Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

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UpFromTheSkies
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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by UpFromTheSkies » Thu May 14, 2015 8:41 am

shonenhikada wrote:
UpFromTheSkies wrote:Black people have full lips, dark skin, and broad noses. Do you have a problem with that?
Except this statement is totally false for a generalization. Black people come in a wide range of shades, don't always have full lips or broad noses. Some even exhibit asian features when it comes to the eyes (no not mixed).
Well a lot of black people have those features, and I don't see anything wrong with them at all. You're making it sound like they are bad features, and that Toriyama shouldn't use them for his characters.

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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by TheGmGoken » Thu May 14, 2015 9:18 am

UpFromTheSkies wrote:Black people have full lips, dark skin, and broad noses. Do you have a problem with that?
I'm brown skin :|

Black people have variety....because we're...human... and humans look different

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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by Basaku » Thu May 14, 2015 9:30 am

fadeddreams5 wrote: Uub is more of Indian or middle eastern descent, like Namu.
Not really, he has "black nose". Indian and Middle Eastern people don't have that, that's one of the reasons they're classified under the same Caucasian umbrella as blonde Swedes.

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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by fadeddreams5 » Thu May 14, 2015 9:43 am

Akumaito Beam wrote:
kei17 wrote: Yeah, I'm occasionally offended by how the anime staff treat black people. Killa is nothing but just an ordinary fighter in the manga, but they added hoots by the audience when he's introduced by the announcer in contrast with Jewel, a white man, receiving cheers from women.
Did you ever see what the Funimation dub did to Killa? I have no idea what on God's green Earth they were thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8lvsVfa3Yg&hd=1
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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by Vegitofaxx » Thu May 14, 2015 9:46 am

Akumaito Beam wrote: Did you ever see what the Funimation dub did to Killa? I have no idea what on God's green Earth they were thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8lvsVfa3Yg&hd=1
I never even knew that was a thing :shock: I've only experienced the complete Buu arc trough manga...
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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by UpFromTheSkies » Thu May 14, 2015 10:00 am

TheGmGoken wrote:
UpFromTheSkies wrote:Black people have full lips, dark skin, and broad noses. Do you have a problem with that?
I'm brown skin :|

Black people have variety....because we're...human... and humans look different
Of course there is variety, and each character posted has a different skin tone, but I would still say generally, black people have broad noses and full lips, and there is nothing wrong with those features. The OP is making it seem like those are bad features to have and Toriyama shouldn't use them.

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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by Basaku » Thu May 14, 2015 10:05 am

UpFromTheSkies wrote: Of course there is variety, and each character posted has a different skin tone, but I would still say generally, black people have broad noses and full lips, and there is nothing wrong with those features. The OP is making it seem like those are bad features to have and Toriyama shouldn't use them.
But there are more than just 1 way of racist American cartoons from the 40s to draw full lips though

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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by UpFromTheSkies » Thu May 14, 2015 10:06 am

Basaku wrote:
fadeddreams5 wrote: Uub is more of Indian or middle eastern descent, like Namu.
Not really, he has "black nose". Indian and Middle Eastern people don't have that, that's one of the reasons they're classified under the same Caucasian umbrella as blonde Swedes.
Indians have broad noses

Image

Many Native Americans also have broad noses, which is how I always imagined Uub because of the mohawk, although I really don't think he's supposed to be of any particular race or nationality.

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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by The Tori-bot » Thu May 14, 2015 10:11 am

Akumaito Beam wrote:Did you ever see what the Funimation dub did to Killa? I have no idea what on God's green Earth they were thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8lvsVfa3Yg&hd=1
Oh man, that completely slipped my mind. Having never seen much of the Funi version of the Buu arc, I still can't quite believe that that was a thing that happened.
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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by UpFromTheSkies » Thu May 14, 2015 10:19 am

Basaku wrote:
UpFromTheSkies wrote: Of course there is variety, and each character posted has a different skin tone, but I would still say generally, black people have broad noses and full lips, and there is nothing wrong with those features. The OP is making it seem like those are bad features to have and Toriyama shouldn't use them.
But there are more than just 1 way of racist American cartoons from the 40s to draw full lips though
It's just a common anime style of drawing full lips, I've seen them on white, black, and asian characters.

