Forum - View topicAllyship in Anime: What Chad from Bleach Taught Me
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13550 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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Chad might be the most famous example of a Hispanic/Latino in anime/manga. Oh, and he is certainly a positive portrayal of one. Specifically, he is Mexican of Okinawan origin. Asian-Hispanics/Latinos are very rare in anime/manga.
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Gem-Bug
 Posts: 1203 |
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Sado is part Mexican though. Why is the onus of allyship being placed on the POC(I'm aware Sado and Ichigo are also Japanese)?
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tintor2
 Posts: 1816 |
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Poor Sado might the most popular characters within the Western fandom but was completely wasted. I don't remember him beating major enemies from the plot other than those Espadas' subordinates that I can't remember despite my experience with the Spanish language. By the Arrancar arc, Sado pulled two power ups out of nowhere but he got defeated by 5th Espada in a rather anticlimatic manner in a similar fashion to Kyoraku in Soul Society.
He is treated by Unohana but gets defeated by Yammy. History appeared to avoid repetition in the next arc due to him being allied with Ginjo but he and Inoue end up becoming enemies..... Then it was the Vandereich arc but I can't remember him doing a thing there (seriously I have no idea if Sado even got to say a meaningful line there). It's obvious the Shinigamis were more popular so Kubo always tosses aside the humans in favor of them. Nice concepts, poor executon. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16935 |
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Reminds me of the Saiyans compared to the humans in Dragon Ball. Chad is basically Bleach's Krillin in a sense. They both go through many power ups, but despite some victories here and there (that are mostly meaningless) they do little that truyly helps in the end. They're just swept aside. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2544 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Or the Gold Saints in Saint Seiya (which was a direct influence on Bleach), who became so utterly popular that they've received both their own manga spin-offs & even an anime all to themselves. Hell, even the completely different Gold Saint cast of Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas wound up not only taking most of the biggest moments of that manga for themselves, but they even got their own spin-off manga! As for Sado/Chad, I always liked him as a character, but it was easy to see that Kubo sadly didn't give him quite the attention that I think most (at least, those outside of Japan) would have preferred. Still, this was a well written article. |
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Horsefellow
 Posts: 262 |
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What does ethnicity have to do with being an ally to someone? |
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Gem-Bug
Posts: 1203 |
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I mean, when I hear "Allyship" post-2015, I think ": the state or condition of being an ally : supportive association with another person or group / specifically : such association with the members of a marginalized or mistreated group to which one does not belong" (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/allyship) But I could easily be mistaken and the author is talking about "team-mate/friend", etc? |
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Zeino
Posts: 1098 |
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Emotional support is all well and good but how effective an ally are you if you spend most of your time bleeding on the floor? If there were an anime dictionary, poor Chad would have his picture right next to the word "jobber". That's how bad Kubo wasted him.
Krillin at least does his best to hang on despite the often impossible odds and does get to influence the plot a bit. He managed to keep to keep himself, Gohan and Bulma alive on Namek until Goku arrived, His death at the hands of Freeza is what made Super Saiyan a thing and his saving of Android 16 leads to the event of Gohan going Super Saiyan 2. Chad on the other hand? Aside for being one of Ichigo's closet friends who always fight alongside him, he never does have a major impact on anything in Bleach. You could honestly remove him from the story and the plot would be unchanged. |
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2401 |
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Chad was a bro to the end, but the squad captains basically stole all of the time that didn't go to Ichigo.
Considering this line:
I don't see how it could have been meant differently. |
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ATastySub
Past ANN Contributor
 Posts: 647 |
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I doubt this is a sincere question, but here's an answer for anyone else reading. Because different ethnicities face different levels of structural opposition. Racial minorities often do not have the societal power to make the changes that will help them, while the majority enjoys a level of power and privilege that at the very least leaves them ignorant to the problems others face. In this case, as well meaning as the article is, Bleach does have a problem with having Chad be the noble minority who never fights back, and then decides to fight for his already privileged friend. The more privileged allies should be using that privilege to lend support to minority causes, not using minorities and their causes to advance themselves. They are the ones with societal power in these cases. I'm not surprised to see MLK invoked in this thread while still ignoring that, because that's been a pretty successful rewriting of history to make it seem like MLK was somehow a neutral figure, and not regularly scorned and eventually murdered for daring to speak out against the status quo. That's why ethnicity matters, because if you think it doesn't it means you aren't even seeing the right picture. |
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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An ally is someone that won't leave you in the lurch, and if they can't save you now, they'll save you sooner or later.
Quite many of us have "friends" that are only nice so long as they are above us. A lot of us have friends that if we stray from a correct course are only too willing to let us fall. I don't mean this literally, but an ally is someone that offers to help when we want to rob a bank. Not because they aim to actually help us steal things, but to stick close enough by to pick up the pieces and perhaps avert the bad outcome. I guess in short, reliable. |
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Zimmer
Posts: 178 |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4570 |
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With all due respect, I feel like Chad mostly represents a character whom the author didn't know what to do with and eventually all but forgot about entirely. The best part is the epilogue, where spoiler[he's a professional boxer, directly violating the promise he made to his grandfather to only use his fists to help people]. Great work there Kubo.
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vanfanel
 Posts: 1242 |
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That's called a friend. An ally is not a friend, it's someone who cooperates with someone else (often temporarily) because their interests align with that person's. |
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Guile
Posts: 595 |
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I don't find that to be an issue. spoiler[There's a huge difference between street brawls and being a thug just to hurt people and an officially sanctioned sport with rules and regulations. If you want, you can think of the money he makes is being used to help people ] |
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