Why are Oda’s black characters super lightskin?
- Thread starter Shiroyru
- Start date
The reason is simple: technicality.
Manga designed to be black and white on slightly white gray paper that turned yellowish overtime.
On old school manual method, to paint pitch black they use ink, but for rendering or coloring shadow they use thin pen line, for something in beetween black or white,they use a tone that need to be cutted and then stick to the page manually, which is painfully long and taking alot of time, not to mention its hard to make detail in dark color to pop of. So most mangaka avoid it or atleast not make a main character that need to use it often.
In modern digital way, its take less time and more easier to apply or setting the color tone. But oda artstyle already fixed to only use black and white like many other mangaka in their starting era. And no, recolor an already established charachter is a no go
So yeah, sorry to burst the racism buble,the answer is just technicality.
here some example:
Yoruichi first appearance(manual): notice how murky the shadow on her body look?
And this when the digiral era come:
Berserk casca dark skin not even colored tbw:
Black beard first appearance:
Even afro samurai:
Manga designed to be black and white on slightly white gray paper that turned yellowish overtime.
On old school manual method, to paint pitch black they use ink, but for rendering or coloring shadow they use thin pen line, for something in beetween black or white,they use a tone that need to be cutted and then stick to the page manually, which is painfully long and taking alot of time, not to mention its hard to make detail in dark color to pop of. So most mangaka avoid it or atleast not make a main character that need to use it often.
In modern digital way, its take less time and more easier to apply or setting the color tone. But oda artstyle already fixed to only use black and white like many other mangaka in their starting era. And no, recolor an already established charachter is a no go
So yeah, sorry to burst the racism buble,the answer is just technicality.
here some example:
Yoruichi first appearance(manual): notice how murky the shadow on her body look?
And this when the digiral era come:
Berserk casca dark skin not even colored tbw:
Black beard first appearance:
Even afro samurai:
Kuma, Fisher Tiger, Blackbeard, Brook, Caribou, Aokiji...
Best One Piece characters are black
Afro Piece is real
Best One Piece characters are black
Afro Piece is real
I mean it’s pretty common knowledge that Japan is a pretty xenophobic country in general. There’s a reason why it’s one of the hardest first world countries to move to.
Japanese racism towards black people really shines through in 90’s/early 2000’s anime. Pretty much every black background character in DBZ looks like they’re straight out of a minstrel show. In fact, the very first black person we saw in OP was this guy, who also looks like he’s straight out of a minstrel show:
A modern American cartoon would immediately be cancelled if they depicted a black person like this. Also, the fact that Oda said Usopp’s just “African,” instead of saying he’d be from a specific country from Africa, is pretty sus.
Japanese racism towards black people really shines through in 90’s/early 2000’s anime. Pretty much every black background character in DBZ looks like they’re straight out of a minstrel show. In fact, the very first black person we saw in OP was this guy, who also looks like he’s straight out of a minstrel show:
A modern American cartoon would immediately be cancelled if they depicted a black person like this. Also, the fact that Oda said Usopp’s just “African,” instead of saying he’d be from a specific country from Africa, is pretty sus.
If Oda was racist, he wouldn’t include black people at all, he’d also not include a brown skinned person being at the top and the most superior race in OP.
