We Need To Talk About Black Women In Anime... 

omg this is my partner! yay! Thank you for shouting out their and their team's work!!! :) I am sharing this with them noooow!!

What a cute series, I didn't even know this was a thing. Glad I caught it in time, I went ahead and backed it :D

Happy black history month

New sub luv ❤️ 😍

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MloKzwMl5IA.html

I will add both of those to my watch list.

i loved both of them 🥺 gonna have to rewatch them

The music is so good too, have a lot of the songs on my Spotify playlist

@@beckybertish7841it’s so good the music and visuals HIT

@@McSnezzlydo y’all REMRBER the Mars Beyoncé 😂😂😂her songs were bangers!

todo beim?

todo 🎅🏿🤙

@@guessdeeznuts "tudo bem"? Yes

Região sudeste 🔥🔥🔥

Real, eu que gosto de anime sempre tento falar de representação

Junko was Black? Is this confirmed or speculation? She didn't seem Black to me...

@@leannewheeler5351 she’s confirmed Afro-Japanese

@@BeautifulDiaspora oh okay! Thank you 😊

@@leannewheeler5351 for sure💛

She’s also one of my favs. Sure, she wasn’t the best-written character, but for the anime to have come out in the early 2000s they did well with designing/writing a black woman

If it makes you feel any better about it, the entire world is envious of those lips we are no for, even doubling either own lip size with make up just to slightly reach our natural prowess over it

That's because white people don't have that feature? Why take a Beautiful thing from black people and wanting to See it in white people? Huhh

Bleach has a good balance, there's quite a bit of variance in their character designs.

For me, its not that they are pronounced that makes it distasteful. It's that they draw donut lips specifically. The stylistic choice is practically identical to the art depicted in historical anti-Black propaganda. It's deeply uncomfortable to look at.

Yukito Kishiro and his brother... look up their work in Battle Angel Alita (GUNNM). Plenty characters of all backgrounds have pronounced lips, as does Alita herself. They even made it a running joke for over a decade, some characters describing her as "octo-lips"

Brazil has the biggest Japanese diaspora in the world. Our countries are very connected, which is surprising to a lot of people. That’s why Brazilian jiu jitsu exists to begin with hahah

While the brazilian diaspora in Japan is big, the korean , vietnamese, chinese and filipino diasporas in Japan are each one bigger than brazilian

@@irinaiturri I meant non Asian, my bad.

I mean, she travelled to Brazil in order to get references of environment and culture

Thank you for bringing this up! I will forever regret not adding Cannon Busters to this list, I couldn't rewatch it in time for the video but it may get it's own one day. Other than that I tried to include black women who were the main characters of their stories that I'd seen. But I know I'm missing a lot of great characters outside of the ones I mentioned. Triela from Gunslinger Girls brings me BACK.

Rally Vincent is Indian-American

There was another girl from a anime called Gangsta. I think they said she was mixed. Alex Benedetto is the character name from the anime.

​@restlessfae2407 GANGSTA was really good...but i didn't read Alex as "black", more "exotic/other"

Canon Busters was beautifully animated, but had a frustrating story for me. And i loved Triella in Gunslinger Girl, but did not read her as "black" or "brown", perhaps some olive skinned Mediterranean or European...

Sis, you can't say this and not give us a link to your paper. C'mon, sharing is caring. Give the academic girlies something to read...PLEASE! But make sure you watermark the hell out of it, though.

@@teacheriggy5146I’ve actually been thinking about putting it up on a blog/publishing it or turning it into a video essay, so I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out 😂

Made me like and subscribe before she even got info the topic

"Why is this secluded island not having more representation of an ethnicity that barely lives there!?" Issue indeed. I suggest you not watching german crimes then. Besides them being very very bad, they don't have much representation either.

Nobody is watching German crime shows, babe, So, we don't care if the cast is 2000% white. Nobody cares. Japan has a history of dark-skinned, ethnic people. Japan has a history of taking inspiration from Black people, from music, pop culture, etc - soooo, it doesn't make sense why they act "homogenous" when it comes to representing people of darker complexions (including those ethnically Japanese) but they can draw every de-melanated shade of Caucasian. Japanese people AREN'T white. Very few are actually pale. So, even by their own standards, they aren't representing themselves. Just because you see not the issue, doesn't mean the issue doesn't exist. "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence." - Ed Wuncler III@@LaNoir.

