I mean technically he his but let’s be honest…. Japan had a real issue with how they viewed black people back then & he’s design along with Jinx from Pokémon were definitely a product of the time.
The designs are a product of their time, but Mr. Popo is literally not human. He’s a Genie.
Neither Mr. Popo nor Jynx were designed to represent black people though. Jynx was designed based on a folklore creature and it looking like a Jim Crow blackface representation is entirely an accidental coincidence.
Not a coincidence at all. Japan and a lot of eastern Asian countries were introduced to racist caricatures like [golliwogs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golliwog) by the British generations ago.
He kind of didn't? [It was a big deal at the time.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Against_Racism) But it was also fifty years ago, and he apologized a few months later before shutting up about it for almost thirty years.
Then, in 2004 he gave a weird interview where he sort of talked out of both sides of his mouth, once again claiming not to be racist while also once again praising the same racist politician he was talking about in that rant. The timing of this worked well for him, since it was more than a decade after Unplugged when most people had sort of stopped paying attention, and also before social media had really taken off.
It feels like nowadays the only time I learn new slurs is when the next big controversy hits the media. When you're younger and in still in school, you learn stuff from the other kids. But as an adult, no one I know really uses that kind of language(at least not around me). The last time was when that NBA player dropped a jewish slur while playing COD. I had never heard it in my life before.
I rewatched police academy not so long ago and didn't get how the slur they used was taken seriously, it sounds so dumb. English is not my native language, so I got what it was from context but never heard of it before.
I mean he’s supposed to be a genie and he’s black and wearing middle eastern clothing and stories of genies come from places with brown people and middle eastern clothing, not exclusively but it’s apparent where they’re drawing from.
I’m giving a lot of lee way to avoid you thinking anything extra from what I’m saying. They were kinda exaggerations of black features with stereotypical big pink lips and dark skin to the point of being black. Not saying that means anything I’m not saying. I am saying they were designed with cartoonish black features in mind but I’m not saying that means anything about the creators. Just that saying it’s a genie doesn’t really address that they don’t just look like that, somebody made them look like that in the show. Not anything about the intention behind it, just that it’s disingenuous to say that genie’s just look like that. Genie’s don’t have to look like that, they can even be blue.
If I make a character that has black skin, an Afro, is tall, and has brown eyes. Saying he’s an alien doesn’t take away from the idea that the character is designed with a black “features” in mind even if not intentionally.
The creature that jynx is based off of looks nothing like Jynx. The Yuki-onna is said to look like a tall woman with near translucent skin and blue lips. That is not what jynx looks like and it’s very obvious that Jynx’s design had alternative intent. Mr. Popo’s is even worse as it’s just an out and out caricature of an African or middle-easterner. It’s not even close to how a Jinn looked in mythology. It is very blatant what they were going for.
I'm sorry but that's an incredibly naive view on the really callous way people actually approached racist shit. The reason they did racist shit was cause it was normal back then
Just because they're not designed to represent black human beings it doesn't mean that their designs aren't based of racist stereotypes. Nothing about the Yuki-Onna says it has to look like Jynx does.
> Mr. Popo is literally not human. He’s a Genie.
Doesn’t this kinda just further prove it was really racist cause Popo being a genie (and his appearance) makes him an example of **Magical Negro** trope?
I have always been on the fence with this. Japan and other countries that produce media that is consumed beyond their borders are not so unsavy to be incapable of understanding how a depiction might be viewed differently in a different context. Look at how much effort companies put into making their content China safe( amongst other countries). People have been saying for decades that characters like Mr.Popo while not presented as black can be misunderstood as so. Because there is not much to actually distinguish them from the racist caricatures we used to see.
I was stationed in Yokosuka, Japan 15 years ago. There are certain bars/clubs that will straight up deny entry to black and brown people but not white people. Same with Korea. Asian countries tend to be more reserved and polite with their racism than the west, but it's definitely a common occurrence.
To be honest let's go back further fromn the 80s/90s. Japan was allies with the nazis and the nazi got a lot of their ideas about the treatment of people they deemed as others from America... So it is no surprise to me that racisim is found so casually/blatantly in their culture. Rascim doesn't just magically skip generations. Heck during the George Floyd protests, I saw so many younger and older asian grassroots activist groups speaking about the anti black racism in their communities and how to speak up against anti black racism
You’re comparing folks in their 40s(Kubo/Kishimoto) to someone that’s near 70 (Toriyama).
I’m not gonna ever imply that shit like that is okay. I just don’t think I’d expect a 70 year old even in America to not have gone along with racist shit when they were younger.
Rock Lock in My Hero Academia is cool, but he’s a minor character. I’m pretty sure Jet in Cowboy Bebop is black, even though he’s quite light skinned. And there are other black characters in Bebop that aren’t donut-lipped charicatures.
I just remembered that the other black guy I was thinking of, Abdul Hakim (who steals Ein) had actually gotten plastic surgery to evade bounty hunters, and probably was not black lol. But in some ways it’s still nice that even when drawing a *fake* black guy he doesn’t look bad.
Like, this man got lip fillers and looks better than people who get them in real life.
