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Itagaki is pretty pissed about Lisa's recent change in DOA

ShinMaruku

Member
She's black. The La Mariposa thing was back when she was ambiguous. I mean look a the name Lisa Hamilton, if she was something else they'd have picked a more sterotypical name. However I think this topic went more in depth on this than Itagaki did. :p
 

DOWN

Banned
beyonce_and_her_damned_bleach-79127.gif

This is the first time I've seen this gem
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
Same thing happened with vanessa in VF. It actually happens a lot, the 'lighting' shade to originally dark black characters.

I don't know if its discrimination, there are plenty of lighter tone black people(yours truly), but she was a darker shade in DOA4 obviously
 
Japanese discrimination against Ainu, while very real, isn't really systematic because the Ainu don't really exist outside of a small population in Hokkaido.

The Ainu tried to blend in (having offspring) with yamato Japanese to avoid being persecuted. It wasn't until 2008 that the Japanese government even officially recognized them. So yeah, there's a reason their distinctly recognizable population is small today.

I'm not saying there's heavy discrimination against darker-skinned Japanese today, but there's definitely lingering cultural issues. Look at the anime trope where darker-skinned Japanese characters are usually portrayed as unrefined and crude, and are often involved in criminal/bandit activity.
 

ZdkDzk

Member
Tetra is a pirate of the seas who has a tan.

Zelda represents her tanless indoors type demeanor.

Nothing racist to see here. Has been discussed in a previous GAF topic I believe.

Wellllll Tetra is tanned due to being out in heavy sun all day. It's weird that she suddenly goes to milky white skin after the transformation, but it's not like she was truly whitewashed. It's a weird choice they made, but she has a full face of make-up as Zelda so you have to imagine the transformation also has her scrubbing the dead tan skin off her body and applying body oil to clean and brighten up her skin again.

Now it's considered problematic that she goes from free spirited pirate to scaredy cat princess hiding in a basement, but you have to consider that suddenly she came to the realization of who she really was and all the responsibilities and heavy burden that came with it, which makes her go from tough girl to a scared girl in a realistic matter. She had no worries as Tetra, but as Zelda the whole world rests on her shoulders.
Furthermore she brings back that fire by fighting alongside Link
at the end.

I still agree it would've been cute if they kept her tan as Zelda (I do love that mod you showed) and keep a bit of her unconventional behaviour as princess, but the direction they took still makes sense regardless.

You mean the same tan that only half of her crew has? The one that looks similar to other characters who have no reason to be outside for long periods. The one that matches the king of hyrule, her great-grandpa who spent a century in a a castle at the bottom of the ocean?

Is this something Nintendo said in a quote, because I can't see the reasoning behind it.
 
You mean the same tan that only half of her crew has? The one that looks similar to other characters who have no reason to be outside for long periods. The one that matches the king of hyrule, her great-grandpa who spent a century in a a castle at the bottom of the ocean?

Is this something Nintendo said in a quote, because I can't see the reasoning behind it.

It's just common sense, not everyone tans the same way. As I said, it's a theory that sound the most plausible, I don't think Nintendo has actually said anything on this. Yes, it is a bit unfortunate that she got whitewashed but you can tell they wanted the transformation to be as drastic as possible in that moment. Therefore, full face of make-up, bright milky skin all the bits and bops to make her Princess Zelda. My guess is because of the artstyle being so unique that they really wanted people to get it.
 

ArjanN

Member
Look at the anime trope where darker-skinned Japanese characters are usually portrayed as unrefined and crude, and are often involved in criminal/bandit activity.

I've seen that trope all over the place though, because traditionally the lower classes have to work outside in the sun more. America basically has the same trope with 'rednecks'.
 

synce

Member
I'm glad this is FINALLY getting some attention. I remember when I first saw DOA5 Lisa years ago, like WTF? I also agree with Itagaki about the age thing.
 

