? There's an anime in that show that's basically a kid's show about a famous group of fictional astronauts, but with animal characters. In this show-within-a-show, the only Black guy is portrayed as a gorilla. He's also dumb--frequently the butt of many jokes, and his only good point is his brute strength. (He may also be regularly concerned about stuffing his face, but I'm not entirely sure about that.)
Now, I like to think that the animators at A-1 (thankfully, this mini-series is an anime-only addition) just made this character a gorilla because it's a big, strong animal that's "dark". Unfortunately, as an American viewer, I was holding my head in my hands during the shorts. Black people have long been stereotyped as being "savage" and associated with jungle settings, and therefore somehow less civilized than white folks. They're often portrayed as lazy and stupid people who need to be prodded to work, and even then, they're really only good for brute strength and labor (and I can thank the black-and-whites on TCM for confirming this for me). Unfortunately, Buddy's portrayal as a dumb brute, and a straight-up MONKEY no less, just makes me groan. A Japanese viewer may not see anything wrong with that. But as an American, those kinds of portrayals just hit me in all the wrong places in the worst ways possible. And that's probably what's going on in Terra Formers. Even IF the homo erectus thing is "correct" in what the mangaka intended to portray, his representation of the homo erectus has too many similarities to blackface and Black caricatures in general for me to feel comfortable about it, intentions be damned. (And those articles about Black Sambo peppering Japan aren't helping, UGH.) |
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Mr_42
 Posts: 87 |
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I've been giving some thought to how I would have drawn humanoid cockroaches that had developed along a similar evolutionary chain to the one humans ourselves had followed.
The Uber-roach designs are very clearly resemblant to the Homo-erectus model Divineking provided and despite Chibi Kangaroo's constant comparisons to the caricatures the resemblance is much closer. So there's the first point, the basic anatomical structure is the same, the hair is the same, the large area between lip and nose is similar as are the small nose itself and the large forehead. However, As Chibi Kangaroo rightly pointed out such caricatures are themselves predominantly influenced by comparing Black people to such primitive humans so racist tones are all but automatically implied but not rational given the evolutionary themes the aeries is based on. Next is the colour, the "black-man roach". In my opinion the weakest racist angle. We see in the coloured pages of the manga and the anime promos that the roaches are a dark brown. And obviously in the black and white pages of a manga the colour to use would be flat black. Now we know that cockroaches themselves are dark brown so it makes sense for them to have retained that colour. We also know that early humans developed on the African continent and that the melanin that the skin uses to defend itself from UV radiation is one of the reasons for dark skin. On the treeless, shadeless planet of Mars would it be unbelievable the the cockroaches that evolved on Mars would have retained their already dark skin tone? Next up is the eyes, it is likely that the eyes that the Uber-roaches have are a combination of the large pupils needed to see better on a planet further away from the galactic light source and wider fullstop as a result of having developed from compound insect eyes. They also retain their cerci and the the diminutive antennae. The first time we see the Uber-roaches they are stooped and are carrying caveman level tools. A further indication that their basic design is based on early hominids. We also see that they have constructed pyramids. and take to wearing loincloths of the sort we see in Egyptian period dramas/documentaries. I think that we can draw from this the theory that the Uber-roaches are developing in a culturally similar way to African civilisation as well as resembling them physiologically. My earlier post on a possible post colonial reading of the text might then suggest, as a I did, of a pro-black intention. They might be the bad guys but they are winning. In fact are they even the bad guys? They are the ones under attack from the invading humans, who evolved after them (originally on earth) and advanced ahead of them technologically and now believe themselves the roaches betters. As I have said before, these are only theories but so are any accusations of intentional or ignorant racism on the part of the mangaka. |
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Ali07
 Posts: 3333 Location: Victoria, Australia |
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I think you've gone to the extreme here. What I got out of DavetheUsher's post was that we don't see as much diversity due to the fear of stepping on someones toes if they don't portray the character without a single thing that could be construed as "stereotypical". Which, is something I find a on the extreme side too. I do wonder, would we see a character called the Black Panther created today? T'Challa is one of my favourite comic book characters. But, with the sensibility of today, it is a question I've pondered many times...and DavetheUsher's post brought it to mind. Slightly more on topic, I've seen some mention on MAL that the Terra Formars OVA has founds its was online. I look forward to seeing what comments come out of that. Some have actually pointed at Marvel's Captain America: Winter Solider and made a similar point when it came to the Falcon. No mention of "Snap" Wilson. 