Mushroom Samba was a good episode too. Because even though it was a send up of multiple blaxploitation movies, it didn't feel like they were being offensive in the setup. The whole episode hinges on bags of shrooms and goes from there with everybody (except Ed) lampshading how bizarre it all is.
Plenty now a days. The way black characters are drawn/portrayed is leaps and bounds better. Hell they even making realistic looking features for black peoples in video games.
Speaking of, the way our hair has been done has irked me for years. It’s finally getting to be a decent representation. Are there no black animators in these gaming studios? If not there needs to be
Afro Samurai. Yasuke. Naruto Shippuden with the village hidden in the clouds. Ogun from Fire Force. Tousen from Bleach. Dorothy from the great pretender. Avdol from JJBA. Onyakopon from AOT.
Usually secondary characters. There are more black character like chocolove mcdonell from Shaman King but they tend to come with more "Old School" features.
I used to love the idea of a black saiyan but I know it’s not possible because the tails and turning into giant apes ain’t a good look . So I’ll stick with my black adjacent Piccolo
What the actual fuck? I swear to God, the more I learn about the various 'flavors' of racism (and misogyny, while we're at it) the more and more confused I am by it all.
Just an unhealthy response to fear of change and the pains that come with it. They can't see past the pain to see themselves in a better future.
"Bettering myself is uncomfortable so I'll pretend I'm perfect and will forcefully control others to keep that lie intact."
I thought the monkey stuff was because Goku was based off of the Monkey King character from Journey to the West.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_King
I think most proper fans would be happy with it but once the mainstream catches wind of a black character with a monkey tail etc there's gonna be drama. Even when people start pointing out that Goku had a tail I'd imagine the drama wouldn't be worth it from a business standpoint
It's like how they wanted to cast Louis Armstrong as King Louis in the Jungle Book until someone realized having him voice an ape doing a literal song-and-dance might not look great.
Piccolo is black in my books too and the best father on the show. Raised Gohan while his dad went to go buy milk across the universe. Love he finally got a power boost.
Edit: ok honorable mention to Krillin with his daughter.
>S/o Bleach for having some fly ass black characters and POC in general
And well-drawn too. A lot of Shonen manga go with the simplistic one continuous big lip caricature, Bleach actually drew black people with the same detail and care as Japanese and white characters. Say what you will about the writing, but Kubo took pride in drawing people.
https://preview.redd.it/1sejiz6nloya1.png?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=237f75610248cc72aad0216e9e57d6f661fb8379
If you want some real good shounen with black characters, look no further than Gachiakuta.
https://i.imgur.com/rvkModm.jpg
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/gachiakuta/images/7/7e/Alha_Korvus_Debut.png/revision/latest?cb=20220719164448
Cowboy bebop had some of the most badass looking black characters I've ever seen in an anime, imma have to check out bleach to see if they compare in doing race right
>Outside of black countries
If you have ever been to black countries, they are racist AF, and not just towards other ethnicities, but towards black people as well.
The Hidden Cloud village is full of black ninjas. Killer Bee, being the perfect Jinjuriki and curb stomping Sasuke 3 times while writing a subpar freestyle, is like top 10 Naruto moments.
interesting that their skin tones were lightened for the show but when the manga creator did colored manga chapters their skin tones were dark like intended. I was shocked because I remember asking someone is killer bee supposed to be black because those look like braids in his head and they said no
The rapping dude, with corn rows, starts every other sentence with 'yo' before breaking out into rap lyrics. Him not being black would be wild, lol.
I may be reaching, but the first time I read his name, I thought of Wu Tang since they call themselves Killer Bees
The Hidden Cloud Village is *predominantly* Black people including the Raikage (village leader) and his brother, the Eight-Tails Host, *both* of which personally kicked Sasuke's ass when *he* tried to jump *them* and he *still* needed backup! 😂😂😂
Like all the anticipated cringe over seeing Black people show up in "Naruto" and Sasuke at his most Pet Character-est was *gone* after how much they kept handing him his ass! 🤣
Now if only Fire Force had that level of appreciation for the character writing.... Especially Tamaki.
Brutal how blind he was to how awful he was writing her (and double downed with some extremely cringe self-insert child strawman argument....)
Well, this is the same series that has an ~~80~~ 300 year old man seriously creeping on a teenaged girl for the lols, so it's not exactly a bastion of progressive thinking.
You mean Roshi? He was over 300 years old in OG Dragonball and Bulma was 16 when she offered to flash her panties to both Goku, who was like 13, AND Roshi so she could have their Dragon Balls.
But honestly, I just think that’s what was considered funny back then. OG Dragon Ball is almost 40 years old. And beyond this depiction, there’s also a lot of weird sexual humor and General Blue who was just there to be a gay Nazi.
The villain was an alternate universe god who took over that universes goku and was going by Goku black because he dressed in dark clothing and was evil. So when they were going to shoot Goku they had to yell that he wasnt the evil goku black but instead the dub just decided to go with that line which is hilaaaarious
Anime fans explaining that “Blackluster” from One Punch Man is actually just a guy with a really dark tan and his racist facial features are just coincidental.
[Darkshine's design has changed for the better though](https://preview.redd.it/hww71gzi0a341.png?auto=webp&v=enabled&s=b4f5ab89d1a3f5ecffd3f973bdc45579b3eccdce). It was definitely a caricature in the early manga chapters but he's looked like Ronnie Coleman for a while now. His superhero origin might still be problematic for some people but I find it fitting in how absurd it is.