Azuardo

Member
You mean the same tan that only half of her crew has? The one that looks similar to other characters who have no reason to be outside for long periods. The one that matches the king of hyrule, her great-grandpa who spent a century in a a castle at the bottom of the ocean?

Is this something Nintendo said in a quote, because I can't see the reasoning behind it.

As said above, it's more the theory. What is actually more plausible is the historical association of royalty represented by very pale skin. It is nothing to do with Nintendo being discriminatory for the sake of it. The "reason" for the colour change is to simply emphasise her nobility and nothing more.
 
That's why I will forever appreciate Hypatias Wind Waker texture mod that keeps Zelda's skin tone the same

i just thought one is super tanned from being outside all day while the princess has fair skin because she hangs inside the castle all day.
 

Squire

Banned
Even if the game itself isn't nearly as extreme as the promo, people should really take that promotional shot to task for being deliberately white-washed.

It's from like three years ago when DOA5 was brand new. I thought it was weird from day one, but we're long past the point where can reasonably take them to task over a promo shot that's not even in circulation anymore.
 

Alo81

Low Poly Gynecologist
Tetra is a pirate of the seas who has a tan.

Zelda represents her tanless indoors type demeanor.

Nothing racist to see here. Has been discussed in a previous GAF topic I believe.

Wellllll Tetra is tanned due to being out in heavy sun all day. It's weird that she suddenly goes to milky white skin after the transformation, but it's not like she was truly whitewashed. It's a weird choice they made, but she has a full face of make-up as Zelda so you have to imagine the transformation also has her scrubbing the dead tan skin off her body and applying body oil to clean and brighten up her skin again.

Now it's considered problematic that she goes from free spirited pirate to scaredy cat princess hiding in a basement, but you have to consider that suddenly she came to the realization of who she really was and all the responsibilities and heavy burden that came with it, which makes her go from tough girl to a scared girl in a realistic matter. She had no worries as Tetra, but as Zelda the whole world rests on her shoulders.
Furthermore she brings back that fire by fighting alongside Link
at the end.

I still agree it would've been cute if they kept her tan as Zelda (I do love that mod you showed) and keep a bit of her unconventional behaviour as princess, but the direction they took still makes sense regardless.

I think that post was sarcasm. Because it's obviously a tan.

I sure hope so, because yep, it is indeed a tan.

I loved tanned Tetra for the record, and I was a bit miffed she goes full white when she turns to Zelda, but it's not a case of white washing or racism/discrimination.

People are looking into things way too much.

You bring her in as dark skinned dastardly pirate tetra, *triforce*, suddenly shes a pale skinned princess. That's lame as hell. It's not like you leave and come back and she's lost her tan. The transition from something viewed as negative (pirate) to something viewed as positive (princess) is matched directly with a change in skin color.

It's not just makeup as well, because her arms are the same color as her face.
 

Replicant

Member
Yeah, this is definitely white washing. People who said Ganguro have no idea what Ganguro girls look like. They look ridiculous. In comparison, Lisa looks like a normal Pacific Islander/Hawaiian girl.
 

Synth

Member
Personally I don't think a good conversation can occur here because some have a blatant Itagaki bias,

You're right... pretty much every post you've made in here has been an Itagaki bash rather than a discussion of the actually topic. There isn't a single person in this thread making as much effort to defend him, as you're making to ensure anything he says is written off, because DOA5 > DOA4.

Lisa absolutely has been lightened in DOA5, was one of the first things I noticed when seeing her in this game. It's not a Vanessa VF5 level disaster, but it is plenty noticeable going from previous entries to this one.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
This man needs to lean that there are many shades of delicious brown skin. 90% of the females I create in games have brown skin soo many options all amazing!

pdEjqJv.jpg

Also I won't claim I know the intention behind posting this or whatever, but a while back some of my, hm, non-white female friends were complaining about how they dislike characterizations like this, the whole "exotic beauty" thing. One of them even said they felt that being called "mocha" was degrading.
 