Brazil has the biggest Japanese diaspora in the world.

the east asian diaspora in Brazil begun in 20th century, with the arrival of Kasato Maru ship in 1908. The majority of east asian diaspora in Brazil is japanese, being the first migrants from East Asia here

oh, interesting

Do they speak the language? Portuguese?

@@Daisy-Ke yep

Fr I love Canary, she's so sweet and powerful!!

I love Canary!

​@Blueblurz she is legit best girl! I love how kick ass she is!

I missed seeing Canary here too!

Yoruichi is my all time favourite black girl character

omg lavender!towne!!!

Oh my God!!! Lavendertowne!!

@@purpleberry3564 :D

Hi LavenderTowne

Hi lavendertowne!

I hated her depictions but man I have to stay away from the anime community with their takes at times.

Omg she literally looked like à minstrel show in some panels, like the mangaka was so sick for that fr😭 and it doesn't help that one of the other black characters name is "jemima"

@@tsuyuasui7297 ain't no way 🤢

Oh my god I remember when she first popped on screen for the first time. I was so mortified because of how goofy she was drawn compared to everyone else. I literally sat there thinking "is this what they actually think that we look like!?"

I remember a RU-vidr made a video about Sister Krone's design a couple years ago. Mentioning how offensive the design is, along with other black anime characters. Some people were claiming he was "reaching". Those comments were truly disheartening.

I wonder when people will talk about the Palestinian Elite in Haiti performing mass murder now

Anime is a Japanese product for Japanese people, they don't care about representing ethnicities. When you and me watch a Latin American person or a black one in our respective cases, that was not because an agenda, it's because the creator wanted to include characters with those features (which make a more natural representation).

@@orchidart Japanese people have been making it their business to go global and market their product to other countries for awhile now (hence anime dubbing). Saying “they make anime for Japanese audiences” isnt true and is just another tired excuse for people to shut POC up about representation in anime. Btw, adding black characters isn’t about “pushing an agenda”, It’s about giving people something they can relate to…The way black people are always associated with “wokeness” will forever be funny to me.

@@orchidartthere’s a reason why a lot of these series have black and brown characters compared to back then… people want to see interesting stuff.

​@@RowdyyRylandand lets not forget the countless of anime that are based on european history ( AOT) or have characters that straight up look white and yet are still "japanese" lol

@@orchidartthis excuse has been played out for decades give it a rest

I would say Gangsta too, it's an anime with different nose types, and Black ppl but I don't think they are the best representation you will find since the events in this anime are kinda dark. It's still one of my favorite anime btw

Krillin is crying somewhere in the distance.

Noses are ugly, that's part of why I like anime to begin with.

@@lostzephyr2191 I love noses. We can agree to disagree 😅

@@BlueEyedVibeChecker 🥴

I mean, the whole show has basically nothing to do with the plot of the game it's based on. In the games, every title from Dracula's Curse to Order of Eccleasia (approximately 1450-1900 in terms of timeline) afaik takes place in modern day Romania, or at least east of Vienna. The French Revolution never came up once in Rondo of Blood. Only Bloodlines which takes place in 1914 is set all over Europe. At that point, changing the characters too makes little difference. Though recycling the name was probably a mistake.

who tf hates u

Real. I really dislike anime/comic book fans because they’re so hostile to bw.

That not true you are trying to be a victim so bad Who is everyone

@@devilslayer3548 It is true and you know it’s true. You guys treat black women like shit in the cosplay community and anime community I truly get why black women or girls would segregate themselves from such evil people. They can’t even enjoy a series without one of you nerds saying a slur for no reason.

I'm from the Caribbean and I can garuntee you we don't do any form of representation of races outside of our main ethinic population so we tend not to care about representing foreigners but we do at least want to be represented appropriately when in foreign media (which to what I've seen never happens) so I understand that more work should be put into not making offensive stereotypes of other races but that doesn't mean that the lack of a certain race in foreign media would offend me in any way

I personally don’t care what race or gender a character is, I just want a good character

@@Jannariagood for you… When you’re black person or realize there’s effort to exclude them then you might care about actual representation

@@jerm-gv9rv nah man idgaf just make them a good character

@@Jannaria that’s good for you…but we KNOW that good characters can be “made” It would be great if the horizon could broadened just a bit… No asking them to “dismantle” racism or anything like that

@@jerm-gv9rvyou don’t talk for all black people and not all of us have your mindset So make your own characters than instead of crying about it

no fr tho!!!

