Discrimination in Japanese Manga

* I wrote this comment as a post on dekadanbiyori for the Japanese people.

I found this subject being referred to by many bulletin boards containing 2ch threads in Japan (a lot of sites/boards posts/links to 2ch), and there have been so much discussion around this topic. After reading the discussions, I can't help but be amazed at how hard it is for Japanese people to understand how a black person feels about that picture.

Many posters said: "this picture isn't discriminating at all according to the Japanese standard. If black people don't want to see the way they're being present in the image, they can stop reading the manga. The image did not break any laws."

Their opinions may have some reasons behind them, however, Let's imagine a foreigner guest in a Japanese home, he steps on the tatami mat without taking his shoes off, and insists that "this is our standard, so this is not bad manner. I did not break any laws."

Sure, the guest's act didn't violate any law, but is it a wise act? He will never be welcomed in that home again, and he won't be respected by the Japanese people around him. He shouldn't talk about his rights or how he didn't do anything wrong. He will simply be regarded as a rude, childish, and arrogant person.

In this case, if the Japanese people insist that "this picture doesn't discriminate according to the Japanese standard. If black people don't like this, they can stop reading the manga,"

What will happen afterwards? Black people would think that Japanese are rude and arrogant people. I believe it's not the way for Japan to be regarded as a respectable nation by other nations. All we need is a careful and respectful attitude for people from another culture.

Wow, I really don't see the problem with the picture. It was a small scene to show that the whole world was laughing at a character from the manga. If the face is changed to a Chinese person (I am Chinese), I wouldn't be upset over something like this.

Those who are offended by something as trivial as this picture should not be reading the manga.

At least state which part of the picture is offending.
>_>

"And here it is again in a mutated form being packaged to our children so the world can tell them once again how ugly and insignificant it thinks they are. "

For god's sake, not everyone looks beautiful; its naive to make judgement from one picture

maybe if the characters had slanted eyes,black rim glasses and buck teeth and hanging from a tree maybe you would stop reading manga. a cap is put on how offended a black man can get, by blatant acts of sambo,stake burned,corperate rapper racism. while the jewish can sing about the demon that was the holocaust from the mountain tops. it make no sense that a one man can express outrage,while another usually of darker complexion is given a apathetic "shut the f*ck up". these days you can you google any race even if you live in Japan,because its not about culture, but personal responsiblity.tony wong,akira toriyoma, and masamune shirow,should know this.

kuro

oh! COME ON!, now you want to be drawn as bishounen or what?
that picture is not bad, is not showing blacks as slaves or stinking or anything! just two black dudes laughing that's it,
you ppl sure have a serious complex of inferiority.
Now manga-ka are not supposed to draw black ppl because that can be "insulting" to them, maybe they should keep thinking that they don't even exist in this planet so nobody will draw black ppl and everybody will live happily forever.
maybe the manga has a "cartoony" style that's why they end up being drawn like that not because they hate them or anything.

instead of getting angry about those innocent pictures, you should get ANGRY about websites like this http://www.resist.com/ that are from your OWN country idiots.

To try and sum it up as quickly as possible. If you delete the computer this panel would look EXACTLY like a cartoon from nineteenth century southern USA. In that time and place it was the practice to tell black people that they were inferior, at every chance and in every way.
The way the lips are drawn refers to minstrals, who were performers that put on shows where the humor was based on the idea that blacks were stupid, lazy, only intersted in sex and dice, etc.. The posture and hand gestures suggest that these people are not laughing because they understand, but because they are stupid and DON'T understand. The pot-belly on the woman suggests lazyness.

This looks too much like one of those cartoons to have been a coincidence. How ever, I have more than enough Japanese friends to know that very few Japanese would know any of these things.

If you are a manga artist, looking for an example of an african american friendly way to draw african americans you might start at:
http://www.theboondockstv.com/

Does that shed any light?