Azuardo

Member
You bring her in as dark skinned dastardly pirate tetra, *triforce*, suddenly shes a pale skinned princess. That's lame as hell. It's not like you leave and come back and she's lost her tan. The transition from something viewed as negative (pirate) to something viewed as positive (princess) is matched directly with a change in skin color.

It's not just makeup as well, because her arms are the same color as her face.

You either view it offensively or not. Magic happens in Zelda. Zelda disguises herself as a tanned male when she takes on the form of Sheik on Ocarina of Time.

Could they have kept her tan intact when transformed to the princess? Sure they could. But when you look at historical East Asian dipictions and beliefs, nobles are extremely pale skinned, and always shown as such. It's not hard to see why they chose to do this, but like I say, you either take offense to that or not.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
Somebody should put color sliders in for every character in a game just to be on the safe side. Also make it randomize at the start each time unless you disabled it to be perfectly safe.

Everybody gets whatever color they want, plus no preset colors to claim bias with.

I suppose they'd complain about accents then though.
 
You bring her in as dark skinned dastardly pirate tetra, *triforce*, suddenly shes a pale skinned princess. That's lame as hell. It's not like you leave and come back and she's lost her tan. The transition from something viewed as negative (pirate) to something viewed as positive (princess) is matched directly with a change in skin color.

It's not just makeup as well, because her arms are the same color as her face.

Noo I mean as in, the tan wears off due to a rough scrubbing of the skin all over her body.

The point isn't going from a negative to a positive character. It's all about the transformation. The moment it happens in TWW is really dramatic, therefore the transformation was so drastic. My guess is that due to the unique artstyle they really wanted to hit it home that this is the princess Zelda (despite being another timeline blabla). Her design is very much the cartoon version of OoT Zelda, while other characters
like Ganon
took some liberty in redesigns. They wanted to retain the iconic image. But with that said, I really understand your point as well. She's cute with her tan, but to me it makes sense why they went so drastic and it's not just because 'a princess should be white.'
 

la_briola

Member
Those posting Hyrule Warriors examples, Nintendo has a history of whitewashing Zelda characters.

Take Zelda from Wind Waker for example.

Where Zelda goes from mischeivious law breaking slum pirate

[IMG*]http://36.media.tumblr.com/f5e78c25812ed1107396860ca1defb52/tumblr_nc8bv4yCX71sq0cvdo1_1280.png[/IMG]

to the majestic royalty, princess of Hyrule

[IMG*]http://i.imgur.com/hURiQW1.png[/IMG]

Which is pretty messed up!

That's why I will forever appreciate Hypatias Wind Waker texture mod that keeps Zelda's skin tone the same
Do you also have a n64 mod to make sheiks skin white?
 

JDSN

Banned
Why is theres always some dude that brings out ganguro girls when an obviously ethnic character is ethnic?
 

SystemBug

Member
Also I won't claim I know the intention behind posting this or whatever, but a while back some of my, hm, non-white female friends were complaining about how they dislike characterizations like this, the whole "exotic beauty" thing. One of them even said they felt that being called "mocha" was degrading.

Yeah his post is bad.

Wtf is indian summer?
 

Docflem

Member
Yeah his post is bad.

Wtf is indian summer?

It really doesn't help that the pictures are very sexualized to, it has a very "pick out your stripper/prostitute" feel too it. Whats funny to me though is that the other day when I was with my wife picking out hair for her new weave, I swear I saw like half those "category names" as hair products lol.
 

Griss

Member
That's why I will forever appreciate Hypatias Wind Waker texture mod that keeps Zelda's skin tone the same

Wow, I love this. I'd never heard of it before. The treatment of Tetra in Wind Waker always bothered me, from the moment she changed. This is a great fix, though sadly not canon.

As for Lisa, I'm a big DoA fan but I never saw her as supposed to have any African blood. As such, there's a range of skin colours she could rightly be as a hispanic type character. I think she looks better with slightly lighter skin as before the darkness of her skin and her facial features looked a little bit strange to me.

