Forum - View topicREVIEW: Terra Formars GN 1
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Nodz
Posts: 532 |
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People are really complaining that Americans are all represented with blond hair??
All asian characters in US series or movies are black-haired people, guys! And let's not talk about all these parodies showing them as being short, stubborn and nerdy. And what the hell with comparing antropomorphic cockroach with African people??? Just because they're black? At least there's no hypocrisy like in US series, where they put a black person in a position of power just to be politically correct: "Bones" and "Castle" (who both had a black male boss during their first seasons, before to be replaces by a black female boss), "FlashForward", "Grey's Anatomy", "Hannibal" (black Jack Crawford), "NCIS", etc... |
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The_way67
Posts: 118 |
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"Poor treatment of female characters and general racism,"
FAIL You cannot speak, question, and or generate ANY kind of thought process with the right kind of mind if the first "negative" areas of thus said material are about OH NO not being fair to women, gender, sexist, race, racist...blah blah bs nonsense. God dang people and their helpless little minds. |
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Alunimus
Posts: 117 |
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Eisenmann V
Posts: 212 |
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I'm pretty sure slavery was a worse racism-related thing than that, but sure, let's talk about how you reading a review you disagree with is the worst thing ever. |
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L'Imperatore
Posts: 921 |
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Previews of the upcoming anime adaptation, should it get official streaming, will most likely (yet unfortunately) serve as a casus belli for - as Mike Toole puts it - the seasonal Great Outdoor Fight.
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championferret
Posts: 765 |
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Wow, im glad to finally find some negative opinions on 'attack on titan IN SPACE', because when I finally read it after seeing all the hype I honestly hated it. The (accidental?) racism didn't actually occur to me when I read it, but the poor writing, treatment of female characters and the fact that it takes itself completely and utterly seriously despite how goofy it is...yeah, I'm not looking forward to this being the next big thing. It reads like a poor man's attack on titan, a series I already dont like.
Sometimes i wonder if the story gets a lot better and justifies its hype but the two or so volumes I read just made me groan and laugh for the wrong reasons. |
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SynergyMan
Posts: 99 |
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Well, somebody here isn't very good at biology. It's a general fact that the overwhelming majority of Asians have black hair. That's not a stereotype. A few have brown hair, but black is dominant, so not a stereotype. Whites on the other hand are a lot more diverse. For example, the vast majority Italians just don't have blond hair or blue eyes. Neither do Spanish, Portuguese or Sanmarianese, because Latin people generally don't produce the melanin for blue eyes, in contrast to Germanic peoples, who mostly have blue eyes, with green, brown and hazel being fairly common and blonde hair. Latin people generally have black and brown hair, with brown eyes. Maybe hazel or green in some parts, but blonde hair is rare and so are blue eyes. The nerd thing is true, but the hair is just false. It's gonna be brown or black, because that's just how DNA works. But I agree on PC. PC is never good for free speech or expression or even fact telling. When we live in a society that uses the race card for stating statistical facts about crime, then we know we're doomed. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Some of you seem pathologically opposed to discussing any kind of social themes in anime and manga unless the commentary on it follows 100% the 'boy the status quo sure is great!' Conservative dogma.
Any commentary beyond 'nothing to see here' or making excuses for socially ignorant or outright offensive material is 'STUPID Shonen Jump Weekly FEMINIST CRAP KEEP IT OUT OF ANY DISCUSSION' dogpile time. This is happening every time now; any attempt by any writer to discuss some of the socially stickier or potentially controversial themes in anything at all from anything other than either a head-in-sand-doesn't-exist or totally conservative 'this is fine why are you getting your panties in a twist there's no such thing as racism or sexism anymore' viewpoint gets shouted down and bitched about nonstop. I get it, you feel threatened and annoyed by it and now have a knee jerk reaction to anyone saying anything about that sort of thing, but I'm not going to censor my writers, I'm not going to tell them to stop commenting on social representations in the things they watch, and I'm certainly not going to tell them to start towing the conservative line on this stuff just so you don't ever have to see anything you don't agree with. Complain all you like, none of that will change. If it were a more sincere attempt at discussion and the exchange of opposing views I'd have less of a problem with it but you "AAAARRGGHHH Shonen Jump Weekly CRAP I HATE FEMINISSMMMM" angry guys always just seem like you're trying to shut everything down and silence people for daring to bring up interpretations you don't like and don't agree with. And that's really pointless and stupid and not at all in the spirit of discussion. |
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Mr_42
Posts: 87 |
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^ This. Personally I disagree with some of the points raised in the review and agree with some of the others. But all are argued with merit and evidence is given to back them up. The female characters do seem to get the rough end of the stick but later in the series powerful, respected women are introduced and as for the racism implied by the treatment of multinational crew of Bugs 2 I feel that such themes fall under a wider umbrella of a post-colonial writing as I outlined in my earlier (rather long) post. However, the points regarding the pacing and clunky exposition in the first volume are all entirely valid as is the attention drawn to the overly muscularized anatomy of the characters. At the root of the series I believe that it the series is a post-colonial text in a sci-fi skin thus the racial depiction therein full under satire or alternate history. A theoretical past set in the future. |
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ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
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I didn't know about this manga until recently when I heard it mentioned on one of the ANNcasts. So, I Googled it and looked at a digital copy page of the manga...
