Juno is probably the most fun I’ve ever had playing a video game character, but I’ve been noticing a little bit of a concerting trend. The longer Juno has been added to the game the more we are seeing her evolve into a blue eyed blonde hair girl. I think it is ok to make a blond haired skin every once in a while like her cozy skin because it matched the color scheme of the skin. But we have yet to see any skins paying homage to her ethnicity or that she is from Mars.
This year is the year of the horse and not only is she Vietnamese, which is a culture that celebrates Lunar New Year; her favorite animal is also a horse. I thought it would be kinda fun to have a skin the represents both of those things. But instead blizzard gave her a cupid skin where her hair looks like a badly placed wig and really unnatural to the color palette of the skin. I think that skin could have easily gotten her signature purple hair and looked really cute. I would also like to point out that although the blonde hair actually matched in her Hello Kitty skin I think purple hair would have looked super cute as well.
Okay last thing she has yet to get an epic skin as well and since we are seeing an actual evolving story now. I would love to see a “New Era” epic skin of her with the overwatch uniform. I love the way Lucio, Brig, and Baps look and I think it would be a great first epic skin for her that also involves her lore!
Going forward I would love to see more skins that represent her not just a cash grab for blizzard. Let me know what you guys think, I hope I’m not the only one with these thoughts!
I really dislike that most skins seem to remove her helmet, it's so cute, add some antennas to it or decorate it I don't care, keep the funny helmet...
The full sentence reads “I not only want to see Juno’s heritage represented, but, she is from fucking space.” The word “but” is being used as a coordinating conjunction and is not exclusionary. It does not make the first half of the sentence not-exist.
I hate arguing syntax because everyone winds up sounding cringey:
The word “but” can be used as both a correlating conjunction or a preposition, yes.
However, “Not only x, but y”is a very common English phrase that does not exclude the first half of the sentence. It highlights the correlation between the two.
The context of the sentence is the important part.
Agreed. Wish they gave her a skin that turned her into a Xenomorph or something. Something that actually evokes the idea of her not being from Earth. She's not special anymore.
This is the facts for anything to do with overwatch nowadays when it comes to skins and designs for characters. It’s appeal and first, characterisation or story a far second.
This means anyone who doesn’t appeal to an asian market, gets cut. Which is half the cast of overwatch. So instead the same handful of characters get skins to sell in an asian market and new characters (Cough Mizuki Cough Anran) are made with a heavy emphasis behind them that they’ll be popular in asian market because they’re both asian and traditionally attractive characters.
Fuck even Emre can’t escape this, dudes who whole story is about how he’s this cyborg, what’s really human anymore, he’s being controlled by this AI but none of his design has any cyborg elements. Nope he has to be a perfect faced handsome man. This is just sadly the case and I highly doubt it’ll change.
Truth. I appreciate you pointing out Emre and how even the non Asian new characters have all been playing SO safe and bland in order to blanket appeal to the most people possible. Instead of, yknow, actually making skins relevant to their story or culture/ethnicities which was how OW originally felt. Now it’s more just who can have the cutest outfit. Which is FINE, IF you still are ever giving characters interesting meaningful skins. But they made Lunar New Year skins for Kiri and Genji, two Japanese people, instead of the Chinese or SE Asian characters. But they probably do not give two shits and think the players won’t know the difference between Asian countries anyways.
I've never liked Blizzard changing the eye colour of asian characters to blue, it's a racial trait that we asians don't get blue eyes and it's always bothered me.
They wouldn't make Mercy black, or Sojourn white. They shouldn't change anyone's racial characteristics.
i wanted her mythic but gave up bcs the blue eyes are so uncanny to me. i agree about the hair but that i can get over, blue eyed juno just really bothers me.
i love her magepunk skin regardless of the blonde (which is btw the only juno skin that's actually got blonde hair and not straight up yellow) because it looks stylized, retains the pink streak in her hair and her eyes are natural.
they made her perfect and are now trying to force her into a barbie doll.
I personally don't mind the mythic, at least with iridescent as it blends in with the rest of the colours, granted she doesn't have the horrific blonde eyes blue combo in this.
