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[Village]

Tanned Characters:

You may perceive those Splatoon characters as black, but truthfully, the Japanese designers who created them did not intend them to be black. Sometimes it's hard to remember that the way we perceive the race of a character in Japanese media is sometimes not the way the Japanese artists intended them to be perceived.

So here's the issue with your statement besides suggesting black characters need to fall under your preconceived notion of black, when real black people don't even do that. Like Rashida jones

Art style, your post assumes that everyone would even draw people of color the same, or they would have consistent laws in multiple universes.

Oh, by your logic storm isn't black either by the way. The black lady from africa, because she has strait platinum blond hair.

 

[PadWarrior]

I'm very happy for the options for inklings.

 

[freethoughtbubble]

okay. okay okay okay. thats fine. but dont push down other player's throats what you like imagine. if you like projecting yourself onto a character and make them black, thats fine. but dont say that they are definitively black, because other non-black players may feel that they are not black.

Fuck off with this. Who is pushing anything down your throat? You don't like this conversation (for god knows what reasons) then leave.

Edit: And he's gone. Good.

 

[chertipros]

As a black guy from Latin America/the Caribbean I always felt that the Donkey Kong characters represented good stand ins for that region in terms of the themes and motifs of the Donkey Kong Country games and how they have paralleled the history there (the Banana Wars, Imperialism, etc). Too bad they just had to be apes though :/

 

[Kebiinu]

Thank goodness he was banned. Cause I was honestly offended at a lot of the shit he was saying. It's crazy that people have the nerve to argue against representation of PoC. Seeing this "But they're just TAN" makes me realize just how regressive our community can be.

 

[Harmen]

Not sure why people are arguing about them more likely being Japanese tanned people to be honest, because they are dark skinned squidlings. They are an imaginary race/species that come in all kinds of skin colors, including black. It is great that Nintendo chose to give them different skin tones/colors and that people can pick a color that resembles them the most, and feel represented because of it.

And I also hope Nintendo will feature more black/brown characters in the future.

 

[Huge Succeeded]

Or rather, they are simply tanned characters.

What makes dark skinned inklinks 'black'? South-East Asian? South American? Arab? Okinawian?

The dichotomy of binary opposition of 'black' and 'white' is an Euro-american centric concept, that yes, does exist due to the prevalence of globalization and colonization outside of the confines of these regions, but none-the-less remains a construction of euro-american centric societies.

Diversity can be celebrated outside of the dichomoty of binary opposition that is 'black' and 'white'. Arguing otherwise is not an affront to 'black' representation, but rather an acknowledgement that these concepts are not universal constructs of societal stratification across the globe.

Diversity is good, good on Nintendo, but let us not assign meaning where perhaps there is none.

For all intents and purposes, I think your point is semantic, and doesn't take away from the discussion taking place in this thread, but I don't think it's wrong, either.

 

[DecoReturns]

Yeah noticed that when watching a review. Glad they gave skin options seeing how Splatoon is like that.

But where is my boy Diddy?

 

[PSqueak]

Let me ask a simple question.

Out of all the tanned anime characters posted, has at any point in the series has the character ever lost their tan? Have at any time have they been shown to have to work at keeping a tanned look?

Not that i agree with their views, but the excuse is that all these characters are the athlete archetype and the tan is implied from being outside training daily.

It just exposes the japanese mentality towards skin tones.

 

[Oersted]

Nintendo never seemed to me to be a company that cared "too much" about reprasentation. Too many non-humans and if you share their skin you probably should see a doctor.

That doesn't change the fact that this really cool and welcomed.

 

[exfatal]

I know it's generally frowned upon to say but holy shit the latest round of junior members are about the worst shitposting (with shit opinions to boot) lot I've seen in a looooong time.