Slightly more on topic, I've seen it said on MAL that the Terra Formar's OVA has found its way online. I look forward to reading what sort of comments are made on it. |
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Fedora-san
 Posts: 464 |
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That's not a new viewpoint exactly. I see similar comments on things like female characters. For a country that's supposedly ignorant and backwards as people in this topic are saying, Japan sure seems to be leading the charge in those areas. Despite us Americans being so morally superior, we still can't for the life of us put out a meaningful amount of cartoons, comics, or video games starring or aimed at females like Japan can. Just something to consider. Besides, comparing the characters he listed to things like minstrel shows is just proving his point. There's a difference between blackface minstrel shows and people being upset a black character has a trait they don't like and might find problematic. To this day, the most natural and non-forced display of racism I've seen in a cartoon between whites and black comes from an anime, not an American cartoon where it's actually relevant. Those generally feel way too PSA-y, like the network mandated them to do it to fulfill an E/I standard. Perhaps there's something to be said about a country with a neutral third party status on the issue that lets them approach the issue of race differently than we can since we're on the inside of it.
Actually called the Black Panther? I would imagine not, though we are getting more and more minorities in comic books. My issue with the way comics handle it is it feels very forced and is very transparent on how they're just publicity stunts, killing off or depowering established heroes just to replace them with a new character, rather than crafting a new hero and having them make a name for themselves. That would seem a lot more genuine to me. |
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Shadowrun20XX
 Posts: 1935 Location: Vegas |
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I'm on chapter 7 so far, its insane how crazy this series is. So much guro it's out of hand. Can't wait to see it animated, the roaches are badass. Its kind of got that aliens meets the hopelessness of titans in attack on titan.
If there was anything offensive, Young Jump didn't see it. There is 85 chapters, an OVA and an anime series on the way. The racist thing seems like something you folks are making up. They are fighting bug vs bug, these roaches have evolved into something superior and the humans only defense is some injection to evolve them into an opposing insect. The culture loves its range of bugs, its quite fascinating. But then again I'm reading Terra Formars for what it is. The rookie complaints are too predictable and the sensitivity I see here might just be why DBZ Kai got a blue Popo. People just can't handle it here. I haven't seen the pictures from this topic pop up yet and if you've seen Terra formars this far, then you don't mind the guts. Why would the design of the roaches hang you up then? Doesn't make sense. If they changed the design would you even be here talking about Terra Formars? Stirring shit up is not acceptable, lets hear more about the graphic novel. |
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ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
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Here's the primary problem with his assessment. He's fighting against one of two things: (1) He's doing exactly what I argued above, and complaining about the fact that racially offensive caricatures of black people are no longer allowed in American media; or (2) He's railing and ranting against a massive straw man, and is thus being completely disingenuous and intellectually bankrupt. There are PLENTY of quality black characters in American media nowadays. Obviously, I'm not going to go through and list all of them, but the USA has gotten to a much better place as far as integrating not only high quality black characters, but also other groups such as latino and asian characters. Casts of TV shows and animated shows are much more diverse, and the minority characters have a great deal more depth and better reflect modern people and not some antiquated stereotype. Just as an example from both the live action side and cartoon side, look first at recent versions of Law & Order/L&O SVU, one of the most popular detective franchises the U.S. You had S. Epatha Merkerson , a black woman, playing Lieutenant Van Buren for 16 seasons. For all of that time, she was in charge of the police side of the equation. She was a very deep character, and also was the longest running African American character in television history. Then you look at SVU, Ice T, a rapper, plays detective Tutuola. Prior to that, he played a drug dealer on another Dick Wolf television series, and was so good in the role that Wolf decided to cast him in SVU. He's been playing a detective in that show for 14 years. Again, his character is very deep/well developed, and has numerous flaws as well as positives, including the fact that he is estranged from his wife and wasn't involved with his son. Also, there was a pretty great episode involving him and Ludacris where Ludacris plays his ex-wife's son, and is a violent killer who buries a woman and her baby alive. Then you look at cartoons, and you see Disney currently running a show called Doc McStuffins. (HMMmmm, I thought Disney was supposed to have been scared away from using black characters by the big, bad PC police?) This show is focused on an African American girl who wants to be a doctor when she grows up, and "treats" her various stuffed animals. It's a very positive and uplifting show for kids. Like I said, I'm not going to try and list all of the black characters on American TV and movies right now, but there are clearly innumerable characters of all kind, with positives and negatives and great depth. This is completely different from how things used to be, when all the black characters were awful caricatures, or one-note stereotypes who all represented the worst lowlifes in society. DavetheUsher complains about where we are now, seemingly nostalgic for those "old days." |
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u6064vision
Posts: 39 |
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It takes a bold overambitious, reviewer to open up the racism can of worms. Rebecca Silverman, your review is a real piece of work.