I was appalled. I saw a dark skinned "cockroach man" who looked like some kind of heavily stereotyped, sambo type caricature jacked up on steroids and just released from prison. Let's stop with all the "but... but... but... there's no evidence he intended it that way!" or "there's slight differences!" or "but homo-erectus!!" BS. Just stop. It's nearly as offensive to me as the caricatures. The resemblance to racist stereotypes is clear and trying to explain that away with excuses is a waste of time. The only question beyond that is the ultimate meaning or impact of those caricatures. We can suppose that the author is simply highly ignorant. He and his publisher don't really understand that such caricatures are offensive. As several people have mentioned, that doesn't make them any less offensive. It just would mean that the author needs to be educated. I don't know what influenced him or inspired him to create the cockroach creatures in this particular manner. If we consider the position that he was trying to fashion them after a very early version of mankind, well I don't think I've ever seen any pictures of a simple, hairy, proto version of man who looked like this I have, however seen numerous images that looked similar, like this http://x1.fjcdn.com/comments/How+_d626b1e87848431d9b69d763e0a1a0cf.jpg this http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/64AQ3BzhWKI/hqdefault.jpg this http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blackface_3910.jpg this and of course, this, the black guy who Japan seems to love the most acting foolish and performing all kinds of minstrel shows http://blog-imgs-53-origin.fc2.com/y/a/m/yamatoneko/20120602084724064.jpg It's interesting how someone else earlier made the comment that there is no resemblance to the "black sambo" character, but I think similar to the above images, there clearly is - the super dark skin, the massive emphasis on the big bugged out eyes, and the HUGE mouth with over emphasized features (such as teeth or lips). Furthermore, there have been numerous articles discussing the issue of the unusually high popularity of the Black Sambo character in Japan. For example, this: http://www.japanprobe.com/2007/12/04/black-sambo-in-japan/ and this http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101880815-149882,00.html I've quoted some of the text from the Time article.
I bolded and underlined the last sentence for emphasis. I've seen that particular point reflected in numerous stereotyped black characters in anime before, where they are depicted as over-the-top outrageous characters who are almost completely abnormal and sometimes inhuman. To that point, I found this blog posting to be quite interesting. It is an essay, apparently written by a Japanese student, about "The Stereotype of Black People in Japan." http://japansociology.com/2012/01/17/the-stereotype-of-black-people-in-japan/ I have taken a relevant quote:
I have also linked one more article (from July of 1991) that touches on the issue of black stereotypes in Japan. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LgggAAAAIBAJ&sjid=KmUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4038%2C2782506
As we can see, I think it is fairly well documented that Japan has had a problem with ignorance when it comes to racially offensive caricatures. I could link a dozen images from recent or current anime that depict versions of such black caricatures. That's not to say that all of Japan is racist. I've visited Japan more than once. I love it, and would go back again and again. The people in Japan are fantastic. However, there are a lot of people who have grown up in a homogeneous, insular society and are influenced by stereotypes and caricatures. They might not understand the impact of the art they are putting out. That is the lens through which I see this TerraFormars stuff. Is it racially offensive? Yes, absolutely. Do I think Japan is racist? No. Do I think the author is racist? I really don't know. Do I think the author is ignorant? Yes. And, as mentioned in the articles I linked, the issue of that kind of ignorance is still one that needs to be fully addressed in Japan. |
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lostrune
Posts: 313 |
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There's no point in anyone discussing anything with you if you find the idea of asking for evidence "BS". It sounds like you already made your mind up and it would be futile for anyone to discuss it with you, ya know? It's not a very good discussion starter if you're gonna shut down any opposing arguments right off the bat. |
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ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
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What I am talking about is the fact that the images clearly look like the offensive caricatures of black people, some of which I linked in my response. I don't think that it is reasonable to debate whether or not they look like them. They obviously do. I was stating that the excuses being offered up don't somehow offset the fact that the images appear like the caricatures. What I said was debatable was the impact of that similarity, which is what I argued below that. |
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Divineking
Posts: 1296 |
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Honestly I don't think the Terraformars really look much like anything like the stuff that got linked here. Though they do look like what I've seen of homo-erectus Again I'm not trying to really argue whether or not people should find it offensive but they pretty clearly resemble that more closely than early 19th century depictions of blacks. |
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ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
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Does that image of homo-erectus you linked have gigantic eyes bulging out of his head, massive lips and his mouth opened enormously wide with tons of shiny white teeth contrasting starkly against his dark skin? No. I don't think so. You are focused on the fact that they all share dark skin and have other similar features. Well under that thought process, all offensive caricatures of black people would be perfectly OK because someone could just claim that they look like some ancient version of man. The problem is more about the emphasized features which are common to caricatures (again, the eyes, mouth, lips, teeth). This is the very meaning of the term caricature: (From Merriam-Webster's)
If you understand the very nature of the term caricature, then yes, the TerraFormar characters, such as the one I showed in the image above, is clearly highly similar to the offensive caricatures of black people that I also linked. |
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Divineking
Posts: 1296 |
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Yes for the bulging eyes, no for the giant lips (but the Terraformars don't have those either), and the shiny teeth thing is clearly just a fear factor thing and not much more than that
I do understand the nature of the term caricature, and I've seen what exaggerated images of black people look like and the similarities between those and the features of the Terraformars are virtually non-existant. Now for argument's sake let's do a comparison: Evidence for the Terraformars being based off of black people Dark skin Big eyes Curly hair Evidence for the Terraformars being based off of homo erectus -Dark skin -Big eyes -Curly hair -Ape-ish look -Most pics of homo erectus you can find on google resemble them -In-series explination for the Terraformars is that they're following the same evolutionary path as humans (which is dumb and impossible unto itself but that makes the idea behind the designs at least somewhat logicak) Now again if you think the depiction of homo erectus unto itself is offensive that's pretty understandable but between that and black caricatures it's quite clear which of the two the Terraformars are based off of. Do I think the author could have found a better way to mirror human evolution? Yeah probably, and the series has enough racial stereotypes that there's not much need to debate the author's ignorance in racial depictions but as far as straight up depicting black caricatures goes that's obviouously not the intent. |
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