racey issue

firstly excuse the punn.

okay a lil' bit of a contencious topic - about gedo senki (is that right?) so, as some of you are aware in the book the majority of the charactors are of dark brown complexion. in the new movie they are all white. hmmmmmm, why is this?
do you think it simply to direct it towards a western (predominatly white) audiance?
what do you reckon guys?
[IMG]http://img477.imageshack.us/img477/1581/gedposter012rl.jpg" border=0>[/IMG]

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laputa is a

I know nout about gedo senki, but they did the same thing in the Spawn movie, in the comic all the characters are African American, and in the movie, half of them are white. Maybe the stupid film companies think that white peeps will be put off, which we obviously wouldn't be!! Stay true to the original characters I say!!
Btw...sweet pic!

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Post last edited by SpiritedSen on 05.19.2006, 09:20 PM.

I haven't seen it, but film companies do tend to change skin colour depending on audiences. For example, there are thousands of european cartoons retelling bible stories. A very small number actually represent any of the Biblical characters with dark skin, which they should have. Same with the multitude of paintings and modern posters with Biblical links. Very few depict the characters with their true skin colour...

Back to films, I daresay its because a majority of their target audiance will be white, and thus the companies try to make the characters accessable as possible.

In my opinion, I think they should stay true to the original characters too

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Put it this way: how many characters in ghibli movies have you seen with that dark a skin tone?

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Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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ut it this way: how many characters in ghibli movies have you seen with that dark a skin tone?

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laputa is a

The changed the story an awful lot for Kiki and Howl.

Besides, I don't think there's any particular reason at all. Ghibli have been coloring the same skin tones all this while, so they probably just decide to do the same here.

Also remember that while while Miyazaki Goro is at the helm, the animators are the ones coloring. How many animators actually read the book anyway? My guess is that what they know of the story is what Goro wrote for the script.

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quote:

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Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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My guess is that what they know of the story is what Goro wrote for the script.

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laputa is a

You mean La guin actually expressed dissatisfaction with the skin colour?

Wow.

Well, we won't know her reaction until she actually says anything, and it may or may not be positive. DWJ was happy with the way Howl turned out, but Kiki's author was fuming, I believe.

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quote:

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Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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yeh il guess wel have to wait and see.
i reckon she might be a bit peeved, if her interview is anything to go by.
thats funny that the author of kikis was upset by the outcome (to be honest i thought it was an original ghibli piece - eh err) obviously she has little taste.
cheers for your thoughts guys.

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laputa is a

skin color is HADA-IRO

We Japanese believe that the skin color of Ghibli charactors is not white nor black. But they have Japanese skin color HADA-IRO.
For example Kiki's delivery is located in North Europe, but main charactors look like Japanese, we think.
Of course on Japanese release, they speak in Japanese and Kiki writes a letter to her parents in Japanese.Basically, Ghibli animes are made for Japanese market. They get most of incomes from Japanese market.
Charactors in Gedo Senki who look like Japanese is not so strange. If it is a live action movie and Japanes actors play in it, we may feel sense of incongruity,but it is animation, we do not think so unnaturally.
Most of Japanese audience can easily sympathize with the characters who look like Japanese.
sorry poor English --from Japan

Post last edited by Kanta on 06.06.2006, 12:41 PM.

Oh long time no see everyone.


I personally don't really mind the skin-colour issue. Maybe I am too accustomed to the way of Ghibli and other Japanese studios colouring the skins. Yet neither will I freak out even if the whole cast is portrayed in red or black.

As for the studio's intention in doing so, I second Roarkiller and Kanta's points of view. More than likely it is for catering to the Japanese audience and continuing Ghibli's aesthetic style, instead of a result of any particular political reason. People find comfort and security in something they grow up with. For movies, it is easier for an audience to identify with an character that looks like them and exhibits traces that they have been growing up with. Of course the most important criteria for fostering character attachment is personality development and plot development. Yet being a media that emphasizes heavily on visual perception, outward apperances still play a heavy role, at least in the minds of your average audience who just want some enjoyable weekend entertainment.

Actually, Ghibli has once attempted to break away from its own established style. The resulting product is Yamada-kun, a movie with quite an interesting story, and was expected and deserved to perform much better than its pathetic box-office results. Feature-length animation is after all, as Miyazaki put it, an commercial product. Indeed, Studio Ghibli is not an art research institute, and the animators still need to both make a living and satisfy the sponsors. After the heavy blow of Yamada, the next non-Miyazaki film, the Cat's Return, returned to the conventional Ghibli style. It made itself into the top position of the Japanese annual box-office. After these incidents, it is easy to expect which direction will the new generation of Ghibli directors head to.

Yet for Earthsea, Le Guin's furious comments to the previous production does make me worry. For whatever reason that made the TV series director to pick a white cast, Le Guin was obviously highly dissatisfied with the ending product, and targeted her criticisms at the skin colour issue. Apparently the skin colours play a more important role in the story than merely some basic character settings.

