Diversity in Animanga | Media Literacy 201

It's been a while, and we can't dance around the political aspects of media forever. Let's talk about representation, what it means, why I think it's a good thing, and why I think some of the arguments against it are silly.

Thumbnail:
Join this channel to get access to perks:

Everything I've ever been wrong about:

[MostAttractiveDudeInTown]

Can't believe there are people who saw the Minecraft trailer and their biggest issue was a black woman existing. Instead of the bad comedy, bad acting, bad lines, bad CGI, bad everything.

[mrcaos]

Lycoris Recoil had one of the best representations i know in media. Mika being her guardian figure that just happened to be gay. This was no big topic. It was not like he acted any different because he is gay. It was just a small detail: "Oh this two had a relationship."
This is the perfect way to include it in my pov.
The same counted for the fact that he was a poc. at no point they make a big topic out of the fact that he is poc. He just was and this was totally normal and not made him act any different as her father like a white men.

[unseenhand]

This video stands tall above a sea of resctionary and downright anti-art content. I think the part of the sentiment that art should "not be political" that angers me the most is that it bodly states that the stories of some groups are inherently more valuable to write and read about than those of other groups. That the experiences of colored people or the LGBT community being reflected in a work of fiction inherently make it more political and dangerous than it would be without those elements. In general, I think that people should realize that art doesn't soley exist to entertain or be consumed. Most art exists both as a product to be consumed by an audience and as a vehicle of expression by the artists, and telling artists that some of their experiences are simply too "political" to be expressed shows a lack of understanding of why we create art in the first place.

[shweep]

To me, re zero has amazing character diversity sexuality wise. Roswall, Felix, Crusch and Subaru to an extent are amazing examples of people dealing with gender roles and the things a man or a woman have to do. But to me diversity is very subjective. To me people need to be able to see thekselves personality wise, not sexuality or race. Even though im not japanese or dealing with gender issues i can relate to subaru and felix just because of the stuff they go through

[fgregerfeaxcwfeffece]

Blue and pink swapped within the last 100 years if anyone wants a nice example on how arbitrary those things are.

[nicelight]

It's wild how hard people will fight back when you point out how representation can matter and how certain groups have had less for questionable reasons. I'm reminded of the recent Genshin Impact skin color discourse.

Long story shorter, the game's regions draw inspiration from all over the real world -- Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa, Oceania. In the game's 4 years of life, ppl had taken note of how darker skin was barely present in its characters while white & light characters are galore. Then, when darker skin is present, it's usually light tan if on important characters, and most of the medium-and-darker shades are relegated to NPCs. With the playable characters, the ones who matter the most, the ratio is like 9/95 with tan-or-darker skin if we count some known upcoming characters, with only 3 of those having skin at least medium brown.

Back in July when teasers for the now recently added region based on the Americas (mixed with some Africa and Oceania) dropped, people were vocal about being frustrated because they hoped Genshin would take the opportunity to deliver on darker skin there in a major way, but instead what we got is the same as usual -- barely any brown/black in the important characters, with decent amounts of darker shades only present in the NPCs. While generally HoYo actually does decent with the inclusion of the cultures they work with (certainly not perfect, but decent), they clearly hold back when it comes to skin color, and given colorism is a known phenomena (including in China where the company that made the game is based), it's not hard to see why people have been annoyed and desire something different. It feels like some people of some of the taken-from cultures are essentially being told "we like so much about your culture... but not you."

And the response to people's fair complaints there has been *maddening* . Over the last two months I have seen *so many* iffy or even asinine takes in that whole discourse with people either casually dismissing the idea that having more darker skin here would be acceptable or even desperately fighting against the idea of more darker skin being present. If you look up videos discussing the discourse, overwhelmingly the popular ones favor the narrative that it just "isn't that big of a deal" and spends way more time pointing out iffy behavior from some people on Twitter who desire more darker skin, rather than focusing on the meat of the fairer arguments people have been making. People are ignorant and want to stay ignorant, and it's sad to see.

It's really as simple as you say -- people want to see people who look like them doing cool shit. Shouldn't be as objectionable as people have made it out to be.

[SammyRobinson]

Another defensive I’ve been seeing about “wokeism or wheatever new buzzword” is people saying. Oh I want escapism and not any force politics in my media.
While
1- rant about minority groups that just exist in that piece of media. And their status isn’t a plot point in that media
2- media has always been political. Saying you want escapism is dumb when we was basically force into politics since we’re a toddler by different ways depending on our background. As the media we consume even at a young age is political

[AlTariqLuqmanMuhammad]

I think the most frustrating aspects of the representation "debate" (aside from any new property that doesn't do well being seen as a failure due to diversity or wokeness or whatever new nonsense buzzword reactionaries decide to use rather than poor planning from the top so they can extract more money from the masses without putting any eniugh effort) is the poverty of imagination when it comes to completely ficitional settings. People are so quick to say that something is unrealistic or impossible whenever a brown or queer person is involved but are able to accept literally impossible things like superpowers and fantasticsl creatures. It is quite exhausting having to justify my own existence and place in these spaces. Appreciate the video, very well done!