Seriously garbage posts and moronic opinions.

yeah seriously i usually read something so outrageously stupid, then i look at the user name and see that their a junior and it all makes sense. Its sad really sad a lot of people here not only the juniors will try and bend over back words to disprove that the game their interested in might have some representation of another skin color other then white, and paler white. As a black person i'm happy that i could choose black squid girl, while my bro can pick black squid girl (in all likely hood though he'll probably just choose black yoshi) Representation is important to everyone don't try to rain on our parade you jerks.

Edit: to be clear i know not all juniors are like this just seems to be a big influx of the bad ones i'm noticing more

 

[PadWarrior]

Yeah noticed that when watching a review. Glad they gave skin options seeing how Splatoon is like that.

But where is my boy Diddy?

Dlc
With onyx Mario

 

[Kinsei]

It is really cool.

Yeah noticed that when watching a review. Glad they gave skin options seeing how Splatoon is like that.

But where is my boy Diddy?

Hopefully off holding his own kart racing tournament.I really can;t think of a good reason he's not in the game unless Diddy Kong Racing 2 is in development.

 

[PSqueak]

Nintendo never seemed to me to be a company that cared "too much" about reprasentation. Too many non-humans and if you share their skin you probably should see a doctor.

That doesn't change the fact that this really cool and welcomed.

F-zero games tend to have a good deal of variable representation of human characters

 

[pinkurocket]

I love the variety in skin colors for inklings. Even in Asia there's a big variety of skin tones (especially South-Asia) so seeing various skin colors represented is beautiful (since some people refer to them as being Asian). Dark skinned inklings look awesome.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

okay. okay okay okay. thats fine. but dont push down other player's throats what you like imagine. if you like projecting yourself onto a character and make them black, thats fine. but dont say that they are definitively black, because other non-black players may feel that they are not black.

You are saying having a 24/7 tan in a video game or anime is not Black?

Why?

Because the tan gives you ownership of that character right?

At any point those dark brown tans can become white, in your perception it is just a tan means they are just whites with a tan not blacks.

So if I say they are not tanned they are indeed black, I just took away your ownership and placed them in my camp.

Am I getting at the heart of what your issue with me is?

Because it seems to me you feel I am forcing something down your throat?

So yeah in your mind those are just tanned white inklings.
In my fantasy world those are black inklings.


I like my idea better if so if you believe in tanning inklings so much why don't you spend the 10 hours I spent in animal crossing to get your white inklings tanned?

When the game comes out select a white skinned inkling, if after 10 hours in the sun, maybe a beach course Mario Sunshine level maybe. If after 10 hours you get a tan just like I did. You win. If after 10 hours your inkling is still white and you did not tan then fuck off with your logic.

As long as New Leaf is a thing then these Inklings are the new black to me.

I had to tan my Animal Crossing character weekly just to stay black in your mind a tan is not blackness so it is true they really never gave me an option to be truly black.

But now Nintendo finally gives a game with a real black character no tanning bullshit and the first shit that comes out of your mouth is, Its just a tan bro.

What are you afraid of? Why is a tanned inkling more important to you than my having the option to role play as my own race?

 

[Bahorel]

You are saying having a 24/7 tan in a video game or anime is not Black?

Why?

Because the tan gives you ownership of that character right?

At any point those dark brown tans can become white, in your perception it is just a tan means they are just whites with a tan not blacks.

So if I say they are not tanned they are indeed black, I just took away your ownership and placed them in my camp.

Am I getting at the heart of what your issue with me is?

Because it seems to me you feel I am forcing something down your throat?

So yeah in your mind those are just tanned white inklings.
In my fantasy world those are black inklings.


I like my idea better if so if you believe in tanning inklings so much why don't you spend the 10 hours I spent in animal crossing to get your white inklings tanned?

When the game comes out select a white skinned inkling, if after 10 hours in the sun, maybe a beach course Mario Sunshine level maybe. If after 10 hours you get a tan just like I did. You win. If after 10 hours your inkling is still white and you did not tan then fuck off with your logic.

As long as New Leaf is a thing then these Inklings are the new black to me.

I had to tan my Animal Crossing character weekly just to stay black in your mind a tan is not blackness so it is true they really never gave me an option to be truly black.

