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Last edited by FackuIkari on Wed Mar 29, 2017 2:28 pm; edited 1 time in total

CrowLia wrote:

FackuIkari wrote:

CrowLia wrote:

FackuIkari wrote:

How dare they cast american actors in an american version of death note? oh the humanity, what a crime

Because, as we all very well know, there is no such thing as a non-white American.

L is black what are you talking about?

Why could this not be set in Japan and have Asian-American actors play the Japanese characters?.

Why would they even do that? What's the problem with them not setting it in Japan? It's an adaptation and the makers decided to tell the story in another part of the world, what's wrong with that? It makes no [expletive] sense. If it was set in japan the complains would make sense but now it's just stupid. It's an american adaptation, SET in america with western actors, what the hell is the problem? I just don't get it

prime_pm wrote:

Yeah this movie isn't exactly The Good Earth, where the lead girl went to Louise Rainer instead of Chinese American actress Ana May Wong, thank you William Honkey Hays.

The Good Earth is not whitewashing. They just needed Rainer's star power to help the film. Just like ScarJo with GITS Rolling Eyes

And as people here have pointed out, GITS's casting was A-OK, so your example is too.

Animechic420 wrote:

Jeez. Even I'm getting annoyed by all this "white wash" complaining. Confused

Everyone is annoyed by white wash claims. It's odd that L's black, but they got him doing his quirky sitting on chairs, and I'm more worried about butchering the story, I heard they're putting nudity in the movie, which wasn't really in the manga. Story is my highest priority, as long as the actors portrays the characters in the movie like they were in the manga, I can deal with white Light and black L.

It's been a while since I've seen Death Note.
I remember the Japanese live-action version cast Japanese actors for characters that were white in the manga.
Aren't there other Shinigami and Death Notes out there? It would be cool if they instead made a story about that, that loosely its into the Japanese continuity.

There is nothing in Death Note that makes it predominantly Japanese. It could be set in any country with the characters being any nationality and it would still be the exact same story. Therefore it's irrelevant what nationality the characters are or what country it's set in.

The only character who's nationality is important is L because the mangaka specifically gave him a separate nationality to the other characters. If we're being perfectly honest the only reason it was set in Japan to begin with was because it was created by a Japanese guy. So changing the nationality of most of the characters is perfectly acceptable.

If anything there should be a bigger issue with the Fullmetal Alchemist live action film because the mangaka for that series specifically set it in a country based off Germany so giving it an entirely Japanese cast is directly going against the intentions of the original creator who deliberately set it in a foreign country instead of just setting it in their own country like Death Note.

Lord Oink wrote:

prime_pm wrote:

Yeah this movie isn't exactly The Good Earth, where the lead girl went to Louise Rainer instead of Chinese American actress Ana May Wong, thank you William Honkey Hays.

The Good Earth is not whitewashing. They just needed Rainer's star power to help the film. Just like ScarJo with GITS Rolling Eyes

And as people here have pointed out, GITS's casting was A-OK, so your example is too.

Yes it was. Textbook whitewashing and racism.
I get it. I hate this social justice crap just as much as you guys, but that doesn't mean you get to be historical revisionists.

Whitewashing is a real issue. It's just that recently those perpetually outraged people (that have a three letter acronym) picked the wrong battle with Iron Fist that made them look extremely foolish.

FackuIkari wrote:

Why would they even do that? What's the problem with them not setting it in Japan? It's an adaptation and the makers decided to tell the story in another part of the world, what's wrong with that? It makes no [expletive] sense. If it was set in japan the complains would make sense but now it's just stupid. It's an american adaptation, SET in america with western actors, what the hell is the problem? I just don't get it

Precisely my point is "why did it need to be Americanized". Forget about why did we even need yet another Death Note adaptation, why did it have to be set in America, with American characters. Are Americans really unable to connect with fiction that is not explicitly about them?

CrowLia wrote:

FackuIkari wrote:

Why would they even do that? What's the problem with them not setting it in Japan? It's an adaptation and the makers decided to tell the story in another part of the world, what's wrong with that? It makes no [expletive] sense. If it was set in japan the complains would make sense but now it's just stupid. It's an american adaptation, SET in america with western actors, what the hell is the problem? I just don't get it

Precisely my point is "why did it need to be Americanized". Forget about why did we even need yet another Death Note adaptation, why did it have to be set in America, with American characters. Are Americans really unable to connect with fiction that is not explicitly about them?

.....because it's an american adaptation... who cares if the americans are able or unable to connect with with fiction that is not about them? why is this an issue? why is this a problem? Seriously, what the hell? It doesn't matter where is set, it matter if the actors are good and portray the characters right, who cares it is in Tokyo or in LA? It is JUST set in america with western actors, how hard is that to understand?

Lord Oink wrote:

prime_pm wrote:

Yeah this movie isn't exactly The Good Earth, where the lead girl went to Louise Rainer instead of Chinese American actress Ana May Wong, thank you William Honkey Hays.

The Good Earth is not whitewashing. They just needed Rainer's star power to help the film. Just like ScarJo with GITS Rolling Eyes

And as people here have pointed out, GITS's casting was A-OK, so your example is too.

