In those days, the anime that accompanied me | "Spy House Wine", "Ranking of kings" black controversy, what was the blacktober operation launched by the artist?

Have you seen the most popular anime of recently, SPY x FAMILY?

The story describes the spy Twilight, who must form a family in order to carry out a secret mission, adopts Ania, an orphan with mind-reading superpowers, and then finds Joel, who has the identity of a killer, to pretend to be his wife. The three of them conceal each other's identities to form a "temporary family", breaking the traditional family should be, ridiculous and warm!

The picture | stills from "Spy House Wine"

The picture | stills from "Spy House Wine"

After the launch of the "Spy House Wine" animation, the animation indicator broadcast platform "Bahamut Animation Crazy" exceeded one million views in less than 14 days, causing high popularity on the Internet.

At the same time, various fans began to create a second creation or cosplay, one of which was from Twitter, which triggered a discussion - the artist painted Ania, Dusk, and The Yoel family as "black".

Pictures | Twitter@SoulKingLives

The Artist, whose Twitter account is SoulKingLives , changed the original white-skinned, pink-haired Anya to a brown-colored skin and braided head with a large stroke of a pen; Dusk also changed from blonde hair to a black man with a braided head and a slag head.

The post attracted 27,000 likes and more than 5,000 retweets. Some netizens at the bottom left messages in support, and some people thought that this was a disguised "racial discrimination".

Why did artists blacken anime characters? What is the significance of this action?

Pictures | Twitter@SoulKingLives

Co-creation action from the Guardian report: Blacktober

The blackening of anime characters is not the work of a single artist, but stems from a co-creation called "Blacktober".

In October 2020, the British newspaper The Guardian published the film "Anime has a race problem, here's how fans are fixing it.", which explores the stigma of black characters in anime.

Image| The Guardian

The image | stills from Pokémon

The film points out that the black characters who appear in anime are often ugly, clowned or played the role of bad guys, such as the "Lost Lip Sister" in "Pokémon", with dark skin and thick to exaggerated lips, which are considered to be allusions to black women, and this role has long been selected as the "ugliest Pokémon First".

Back in the '40s and '50s, the black characters who appeared in Disney animation were all responsible for being stupid or evil.

The image spread across borders, silently implanting the negative impression of black people in people's hearts.

In the future, when the creator draws characters, even if he may be a Japanese who has not been exposed to black people, he may subconsciously paint negative characters with a black appearance.

As soon as the "Guardian" film came out, it immediately caused heated discussion among netizens.

Anime fans, who have long been unable to stand this phenomenon, launched the "Blacktober" campaign, inviting artists to draw their favorite anime characters into black versions every day in October.

Blacktober, which means "Black+October", originated from the "Inktober" launched by American artist Jake Parker in 2016, which stipulates a different theme on each day of October, allowing artists to create according to the theme every day, challenging the activity of painting with ink for 31 consecutive days.

Since 2020, Blacktober has held two consecutive sessions, not only setting up an official Twitter account, but also setting up an official website to collect works into Zine.

From Sailor Moon, Ghost Blade, Hidden Girl to the recent King's Ranking, various anime characters have become dark-skinned, braided heads, and present a completely different new look.

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Pictures | Twitter@SoulKingLives

For children of different skin tones, a new childhood

Since the Blcak lives matter movement in May 2020, when the death of black man George Freud began, race has become a sensitive issue in the United States. Or are we used to exclusivity without knowing it?

Some netizens also believe that this is a kind of "overcorrection" or a disguised "racial discrimination": "Blackwashing characters who are not originally black, and do not respect the original at all." "Why does every animation need a black character, I really don't understand?"

In response to this, Violet M , a black female author, wrote an article on Medium , pointing out that "whitewashing" has been around in Hollywood and the media for many years, such as when "Flying Over the Sea" asked Emma Stone to play an Asian mixed-race child, people would find excuses for the studio: "Maybe she is just a good fit for this role!" "I just can't find anyone else who fits the role to play!" But they are unwilling to face up to the problem itself.

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Image | IMDb

We can also look back at 2019, when Disney announced that the live-action version of "The Little Mermaid" will be played by black actor Halle Bailey as Ariel, and also set off a wave of controversy on the Internet, and some netizens proposed that they should be loyal to the restoration.

But as Fan Ganghao, a woman fan author, wrote:

"The real core question of restoration is: 'Whose original is it?' 」
"Our childhood is very important, but I think it is also important to give a new childhood to little girls of different skin colors." 」

When different voices are heard, rather than subconsciously rejecting and denying, perhaps we can first think about whether we really ignore another voice in the world.

(Listen to the voice: Interview with Lu Xinjie, CEO of rainbow equal power platform: People have unconscious deviations, the key is whether you are willing to look at it directly)

Pictures | @poyopoppin

Everyone has the right to love a work and to speak up for themselves

In fact, Cosplay and character adaptation are all actions that fans want to get closer to their favorite characters, and no matter who they are, they have the right to like and participate.

Going back to the blackness controversy over Spy House Wine mentioned at the beginning, Forbes black cartoonist Tony Weaver Jr., who won for "30 under 30" from Forbes, later published a video in which he encouraged people to embrace the term "Nightskin" and called it "Rise of the Nightskins."

He said: "This movement is the originality and unity of the blacks. Things that were originally disgusted began to be used to spread hope and creativity. We've made a difference as a community."

Looking back, dark-skinned anime characters do show us a whole new look, don't they?

Pictures | @jvzmina