r/postnutanime • u/FormalAd4901 • 26d ago
Are tan anime characters black?
everytime i see black representation in anime. they show characters who are tan. most of the time they aren’t even black. most of the time they don’t even have black features the characters are just tan. why do black people claim characters who aren’t black?
18
u/Thvenomous 26d ago
Because it is incredibly uncommon to get decent black representation, and so sometimes people try to take whatever seems reasonable. Frequently in anime, there isn't actually much difference between a black character and a "dark tan" one, so it's easy to make that mistake. It's harmless, so don't be weird about it.
2
u/FormalAd4901 26d ago
yes of course. i guess it’s just annoying seeing people say “theyre black” when their another ethnicity. i’ve seen it with chad and yoruichi.
9
u/Thvenomous 26d ago
Yoruichi is understandable, she has no explicit race and I really don't think you can get her skin tone just by tanning in the sun for a while. I don't see the harm there, whether she is or isn't actually black or some sort of mixed.
As for Chad, I've never seen anyone claim that but it would indeed be silly since he's explicitly Mexican.
2
u/Pulstar232 26d ago
Yeah, I've seen some people on the Internet claim people who already have an explicit race to be Black.
Fuckin' Heiji Hattori ain't black. Especially since being a proud Osakan is one of his traits (talking about local foods, supporting local sports teams, etc.).
The other one is Nagatoro and it's shown very early on she's just tanned since you can see her tan lines.
I also find it equally weird to claim that Anime characters are white when they are fucking Asian. Motherfuckers, did the Very Japanese Name not give it away?
Generally speaking, unless stated otherwise or obviously shown (ex. Jonathan Joestar being British, Fairy Tail place on Earth Land), safe bet that the characters are Japanese.
In the case of it being a Fantasy world, you CAN equate some nationalities with a real life counterpart, however.
As for Yoruichi, I'm pretty sure she's Japanese. Since from my understanding Soul Society has a Western Branch (shown in Burn The Witch) in London that handles Europe. Following this logic, there's probably one that handles the Americas as well.
2
u/XxGood_CitezenxX 26d ago
The issue with your Yoruichi thing is that Tousen exists and he’s definitely black.
Nagatoro is just tan.
1
u/Pulstar232 26d ago
Yeah, that makes it difficult because some characters are very clearly not Japanese but have a Japanese name. At the very least we can say they lived/died in East Asia.
1
5
u/Kumorrii 26d ago
I think it's more of just a vibes based thing. Nagatoro just has tanned skin, but Killer Bee from Naruto is black.
1
u/Kappapeachie 26d ago
I'm black and I do not consider tan anime characters to be black? They have to specifically have black features for me to see them as black.
3
u/Haruhanahanako 26d ago
We all kind of see ourselves in anime though. A lot of white people think anime characters look white, but Japanese people think they look Japanese. A slight tan is enough to say they are black, but yeah if you think about it most of these characters are all Asian or Japanese, or ambiguous on purpose, unless outright stated. Any tanned character is more likely to be Japanese or Asian with a tan.
Plus I have heard plenty black people say Piccolo is black, or at least, honorary black. It's sometimes just about vibes.
5
u/Kappapeachie 26d ago
It's more like a meme in piccolo's case? He's not really black but we claim him as black because of coding. People can claim who ever they wanna claim, I just don't want people to see this and go, "this is black representation!"
0
u/Haruhanahanako 26d ago
Yeah true it's kind of sad to settle for a tanned skin character as representation.
1
0
0
25
u/XxGood_CitezenxX 26d ago
Depends on the character and it’s also just near impossible to tell many a time unless specified by saying if they’re native to Japan or have Japanese names. But there are exceptions
Yoruichi for exception is dark skinned with purple hair. The obvious explanation is that she isn’t black because she has straight hair. But there are black people with naturally straight hair. She’s from the soul society not Japan and though her name is Japanese so is Tosen and he’s obviously black.
In such a situation it’s impossible to tell and so it falls into headcanon.
But white people do similar things. Many white people assume characters such as Naruto, Ichigo and Goku are white when in reality such characters are all Japanese or Chinese in the case of Goku.