But now Nintendo finally gives a game with a real black character no tanning bullshit and the first shit that comes out of your mouth is, Its just a tan bro.

What are you afraid of? Why is a tanned inkling more important to you than my having the option to role play as my own race?

Don't worry he was banned.

 

[ffdgh]

Feels good to finally have the option aside from my mii.

 

[gogojira]

Good, topic can get on track again. I'm not black but I fucking love it and plan to regularly use them. They need to be the default squid boy and girl in the next Smash,

 

[Messofanego]

lmao you guys with the tanned malarkey, who are you fooling?

 

[Bahorel]

lmao you guys with the tanned malarkey, who are you fooling?

Themselves

 

[ChrisD]

Good, topic can get on track again. I'm not black but I fucking love it and plan to regularly use them. They need to be the default squid boy and girl in the next Smash,

Not trying to take topic back off the rails, but he wasn't really a latest round of Junior, he actually joined a month before you, in 2009.

 

[BajiBoxer]

Not trying to take topic back off the rails, but he wasn't really a latest round of Junior, he actually joined a month before you, in 2009.

Well, with a population the size of neogaf you're bound to trigger some lurking white supremacists.

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

You are saying having a 24/7 tan in a video game or anime is not Black?

Why?

Because the tan gives you ownership of that character right?

At any point those dark brown tans can become white, in your perception it is just a tan means they are just whites with a tan not blacks.

So if I say they are not tanned they are indeed black, I just took away your ownership and placed them in my camp.

Am I getting at the heart of what your issue with me is?

Because it seems to me you feel I am forcing something down your throat?

So yeah in your mind those are just tanned white inklings.
In my fantasy world those are black inklings.


I like my idea better if so if you believe in tanning inklings so much why don't you spend the 10 hours I spent in animal crossing to get your white inklings tanned?

When the game comes out select a white skinned inkling, if after 10 hours in the sun, maybe a beach course Mario Sunshine level maybe. If after 10 hours you get a tan just like I did. You win. If after 10 hours your inkling is still white and you did not tan then fuck off with your logic.

As long as New Leaf is a thing then these Inklings are the new black to me.

I had to tan my Animal Crossing character weekly just to stay black in your mind a tan is not blackness so it is true they really never gave me an option to be truly black.

But now Nintendo finally gives a game with a real black character no tanning bullshit and the first shit that comes out of your mouth is, Its just a tan bro.

What are you afraid of? Why is a tanned inkling more important to you than my having the option to role play as my own race?

the feels...

 

[gogojira]

Not trying to take topic back off the rails, but he wasn't really a latest round of Junior, he actually joined a month before you, in 2009.

Confused him with the first page guy, I guess. Either way he sucks.

 

[Crocodile]

Cool of Nintendo to include this

I'm also hoping Nintendo makes more IPs with characters who are PoC (or approximate them). Means more of them can show up in cross-overs too!

I will say I'm not that surprised though since this was an option for the original Inklings. I can imagine if they didn't also include this option in Mario Kart (or when they make their eventual Smash debut) there would have been very justified backlash.

Some people here really should be asking themselves why they're so annoyed by the idea of black people feeling represented in a video game.

Seriously. The only "right" answer to the addition of a skin tone option in a game should be "cool", "neat", "great" or some variation of some sort. Some people getting triggered for no goddamn reason (or often less than savory reasons) :/

So here's the issue with your statement besides suggesting black characters need to fall under your preconceived notion of black, when real black people don't even do that. Like Rashida jones

Art style, your post assumes that everyone would even draw people of color the same, or they would have consistent laws in multiple universes.

Oh, by your logic storm isn't black either by the way. The black lady from africa, because she has strait platinum blond hair.

To add to this, most anime artstyles aren't good at depicting ethnicity of any sort. For example, many characters who are supposed to be unequivocally ethnic Japanese don't "look" like an average human Japanese person. The human brain can see faces out of door knobs. Putting aside that people of ethnicity X are quite varied in how they look, "approximations" have value too.