I feel it isn't much of an insult but a lack of drawing a different culutre. I mean if you serioulsy look at manga and anime you see that mostly they were desigend to look caucasin. I mean just recently you can acutally tell that the characters are japanese or white or black. I think it also depends on a person style, I Mean Gall Force is as old or older the Eyeshield and the black character doesn;t have o lips. I mean it's just culture indifference, they don't mean to insult but it's how they feel to express. Though i don't presonally agree with it i won't stop reading a manga or watching an anime just because they draw my race with o lips. I mean it pissed me off with the whol Jinx is black,I was like wtf why do they care it's actually paranoia that causes us as black people to take everything as racist. You also should take into the fact that besudes the chinese the other race that came to japan in the early years were white(some racist some not) and they depicted us tot he japanese as monkey like creatures with large round lips. It can even be seen in the earlier cartoon of CYborg 009, they almost depict CYboorg 007(i might be wrong in which cyborg it is) as a wild monkey like thing. I say you can't always get mad at things i mean it just shows that we haven't let go of the grudge of slavory, humillation, that has been burdened on us for many years. Instead of ranting about how it is racist and unfair and demanding they make Our race (african americans) look different, just ignore it, seriously if you don't like the depiction of how certain Manga-ka depict blacks don't read that manga. Just keep your head up and be proud.

It's racist because of the "blackface" makeup. It was used in theater by white (and some black performers) at first, but was also seen on dolls, and many advertisements, and continued up until the 1950s. It is now taboo, which is why many Americans seem to have no idea why it would be offensive. The Chappelle Show (in the uncompleted season) featured a character in blackface makeup, and it was nearly not aired because of it. It is a graphical representation of blacks being a lesser being than a white person, basically.

Blackface makeup on two beautiful characters would have been just as offensive. The artist obviously knows what blackface makeup looks like-- he has drawn it. Does he know about the American taboos associated with it? Why should he? He is not American, he is Japanese. You can see blackface makeup on plenty of folk art, still. Maybe that is where he saw it. Who knows. He is not expected to know in detail everything about American culture before he draws an American...especially when he is making material for a Japanese audience.

What is more upsetting to me, is what the editors at Viz were doing. How many times have you read about stuff being edited out of sexual content? Did they even feel this was something that they might not want to print and distribute to an American market?

Just because you don't feel the image is offensive, doesn't mean that it isn't to others, and that people are being stupid about it. If you are American, and don't know why this image is offensive...do not jump to defend another culture. Learn about your own first. People acting baffled about it, and telling people to get over it seems much worse than some Japanese guy doodling something he might not even know was racist in the first place.

Why can't the Asians TAKE THEIR TIME drawing black people and DRAW A PRACTICE SKETCH first! GOODNESS you only draw him/he about two or three times in the manga, why not make them the best as they can be and not ugly on purpose!

Why can't the Asians TAKE THEIR TIME drawing black people and DRAW A PRACTICE SKETCH first! GOODNESS you only draw him/he about two or three times in the manga, why not make them the best as they can be and not ugly on purpose!

I don't know what the intent of the image was, but I can understand why it can be taken as being racial. Managa depicts all races in degrading ways sometimes, but they aren't drawn to degrade the race, but to make the character degrading, regardless of race. I'm Korean, but there are many online korean comics that portray really retarded looking Korean characters, but this isn't about race, it's about making comedy through a retarded looking character.

BUT, given history and if you know anything about slave history and how blacks were and are treated in the US, this is a sensitive matter.

I can only say that people should consider history carefully before saying Blacks over react. But, I'll also say that Japanese people don't know much about the slave trade in the US and these images were learned through popular media from the US.

I also wish Japanese people could be more aware of non-Japanese and their sensitivities, and that's what this is an example of, rather than outright racism. They've got to be flattered to think those of other cultures/races/etc. are reading their manga and would have corrected this if they knew people would be offended.