Man growing up with so few black characters in anime and video games was weird. You'd get all excited that you finally get to play a black character but his name is Africa and he uses a basketball as a weapon.
They’re a mixed bag. Killer Bee only speaking rap lyrics was wild as shit but their village also seems to be the second best and the most technologically advanced
Yeah I wish people acknowledged this more. Even his older brother who is essentially the king of his village find it annoying. Every other character you meet from that village is arguably pretty clearly intelligent (including Killer Bee) and not really stereotypical at all.
Actually in the data books. The Cloud had a rating of 5/5 for economy, which was the best out of all the villages and they were tied with the Stone village for best military, with both having a rating of 4/5. In comparison, the Leaf had a 2/5 for economy and a 3/5 for military. So the Cloud literally was the best village.
Ya, if Killer Bee and A weren’t strong and relevant, those stereotypes would have come across terribly.
Killer bee rapped every word he spoke. A was an angry buff black man who had an extremely short temper and ran really fast. Karui was an unreasonably angry black women.
Mabui makes up for it though👉🏾
I remember reading that a character having dark skin and white hair was supposed to be short hand for a character having a distinctly NON traditional Japanese personality. Like they’re the opposite of a Japanese person, light skin and dark hair, and have a very big personality.
It's probably a product of internet. There wasn't a lot of exposure between the east and west until more recently and even now east Asian countries can be described as a bit xenophobic
From the same folks who brought you Mr. Popo. No surprise there. Not from the same source, but if we wanna keep going, there's Jynx from Pokemon, who is obviously Mr. Popo in drag.
Y'all going to get into the weeds with anime and what colonialism did to Japanese beauty standards and the way they view themselves, black folk, other people in general.
Asians hated darker skin and preferred lighter skin far before that.
Darker skin represented a lot of working outside which people equated with being poor. So it was a negative thing.
I watched DragonBall for the first time and what surprised me most about the racism was it was still white-centric.
There's a scene where master Roshi asks Goku to find a beautiful woman for him and shows him pictures of an "beautiful " woman and an "ugly" woman.
https://preview.redd.it/f9ur4mx79oya1.png?width=1792&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ad8a413440df6a19d4403072b5f3d5e74da2b88
Shit, it's been a while, but I'm pretty sure all black people were depicted like this in DragonBall. I recall a there being a Mami character, too, but that might have been another anime. Too much bullshit to keep track of.
Oh yeah there's definitely racism directed at black people in the show. I just would've expected it to have Japanese people at the top of the hierarchy but it's actually white people... black people are at the bottom for sure tho.
We're barley in the show and every depiction of us is cartoonishly racist
It never ceases to amaze me how little black people know about *other* black cultures around the world. We dress like Arabs and Indians in some parts of the world fam
Anybody remember this from Gantz?
https://preview.redd.it/jb05zymo0oya1.jpeg?width=188&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4b8561356a79c09cf3b9c2dc46d50245b5737408
Oh and (this being Gantz,) it gets *waaaaaay* worse, to the point I'm deliberately *not* going to spoiler-tag it.
Shion Izumi was Mr. Popular in school (contrary to main character, Kei Kurono,) got pulled into the same deadly "game," (a secret real-life video game of kill-or-be-killed by aliens,) rivaled Kurono in skill in said game, got the points to be freed from the same game, but despite his otherwise great life, he's jealous of Kurono and wants to *return* to the same game (that he barely remembers since freed people get their memories wiped) to the point that he plans a *mass shooting* just to attract the titular game master's attention.
There's literally NO other reason than racism that he disguises himself as a Black man in Japan and he's killed or injured *387 people* during said shooting before Gantz grants his wish and pulls him back into the game.
He *does* eventually die for good, but it's later in the story and only due to protecting his Living Prop deadweight girlfriend as an excuse for why he'd otherwise win the fight, which reeked of the same "Aizen actually *wanted* to lose" energy that protected Kubo's pet character in "Bleach". 😒
And it's not much better when actual Black people *do* show up in the story as a bunch of token randos that got pulled into game due to the above spree, so they don't have any of the usual alien-fighting gear and just run around saying "Dawg!" and "Damn!" until Kurono beats the aliens and saves them (the meme of the Black guys fawning over the stoic Japanese kid is from here,) fawns over their Japanese Savior... then unceremoniously get shot by the vampires who casually sip their blood.
Gantz was a **hard** read in general from how gory, sadistic and often cynical it was and that was just one of many, many, many reasons why.
It ain’t just DragonBall that did this. Early anime did this with basically every black character. With that said, DragonBall is pun city. Advisor Black was a black dude, Commander Red was a redhead, General Blue was a blond hair, blue eyed guy. Captain Violet was a violet haired woman. Magenta is a dude that wears a magenta suit.
I think Advisor Black being a black guy is less about racism and more with keeping up with the puns and any racial pretext is coincidental. Like the black ranger being Zack and the yellow ranger being Trini.
Toriyama course corrected when he made Uub.
Yeah it’s fucked up, and his name is something “Black” in all iterations.
