×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
INTEREST: Nissin Pulls Cup Noodle/Prince of Tennis Ads After White-Washing Controversy


Goto page 1, 2, 3  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
anton.barbieri



Joined: 11 Apr 2015
Posts: 12
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 2:55 pm Reply with quote
If her Agency in Japan approved than nothings wrong, right?

But the U.S. wing didn't agree...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Takkun4343



Joined: 19 Jul 2007
Posts: 1493
Location: Englewood, Ohio
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 2:58 pm Reply with quote
I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually re-released the ad where she has the right skin tone and hair texture.

Then again, I also wouldn't be surprised if they didn't do that.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Changeman



Joined: 06 Jun 2018
Posts: 220
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 3:46 pm Reply with quote
While women and children are suffering in Asia and Africa, modern and civilized society is concerned about someone's skin color, and what makes Naomi Osaka special is not the pigmentation of her skin.

Did she even say how she felt about it?

She's probably more busy with more important things, like winning the games.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Lactobacillus yogurti



Joined: 17 Aug 2011
Posts: 839
Location: Latin America
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 4:03 pm Reply with quote
They hate hafu people. There was a lot of backlash when Miyamoto Ariana represented Japan in Miss Universe. Ironic that a country where the birth rate is dropping like a rock, they're still so hung up on "racial purity." No wonder their history is what it is.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Aca Vuksa



Joined: 22 Mar 2018
Posts: 643
Location: Nis, Serbia
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 4:09 pm Reply with quote
Lactobacillus yogurti wrote:
They hate hafu people. There was a lot of backlash when Miyamoto Ariana represented Japan in Miss Universe. Ironic that a country where the birth rate is dropping like a rock, they're still so hung up on "racial purity." No wonder their history is what it is.


Japan is still obsessed with their homogenous populaiton looking people, even though the international marriage in Japan is still growing a bit. And the birth rate decline is going to be in serious trouble if Japan start accepting immigrants.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
nargun



Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 924
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 4:37 pm Reply with quote
Mhora wrote:
Are we gonna pull all anime soon? Most of the Japanese characters in anime look...western and white.


Eh, no. They're simplified, but they're simplified from an "asian" basis. This is most obvious from skin tones -- which are typically beige, way too brown for "white" skin tones" -- but there's details in the nose and eyes that reflect the base as well.

Have a look at some final fantasy character models, they're about half-way and show the connections pretty clearly.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Scion Drake



Joined: 25 Nov 2017
Posts: 941
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 4:57 pm Reply with quote
Who makes this crap seriously?

At least make the damn thing look like the actual person otherwise what’s the point?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
all-tsun-and-no-dere
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 06 Jul 2015
Posts: 604
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 4:57 pm Reply with quote
Changeman wrote:
While women and children are suffering in Asia and Africa, modern and civilized society is concerned about someone's skin color, and what makes Naomi Osaka special is not the pigmentation of her skin.

Did she even say how she felt about it?

She's probably more busy with more important things, like winning the games.


Colorism - discrimination against others based not just on race, but the tone of their skin - IS a major factor in the suffering of women worldwide. Many cultures worldwide value pale skin, especially in women, and people with darker skin are considered ugly, unrefined, and overall lesser. This can affect people of different races, mixed race (as is the case here), ethnic minorities, and just plain old genetics.

Your attempts at deflection are way off base here.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
j_plex





PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 4:59 pm Reply with quote
First there is the fact that there is no difference between how Japanese characters are drawn in anime and European ones, down to the Japanese characters having blonde or red hair and blue or green eyes. The western characters may ACT different and of course have distinct sounding names but look the same. You can take an anime or manga with the same artists and character designers but one is in a western setting and another set in Japan... the characters all look the same except MAYBE more characters with black hair.

More revealing... in some older anime, the serious lead characters have European features ... but the comic relief side characters would be more distinctly Japanese. A good example is Kodocha ... the characters who look least European are the two ex-husband characters (the deadbeat in particular) and the broad silly variety show host character. Also, only Japanese characters get the western washing treatment. Chinese, Korean and especially Thai, Indian and Filipino? Nope. Chinese and Korean will frequently be drawn fair skinned but will still be distinctly Asian. Thai, Filipino and Indian characters - as well as Native American BTW - will both have Asian features and often be more dark skinned than Ms. Osaka was

So the stick figure thing never has been true. As for why Ms. Osaka did not object ... business decision. She knows that if she draws attention to herself she will get raked over the coals. And Japanese culture is not one where the mainstream rewards being controversial. Instead it is a lit more like how American culture was prior to the 1960s counterculture influence. And Osaka's minority status makes her less likely to be marketable if she is controversial. Using the pre-60s America example do you think that early black entertainers like Chuck Berry, Nat King Cole or Sammy Davis Jr. would have retained their careers had they spoken out on racial issues? Were Osaka to do so she would quickly become considered American instead of Japanese and invited to move to the US and identify with that country as quickly as possible.