But, manga is primarily made for Japanese people and like someone said it's unreasonable to demand that mangaka adhere to the standards of another country. Japan will slowly become more racially aware, and these images will start to disappear. I don't think manga is the focus here...

I have seen a few pictures like this (dbz, shamanking) that dipicted black characters with thick ass lips, huge nose and very dark skin. And they always present them as some type of joke character/ iguess b/c how they look? idunno but it can be offending sometimes because u NEVER come across SERIOUS black characters in a manga that look decent.

And dont give me bs that all black people have big lips and nose and are fat dark skinned b/c most(mainly in the US) are mixed w/ some other race (white/asian/indian..etc)its 2007 for goodness sakes. :/

THERE IS NO REASON WHY BLACK PEOPLE SHOULD BE DIPICTED THIS WAY IN MANGA.

If the guy who created BLEACH (forget his name) can show some cool lookin black people without making them the sterotypical gag characters thrown in, then why the f** can other authors learn from him and actually learn about black culture, study some photos of black people today or somthing. (pick up essence or vibe magazne)

and to the anomynous person who said something like why cant YOU PEOPLE just deal an stop whinning blah blah. first of all black ppl been dealing w/ shit like this for years. So dont try an make like they always play the race card and bitch just to get on peoples nerves.

Hm......I can say im a little offended the fact that asian ppl and english ppl look really gr8 while were left wid fat lips and bug eyes dont we all have lips man wats up with that!!!!!!!!!

Look at Kaname Tōsen or Don kanonji from Bleach. They defiantly have lips, but they are not depicted the same as black face or shambo.

Im black my self, and Its rare to find anime fans who are black, although many of my white/asian friends wonder why many black people make fun of them for liking anime. Of course there will be those who do not like anime, but there may be a small amout out there who are offended because how blacks are shown in anime.

Manga creators should think of it this way......... they are loosing money by investing and putting out property that a group of people feel is wrong, they could make more by changing the lips from red donut shaped things to ACTUAL HUMAN LIKE LIPS.

Its sad that this is happing specialy when alot of japanese youth are hiphop oriented and most of the music now days has rapping in the lyrics, they copy us but then want to disrespect us.

I think Cheryl Lynn is getting a bit too overly emotional over the picture, to be honest. And I'm a Black person. People don't understand that not all cultures don't understand other cultures, especially a culture that is ethnocentric like the Japanese. Remember, they don't know about the discrimation of Blacks, at least in full detail, so I'm not expecting to know about the negative connotation of "Blackface". I feel when the discussion over the panel happened in 2ch, it wasn't explained in full detail. To them, they think that since they aren't using it in the same context like it was used in the States back in those days.

But I think Lynn didn't get too far and read the whole arc with the NASA Aliens which dealt with racism. When I first read that, I was pretty slackjawed that even ADDRESSED it and still one of my favorite parts of E21, mostly Panther (who wasn't drawn in sambo) was an awesome character.

Lynn would note that most Black people in anime are usually portrayed in a positive light (compared to the Whites who are usually relgated to the "stupid foriegner" sterotype, I think they have more to be offended from the Japanese than most people do). Even Chocolove from Shaman King, who was drawn in samba but was a good character nonetheless.

But I am irritated that she thinks that it should've been edited. I would've been pissed if that happened. Just because it's poticially incorrect doesn't mean it should be censored, especially it wasn't used in a racist way.

I agree. Japanese people hate Black people. All races are welcome in Japan except for Black people.

As stated in the rules for commenting...please don't post with excessive use of caps, swearing, and so on...otherwise they will be edited or deleted...intelligent discussions, on the other hand, are very welcome :)

But here is the thing - Japan mainly got a lot of their Manga ideas and the like, as well as their ideas about people of color, from...

...AMERICA!

Surprise, surprise.

But seriously, the very same ones doing all that talk about, "Just get over it" are also, ironically, the same people who freak out, cry, and complain about "We white people are being treated like crap in Japan because too many Japanese chicks refuse to screw us and we now aren't being put on a pedestal! That's RACIST!"