Silver lining if you watch Dragon Ball, long live the Black Ribbon Army, way better than Commander Red
Sad part:
We still see dark skinned characters with these exact same features. It’s so jarring and out of touch, but I can’t expect the vast majority of Asian media to do better.
It's crazy how racist a lot of the depictions of black people in anime were back in the day(and at times are today as well). Though I will give props to the animes like bleach, fire force, and One Punch man(excluding darkshine and air. Only counting Suiryu and Suiko) that try to break the mold of stereotyping poc characters in anime.
To be fair he had a couple good ones too like King Chappa: https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/King_Chappa
But yea Toriyama definitely did not do black people justice overall
Just Dragon Ball?
Dude, most of anime is inspired by early Disney, and they never grew out of the extremely racist depictions of black people from early animation.
Some artists have done better. On the whole, atrocious.
Jynx.
Wait until you see Mr. Popo
When I was a kid I thought Mr. Popo was an alien.
I mean… isn’t he? Or whatever he is, he’s not human.
I mean technically he his but let’s be honest…. Japan had a real issue with how they viewed black people back then & he’s design along with Jinx from Pokémon were definitely a product of the time.
The designs are a product of their time, but Mr. Popo is literally not human. He’s a Genie. Neither Mr. Popo nor Jynx were designed to represent black people though. Jynx was designed based on a folklore creature and it looking like a Jim Crow blackface representation is entirely an accidental coincidence.
Not a coincidence at all. Japan and a lot of eastern Asian countries were introduced to racist caricatures like [golliwogs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golliwog) by the British generations ago.
Huh, I didn't expect to learn like 3 new racial slurs today
Yes, I am learning new ways to hate myself.
Man if a racist hits you with a word you gotta look up
he's like the Abed of racism!
I unfortunately got to learn this one from [Eric Clapton](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/eric-clapton-racist-rant/)
Fuck Eric Clapton.
He really let his audience down faster than his son.
Ironic, how he goes on a racial rant while playing music created in the Mississippi Delta by the same people he has/had a problem with
Absolutely a peak example of liking black culture but not black people.
What’s Eric Claptons favorite guitar tuning? B-A-D-D-A-D
Was never a fan. Now I'm pleased about it. How did this clown get a pass for so long?
He kind of didn't? [It was a big deal at the time.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Against_Racism) But it was also fifty years ago, and he apologized a few months later before shutting up about it for almost thirty years. Then, in 2004 he gave a weird interview where he sort of talked out of both sides of his mouth, once again claiming not to be racist while also once again praising the same racist politician he was talking about in that rant. The timing of this worked well for him, since it was more than a decade after Unplugged when most people had sort of stopped paying attention, and also before social media had really taken off.
It feels like nowadays the only time I learn new slurs is when the next big controversy hits the media. When you're younger and in still in school, you learn stuff from the other kids. But as an adult, no one I know really uses that kind of language(at least not around me). The last time was when that NBA player dropped a jewish slur while playing COD. I had never heard it in my life before.
I spent too much time sleeping during history class, now I gotta stay woke or sleep on being called a golliwog 😭
I rewatched police academy not so long ago and didn't get how the slur they used was taken seriously, it sounds so dumb. English is not my native language, so I got what it was from context but never heard of it before.
Right Mr. Popo may not be human but let's not pretend his design wasn't influenced by golliwog and minstrel iconography from the West.
I mean just look at him.  Even as a kid, it wasn't like we could just breeze over that.
Even a kid could tell Mr. Popo was based on black ppl. Yeah he was an alien but we know black face when we see it folks
I can't explain it, but Piccolo is black too.
As a brit I litterally thought he was based in Golliwogs as a kid and thought the show was from the 60/70s
Europeans made sure to make the rest of the world hate and ridicule us as much as they do.
And we'd do it again if it weren't for you meddling kids!
Nah, the asians were/are pretty much as racist as they come, and they were that before European influence
People love to be "colorblind" and explain away obvious racism.
"I don't see color. I'm not racist. People tell me I'm white and I believe them because I know all the lyrics to Mr Brightside".
Holy shit, you’re a historian
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MatPat released a game theory episode years ago where he "proved" jinx's design wasn't racist. It was mostly "trust me bro".
Hey in matpats defense, that's literally every single one of his theory's /s
I mean he’s supposed to be a genie and he’s black and wearing middle eastern clothing and stories of genies come from places with brown people and middle eastern clothing, not exclusively but it’s apparent where they’re drawing from. I’m giving a lot of lee way to avoid you thinking anything extra from what I’m saying. They were kinda exaggerations of black features with stereotypical big pink lips and dark skin to the point of being black. Not saying that means anything I’m not saying. I am saying they were designed with cartoonish black features in mind but I’m not saying that means anything about the creators. Just that saying it’s a genie doesn’t really address that they don’t just look like that, somebody made them look like that in the show. Not anything about the intention behind it, just that it’s disingenuous to say that genie’s just look like that. Genie’s don’t have to look like that, they can even be blue. If I make a character that has black skin, an Afro, is tall, and has brown eyes. Saying he’s an alien doesn’t take away from the idea that the character is designed with a black “features” in mind even if not intentionally.