As a black person, I can honestly say I am exhausted and bored with such claims made by Silverman and others. I'm convinced now that this review was written for white liberal readers to engender white guilt and make them feel bad about themselves. I've long since washed my hands of identity politics. It's inherently divisive, and tends to be dominated by bored, obnoxious and highly ideological folks like Silverman trying to relive the battles of the 60's and 70's and throwing out silly stereotypes for whatever reason. OMG gangster cockroaches cruising in a drop top down car. Really? lol I reckon that there seems to be more white folks up and arms over Terra Formars cause that's what it certainly looks like, maybe I'm wrong? Anyways, I've read some of it and I don't find none of the material is offensive at all. I don't think the Mangaka had any intent to make anyone feel offended but wait surprise, surprise different people have different opinions about stuff I guess... The annoying identity warriors who want a heroic battle to fight... it's over, it's been over for decades now. Why can't you bring yourselves to accept that. Now it seems like the only thing left to thrive off of is 21st century stereotypes. Black, White or whatever your ethnicity is don't get worked up over something so little such as this. Thanks to flawed human biases, discrimination still exists and people like Rebecca Silverman is the perfect example to remind us of that. I would have much rather read a more thoughtful review. Not harp on and on to bring such a tired topic to the forefront.
Zac, it's fine that you aren't going to censor your writers. I don't think anyone wants that but don't pretend it's our fault. Shots were fired first by Silverman as soon as this review went up and now we are here 8 pages in. You act as if you are surprised by such a reaction. Pleaseeee, you had to see this coming. Now you are here trying to tell everyone off. Ok... |
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Ali07
Posts: 3333 Location: Victoria, Australia |
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Yes, I'd be surprised if a black African character would ever get a name like Black Panther ever again. On the issue with comics, I've found the recent ones I've encountered to be...ones I've not cared for. I can think of a couple of recent ones have been ones I've not like. Wally West has been changed into a young African American teen, instead of just creating a new character. I can't see why a new character couldn't fill that role. It just feels like this character wouldn't have seen the light of day if they weren't able to slap on the Wally West, former Flash, tag on him. Also, the female Thor just seems like one of those where diversity is there...but since they've used the character to take up a mantle, they seem nothing more than something to point at and say, "Look, more women." I hope I'm proven wrong and that, when they give the mantle back to Thor Odinson, that the character will still serve a purpose and be involved in a series...and actually have/continue to develop an identity of its own.
Can't claim to know exactly where DavetheUsher comes from, in terms of his stance on the issue, and I agree that characters from diverse backgrounds are definitely treated better than in the past. We're a sum of our experiences. So, I'd say DavetheUsher is potentially fighting a 3rd thing, and that is that the entertainment he consumes don't cater to his tastes on this issue. Which, would lead to the feeling of there not being something out there for him. We all can only consume so much entertainment. It's not always as clear cut as you want it to be. But, we won't really know unless he decides to talk about it further. |
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ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
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Well you seem to have hit most of the buzzwords and talking points out of the usual angry, resentful, anti-diversity playbook. Starting off by announcing yourself "as a black person" - check complaining about "white liberals" - check complaining about "identity politics" - check ranting about the civil rights movement - check hating on "identity warriors" - check claiming that people who even mention issues of racial stereotyping, are themselves the ones who promote racism - check Moving on to the next. 
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ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
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I actually doubt much at all of what was in his post was in any way truthful. It was a wide-ranging rant about "white liberals," which I really don't think is on topic here. The discussion is supposed to be about the review, and the topics in the review such as the issue of the stereotyping. If you do or don't believe that the manga has offensive caricatures, that's one thing, but a long-winded rant about "white liberals" and attacks on the reviewer are really just internet troll type stuff. |
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Levitz9
 Posts: 1022 Location: Puerto Rico |
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That's very true. At this point, the discussion in this thread no longer has to do with what was discussed about Terra Formars, it's about Silverman discussing what she considered to be racist depictions in what she read. At this point, people are arguing that her opinion is wrong. Think about that for a moment. The way she feels about this manga is wrong? The heck? We're not even talking about the score the manga was given, just that she brought up racism. If that's not trolling, I don't know what is. The same people complaining about censorship are the people who are implicitly making the argument that they don't want people saying anything in a review concerning how X or Y thing may be racist or sexist, because hey, all of that rabble-rousing Shonen Jump Weekly crap, am I right? |
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spinja446
 Posts: 87 |
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The real issue at hand is how mediocre this manga is. Terra Formars doesn't deserve such discussion or praise for how dumb and unimaginative it is. It's like a cheap stupid sci-fi book with epic gore and random character deaths sorta on the same page as Gantz except Gantz is so much better. |
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2231 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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I almost think that people would be a lot more willing to give Terraformars a bit more leeway on its "caricatures" (unintentional racism or not), if it weren't that the story is so lame and inane. Gantz had a lot of similar issues when it comes to misogyny (mosore, indeed) and late in the series it ran afoul of some pretty blatant stereotypes of americans... But at least it was kind of creative even if the story ended up devolving into gibberish in the end. Maybe Terraformars will go somewhere later in the series and actually do something with the setting it has other than the schlock it currently is. But I doubt it. |
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