 

[foxuzamaki]

lol
by your definition, these girls are also black. they arent

https://tinyurl.com/jwgugwe

Is this post real

 

[TylersProphecy]

Pretty big deal, actually.

Why do people always have to step in to these threads to tell people that they don't care? We get it you're probably white.

Off topic but this comment is racist.

 

[PadWarrior]

As someone who is a light skinned black man with biracial kids I really love the options. I remember growing up playing sports games with create a players that didn't have a lighter brown option. Good choice for me and my kids.

 

[proto]

What are you afraid of? Why is a tanned inkling more important to you than my having the option to role play as my own race?

the feels...

:<

Yeah this one hit deep.

 

[Poketune]

Love that Nintendo is making an effort to be inclusive. Always nice to see!

 

[Trojita]

It's nice that they added this as an option. As far as the tanned vs. black thing, I could see how some people could view the inklings as tanned versions while others see them as characters they can self identify with being black.

I like my idea better if so if you believe in tanning inklings so much why don't you spend the 10 hours I spent in animal crossing to get your white inklings tanned?

When the game comes out select a white skinned inkling, if after 10 hours in the sun, maybe a beach course Mario Sunshine level maybe. If after 10 hours you get a tan just like I did. You win. If after 10 hours your inkling is still white and you did not tan then fuck off with your logic.

As long as New Leaf is a thing then these Inklings are the new black to me.

I had to tan my Animal Crossing character weekly just to stay black in your mind a tan is not blackness so it is true they really never gave me an option to be truly black.

But now Nintendo finally gives a game with a real black character no tanning bullshit and the first shit that comes out of your mouth is, Its just a tan bro.

What are you afraid of? Why is a tanned inkling more important to you than my having the option to role play as my own race?

This post confused me because I didn't realize you could tan in Animal Crossing. Still is a weird justification brought in when talking about a different game that doesn't have this system built into it.

 

[Malyse]

You are saying having a 24/7 tan in a video game or anime is not Black?

Why?

Because the tan gives you ownership of that character right?

At any point those dark brown tans can become white, in your perception it is just a tan means they are just whites with a tan not blacks.

So if I say they are not tanned they are indeed black, I just took away your ownership and placed them in my camp.

Am I getting at the heart of what your issue with me is?

Because it seems to me you feel I am forcing something down your throat?

So yeah in your mind those are just tanned white inklings.
In my fantasy world those are black inklings.


I like my idea better if so if you believe in tanning inklings so much why don't you spend the 10 hours I spent in animal crossing to get your white inklings tanned?

When the game comes out select a white skinned inkling, if after 10 hours in the sun, maybe a beach course Mario Sunshine level maybe. If after 10 hours you get a tan just like I did. You win. If after 10 hours your inkling is still white and you did not tan then fuck off with your logic.

As long as New Leaf is a thing then these Inklings are the new black to me.

I had to tan my Animal Crossing character weekly just to stay black in your mind a tan is not blackness so it is true they really never gave me an option to be truly black.

But now Nintendo finally gives a game with a real black character no tanning bullshit and the first shit that comes out of your mouth is, Its just a tan bro.

What are you afraid of? Why is a tanned inkling more important to you than my having the option to role play as my own race?

 

[Smiles and Cries]

Not that i agree with their views, but the excuse is that all these characters are the athlete archetype and the tan is implied from being outside training daily.

It just exposes the japanese mentality towards skin tones.

It is still racist dude.

Being outside in the sun all day means a 24/7 tan that never goes away through the whole anime series. Athlete sporty, tomboyish, whatever the case is it is still a trope of adding blackness without having to add blackness.

Those character never lose their tans, their skin is never really a serious subject of the plot, they don't face racism, bigotry or whatever a black character would face in a story that is representing the real world.

