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Japan has Splatoon 2 plushies made by Sanrio that include a whitewashed Marina
- Thread starter Deleted member 1258
- Start date
I wouldn't think that black people are lazy, criminals and not good people. I wasn't even thinking about actual people when I posted the initial reply.
User Banned (1 Week): Dismissing concerns surrounding racism and antagonizing other members
is the colour wrong ? Yes
Was it done so intentionally? We don't know
Why are people assuming it was done in bad faith? These are cheap plushies from a claw machine. This imo is akin to getting a pikachu toy that's the wrong tone of yellow. Come on, it's not as deep as it's being made out to be. Especially considering the official art from Nintendo for splatfests is consistently in line with her character design.
Tbh I have no sword in this battle, just don't like the assumption it was done with the intent to white wash her when that doesn't even make sense (white Marina looks like shit).
Was it done so intentionally? We don't know
Why are people assuming it was done in bad faith? These are cheap plushies from a claw machine. This imo is akin to getting a pikachu toy that's the wrong tone of yellow. Come on, it's not as deep as it's being made out to be. Especially considering the official art from Nintendo for splatfests is consistently in line with her character design.
Tbh I have no sword in this battle, just don't like the assumption it was done with the intent to white wash her when that doesn't even make sense (white Marina looks like shit).
I can only understand this if you don't know the character and aren't a fan of the game, otherwise I can't see any reason anyone would ever want this.
That's another really confusing part about this whole thing. Who the fuck would actually want this? As I fan, I wouldn't want some shit that obviously isn't anything close to the original design.
God damn are these darker colors hard, i'm glad sanrio has never done darker colored plushes before
God damn are these darker colors hard, i'm glad sanrio has never done darker colored plushes before
This isn't the gotcha you think it is lmao
Yeah, why are people assuming it was done in bad faith? It's not like dark-skinned people have a history of being discriminated against for their skin color. You guys shouldn't jump to conclusions!
cuter, maybe? I don't know. I guess it's just something like preferring vaporeon to flareon. I don't know why I like it better, but I just do.
I don't really think Japan considers Marina (or any of the inklings for that matter) to be of any particular race. Most of these "typical anime style" characters fall under "mukokuseki" where they're mostly designed to have little to no ethnic features, you can project whom ever you want on them for the most part. So I think whoever designed that doll just thought of Marina as "darker than Pearl" and left it at that.
It's pretty careless as it ends up erasing that identifying trait people may have with her. I hope it's not malicious though.
It's pretty careless as it ends up erasing that identifying trait people may have with her. I hope it's not malicious though.
What does this have to do with people? Aren't we talking about plushies?
i'm just showcasing the other "shitty quality shit claw machine toys" they've done :^)
Oh, btw, I don't think lighter-skinned people are cuter than black people. A cute person is a cute person. It's all about personality. Skin colour has got nothing to do with it.
The whole palette looks lighter than it should be on both plushies. Clearly the skin tones are still completely different. It's unfortunate that the contrast is so big on the Marina plushie - they surely do test runs of these things and approve the product before it's launched? I think neither of them look great.
Agreed, making conspiracy theories out of some random plush toys is a bit too much for me.
When a kid asks "What is the internet?" you could answer: "The internet is a place where everyone complains about everything".
I do agree that it was probably done more out of ignorance than malice, however, the more important question is: "Does it matter if its done maliciously or not?" Because quite frankly, it doesn't matter that it was done out of ignorance or out of malice, because it was done. This isn't a person where one can teach a person if it truly is done out of ignorance, this is a company. A international company with offices right here in the Western World. If nothing else, their PR team should be at the forefront of this for the public face of the company.
So yeah, while it probably wasn't done maliciously (honestly it feels like these were just put out for the Kaishin tournament a few weeks back), it still doesn't change the fact that it was done. What matters now is how they respond. And whether we can trust the response.
So yeah, while it probably wasn't done maliciously (honestly it feels like these were just put out for the Kaishin tournament a few weeks back), it still doesn't change the fact that it was done. What matters now is how they respond. And whether we can trust the response.
Yeah, not buying it. Mukokuseki is more like how white and Japanese people can both still project themselves onto Goku even though Goku is supposed to be Chinese more than anything; it's avoiding distinctive ethnic features and including nonspecific ones.
Marina isn't supposed to be black in that she's not even a human, but Splatoon draws a lot from modern western fashion and music trends, and having characters that appear to be black or other skin colours plays into the role that minorities have had in those trends.
You said you find the whiter version of a character more appealing and cute, much like how the kids would call the white doll prettier and nicer. Think about why that is, and it's not as simple as preferring one Pokemon over another.
Someone is allowed to find something more appealing for reasons other than the fact that they're racists.
Did you read my post?
Cool so just shitposting. Thank u next.
60fps it's just not a hill I think this company is trying to die on, for Splatoon 2 of all things
Especially since Splatoon 2 is heavily influenced by late 90's early 2000's R&B scene. Hell, even the Octolings in general are given Afro-like hairstyles and the dressed up Marina and Pearl as direct influence from rappers like 2-Pac and The Notorious B.I.G. They definitely knew what they were doing when designing the character.