This is coming from someone who finds the whitewashing of african characters or actors etc to be in extremely poor taste, and who was upset with Shantae's change too. Here, the change isn't that big (Itagaki picked a ludicrous pic to begin with) and I feel like the lighter skin simply suits the character better.

What DoA needs* is a black woman character. Black, like Zack is black. African descent. African features. Africans and african descended people are cuties too, after all.

*edit: Needs is a bit strong, 'what I'd like to see in DoA' fits better.
 
We're done here. Itagaki just bullshitting up something so he has another excuse to bitch about the Dead or Alive games he wasn't involved in because he's butthurt that the series is the best it has ever been with DOA5.

This is exactly how i see it ... he's talking about nonsense again because he can't talk about his supposed game in develloppement .

ridiculous.
 

3phemeral

Member
Why is theres always some dude that brings out ganguro girls when an obviously ethnic character is ethnic?
Not to say that these are the same posters in this thread, but I'm wondering if there's a shared mentality with posters who believe that:

  • More diverse racial representations or sexualities should be integrated provided there's sufficient contextual reason for it
  • Despite that characters are often designed as light-skinned by default, without contextual reason
  • Not seeing a problem with this change to lighter skin*
More specifically because these changes to lighter tones are trivialized by giving sufficient contextual reason (*she's ganguro), which "justifies" the palette swap, even though her original design should be perfectly acceptable as is. The change itself, even if there reason for it, signifies that they felt they needed to. That's the problem. What was wrong with it that you felt it needed to be changed?

I may not be articulating this thought as well as I want.
 

Crocodile

Member
I've never played DOA4 or DOA5 so I'm not equipped to really comment on the degree of skin tone change but I will say it is very concerning that we have a bunch of people in here saying "She was clearly always tanned or ganguro" or "I don't see the big deal with skin lightening". I'm giving y'all some side-eye right now.......

Well he's bitching at a shit example image that the OP should really change. Even her hair colour is different to her in-game colour, so you can see the original promo image is all kinds of distorted.

In reality, her current skin tone reflects her Latina origins perfectly fine, so I see no issue at all. TN might have made the decision to go lighter to better reflect that, which I have no problem with. I think this is blown way out of proportion, but when you use the bad example image, of course him, his fans and others against any sort of colour changing will kick up a fuss. I think because it's a skin tone issue, it speaks to more people and more people take it offensively. If it's hair colour, less people would care.

Latino/Latina people come in a range of skin tones. Making them lighter isn't making them any more accurate. Also your comparisons to hair color are disingenuous since hair color is not nearly as immutable as skin color (all that being said, racism directed to those of near African descent due to the nature of their hair is a VERY real thing)
 
Not to say that these are the same posters in this thread, but I'm wondering if there's a shared mentality with posters who believe that:

  • More diverse racial representations or sexualities should be integrated provided there's sufficient contextual reason for it
  • Despite that characters are often designed as light-skinned by default, without contextual reason
  • Not seeing a problem with this change to lighter skin*
More specifically because these changes to lighter tones are trivialized by giving sufficient contextual reason (*she's ganguro), which "justifies" the palette swap, even though her original design should be perfectly acceptable as is. The change itself, even if there reason for it, signifies that they felt they needed to. That's the problem. What was wrong with it that you felt it needed to be changed?

I may not be articulating this thought as well as I want.

It's quite obvious to me that if we're talking about skin change on lisa ...the answer is simply that DOA4 & DOA5 have different lightning engines.
The argument that itagaki made is just wrong
 
Her alter ego is "La Mariposa" so it's pretty obvious she's Latina, not ganguro or black

LOL

Are we down to implying most Africans from the slave trade didn't end up in South and Central America?

Might want to sit down for this one. You have some catching up to do. Jesus Christ, GAF.
 
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