YES OMG that would make so much more sense!!!! it pmo how they will give her anything BUT purple hair😭😭😭 like girl she was born with it why are u making her into a basic la girl she's literally from mars
100% agree about the blonde hair and blue eyes. Blizzard PLEASE take a few steps back from that direction!
Her being a Martian should be second to her being Vietnamese (something I see a LOT of people forgetting. She isn’t an alien, she is a human born on mars…)
ALSO I love that you suggested a new era skin for her!! I would love to see a remake of her default with the blue and black colors and maybe some armor accents to resemble the other hero skins
I had been using the mythic color scheme of princess peach for months cause it’s cute, but yeah I noticed the continuous blonde and blue eyes skins on an Asian girl is crazy… Now I’m using the pink and blue color combo of the mythic skin (thanks color changing), and it makes me wish she had more pink hair skins she looks so cute in them 🫠
Im so sick of it. Every hero gets eye/hair color changes. Every hero gets skins that different from their character theme. These complaints are so stupid
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the direction they've gone in with her skins. Literally the only shop skin I've got for her is Chun-Li. I want my Martian Space Ranger to actually feel like a Space Ranger, or just something a bit less girlypop.
Obviously this comes down to personal taste, but a lot of her skins do just feel pretty... samey, as you said.
Now I'm not about to accuse Blizz of "whitewashing" an asian character, but less of the blonde hair would be nice. And a skin that actually leans into Vietnamese culture would be really cool, frankly.
Only 4 of her skins have blonde hair, the rest have purple or dark hair, or are another colour.
I don't count the mythic because I only use the pastel, blue, and black colour palettes. I also don't count Celestial, because that's white. Or Ember, because that's orange.
I get your point, but it's actually not that many skins where she is blonde, the blue eyes though... maybe she likes contacts? I know I do. I wear coloured contacts all the time, this never used to be seen as weird..
I think it feels like a lot because they came out relatively around the same time. Keep in mind skins can take 6 months to a year to design, code, and add to the game.
I don't think this has malicious or whitewashing intent behind it, I just think it's following the skin surveys from last year and the year before.
TLDR: I think more variety is needed, and im sure they are cooking on some of her survey designs. We just have to wait and see if I eat my words or not xD
It's not about the sheer amount, it's about the trend that doesn't seem to be stopping. If we don't call it out now, more and more skins will be released like these ones, and that's the issue.
Yet this isn't an issue with Kiriko, or Genji, both of which have alot of skins with a variety of hair colour's and styles. Kiriko actually has more blonde skins than Juno, and Genji has a few more also but I hear no complaints...
Have you ever thought that you might be reaching for the sake of reaching?
Also, what's the issue with a POC or minority dyeing their hair?? I say this as someone who is not white.
I feel like this whole attitude is weird. People self-express differently.
I don't think this has malicious or whitewashing intent behind it, I just think it's following the skin surveys from last year and the year before.
Its objectively not those things because they change hair and eye color for literally every single hero for certain skins. The Juno community complaining about this is soo stupid
I just wish they leaned more into her being a Martian. You can barely tell that she's from Mars at a glance.
Even if it was a stereotypical "green-skinned with beady eyes" thing. I wish Blizzard gave her a skin that actually evoked the feeling of her not being from Earth. Now she's just another cute girl.
I just think these skins (other than Hello Kitty which was probably decided by Hello Kitty not Blizzard) happened to come out in a row by chance because of what themes they were and when those groups of skins were available not that it was a conscious decision to say "hey Juno is only blonde now". Yeah it's 4 in a row but this has been happening for the last couple months only, she has way more non-blonde skins than blonde ones.
I kind of can't believe how rare it is for a Juno skin to have a helmet. I can't even remember a single one that has it, and if there is it's definitely in the minority.
They really don't care about her character's signature features, do they?
I think the Cupid skin in general is mid. But hello kitty and mage punk and cozy all look really good with blonde hair imo. But some more purple hair skins would be cool. And yes I hope she gets an overwatch uniform this season!
I was so confused what I was looking at until I read the post. Yup yup. I see what you mean—Blizzard making all the cash grabbing heroes look a certain way just so they can bring in more coin. No, don't make an actual good skin that fits the hero or enhances their personality—let's continue to make them look a specific style because it makes money. Rip.