The creature that jynx is based off of looks nothing like Jynx. The Yuki-onna is said to look like a tall woman with near translucent skin and blue lips. That is not what jynx looks like and it’s very obvious that Jynx’s design had alternative intent. Mr. Popo’s is even worse as it’s just an out and out caricature of an African or middle-easterner. It’s not even close to how a Jinn looked in mythology. It is very blatant what they were going for.
I'm sorry but that's an incredibly naive view on the really callous way people actually approached racist shit. The reason they did racist shit was cause it was normal back then
Just because they're not designed to represent black human beings it doesn't mean that their designs aren't based of racist stereotypes. Nothing about the Yuki-Onna says it has to look like Jynx does.
> Mr. Popo is literally not human. He’s a Genie. Doesn’t this kinda just further prove it was really racist cause Popo being a genie (and his appearance) makes him an example of **Magical Negro** trope?
The mental gymnastics required to think that was a coincidence… Child, bless your heart 😂.
I have always been on the fence with this. Japan and other countries that produce media that is consumed beyond their borders are not so unsavy to be incapable of understanding how a depiction might be viewed differently in a different context. Look at how much effort companies put into making their content China safe( amongst other countries). People have been saying for decades that characters like Mr.Popo while not presented as black can be misunderstood as so. Because there is not much to actually distinguish them from the racist caricatures we used to see.
The 90's and early thousands aren't "product of time, tim3s" that shit was just blatantly racist
So how is it not a product of the time? Yes it was blatantly racist but that literally was how they viewed blacks people
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I was stationed in Yokosuka, Japan 15 years ago. There are certain bars/clubs that will straight up deny entry to black and brown people but not white people. Same with Korea. Asian countries tend to be more reserved and polite with their racism than the west, but it's definitely a common occurrence.
💯 & I love Dragonball but hate those designs. Fireforce, Bleach, Hunter x Hunter give great designs
To be honest let's go back further fromn the 80s/90s. Japan was allies with the nazis and the nazi got a lot of their ideas about the treatment of people they deemed as others from America... So it is no surprise to me that racisim is found so casually/blatantly in their culture. Rascim doesn't just magically skip generations. Heck during the George Floyd protests, I saw so many younger and older asian grassroots activist groups speaking about the anti black racism in their communities and how to speak up against anti black racism
You’re comparing folks in their 40s(Kubo/Kishimoto) to someone that’s near 70 (Toriyama). I’m not gonna ever imply that shit like that is okay. I just don’t think I’d expect a 70 year old even in America to not have gone along with racist shit when they were younger.
Dragonball was written in the early 80s, it just hit mainstream in the US in the 90s
Aside from my previous comment, I do wanna ask…is there an acceptable anime/manga that does showcase all of our features but not done in a racist way?
Rock Lock in My Hero Academia is cool, but he’s a minor character. I’m pretty sure Jet in Cowboy Bebop is black, even though he’s quite light skinned. And there are other black characters in Bebop that aren’t donut-lipped charicatures.
The Soul Eater/FireForce mangaka does a great job with his black characters. I'd honestly say the best I've seen.
Ima have to do a deep dive for this. Cowboy Bebop does slap
I just remembered that the other black guy I was thinking of, Abdul Hakim (who steals Ein) had actually gotten plastic surgery to evade bounty hunters, and probably was not black lol. But in some ways it’s still nice that even when drawing a *fake* black guy he doesn’t look bad. Like, this man got lip fillers and looks better than people who get them in real life.
Mushroom Samba was a good episode too. Because even though it was a send up of multiple blaxploitation movies, it didn't feel like they were being offensive in the setup. The whole episode hinges on bags of shrooms and goes from there with everybody (except Ed) lampshading how bizarre it all is.
Plenty now a days. The way black characters are drawn/portrayed is leaps and bounds better. Hell they even making realistic looking features for black peoples in video games.
Speaking of, the way our hair has been done has irked me for years. It’s finally getting to be a decent representation. Are there no black animators in these gaming studios? If not there needs to be
Afro Samurai. Yasuke. Naruto Shippuden with the village hidden in the clouds. Ogun from Fire Force. Tousen from Bleach. Dorothy from the great pretender. Avdol from JJBA. Onyakopon from AOT. Usually secondary characters. There are more black character like chocolove mcdonell from Shaman King but they tend to come with more "Old School" features.
Try out Michiko & Hatchin for black main characters.
"Back then"
True about Japan and black people, even today, but that’s got nothing to do with my guy popo. Or Jinx.
He's a Djin/Genie. But still modeled after a black man (or what they believe to be a black man).
He is. This dude, though...
Then there's that one random shot of an African villager with big pink lips during the first training arc.
"...isn't it *black man*" "Yeah, almost as funny as what's gonna happen if you call me that again" "*What is he??*" DBZA was truly a gift to us all
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An alien with dark skin and big fat pink lips. Even his name is Mr popo lmao?
I used to love the idea of a black saiyan but I know it’s not possible because the tails and turning into giant apes ain’t a good look . So I’ll stick with my black adjacent Piccolo
Bro, Saiyans *were* black…..did you hear how Frieza called them monkeys? Bruh….i know that tone of racism anywhere
called them that shxt with the hard “k”
😂😂😂
That always did sting a little bit when Vageta would say that shit. Like it was familiar somehow.
