I can’t believe that whole racism in anime conversation is back on the table, but to be fair, I don’t think it ever left.
I have programmed my brain to ignore those debates whenever I see them online. However, that discussion has become so widespread that dismissing it has become all but impossible.
Many avid anime fans from the black community keep raising two primary concerns. First, they argue that anime does not have enough black faces. The black community is largely unrepresented, even though they constitute a sizable portion of the global anime community.
Secondly, the few black characters that appear in anime are racist stereotypes. The most popular example is Mr. Popo from Dragon Ball, a pitch-black individual with bright red lips.
So why am I so dismissive? Well, imagine a scenario where you grew up in Nigeria dreaming of a career in Nollywood. Then your wish came true. You made a local Nollywood drama so popular that people in Japan were writing to you to gush about your show.
But then you noticed a stream of complaints from Japanese fans who felt like you had done a poor job of representing their kind. In fact, they felt like Nollywood as a whole had ignored their entire demographic.
Something tells me you would laugh in response. After all, Nigeria is an African nation brimming with Africans. The notion of inserting Japanese characters into your local Nigerian drama wouldn’t have even crossed your mind.
Anime does not differ that drastically from that scenario. We love anime partly because the medium is soaked in Japanese culture. Everything from the dialogue, mannerisms, facial expressions and body language, is designed to paint a picture of life in Japan.
Anime gives us a glimpse into a foreign culture that feels like nothing we have ever seen on this continent, and that is exciting. It also kills the racism accusations (sort of). Japan has 122 million people. Black people constitute roughly 0.02 per cent of the country’s population.
Most Japanese people have never seen a black person. In fact, start searching for blog posts from Africans who have visited Japan. Many will tell you that they went entire days without seeing another black person.
In one particular post, a black tourist encountered several Japanese people who would not believe him when he identified France as his country of origin. They think all black people hail from either the USA or Nigeria.
Japanese people are not inherently racist towards black people; they are ignorant about our kind, but they don’t hate us. That said, apparently, they have grown to despise Nigerians, who are primarily known for their criminal activities in Japan.
So, if a Japanese mangaka went their entire life without seeing a black person, why would you expect them to include black people in their stories? The counterargument is that anime does not hesitate to include white Americans, and it is not like white Americans are a common sight in Japan.
But that criticism misses the point by a mile. The white Americans we see in anime are usually loud, brash, violent, sexually aggressive thugs. In other words, they are stereotypes built from the images of white Americans that Japanese people see in American movies, which is no different from the black stereotypes present in black anime characters.
The few well-written white people in anime (for example, the cast of Full Metal Alchemist) are merely Japanese people with a white American coating, which is why they speak and act like their Japanese counterparts.
I had an entirely separate point I wanted to make. But we can dissect that next week. For now, I hope you get the point. Complaining about the absence of black characters in anime is no different from complaining about the absence of white or Japanese people in a Nigerian film. It’s silly.
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