So, if you're telling black people that they need to get over it, when your white self goes to Japan, you better get over the racism that you'll face as well.

You're right about that. However, white guys will have no problem getting laid. t's no surprise, but the only race that has a problem getting any in Japan is Blacks.

We Black people are hated all over the world, especially in Japan (perhaps the gulf is just widened since the japs put other foreigners on a pedastal and Blacks in the trash can).

I really hope that future generations are segregated sot hat Black children will never have a chance to fall in love with Japanese women (they will only be hurt) and so that Blacks will not have to suffer the pains of being around other races that will consistently put them down. Other races have already stated that they will be happier without us anyway.

It is true however, that Black people on average have thicker lips than other races. I don't think that the panfaces drew us correctly there, but I am suire that someone would have a complaint if Blacks were drawn like everyone else (since we don't share the same features as other races).

Japanese would be racist even if it weren't for the Americans (or other Europeans before them). Japanese "people" are just racist by nature. Hell, I believe that most people are racist by nature. I'm all for segregation so that future Blacks will not have to suffer, and I hope that all races are forced to segregate so that Whites and othe non-Blacks cannot enjoy japanese women.

A sentient being can dream, eh?

I wonder how many of you people were actually around during the times of Minstrals and Blackface? I don't remember seeing anywhere in the panel any explicit racism. You can't just assume something is racist because it once had racial connotations. There was a time when swearing was a hangable offence. Let's say that this is actually racist... hypothetically. White Americans are portrayed negatively in these mangas as well, yes even in Eyeshield 21. They often look the way that Disney and WB use to portray the Germans during the World War II. Minority cultures will always be back seated and guess what; Blacks and Whites are both minorities in Japan. Don't take it personally because I don't see radical Japanese people in pointy hoods. I guarantee they don't think any differently about Blacks than they do about any other culture in the world.

I guess we are getting too sensitive. I look at the picture and see a cartoon drawing. I dont see the people who are "black" doing anything offensive. For Christs sake they are laughing. But if this is considered offensive I better ask my local supermarket to pull egg plants off the shelf because they might be offensive to black people. Besides, I've seen drawing of white people in manga that look NOTHING like white people I see walking around me everyday. I think people need to worry about cleaning up the mess in our own back yard before they start worrying about what people are doing over seas.

can any body tell me where i can find naruto manga 500 in japanede

Let see if a manga of the atomic bomb stuck in the bottom of a Japaneses chap would be funny...this is for those who think this sort of manga cool and not offensive to black people all over the world

Come on now people that is a minstrel image and you know it,stop giving the Japanese a pass to be ignorant in this day and age of the global community. I will say this not to get off subject but I have heard from friends that it is not hard for a black dude to get laid there. I could careless some Japanese are cool but I would not want to sleep with any of their women.

this is a little offensive to me but when i seen
THIS >>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAieIobDoLo
that's where i had to draw the line.

Yes black people have different feature than other races. But its common sence that different races have different features so I dont see how that supports the agument. :/
As for people who dont undertsand the racism in the picture, I'll tell you what's racist. The fact that the both of people have oversized lips is racist. The fact that the woman looks like mammy is and the man is scrawy is racist. That is how black people were depicted in the old america, its a very detialed sterotypical picture of how Black slaves were soppose to look like. Just look up BLack Face, minstel, mammy and you'll see what I'm talking about. Now if your not American, or dont really know about AMErican history, your probaly would have past this picture without any offence.Thats fine, but i really doubt that these japenese artist are so innocent espcially when they depict the steortypes so definet. You know its funny how i ALWAYS see white people drawn perfectly in manga but when it comes to how another race is soppose to look there usally seems to be a problem. If the Bleach artist can depict other races nicely, then why cant other artist?
I know im ranting pretty horibly but i hope you get what im trying to get across here.