But here's the thing: Ana May Wong was almost a shoe-in for the lead role originally. It was after they cast Paul Muni as the main character that the Hays Code kicked in prohibiting the portrayal of any onscreen miscegenation, so they hired Rainer instead.

Fun Fact: when Wong was offered the role of the villainess Lotus as compensation, she eloquently told MGM to fudge off (paraphrasing). In her actual words, "You're asking me – with Chinese blood – to do the only unsympathetic role in the picture featuring an all-American cast portraying Chinese characters."

mrsatan wrote:

Yes it was. Textbook whitewashing and racism.
I get it. I hate this social justice crap just as much as you guys, but that doesn't mean you get to be historical revisionists.

Whitewashing is a real issue. It's just that recently those perpetually outraged people (that have a three letter acronym) picked the wrong battle with Iron Fist that made them look extremely foolish.

Sorry, but no. People don't get to say one instance of the same thing is okay while another is not. Every excuse people throw out to justify a Hollywood anime adaption can be thrown at non-anime adaptions. The guy behind Exodus literally said it was because he needed high profile actors, the same reasoning people here gave a pass to Johansson. "The story has nothing predominately Japanese"? 21 had nothing predominately to do with Asian Americans, it was just about casino gambling. Any ethnicity could do that, so the race of the leads are irrelevant so lonb as the story is told, right? A middle-eastern god is played by a white guy? Well, they are a god, so they can change their appearance and look like anything they want.. just like Major being a cyborg, or the one black Asgardian in Thor. Some anime fans have some amazing disdain for their hobby where anything Hollywood does to it is okay, but they care more about book or other adaptions. Its like they view anime as a lesser medium.

CrowLia wrote:

Precisely my point is "why did it need to be Americanized". Forget about why did we even need yet another Death Note adaptation, why did it have to be set in America, with American characters. Are Americans really unable to connect with fiction that is not explicitly about them?

Because it is (admittedly) my own PERSONAL axe to grind in this scenario, I'm going to laugh at people complaining about Hollywood not being progressive (or whatever word you want) enough to cast non-ethnic actors out of fear that "their audience [is] too stupid to enjoy something they can't directly relate to and so everything has to be/sound/look American or it won't sell". When:
a) (as others have said) There's plenty of Japanese versions of this movie that apparently didn't make enough money because the American audience was too stupid to go with subtitles or enjoy a movie with foreign actors (take your pick)
b) We apparently now "need" to make live-action versions of all our great animated properties because audiences are too stupid to look at animation as anything other than "children's fare".

(I HATE the trend of making Live-Action versions of animated films/tv series)

Stuart Smith wrote:

Woomy wrote:

People use the term "whitewashing" too loosely. This is just a localization of the property, and it's a two-way street. Whitewashing would be casting nothing but a bunch of white people in Exodus:Gods and Kings. Whitewashing would hypothetically be casting white people as Black Panther or Storm.

The term whitewashing is not reserved exclusively for black>white. Other non-white races and cultures besides black exist out there. If all it takes is a single black casting choice for you to dismiss any notions of the rest of the cast being changed, you might want to ask yourself why that is. It's always an interesting phenomenon to see Asians being ignored as a minority while blacks seem to be at the forefront of the diversity parade. It's okay to recast an Asian character, but a black character being recast is where the line is crossed? Odd, to say the least.

Re:SOUL wrote:

Why don't people complain about Power Rangers having non-Japanese people in the cast? Because the adaptation isn't set in Japan

People complain about that all the time, though. Especially in cases where ego-inflated actors like Jason David Frank says how badass "he" is by pointing to a fight scene from the show, ignoring the fact it's a Japanese stuntman inside the DragonRanger outfit in stock-footage from a Japanese show.

-Stuart Smith

I was not trying to say that at all, as you only focused on the part also where I brought up black comic characters. I was just giving a couple quick examples of what whitewashing is.

While I do feel Asians are treated unfairly in entertainment at times, this was still about whether this film is truly being racist and "whitewashing". And I don't see how it is. These angry weebs are spouting racism way too loosely here.

I think the real thing people need to be angry about is that it seems to have warped the characters to the point that it lost the whole point of Death Note. Death Note is a battle of massive egos and ideologies between Light and L and they've seemed to have stripped Light of most of his. They turned Misa into a friend of Light when Light always thought he was too far above everyone else to consider them friends.

FackuIkari wrote:

.who cares if the americans are able or unable to connect with with fiction that is not about them? why is this an issue? why is this a problem?

Because being unable to like something that's not strictly about their country speaks extremely poorly about their culture and makes them look very intellectually and culturally limited? Also because it's not true? The fact that Japanese anime set in Japan with Japanese characters can attain massive success is proof that things don't need to be made American to be enjoyed by the American public, yet mainstream content producers obviously feel otherwise, given how they feel they have to adapt every single thing for the sake of American sensibilities.

The Japanese movie is just as bad. Watari's supposed to be British. That's Asian washing.

Misa's supposed to have blonde hair. That's hair washing without using dye.

No Japanese TV show I said blonde, not light brown. That's hair washing while using the wrong dye.

These claims are really silly.

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