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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by Ajay » Thu May 14, 2015 10:23 am

Akumaito Beam wrote:Did you ever see what the Funimation dub did to Killa? I have no idea what on God's green Earth they were thinking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8lvsVfa3Yg&hd=1
Wow... As someone who's never seen Z dubbed fully by FUNi, I actually had to check my DVDs to see if this was real.

I'd heard stories of Killa being a big stereotype, but I never bothered to actually check it out.

I'm at a total loss for words. What were they thinking?!

I grew up with Scott McNeil doing a ridiculous accent - https://youtu.be/wy_imBEvJkk?t=16
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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by UpFromTheSkies » Thu May 14, 2015 10:31 am

AjayLikesGaming wrote:
Akumaito Beam wrote:Did you ever see what the Funimation dub did to Killa? I have no idea what on God's green Earth they were thinking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8lvsVfa3Yg&hd=1
Wow... As someone who's never seen Z dubbed fully, I actually had to check my DVDs to see if this was real.

I'd heard stories of Killa being a big stereotype, but I never bothered to actually check it out.

I'm at a total loss for words. What were they thinking?!
There are also redneck white people in the dub https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPrF5j0UptE

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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by Lord Beerus » Thu May 14, 2015 11:31 am

Akumaito Beam wrote:Did you ever see what the Funimation dub did to Killa? I have no idea what on God's green Earth they were thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8lvsVfa3Yg&hd=1
Oh, yeah. I remember this. :|

As a kid watching this originally I thought to myself, "What the hell is going on? Is this how they view black people in DBZ?"

I can't believe Funimation actually did this shit. It still shocks me to this day. It's quite an offensive stereotype of black people.

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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by DrBriefsCat » Thu May 14, 2015 1:51 pm

I suspect Funimation got away with dubbing Killa like that because it wasn't on Cartoon Network's radar at the time.

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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by Vegitofaxx » Thu May 14, 2015 2:21 pm

Does Killa have anything special going on in Japanese? Like the Japanese dialect differences and so on?
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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by SSJ God Gogeta » Thu May 14, 2015 2:26 pm

Akumaito Beam wrote: Did you ever see what the Funimation dub did to Killa? I have no idea what on God's green Earth they were thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8lvsVfa3Yg&hd=1
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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by fadeddreams5 » Thu May 14, 2015 11:24 pm

Funi Dub Killa is my new favorite character. Someone make me an avatar of this legend.
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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by Vegitofaxx » Fri May 15, 2015 5:00 am

fadeddreams5 wrote:Funi Dub Killa is my new favorite character. Someone make me an avatar of this legend.
Here Image
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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by Monkey King Vegeta » Fri May 15, 2015 5:58 am

fadeddreams5 wrote:
Doctor. wrote:Toriyama has used those kinds of lips to portray white people before. As well as using "normal" lips to portray black people - Oob. Let us not go there.
Uub is more of Indian or middle eastern descent, like Namu.

On-topic: I feel Toriyama intentionally depicted Africans and black individuals this way. That's not to say he's racist, but he probably found humor in pictures he saw, which actually are racist. I think it's been established that the dude has a crude sense of humor. He knew damn well what he was doing, but it's not a big deal in Japan. That's what I believe, anyways.

I'm just surprised I've never seen comparisons being made between Semi-Perfect Cell and these black characters. It has the same facial features. And... it's his pre-evolved form. You know, before his face becomes white and more akin to regular human characters... *runs away*
I had actually made that comparison of Cell's forms to the 3 races of mankind, I'm glad I wasn't the only one to pick up on this.

As for the topic, I do think there was racism involved in DBZ, there are some stereotypes that are heavily played on.

Like the black kid that Trunks fought at the tournament was portrayed as a tall idiot, got one-shotted, or those red necks that are smacked around by Gotenks and Trunks.

I also wonder if DBZ had bad blood with other asians, we all know the Chinese hatred in manga nowadays, but was that Bruce Lee impersonator meant to look like such a joke? On a similar occasion, Fat Buu challenges a guy named Pitbull Pete in a street fight, once again he is shown like a total joke, but what I wonder if he was meant to represent Mexican boxers, given he was drawn with oriental style eyes similar to the Native American based characters.

All that said. it seems the dark skinned people are poorly written, even by todays standards. :|

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Re: Toriyama's racial/ist character portrayals?

Post by Payne222 » Fri May 15, 2015 6:39 am

That Pitt Bull Pete guy is anime only.
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