I know I am about to rant, but I can't shake the feeling. I have to get it out. Just for starter I'm Black, 18 years old, and I watch a lot of anime. I even draw manga. Ok, it is not RACIST technically for them to give the characters in the picture huge O shaped lips cuz it isn't meant in a hateful way. However, it is stereotyping. I have also seen stereotyping of races other than Blacks in anime. I can confidently say that in old anime there a much larger number of stereotypes directed to Blacks. Nowadays I see more accurately drawn African Americans. Blood+ is another good example other than Bleach. I think being offended by stereotyping is a justified reaction. There is not reason for it whether it be from ignorants or not. The reason Black ppl are more prone to actually express there feeling about the situation is cuz of it's connection to our history. If we passive back then we would still be slaves now. This drive to express ourselves was instilled in us and passed on to generation to generation. To Blacks, to look the other way would be percieved as an insult to heritage and the people who fought for change. Or bein' a HO in other words.

PS: I thought the YouTube video of the Asian family sayin' nigga was hilarious. I am one of those ppl who think nigga is not nigger. No matter how much ppl try to made them the same they will never be. I think I can speak for all Blacks that the words r not enterchangable and therefore not the same. Its true. Try it. As for other ppl sayin nigga, that has been goin' on for so long it has lost it's impact. The only reason I can c passed that is cuz I truely don't c it as a bad word and if it is not bad every1 has the right to say it. Let me stop b4 I get started again. For those ppl who actually read this ty and put it in ur reply so I know. I'm comin' back. Dis ya boi Semi7MI also known as Squirrel, Marithonman n China's Brother (China from SOQs). Holla at ya bio if ya feel me. Truth, Love, Peace. I'M GOOOONE!

This is really nothing new.

When i was looking at Mr.Popo on Dragonball Z (and i was nothing but a little girl back then) i even noticed the difference, why Mr.Popo looked like someone out of the black lagoon while everyone else looked like Prince Charming

Shaman King is also a good example of this. Chocolove, that blackface looking kid made ridiculous jokes on his ignorance of Japanese culture and used to be involved in crime. In the Funbata no Unta (the kinda epilouge of the series) he's shown in jail. JAIL. Tell me this is not racial profiling. And dont even get me started on the way Native Americans are portrayed in the series.

The Manga series lately have gotten better about the way black characters are drawn but i'm starting to worry about the way their characters are portrayed to. Lets take the recent chapters in Naruto for example. The 8-tailed jinchuuriki is a rapper with cornrows. C'mon, the man writes rhymes in his litle notepad and raps, plus the cornroes and the general way he speaks (its funny, but unerving to). Is this the way cultures view black people? We do (in a way) deserve it...but c'mon.

So, no, i'm not going to give Japanese people the ignorance pass on this one. They know perfectly good and well what their doing. Mangaka's who write these stories have to talk with editors before they are released to the public. So if not the mangaka's are to blame then their editors are.

How are people saying they don't understand this is racist? Take a good look at this picture and then go google blackface. Coincidence??...

Shaman King is also a good example of this. Chocolove, that blackface looking kid made ridiculous jokes on his ignorance of Japanese culture and used to be involved in crime. In the Funbata no Unta (the kinda epilouge of the series) he's shown in jail. JAIL. Tell me this is not racial profiling. And dont even get me started asus w3a battery with battery charger and mouse on the way Native Americans are portrayed in the series.

I was watching an episode of an older anime series, and saw that some of the characters, the Japanese characters, were drawn in similar fashion. Of course they weren't the main characters, but they weren't characters that were portrayed in a negative light either. It's obvious that drawing black people in this fashion resonates negatively with many black people, but I am just stating purely on the fact of seeing it, that it isn't something that is reserved to solely portray us.

To think that someone would be so ignorant as to make a manga discriminating against African Americans is awful and to post on the internet is even worse. It is not right. The creator of this manga should be ashamed to ever show his face again.