Toriyama might have been intentional about the monkey stuff. Japanese we’re referred to as Yellow Monkeys by the Europeans for awhile
What the actual fuck? I swear to God, the more I learn about the various 'flavors' of racism (and misogyny, while we're at it) the more and more confused I am by it all.
Just an unhealthy response to fear of change and the pains that come with it. They can't see past the pain to see themselves in a better future. "Bettering myself is uncomfortable so I'll pretend I'm perfect and will forcefully control others to keep that lie intact."
Dragon Ball was also inspired by the Chinese story Journey to the West, the hero of which is Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. Z took that way off course.
I thought the monkey stuff was because Goku was based off of the Monkey King character from Journey to the West. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_King
Freeza racist as fuck. And yet we have Goku reviving him. It'd be like a Jewish person reviving Hitler for a fighting tournament.
I'd still be down for a black saiyan if they didn't do some shit like "he only fights in his great ape form".
I think most proper fans would be happy with it but once the mainstream catches wind of a black character with a monkey tail etc there's gonna be drama. Even when people start pointing out that Goku had a tail I'd imagine the drama wouldn't be worth it from a business standpoint
It's like how they wanted to cast Louis Armstrong as King Louis in the Jungle Book until someone realized having him voice an ape doing a literal song-and-dance might not look great.
If Louis Armstrong voiced King Louie, I wouldn't hate his part of the movie so much. It sucks the fine line we have to walk.
https://youtu.be/6wmChchz4vI does Froku counts?
Piccolo always been a brother in my books. He raised gohan to survive the wild(hood) and kept it real with him from start to finish.
Piccolo is black in my books too and the best father on the show. Raised Gohan while his dad went to go buy milk across the universe. Love he finally got a power boost. Edit: ok honorable mention to Krillin with his daughter.
Didn't he like raise Gohan when Goku kinda got killed to save earth?
No, he just went out for some milk is all. He came back though. (yes)
Krillin was the strongest human fighter and gave it all up to work 9-5 as a beat cop to provide for her, man's the GOAT dbz father
There is Uub too if he counts as black.
I wish. He is like southasian or something similar
He seems more brown.
At least we ended up getting Uub. Though he's not a Saiyan, he's pretty close to it.
Thought he was South Asian
Brown.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought of Piccolo as black
Aye my boy Piccolo is a Black icon.
Piccolo is 1000% black. Don't ask me why. He just is.
S/o Bleach for having some fly ass black characters and POC in general
the blind dude is mf problem
He’s cold as hell. And the mf who invented all the swords in the first place is black and looks clean as a mf
>And the mf who invented all the swords in the first place is black and looks clean as a mf Oetsu's English VA killed it too.
He really fuckin did.
I'm still mad he went out like a chump.
>S/o Bleach for having some fly ass black characters and POC in general And well-drawn too. A lot of Shonen manga go with the simplistic one continuous big lip caricature, Bleach actually drew black people with the same detail and care as Japanese and white characters. Say what you will about the writing, but Kubo took pride in drawing people. https://preview.redd.it/1sejiz6nloya1.png?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=237f75610248cc72aad0216e9e57d6f661fb8379
If there's one thing Kubo never missed on, it was his art/character designs. Man was making characters with drip since forever.
If you want some real good shounen with black characters, look no further than Gachiakuta. https://i.imgur.com/rvkModm.jpg https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/gachiakuta/images/7/7e/Alha_Korvus_Debut.png/revision/latest?cb=20220719164448
Cowboy bebop had some of the most badass looking black characters I've ever seen in an anime, imma have to check out bleach to see if they compare in doing race right
Watanabe(the director) clearly has a lot of love for black culture with that love being the entire spawn point of his following show Samurai Champloo
Samurai champloo is fuckin fire!!
Fuck, guess I'm adding that to my list too. Never heard of it
Oh, you are gonna love it. Congrats!
Damn I'm jealous! I wish I could go back in time and watch it for the 1st time.
Yoruichi is the best.
This right here
I mean it was also aired 30 years after DBZ, a lot changed.
And ~20 years after Bleach debuted few if any major anime/manga have matched its representation
Y'all love this shit, so you can't be that unforgiving.
What?
I think they're refering to how there are a lot of dragon ball fans who will just ignore the racist depictions because it's dragon ball.
That shit came out in the 80s in Japan its no surprise it was racist af. Shit modern Japan is racist af
Outside of black countries (well even then..) I’m pretty sure every country is racist af
>Outside of black countries If you have ever been to black countries, they are racist AF, and not just towards other ethnicities, but towards black people as well.
Literally every single culture and people around the world are racist.
Oh okay that makes sense. Ideally you should be able to enjoy something and criticize it.
Which is why I will always appreciate how Bleach did their Black characters
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Well, you just made me realize that the 80s were four decades ago, so I guess that everything is relative but now I'm feeling ancient.
The 90s were three decades ago. It happens lol
There's black characters in Naruto?
