One Piece Irks

xarciel:

bodyfleur:

onepieceirks:

I’m going to group all of these responses together since they’re related, so this will get pretty long. Please bear with me. These are all in response (I’m assuming) to this post from a couple of months ago.

1. Oda doesn’t make the anime.
True. In fact, in Oda’s art all of the Strawhats are the same colour.

Big whoop. You’re not helping your argument by pointing out that Oda’s always used the same marker for everyone’s skin tones. That doesn’t fix anything. Oda’s exclusion of POC is problematic. The anime is a huge part of the franchise, and just because Oda isn’t directly involved in it doesn’t mean it’s above criticism. 

2. The anime is trying to fix the characters so they look more like the manga. 
Well then I’m still waiting for them to change Robin’s eyes to brown. That seems like a pretty big flaw that needs fixing. 

 

3. The comparisons come from before and after timeskip, when the colour palettes changed.
The colour palettes changed a few times before timeskip as well, actually, and the results weren’t nearly as dire. I’m also confused as to how this is a defence. The new colours didn’t just suddenly poof into existence and were unchangeable upon pain of death. THEY WERE DECIDED ON. The animation team CHOSE the new palette. The fact that they’re different colour palettes is the reason comparison is necessary. 

4. One Piece has a lot more variety of skin colour than other series.
I’m assuming there was supposed to be a ‘used to’ in that sentence somewhere. Besides which, less problems is not no problems. 

5. Robin was in the snow, Zoro was on an island of perpetual twilight, and Usopp was in a forest with a thick canopy (debatable actually, but if we’re going to do this we might as well go with it).
Now we’re getting into the meat of it. For those who are really that invested in denying that they are just brown, let’s explore this one scientifically. If the hypothesis is that Zoro, Robin and Usopp are all white with heavy tans (because heaven forbid that they’re not actually white), then Sanji, who spent his life indoors, only to spend two years running through rain, hail and shine should have a substantial tan. As well, Nami and Luffy were both exposed to a lot of sun. So by your logic they should be much browner. Here’s the comparisons, with the first shot taken at the beginning of their 2YL break, and the second one at their immediate return to Sabaody.

 
Huh, what do you know? It’s like the animators didn’t take their sun exposure into account at all. Since ittoryu-yai said it perfectly:

To insinuate that ethnic skin of certain anime characters is the way it is because of exposure to the sun, is pretty much insinuating that they were white at some point. They are only brown because of the sun. That, is in fact, a racist thought. Unintentional or not, that is a problematic and racist thought. 

As for why Robin got it worse than Zoro and Usopp, yes, pale beauty standards for women. Robin is now the palest Strawhat. That was not done accidentally. The manga shows examples of this as well, in Vivi and Conis- both of who appear on covers beside men from the same location who are significantly darker than them. 

The anime also has other examples of this that I would genuinely be intrigued to hear people come up with excuses for. I present to you, Inazuma and Prince Bellet.


These are the same character as a man and a woman. There is no other explanation for this other than the exclusion of POC women from beauty standards. That is racist, plain and simple. Both Oda and the animation team are guilty of it, so don’t even bother with the blame game. 

And before someone jumps in with the ‘that’s just how it is in Japan’, that doesn’t make it any less problematic. If you are unable to realise that it IS a problem, then you have been indoctrinated by the media. Congratulations. 

Okay, so first of all, some of these ‘changes’ have different lighting situations AND SKIN COLOR CAN VARY AS A RESULT OF THAT. In fact, color IN GENERAL can vary and change as a result of lighting conditions regardless if it is a skin tone or not.

Oda definitely uses the same marker[s] for all the Straw Hats skin tone, but Usopp and Robin are generally rendered at least a shade darker then everyone else. Depending on the quality of the scan, how obvious that is can also vary (the one example used in this post looks very light overall so I wonder if that was a result of scanning.) So Oda does recognize that some of his characters are meant to be darker, and he actually got most of his ethnicities right in that one SBS.

Now does this mean that there aren’t design issues in OP? Oh definitely there are. But when you compare things you need to equalize the variables as much as possible and right now, that is not the case.

Are you seriously this petty? If it bothers you so much, here’s an extended version of Sanji’s skin tone.

Wow, I’m certainly glad you pointed that out, thanks. Feel free to do your own leg work if you don’t believe me on the others, I’m not going to waste my time when you’re already decided that you’re just going to ignore the problem. I don’t care what kind of lighting you’re using, there is no way the whitewashing of the brown characters is a matter of different lighting. There is not enough direct sunlight in the world to make Robin appear that washed out when all of the white characters are within cooee of their original skin tones. 

That one SBS? Do you mean the one where Oda said that Usopp’s nationality was African? I don’t understand, how does Oda acknowledging that his characters should be darker, only to completely ignore any reference to that in his art make things any better. I’m not going to give him a ‘you tried’ sticker for his efforts. He’s a professional artist, there’s nothing stopping him from picking up the darker markers if he wants to.

They’ve appeared that pale before in other cover pages.
 

And here’s another cover page, post timeskip. Even if you’re trying to blame the differences on scanning, everyone’s still white. Go figure.
 

The big question is why are you so invested in ignoring the problems here? Your excuses are piss poor and you skirt around the real issue as though you think everyone’s just got their contrast turned up too high. 

Before and after. No excuse.

It’s whitewashing. The fact that you are going to such lengths to explain the problem away is problematic.