All Japanese manga are made by Japanese for Japanese, I am not claiming any of those tanned characters need to be black. I am just pointing out the tans are never realistic 99% of the time. Every series has one or two tanned characters. Bleach, Naruto, go a little beyond using the black with white hair trope. It is still a copout. They want those characters to be perceived as black, powerful, cool, sexy, exotic. Whatever the goal is they are using that skin tone for that effect.

Any black kid in the west looking at dark skinned characters in Manga or Anime instantly identify themselves with that character. Urd was my favorite Goddess even though she was just the half sister of Belldandy the main Character.

was Urd tanned 24/7?

Black with White Hair? Always in anime dark skinned characters are always in an in-betweet state as they can go one why or the other. This is done to make blackness more palatable, it has worked wonders. White people get to say Urd is white, she has white hair and a white sister. Black people in the US knows the one drop rule, if part of you is black you are black.

Making dark skin more satisfactory to racists, is not a good reason to create 24/7 dark skinned characters with oh thats a just a tan pass. As a black person I just can't dismiss the use of the skin tone. Most of the time the story and plot does not really call for it. If training outdoors made you that black then the Summer Olympics would only have one shade of skin from all nations.

The point of the thread is Nintendo made a clear choice to give options to the inklings to represent other races where these skin tones did not exist in other Nintendo IPs. This is mostly from the same people who gave us Animal Crossing New Leaf with a Beach Tanning feature for skin choices.

They could have added the same feature in Splatoon if that was the direction they wanted.

 

[Pupperbabysassy]

Does Mii count? I used my Mii and I'm black

 

[Frozenprince]

I wonder why people only ever get snippy when it comes to black folks getting a single character model in a video game.

Hmm.

Wonder wonder.

 

[Hubbl3]

Does Mii count? I used my Mii and I'm black

Did you even read the thread title?

 

[ffdgh]

Does Mii count? I used my Mii and I'm black

Sure but now there's an official option to pick from now.

 

[foxuzamaki]

You are saying having a 24/7 tan in a video game or anime is not Black?

Why?

Because the tan gives you ownership of that character right?

At any point those dark brown tans can become white, in your perception it is just a tan means they are just whites with a tan not blacks.

So if I say they are not tanned they are indeed black, I just took away your ownership and placed them in my camp.

Am I getting at the heart of what your issue with me is?

Because it seems to me you feel I am forcing something down your throat?

So yeah in your mind those are just tanned white inklings.
In my fantasy world those are black inklings.


I like my idea better if so if you believe in tanning inklings so much why don't you spend the 10 hours I spent in animal crossing to get your white inklings tanned?

When the game comes out select a white skinned inkling, if after 10 hours in the sun, maybe a beach course Mario Sunshine level maybe. If after 10 hours you get a tan just like I did. You win. If after 10 hours your inkling is still white and you did not tan then fuck off with your logic.

As long as New Leaf is a thing then these Inklings are the new black to me.

I had to tan my Animal Crossing character weekly just to stay black in your mind a tan is not blackness so it is true they really never gave me an option to be truly black.

But now Nintendo finally gives a game with a real black character no tanning bullshit and the first shit that comes out of your mouth is, Its just a tan bro.

What are you afraid of? Why is a tanned inkling more important to you than my having the option to role play as my own race?

This post bruh, hits deep

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

Nah guys, you celebrated too soon. I'm going to claim them as Latinos (and all six of them at that), and you can't do anything about it!

 

[Smiles and Cries]

It's nice that they added this as an option. As far as the tanned vs. black thing, I could see how some people could view the inklings as tanned versions while others see them as characters they can self identify with being black.



This post confused me because I didn't realize you could tan in Animal Crossing. Still is a weird justification brought in when talking about a different game that doesn't have this system built into it.

Most of the Animal Crossing New Leaf team went on to create Splatoon
if they wanted tanned Inklings they have that history of creating a tanning feature that took hours of game time to reach dark skin. My point was if he feels those characters in the game are tanned not black he can go and get one of the white ones a tan to prove his case.

My case is they are naturally black selectable not just tanned.

 

[Velocity:Design:Comfort]

Off topic but this comment is racist.