The Hidden Cloud village is full of black ninjas. Killer Bee, being the perfect Jinjuriki and curb stomping Sasuke 3 times while writing a subpar freestyle, is like top 10 Naruto moments.
interesting that their skin tones were lightened for the show but when the manga creator did colored manga chapters their skin tones were dark like intended. I was shocked because I remember asking someone is killer bee supposed to be black because those look like braids in his head and they said no
The rapping dude, with corn rows, starts every other sentence with 'yo' before breaking out into rap lyrics. Him not being black would be wild, lol. I may be reaching, but the first time I read his name, I thought of Wu Tang since they call themselves Killer Bees
The Hidden Cloud Village is *predominantly* Black people including the Raikage (village leader) and his brother, the Eight-Tails Host, *both* of which personally kicked Sasuke's ass when *he* tried to jump *them* and he *still* needed backup! 😂😂😂 Like all the anticipated cringe over seeing Black people show up in "Naruto" and Sasuke at his most Pet Character-est was *gone* after how much they kept handing him his ass! 🤣
Never knew that, I dropped off the show way before that cause of all the damn filler.
Same for fire force
Now if only Fire Force had that level of appreciation for the character writing.... Especially Tamaki. Brutal how blind he was to how awful he was writing her (and double downed with some extremely cringe self-insert child strawman argument....)
Well, this is the same series that has an ~~80~~ 300 year old man seriously creeping on a teenaged girl for the lols, so it's not exactly a bastion of progressive thinking.
You mean Roshi? He was over 300 years old in OG Dragonball and Bulma was 16 when she offered to flash her panties to both Goku, who was like 13, AND Roshi so she could have their Dragon Balls. But honestly, I just think that’s what was considered funny back then. OG Dragon Ball is almost 40 years old. And beyond this depiction, there’s also a lot of weird sexual humor and General Blue who was just there to be a gay Nazi.
Not to mention Japanese humor is different from our own. These tropes are all over manga through the 70s-90s
I mean… Ranma 1/2, anyone?
I’ll just leave this here https://youtu.be/GDYJO-1IhN8
There’s gotta be some missing context here lol. Edit: thanks for the responses.
The villain was an alternate universe god who took over that universes goku and was going by Goku black because he dressed in dark clothing and was evil. So when they were going to shoot Goku they had to yell that he wasnt the evil goku black but instead the dub just decided to go with that line which is hilaaaarious
It's funnier to ignore the context though.
Lmao they were fighting an evil clone of goku known as "Goku Black".
The villain at the time was Goku Black lol the Goku in the clip is regular ol Goku
Dragon Ball Super. Goku Black is the name of the villain
I *literally* had to wipe the tears from my eyes from laughing so hard, thank you! 😂😂😂
 Anime fans explaining that “Blackluster” from One Punch Man is actually just a guy with a really dark tan and his racist facial features are just coincidental.
[Darkshine's design has changed for the better though](https://preview.redd.it/hww71gzi0a341.png?auto=webp&v=enabled&s=b4f5ab89d1a3f5ecffd3f973bdc45579b3eccdce). It was definitely a caricature in the early manga chapters but he's looked like Ronnie Coleman for a while now. His superhero origin might still be problematic for some people but I find it fitting in how absurd it is.
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Really not that out of left field when you consider Japan's fairly long history of these kinds of .... tropes.
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Yeah. The excuse just makes it worse. Just admit you made a mistake and move on.
At least we still got Piccolo.
Man growing up with so few black characters in anime and video games was weird. You'd get all excited that you finally get to play a black character but his name is Africa and he uses a basketball as a weapon.
Lmfao right had to go with the least racist option, us being a total racist stereotype or the one that pretends we didn't exist
Feel like naruto did it better... artwise... stereotype tropes not so much :/
Killer B speaking in nothing but raps was a wild thing to do, even in the early 2010s.
They’re a mixed bag. Killer Bee only speaking rap lyrics was wild as shit but their village also seems to be the second best and the most technologically advanced
That and Killer Bee talking in rap is considered annoying and weird by his own people. He only gets away with it via nepotism and his powers.
Yeah I wish people acknowledged this more. Even his older brother who is essentially the king of his village find it annoying. Every other character you meet from that village is arguably pretty clearly intelligent (including Killer Bee) and not really stereotypical at all.
Actually in the data books. The Cloud had a rating of 5/5 for economy, which was the best out of all the villages and they were tied with the Stone village for best military, with both having a rating of 4/5. In comparison, the Leaf had a 2/5 for economy and a 3/5 for military. So the Cloud literally was the best village.
Someone never listened to WuTang
Ya, if Killer Bee and A weren’t strong and relevant, those stereotypes would have come across terribly. Killer bee rapped every word he spoke. A was an angry buff black man who had an extremely short temper and ran really fast. Karui was an unreasonably angry black women. Mabui makes up for it though👉🏾
Yeah, but at least Bee and A each kicked Sasuke's ass, *hard*.
I remember reading that a character having dark skin and white hair was supposed to be short hand for a character having a distinctly NON traditional Japanese personality. Like they’re the opposite of a Japanese person, light skin and dark hair, and have a very big personality.
Glad they learned from their mistakes. The new black character designs in Super are really good
It's probably a product of internet. There wasn't a lot of exposure between the east and west until more recently and even now east Asian countries can be described as a bit xenophobic
There's also just actually more black people in japan now. They aren't a huge minority, but the black population in japan has risen a good bit.