Thank you. I couldn't get into Michiko to Hatchiin because that blaccent was ridiculous. It sounded like a mockery. I'm still so bothered that I don't even want to watch the sub, lol, even though her accent there is probably just standard Japanese.

I mean in theory none of the characters should have an American black accent, because the show is set in Brazil (or at least a fictional version of it) so I think a latin cast for the voice actors would be more accurate

@@nicklaurindo1916 Afro Latin people exist. I was saying they somewhat tried with atsukos casting but if they casted maybe Anairis Quiñones it would do better

​@@LivingInZeroZen I highly doubt that Anaris is able the character back then since made in 2010. It was dub now then yes or so redub to cast a person of color.

thank you for the early support 😭😭

@@TheAnimeTea no problem your content is always high quality

@@sandgi2035girl they here. just read a few comments that nearly ruined my day😂 🤦🏾‍♀️

Either that or they're playing bachata..

you know who else is "nO bLaCk"? The mf creators of the shows that you want black people to be in. Like, bruh just make your own.

I find comfort in knowing that I'm not the only one who feels like this. That's how I overcome it. Now I don't have many black female friends irl, online there's always a community of black people that are like you and have similar interests.

wonderfully said though brazil is diverse by nature racism and bigotry are still ingrained in popular culture and its often overlooked, brazil is the leading country in murder of trans people sadly

Eu assisti Carole & Tuesday faz um tempão e queria saber qual informação diz que a Carole é brasileira? Não me lembro e nunca vi nada que falasse sobre ela ter nascido no Brasil, apenas que ela era da Terra

And then of course there are the few decent to golden characters mentioned in ‘‘tis video that gives me hope again.

I don't see black shows and cartoons breaking their necks to include Japanese ppl so why do yall care so much when they return the energy? It's not malicious

@@tokyoslut I feel like black cartoons, especially those made in America and such, often purposely focus on having an entirely black main cast because black characters are already underrepresented, whereas in Japanese anime there’re a lot of white characters (eg. Alex Tachibana from Himouto Umaru chan who’s German or Olivia from Asobi Asobase off the top of my head, don’t judge my tastes in anime lol) but very little black characters which just seems skewed in my opinion. I do agree with you that the absence of black characters isn’t because of malicious intent on the part of Japanese creators. Though I do think that there is some level of unconscious bias at play. And sure we all have unconscious biases, not just the Japanese but black people as well, I hope I don’t sound like I’m singling out Japanese people, I just think “we all have it” isn’t a reason to not point out bias when we see it.

Anime is traditionally aimed towards western audiences, hence why there is such a large standing outside of Japan for fans of anime and whole companies dedicated to dubbing/translating shows for people to watch and such

Oh god.

Thanks for taking some time to give this video a watch!

I hope you don't mind me making a few recommendations for different podcasts and such, if you're genuinely interested. 1) Pod Save The People (Podcast) 2) T1J, especially some of the older videos (RU-vid) 3) Sora the Troll (Japanese culture, RU-vid) 4) This Land (podcast, modern day Native American political issues) 5)Hood Politics With Prop (American political podcast, each episode the host Jason Petty introduces a street slang term, defines it, then explains how it applies to an issue in politics) 6) Lovett or Leave It (podcast, hosted by a gay former White House staffer with LGBTQIA comedians as guests. Mostly covers politics) There are some others I can think of, but can't look up on my phone on RU-vid while typing this all out. Hope you find some of those helpful. Oh, and the old episodes of With Friends Like These (podcast) tend to be decent. Some are hit or miss. But basically it's a white progressive woman interviewing people with different political backgrounds who she has disagreements or questions for. Some are further to the left than she is, some further to the right (by a good bit).