But plushies are plushies and people are people. I love my Ganondorf amiibo, but that doesn't mean I would admire people who are like Ganondorf in real life. I like the plushy in the picture, but that doesn't mean I would automatically like a white people more than a black people in real life.
She is the underdog usually in the popularity contests in Japan.
Not all biases are conscious, in fact most of our actions are influenced by our subconscious prejudices and beliefs. Nobody that is a member of society can escape from them.
But real life isn't like picking one doll (or plushy) over the other. In real life, you look at what others do and perform, before making judgements on their characters.
Clearly the first pic brightness is wrong. It's not that bad but still it's not as dark as her game/amiibo color.
Compare to Pearl and the other idols, it is known that she is the least popular one, but because of it it is the reason why she has more splatfest wins in Japan because all the casuals are siding with Pearl.
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Sorry, i'm just finding it really funny that you think this was some kind of fuck up when
- it's a half billion dollar company
- they've had no problem doing darker colors on any of their plushies
- They've released final promotional shots and productwhich had to not only be approved by sanrio but nintendo too
- Japan is notorious for thinking darker skin=dirty/unclean/unpure
But hey my dude, continue to go off like you know somethin
That all makes sense but I mostly meant how the public might see her and not necessarily what the character designers intended. I'm not Japanese though so it's ultimately just specula.
Like I know something? More like how you know something? My dude , I offered to reach out to these people for a response but nobody took it up, including you? Just curious to know - what reason would they have for white washing Marina seeing as you're so certain that's what they're doing here? Thank you my dude. Nice of you to label an entire country "notorious" for that sort of thing. Totally not offensive at all ✌️
If someone is making the case that criticism isn't warranted because it could have been an honest mistake, it would have to pass a smell test. With a brand cross-promotion like this, which by definition involves more layers of proofing than even normal releases at this scale, you can't claim that no one was aware of the change to the character's race. Art/design environments with significantly less brand investment involved would not let something like this through accidently. That's a central part of this: there are no signs this is anything but a deliberate design change, and it's being actively promoted as-is.
Contact the company if that's what you want to do. The number of times you keep bringing that up is honestly weird at this point. There's no great mystery behind the factors we can observe ourselves, and at least some of us in the thread understand the process behind products like this well enough to have fewer questions than you might. If asking would be helpful to you, I recommend it, but otherwise you're just mindlessly deflecting from the topic.
Contact the company if that's what you want to do. The number of times you keep bringing that up is honestly weird at this point. There's no great mystery behind the factors we can observe ourselves, and at least some of us in the thread understand the process behind products like this well enough to have fewer questions than you might. If asking would be helpful to you, I recommend it, but otherwise you're just mindlessly deflecting from the topic.
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Yep! You solved it! Nintendo, in their infinite wisdom, approved the intentional white washing of their own character - a character they designed, and a character which is loved worldwide. A character that resonates with fans who associate with her based on her obvious draws from African American/western culture. Yep. Nintendo decided to back track on that, and the first step was this plushie.
Does any of that make logical sense to you? Cause it shouldn't.
Nintendo approving the white washing of their own character? Why i never
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mukokuseki
Holy shit, I didn't know there was an actual name for this, now I can stop referring to fictional characters in Japanese media as "anime people."
It's fucking shitty but I think it's an honest mistake. The artstyle relies on soft pastel colours and they probably used some shit fabric. It shouldn't have been approved though.
I like the recent backlash to Nintendo about their treatment of black characters though, hopefully it'll spur them on to change. The Smash Bros roster is still disgusting to say it's the biggest fighting game roster.
I like the recent backlash to Nintendo about their treatment of black characters though, hopefully it'll spur them on to change. The Smash Bros roster is still disgusting to say it's the biggest fighting game roster.
I'm going to help you with this, then stop engaging because you're so defensive on this it's seeming like you're not coming to it with any sort of open mind (while also insisting that you don't have an opinion on it): Nintendo has already done this in the past in physical products, and they've done the corollary as well where to represent a character that's been "corrupted," they darken the normally light/white skin tone into what most would consider the "black" range. There's no retort you can make to that, because it's true. And even in a corporate pipeline, changes like this can be pushed through or justified in plenty of ways where the result is the same, and it's very, very uncommon for it to be an accident. And monumentally less so when the company is promoting photos of the final product like this.
You're insisting this was an accident, and I've presented you with process reasons why that would be very unlikely, and the precedent of this company having done it before, in both directions. It's why people are regarding it as whitewashing; because it is.
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argh i gotta bounce and cant spend too much time here but i really wanna stress that the issue of skin lightening isn't limited to black people. honest mistake my ass - there is a HUGE colorism problem in asia as well, so even if you want to argue it was an unconscious mistake it is a result of their hierarchy regarding skin colors. have none of yall seen those skin lightening ads????
It's called pastel colors, on both dolls. The only way for Marina to look darker is to not have gone with pastel colors. But they wanted pastel colors. So it's either whitewash or not-so-kewl regular colors and they chose the former. It still sucks
Nintendo approving the white washing of their own character? Why i never
You had a whole thread of people a few weeks ago defending this because "well she was tan and now she's not." But that's another story.