I am sure that Ghibli has noticed the weight of the issue. Producer Suzuki even publicly acknowleged the change of the skin colour, but the reasons he gave are a bit weak in my opinion. It is quite likely that Le Guin will end up in a raged mode after seeing the movie if not enough proper and convincing explanations have been given to her. On the other hand, given the bitter expereince Le Guin had when dealing with the live-action series, it is hard to imagine that she did not bring up the issue when negotiating with the Ghibli staff. Maybe they came into an agreement and Le Guin's approval on the changes has been granted. Well, we can only hope for the best.



P.S. Somehow I find it more amazing that anime characters has a great array of hair and eye colours but no one complain about that.

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Originally posted by Jiji P.S. Somehow I find it more amazing that anime characters has a great array of hair and eye colours but no one complain about that.

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quote:

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Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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cerainly a very indepth anser jiji - thank you.
i too am used to the general apearance of ghibli charachtors and am not overly bothered by the gedo senki issue - just curious, as le guins so vocal about the issue i didnt think it could simply have been an oversight on behalf of ghibli.
yeh the hair and eye colour thing. i had noticed it and was always rather intrigued - but it seems in contrast to the idea of catoring for a local audience by making charachtors apear similar to the target audiance. so many blonds!

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laputa is a

Hello everyone, this is my first post here, so first I want to say hello to you all. I just discovered this site today and decided to stay because of the interesting and intelligent discussions you all have.You have so many different points of view but you seem to have real respect for people's right to speak.

This is a really interesting topic....I followed the discussions that happened after the Sci Fi Channel in America made the first two Earthsea books into a TV miniseries. I thought it was going to be great, especially since Philippa Boyens, one of the Lord of the Rings scriptwriters, was meant to be writing the script. She got too busy with LOTR and left, so somebody else took over. The end result was something so unbelievably unlike what Le Guin wrote that it was as though they had deliberately tried to insult her. Apart from insulting her as a feminist and Taoist, they turned most of the characters white, and not just ANY white. They were a sort of cheesy, well-fed, gym-buffed, Hollywood white kind of person. I'm white, and I was insulted on Le Guin's behalf, because her characters are usually people who are considered minorities today (her message being that in another world or time, they might not be minorities at all.)

Now I haven't seen the trailer for Ghibli's Earthsea, and won't be able to until we get broadband internet at home, but the whole question of skin colour in anime was something I was curious about for ages, because to me (who lived over 30 years without ever knowing about anime) everyone looks sort of white, or at least not Japanese, and that annoyed me until I understood it better. I still don't understand it much, but the best thing I read about it said "Well, what about Homer Simpson? Does he look white? He's YELLOW' But for whatever reason (hah!) we don't think he's Asian!

The writer went on to say that it's a stylistic thing in anime to give characters brown or blue or grey or blonde hair when they're clearly Japanese, and to make their eyes round, because that's just the style. Same as Larson's characters have eyes that are just a line, usually. In fact the writer had a whole page of different comic and cartoon characters from different times and places so you could see how stylised most of them are. Some famous cartoon characters are just stick figures. They don't LOOK like one race or another, we just make assumptions about them.

Still I haven't seen the trailer so I'm writing in ignorance - so please forgive me!

Japanese anime characters never look japanse (apart from some of Production IG's characters) because the fledgings of anime/manga were copies of "gaijin", or foreigners, with their big nose, just like how Osamu Tezuka, the father of anime, drew his characters. Over time, more animators come along and developed their own styles, and starting with the first imitation of Mickey Mouse (yes, that's right), characters are drawn with large eyes.

And that's the basic history of animation.

On skin colour, I'm guessing it's just because the japanese decided to adopt their own skin colour for everyone.

For real stereotyped skin-clour matching, a good example would be Dragonball. Especially their portrayal of the Africans.

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quote:

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Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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A good example of this would be Osamu Tezuka's work. Such as Astro Boy and Steamboy. Character design is amazing, his own style, the father of anime, makes his characters round and hardly Japanese. The early Astro Boy was very race oriented, look into his older drawings of Astro Boy, characters were different colours, race, acted different ways to portray their race affectively, I mean you name it Osamu wasn't afraid to do it. Racial wise that is.

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I've never really thought that anime characters looked white. I always assumed that they were Japanese. Probs cos with the crazy hair colours/styles and the huge eyes, no other sort of animation looks anything like anime...and as I always knew that anime was Japanese, I assumed that the characters were Japanese too.
I mean, anime was based on western comic books that came into Japan after the war, but anime (all hail to Osamu Tezuka) took western drawings, added it's own ideas about what's important (big eyes=good, small eyes=bad!), and made something completely new! And as we all know...it totally rules!!

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yeah, everybody does have the same skin color in anime. huh, I never noticed that.
I do think that the characters look more japanese in Grave of the Fireflies though. anyone else see that?

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Actually, almost everyone on earth has the same skin colour.

It's called brown.

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quote:

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Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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Roarkiller said: Actually, almost everyone on earth has the same skin colour.

It's called brown.

I'd say grey....those greyish 'dust mice' that accumulate under furniture and anywhere you don't vacuum.....are mostly made of human skin cells. And they're always grey, as far as I know. Aren't you glad we don't look grey?