I watched it a long time ago so take what I’m going to say with a grain of salt. I loved the anime and I would always recommand it 100%, plot wise. It’s now one of my favorite netflix animes, it’s funny, witty and entertaining. Overall, I’m sure you’d enjoy it a lot, so you should really give it a try. BUT, when it comes to representation... Let’s say that, they’ve tried. Honestly, it’s still a lacking in a lot of areas. As a french black women, I’m only gonna talk about how they represented french people and black people not the rest, but I’m sure other people could also tell you the same thing. My biggest problem with how they represent black people is that... it’s very shallow and ofc all the black characters have very cliché facial features OR if they’re women (since they want them to be "attractive") they get the asian/anime-washed treatment as I like to call it, meaning their get tiny little noses, straight hair and no it’s not a wig, lighter skin, etc. None of the main cast is black either even tho they’re supposed to be a group from all over the world. Also, a very important female character is supposed to be black but because her hair is litteraly blue et straight I didn’t even register her as black during my first watching ! That’s such a missed opportunity, especially since every women in the show, no matter their race, all have their hair straight somehow... So that’s very much a shame. I guess the only brown female character that was well-done and fully fleshed was Abby (she’s part of the main cast) but since she’s not black I won’t get too much into it. They also like to represent other cultures with a LOT of stereotype, especially cultures that are very different from japan. It feels like they wanted to include different countries and ethnie in the story but only stopped at the bare minimum in terms of research. At one point in the story, they go to France a d that’s probably one of my least favorite episodes since they couln’t even use real french actor to voice the french characters, i could barely understand what they were saying sometimes and it definitely didn’t sound native. This makes me wonder if the other languages we hear throughout the story were also not from native actors. Despite those complains, the story is still very interesting so I recomend it. Also, like I said earlier, I watched it a few years ago so I might be wrong about some things.

​@@Manabi05 when I saw her hair it reminded me of the meme that said black characters in anime are given silver, grey hair.

@@lordtette YES ! Same haha. I don't know why they can't make actual black hairstyles and respect that curly nature of black hair 😒 Like it's probably less of a hassle to just copy a picture of a black person's hair than to create a whole new and unrealistic hair color tbh. Such a shame really 😔

​@@Manabi05On the other hand... Isn't it like anime's thing? Unrealistic flashy hair colours, gravity-defying hairstyles, big freaky eyes and totally inaccurate facial features (there was that pic flying around proving that anime facial structure is closer to a cat than to any living human). That applies to absolutely every character, Japanese ones included. I do love a little bit realism and effort from time to time too, though, so I understand. I still kinda think that a certain degree of unrealistic stylism is to be expected from anime in general.

@@KomoraKriogeniczna Yes you're right of course. It's all a question of preferences and perspective ^^

That’s nice and all but that’s doesn’t do anything to help

@@devilslayer3548 raising awareness is better than doing nothing.

Ah so happy to see more supporters of the series! I just started Metallic Rouge and I love Dorothy from Great Pretender! Didn't get to see Razbliuto but when I do it may get reviewed in a future video one day. Thanks for recommending them!

Awesome. I loved her song Candy and have been looking into her as of late. I'll have to check it out. Nodame Cantabile was one of my favorite mangas back in high school.

I love Michiko and Hatchin so much

😮 🎉

Or it acknowledged the difficulties she had in life and that despite of that she was able to make change happen with her friend that put into question the way she view the world from a privileged standpoint?

@jonasweber9408 Complexities aside, it still used a trope that I have always hated for black female characters. It's a thin line that roots to a thicker issue in media that has been there since the beginning that portrays black women as "independent, strong willed, not so feminine". This show may have ended on a good note, but I am voicing my personal reasons to dropping it. I'm sure the other aspects are more enjoyable to those that don't mind its themes for Carole, which is fine, but I do.

@@seiyoutscreator104 that’s bad… As a European (sorry if my English is bad BTW) I learn everyday about new ways how the systemic racism in the US works… heartbreaking 💔 we learn a lot in school but there’s so much more but I wonder, this trop, isn’t it also coming from Blaxploitation too? This representation has always greatly inspired Watanabe. I don’t know how to phrase it, sorry if I appear rude or anything, but given my point of view of Europeans where we don’t have the same tropes than in the US, is it good to see this show like it was produced in the US with the the American mentality? I mean because in Japan black history is not the same I don’t think Watanabe is influenced by racists history. Wouldn’t it be wrong to view it in this way? Sorry I don’t know if it makes sense in English

@@seiyoutscreator104That’s one of the reasons I haven’t watched the show. I don’t like that dynamic.