I am not bashing Japan or calling it racist. I am not a liberal so that is not how I see the world. I will say that there are plenty of countries who treat blacks far worse with Egypt and North Sudan being excellent examples. I am just stating the way things are.


{Edit}: I edited your post slightly at the beginning as you were quoting posts that have already been removed. ~ Psycho 101
Back to top
Mad_Scientist
Subscriber
Moderator


Joined: 08 Apr 2008
Posts: 3011
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 5:06 pm Reply with quote
Changeman wrote:
While women and children are suffering in Asia and Africa, modern and civilized society is concerned about someone's skin color, and what makes Naomi Osaka special is not the pigmentation of her skin.

Did she even say how she felt about it?

She's probably more busy with more important things, like winning the games.


"While women and children are suffering in Asia and Africa" can be used to dismiss pretty much anything. Watch:

"While women and children are suffering in Asia and Africa, you're concerned about a noodle company pulling an ad."

Rather dismissive and unfair, isn't it? People are able to care about many different topics. There is no requirement that we only care about the very worst thing happening in the world at the time, and that everything else has to just be ignored. That's silly.

As for the broader topic of this thread, I see all-tsun-no-dere already explained a bit about colorism as I was typing this, but maybe I'll copy some of the posts from the other thread when I have more time.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Silver Kirin



Joined: 09 Aug 2018
Posts: 1105
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 5:45 pm Reply with quote
It is a shame that a collaboration between Japan's best tennis players and the most famous tennis manga ended up in a controversy like this.
I do not know how race is treated in modern Japan, I'm aware of all the stereotypes that sometimes end up in anime, but I find it difficult that in the process of making this ad they didn't pay extra attention in ensuring that Naomi was drawn in a way that relfected how she looks in real life. I know that is very difficult to make an faithful recreation of a real life person into a cartoon, especially anime, a style that is very simplified in some cases, but in my opinion it wouldn't have been so difficult if she was drawn with darker skin and a different hairstyle that better reflected her appearance.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
PsychoPearl



Joined: 27 Oct 2016
Posts: 152
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 6:53 pm Reply with quote
They could've avoided this by simply drawing her accurately. With a simple Google search it's not hard to see that she has darker skin than how they portrayed her.
I wonder how she feels about the whole situation..
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
ChrissyC



Joined: 17 Jun 2015
Posts: 542
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 6:59 pm Reply with quote
The answer to this controversy is simple, just make it look like her.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
ChestPains



Joined: 05 Oct 2016
Posts: 101
PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 8:39 pm Reply with quote
PsychoPearl wrote:
They could've avoided this by simply drawing her accurately. With a simple Google search it's not hard to see that she has darker skin than how they portrayed her.
I wonder how she feels about the whole situation..


This x10000.
Apologizing for it is dumb, not because they shouldn't, but because literally all they had to do was make her skin darker.

The hair was kinda close already, so whoever did it probably at least looked at her picture beforehand, so what gives? And given how fast the response was, it sounds like whoever was in charge was just dumb. It's just mind boggling to me that it got approved at all. Surely they knew people would notice.

What a mess.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
reanimator





PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 8:55 pm Reply with quote
As an east Asian with several relatives born from mixed parentage, I don't care about how Naomi Osaka's skin color was depicted in the commercial. I was paying more attention to character design of both Osaka and Nishikori (the Japanese male tennis in the commercial if any of you really care) than coloring mistake. Personally I thought Osaka looks more rounder and Nishikori looks more lanky in real life than what's depicted in the cartoon.

Japan being mostly homogeneous as other northeast Asian countries (mainly Korea and China), I find it funny to see some westerners getting offended by a mistake in the commercial clearly meant for Japanese audience. If it wasn't for social media and worldwide streaming video, the whole thing would pass under the radar.

Do people here care about Osaka's accomplishments as professional tennis player at all? Nope. Instead people seem to care more about her outer appearance depicted in the CM than her accomplishment because they wanted the CM to fit their inner political views. Coloring mistake went against their view and they lose sight of other things that made Osaka look great. In the commercial, she is exaggerated with superhuman feats. That's one heck of a compliment.

People like to preach all kinds of righteous things, but in real life how many of them really conduct their lives perfectly aligned with what they preach? Instead of complaining about Osaka's cartoon skin color being wrong, wouldn't it more productive to talk about how exciting or boring her commercial is?
Back to top
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page 1, 2, 3  Next
Page 1 of 3

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group