Maybe, but your comment is some obvious I-need-to-defend-whiteness-but-I-won't-admit-its-because-its-white-fragilityism.

 

[cmChimera]

The characters in Arms are supposed to be corporate sponsored mascot fighters (according to the bios) with the exception of Mechanica (who made her suit herself rather than being corporate sponsored).

Spring Man reps a gym, Ribbon Girl Reps as a record label, Min Min reps as noodle shop.

Doubt they'd do that to the black character since it would be, in addition to racist, stupid to repeat a theme for 2 characters (restaurant, or for that matter, doubt they would make them, like, rap based since Ribbon Girl has record label covered ), that said, let's hope she is not repping something ignorant.

What? Why can't a black person represent a computer company or something? I'm not even sure why you suggested that the only possible corporate sponsors for a black person would be racist stereotypes.

 

[Trojita]

Most of the Animal Crossing New Leaf team went on to create Splatoon
if they wanted tanned Inklings they have that history of creating a tanning feature that took hours of game time to reach dark skin. My point was if he feels those characters in the game are tanned not black he can go and get one of the white ones a tan to prove his case.

My case is they are naturally black selectable not just tanned.

Why would they include tanning in a racing game?

It's a neat feature in a sim like Animal Crossing.

 

[cmChimera]

You are saying having a 24/7 tan in a video game or anime is not Black?

Why?

Because the tan gives you ownership of that character right?

At any point those dark brown tans can become white, in your perception it is just a tan means they are just whites with a tan not blacks.

So if I say they are not tanned they are indeed black, I just took away your ownership and placed them in my camp.

Am I getting at the heart of what your issue with me is?

Because it seems to me you feel I am forcing something down your throat?

So yeah in your mind those are just tanned white inklings.
In my fantasy world those are black inklings.


I like my idea better if so if you believe in tanning inklings so much why don't you spend the 10 hours I spent in animal crossing to get your white inklings tanned?

When the game comes out select a white skinned inkling, if after 10 hours in the sun, maybe a beach course Mario Sunshine level maybe. If after 10 hours you get a tan just like I did. You win. If after 10 hours your inkling is still white and you did not tan then fuck off with your logic.

As long as New Leaf is a thing then these Inklings are the new black to me.

I had to tan my Animal Crossing character weekly just to stay black in your mind a tan is not blackness so it is true they really never gave me an option to be truly black.

But now Nintendo finally gives a game with a real black character no tanning bullshit and the first shit that comes out of your mouth is, Its just a tan bro.

What are you afraid of? Why is a tanned inkling more important to you than my having the option to role play as my own race?

Wow. Fantastic.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

Nah guys, you celebrated too soon. I'm going to claim them as Latinos (and all six of them at that), and you can't do anything about it!

I have a full set of PBS documentaries to show you where Latinos come from, if you push it lol

I'll give you 4 of the 6

 

[Javier]

I want to dismiss the notion that the Inklings are just tanned by pointing out that the green ink one has an even lighter skin going for the porcelain pale side which also needs representation and I feel is a really nice touch. It shows they were aware of the changes

could you even choose one that white in Splatoon? I have to go check.

Yup. For the record, there were seven skin tones in Splatoon.

 

[J@hranimo]

I'm glad they added these skin tones in MK8D. Splatoon has the option of 7 skin tones since it's your avatar in a sense, so seeing them consider these options is a good move.

 

[Hattori]

to me personally, they are ambiguous enough that many POCs can identify with them i.e. Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, Black, Pacific Islanders, South Americans and so forth. they are what people want them to be, there's no need to arbitrarily label them

 

[Smiles and Cries]

Why would they include tanning in a racing game?

It's a neat feature in a sim like Animal Crossing.

the same reason others are saying the Inklings are just tanned

tanning is not a major part of the Splatoon lore as deep as that goes unless we find new evidence that these guys are deep into tanning the whole point of saying they are tanned was to take away the choice of role playing as a black Inkling