@jonasweber9408 no problem! You didn't come off as rude to me I just wanted to clarify further reasons why I didn't want to continue watching the show. Also, if I'm being honest, I dont really use the term blaxploitation in anything (I'm not familiar with it). Thank you for lending an ear and further realize more about what some tropes can effect negative experiences for others. And I want to restate again, the show is visually wonderful, good music, and plenty of other characters are worth while to watch so I hope it gets its recognition for those aspects from people that liked it. ❤️

Space Beyonce for the win

thank you for watching! Always appreciate your support 💖💖

You are self hating black woman

What's wrong with stereotype? It exist for a reason.

Alex still haunts me, love her.

Cannon Busters was created by a black man living in Japan. His name is LeSean Thomas

She’s confirmed Afro-Brazilian

Hmm, Black people can be very colorist (no matter our ethnicity), so I never questioned her background.

She was literally based off of Aaliyah. Who's black American for looks wise. Shes Afro Brazilian in the anime.

I haven't denied that she's been identified as black by the creator of the anime. *I'm just explaining why I and others may not have perceived her that way, and it's probably because she's ambiguously brown with straight hair like many non black/race unconfirmed characters in anime. She's also portrayed as an immature, impulsive mess and I can't help but get the impression that if you called Michiko black to her face she'd punch you.

Minako Narita! She’s one of my mom’s favorite mangakas. I just read Cipher and also noticed that she draws black features very well but was kinda disappointed they were only side characters. I’m interested in Natural now.

Facts! She has such a nice character design

@arundhatiinamdar-yi6sk yes I love nessa and how they design her but come on we gotta talk about Lenora to me she just radiated a confident gym leader based off her design also her hair was gorgeous

@@msimperfect288 for REAL

Nessa is Okinawan.

​@@FoxxyFatima Pokemon has Okinawa?

We are a mix of white iberians (portugueses, but with some spanish lately), indigenous people, black and beginning in the last decades of 19th century white migrants from Germany, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Spain and arab migrants from Syria and Lebanon (and most of them were ibearian white looking) and only then japanese (mainly japanese) and some chinese and korean here

Here's the problem. They have a lot of white characters and lots of characters with blonde hair and blue eyes. And it isn't about "owing you representation". It's about humanity and making all the types of people normal. And yes, they don't need to create black characters, but if they do, just make them good or at least respectful. If all anime characters had black hair characters with squint eyes and just pure Japanese, I would agree with you more, but that isn't the case.

@@lunavioleta001 I've recently watched a video about the portrail of black people in japanese media. I'll see if I can find it. But in summary they say that the japanese dont see the exagerated traits as a sign of something bad or worthy of mocary. They just find it cute

@@lunavioleta001 Are Big Anime Lips Racist?: The History of Blackface in Anime - The Lost Crusader

"the Japanese dont owe us representation" then they need to not add black characters at all if they're going to play into racial stereotypes, it's that simple. Either represent a race correctly and educate yourself or don't create a character in the first place. I'm not a big fan of this whole "the Japanese don't know any better they're ignorant to racism" When Japanese imperialism was full of xenophobia. Sorry, but if they're going to do black characters then they do owe black people good representation.

That's the only reason I still like anime, because they don't give a crap about the west.

@@user-fo8ey1ix6f cringe

I mean think about how western media portrayed Japanese or Asia as a whole. Everyone makes stereotypes of eachother. There are only one representing anime characters I know of in anime of my people who are Burmes/Myanmar. One in Kengen Asura named Yorozuya Saw Paing and he's pretty much stereotypes of our people. Hard headed (literally), helpful and kind and use our traditional fighting style call Latwei. I don't think you would be able to represent in depth until you live like them or live in their country for quite a while. Just researching online or a visit for a short time won't be enough.

I mean u can’t expect one author to present everyone on earth. You cannot please everyone, if u wanna include that diverse cast into one story there are bound to be stereotypes to tell them apart. In my opinion, it is way more logical to make the work that represented you or support the creators in your community ,than expect someone else to represent for you.

@@user-fo8ey1ix6fshows that you don’t read anything about the creators of legendary anime’s like one piece