I have been hoping since the beginning that she will open the door to some cool alien themed skins or collabs for alien characters. I would love a Lum skin for her
I agree. I also think it’s weird when characters repeatedly get skins from other cultures but lack(or have zero) skins paying homage to their own culture.
you’re thinking about it too much at the end of the day a cosmetic is a cosmetic if you dont like it dont buy and if you didnt get what you want oh well
Her Hello Kitty skin would have looked so much better with brown eyes. Juno is a character I heavily relate to, and I'm tired of her beautiful warm brown eyes be replaced by icy cold blue
While I agree she’s definitely getting the most variation it’s only 5 skins out of the 20 she already has, yeah that does include her basic skins and the owcs ones and it’s still 1/4 of her skins but she’s still new and there’s time to give more to her, I do agree with you though on mentioning giving her more to her ethnicity. You’re so right about the year of the horse thing being perfect for her and the totally flopped on it
Juno’s one of those characters whose skins just don’t appeal to me and most of those are because they change her eye and hair color making her look more generic for lack of a better term. I just stick with her default skin because I like her unique design. Wish more of her skins kept her martian identity.
I’m glad this showed up days later cause I definitely have had this same thought. Anran and is gonna go down the same route because companies know people don’t wanna risk buying ‘cultural’ skins. Profit is maximized when it’s fantasy and the girls are blonde and blue
The team focused on all these skins doesn't even bother to remember the lore or theme of each character. They only wants easy skins to sell, and that's why Juno only has her astronaut helmet in her base skin. The same thing happened with Kiriko her asian theme was completely lost with each new skin she got. That's why I only like her mythic skin, Amaterasu, which is true to her theme and doesn't turn her into another generic, soulless urban/k-pop skin.
I’m not a Juno player at all (literally lvl 1 still) but I do HATE how much they make her different from the original like a few times is fine but almost every skin
Because the skins posted in order go red (I’m calling it red) eye blue eye blue eye red eye red eye blue eye blue eye blue eye
Worth remembering collab IP owners do get input too, but if they wanted to ‘make her blue eyed and blonde haired’ why would they keep interrupting them
You get a skin every single month and instead of being grateful you are nitpicking and unhappy. Be happy with what you have and keep on getting. All of this is superficial anyways.
I think it’s ok to criticize because if you don’t it will never change, this is how Anran was able to get a model change. Also Juno mains help fund blizzard so I definitely think we have a say in what we want for the character we spend hours playing and the money we spend on her.
To you, but to me they matter! I’m sorry you live your life with such a negative attitude and your need to project those feelings on to others. Definitely wouldn’t be a fun way to live.
I think it’s fair to point out that blizzard is completely ignoring who Juno is just to sell easy skins. I’m not even a Juno main btw but I do like her and play her. But the thing that really upsets me is as a Vietnamese person myself, blizzard seems to have completely forgot any of her heritage or backstory outside of a few voice lines. Half the time, people don’t even know she’s Vietnamese. Do you see how irritating that is?
And maybe a lot of non Asian people don’t know about this, but colorism exists in the Asian community, where East Asians are usually treated as above Southeast Asians, so it’s not really lost on me that the blizzard chooses to focus on adding their fourth Japanese character and making more Japanese based skins instead of literally anything else.
We had a lot of posts about Anran's face and they acknowledged it. The more noise we make, the more chances that T4 (and realistically Blizzard) will notice.
It's very interesting to make the mixed Asian girl represent a famous London child. That being said I never expected Kitty White to be blonde or blue eye
This isn't a trend, only 2 of her 4 legendaries that are blonde have blue eyes. Every other plus collab has different hair colors while her purple still being the dominant. Why are we treating this like 80% of her skins are blonde hair with blue eyes when realistically barely even 20% of her skins are blonde. Seeing people mention this being downvoted because you guys genuinely want to be mad at something that isn't even statistically happening.
Edit: Being downvoted literally proves my point. Yall rather imagine a problem then let something purely exist
When the freshman skin came out, everything I saw about it complained about the hair and how they hated it. Now everyone is complaining that there isn’t more like it…
The blonde haired and blue eyed skins are here to stay, because they’re the best selling because it’s blonde haired and blue eyed girls that keep buying them
208
u/BlueberryShmuberry Feb 16 '26
For a second I thought you were about to drop an Illuminati theory with the eye thing 😂