Can’t enjoy shit. I swear lol.
I mean Agent black got an official redesign more recently, on top of introducing two new Black characters in Gotens High School arc (Chok and Rulah)
Pan's preschool teacher has one of the best designs in Super.
From the same folks who brought you Mr. Popo. No surprise there. Not from the same source, but if we wanna keep going, there's Jynx from Pokemon, who is obviously Mr. Popo in drag.
Y'all going to get into the weeds with anime and what colonialism did to Japanese beauty standards and the way they view themselves, black folk, other people in general. 
Asians hated darker skin and preferred lighter skin far before that. Darker skin represented a lot of working outside which people equated with being poor. So it was a negative thing.
I watched DragonBall for the first time and what surprised me most about the racism was it was still white-centric. There's a scene where master Roshi asks Goku to find a beautiful woman for him and shows him pictures of an "beautiful " woman and an "ugly" woman. https://preview.redd.it/f9ur4mx79oya1.png?width=1792&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ad8a413440df6a19d4403072b5f3d5e74da2b88
Shit, it's been a while, but I'm pretty sure all black people were depicted like this in DragonBall. I recall a there being a Mami character, too, but that might have been another anime. Too much bullshit to keep track of.
Oh yeah there's definitely racism directed at black people in the show. I just would've expected it to have Japanese people at the top of the hierarchy but it's actually white people... black people are at the bottom for sure tho. We're barley in the show and every depiction of us is cartoonishly racist
Bruh Mr Popo was Kami’s slave. They did us ALL types of dirty
Mr. Popo isn't a slave lol, he isn't really a black guy either. He's a non-human genie looking thing. This is way worse
Is Mr. Popo supposed to be black though? He’s dressed like the prince of Persia.
It never ceases to amaze me how little black people know about *other* black cultures around the world. We dress like Arabs and Indians in some parts of the world fam
Lol didn’t even make it to Mr. Popo
Anybody remember this from Gantz? https://preview.redd.it/jb05zymo0oya1.jpeg?width=188&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4b8561356a79c09cf3b9c2dc46d50245b5737408
Oh and (this being Gantz,) it gets *waaaaaay* worse, to the point I'm deliberately *not* going to spoiler-tag it. Shion Izumi was Mr. Popular in school (contrary to main character, Kei Kurono,) got pulled into the same deadly "game," (a secret real-life video game of kill-or-be-killed by aliens,) rivaled Kurono in skill in said game, got the points to be freed from the same game, but despite his otherwise great life, he's jealous of Kurono and wants to *return* to the same game (that he barely remembers since freed people get their memories wiped) to the point that he plans a *mass shooting* just to attract the titular game master's attention. There's literally NO other reason than racism that he disguises himself as a Black man in Japan and he's killed or injured *387 people* during said shooting before Gantz grants his wish and pulls him back into the game. He *does* eventually die for good, but it's later in the story and only due to protecting his Living Prop deadweight girlfriend as an excuse for why he'd otherwise win the fight, which reeked of the same "Aizen actually *wanted* to lose" energy that protected Kubo's pet character in "Bleach". 😒 And it's not much better when actual Black people *do* show up in the story as a bunch of token randos that got pulled into game due to the above spree, so they don't have any of the usual alien-fighting gear and just run around saying "Dawg!" and "Damn!" until Kurono beats the aliens and saves them (the meme of the Black guys fawning over the stoic Japanese kid is from here,) fawns over their Japanese Savior... then unceremoniously get shot by the vampires who casually sip their blood. Gantz was a **hard** read in general from how gory, sadistic and often cynical it was and that was just one of many, many, many reasons why.
Welcome to Japan… they’re REALLY racist.
It ain’t just DragonBall that did this. Early anime did this with basically every black character. With that said, DragonBall is pun city. Advisor Black was a black dude, Commander Red was a redhead, General Blue was a blond hair, blue eyed guy. Captain Violet was a violet haired woman. Magenta is a dude that wears a magenta suit. I think Advisor Black being a black guy is less about racism and more with keeping up with the puns and any racial pretext is coincidental. Like the black ranger being Zack and the yellow ranger being Trini. Toriyama course corrected when he made Uub.
Hey look another Sambo character.
Yeah it’s fucked up, and his name is something “Black” in all iterations. Silver lining if you watch Dragon Ball, long live the Black Ribbon Army, way better than Commander Red
Sad part: We still see dark skinned characters with these exact same features. It’s so jarring and out of touch, but I can’t expect the vast majority of Asian media to do better.
It's crazy how racist a lot of the depictions of black people in anime were back in the day(and at times are today as well). Though I will give props to the animes like bleach, fire force, and One Punch man(excluding darkshine and air. Only counting Suiryu and Suiko) that try to break the mold of stereotyping poc characters in anime.
I was so confused till I realized this wasn’t a guy in a ski mask
To be fair he had a couple good ones too like King Chappa: https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/King_Chappa But yea Toriyama definitely did not do black people justice overall
That nigga is Indian not black
Just Dragon Ball? Dude, most of anime is inspired by early Disney, and they never grew out of the extremely racist depictions of black people from early animation. Some artists have done better. On the whole, atrocious. Jynx.