Racebending and other Asian-Americans speak up against Akira whitewash

[O'Dib]

Re: Racebending and other Asian-Americans speak up against Akira white

Apparently Takei spoke out about having a problem with this as well. I never saw Akira but checked a story-summary on wikipedia, and I guess they have a valid point, it's set in Japan. I'm guessing the adaptation for American audiences won't be, which is where the whole race-bending thing comes in. What's ironic though, is that films produced in the anime style almost never have hero characters that look anything like Asians.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: Racebending and other Asian-Americans speak up against Akira white

That's a little silly, since they so seldom have adult characters who look like adults. There are quite a few characters with black hair in anime - leaving aside Western stereotypes about how "asian features" appear, how would you otherwise identify childlike cartoon caricatures of human beings as looking "anything like Asians" or Europeans or anything else?

 

[O'Dib]

Re: Racebending and other Asian-Americans speak up against Akira white

OK so I've been reading up on this a little bit, and apparently the reason many characters intended to represent Asians have blue eyes and blond hair, green eyes and blue hair, purple eyes and red hair, and everything in between, is just to be able to tell them apart, 'cause otherwise the style is pretty generic, what with the tiny noses and giant eyes. But whoever wrote up those articles is right in saying that those characters don't look much like Caucasians, or humans for matter, either.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Re: Racebending and other Asian-Americans speak up against Akira white

Popeye doesn't look human either.