[Junosensei]

Ferris from Re:Zero is such a weird case (alongside Crusch). The author says Ferris is not intended to be a trans girl (though he doesn't seem particularly bothered if people think so), and I'm sure that's true...

...but when you dive into Ferris' and Crusch's character from the various side stories, you just see so much that cannot be explained away with a simple "They are crossdressing". Obvious spoiler warning, not for the main story, but for their origin side story and the first EX side story novel. Also, I will use "she/her" for Crusch and "he/him" for Ferris based on pronouns used in the novels themselves, but feel free to change them in your head as needed:

Crusch:
1) Crusch grew up with heavy expectations that she is a girl/woman who would be married off for political reasons, but being the only heir to the Duke's throne, she studied swordplay and politics and became very competent at it, besting all her peers at an early age. Eventually, she became distraught that her gender essentially prevents her from gaining real power to change the world for the better. When Ferris offers to give her his "boyhood", she is surprised by the suggestion, but it intrigues her and she accepts.

2) Likewise, when she succeeds in becoming a respected leader (to the discomfort of many nobles around her), she refuses to wear feminine clothing and also declines to be called a "Duchess", referring to herself as a "Duke".

X) The only real counterpoint to this is that when the prince finally does beat her in combat, she accepts the win condition that she wear a dress for him once, and when he dies, she wears said dress he gave her once a year in remembrance. This doesn't seem to bother her and it seems to even comfort her, so a part of me feels she may just not care about gender itselfーonly the expectations that come with it.

Ferris:

1) When Crusch confides in Ferris all her worries over gender expectations, Ferris suddenly blurts out desperately that he will take her "girlhood" and give her his "boyhood", which surprises not only Crusch, but himself as well.

2) When Ferris first starts wearing girl's clothing, he thinks it's going to be awkward, but he very quickly realizes that he feels very comfortable in it, and he really likes it. Later on, when he realizes he has to wear a guy's knight uniform to become Crusch's knight, he laments it, even though he accepts.

3) When the young prince meets the two and "mistakes" Ferris for a girl, Ferris does not correct him, and actively prevents Crusch from correcting him as well. They keep this secret until the prince is older and set to get married, despite the fact that they are close friends with the prince in that entire time. Ferris finds the shocking revelation funny due to the prince having had a crush on him.

4) When the prince mishears Ferris' masculine "deadname" and calls him "Ferris", Ferris is delighted about the new name and takes the name for real, insisting Crusch to call him such as well. Whenever anyone uses his "deadname", he gets very upset.

5) There is an intro scene in the EX novel that describes Ferris' morning routine from his internal POV. This includes looking into the mirror and saying "I'm a pretty girl" over and over for motivation, checking to make sure he does not grow facial or body hair (which he is greatful to his mother's family's genes) and that his body still has feminine curves and smooth skin. He practically shudders at the thought that he might one day not be feminine enough.

X) It is not stated outright, but Ferris' spite toward his father could potentially be a huge motivation for many of these things, such as fear of his fathers' genetics, dislike of his birth name, etc. There are also some funny scenes where Ferris admits to being a "boy", specifically to tease Subaru and/or the prince.

In both these cases, and especially with Ferris, I'm personally of the opinion that the author originally intended to simply create them with swapped gender expression for fun, but upon writing their stories out, he felt incentivized to take these expressions to the extreme for their character development. As a result, Crusch comes off as a trans masc icon while Ferris' whole schtick feels like holding up a mirror to most trans girl readers who experience actual dysphoria. They are, of course, only fictional characters. They exist as-is in the author's head, and even if you lean into Death of the Author, they are characters who do not have feelings, so unlike real people, misgendering them or projecting your own onto them hurts no one. Thus, I think any interpretation is valid. I'm on thevfence myself. It's just really interesting to discuss.

[LotteReid]

Fantastic video! Nailed the topic right in the head. You earned yourself a subscriber, good sir!

[stuckerfan]

Fun fact:Pink used to be considered a manly color and blue considered a feminine color

[guilhermeteodosio]

The goat is back, good to see you again

[rosebluelaurarity]

interesting that you bring up How Do We Relationship, i've really been enjoying it for a long time and the way it handles its sensitive topics is pretty well done if you ask me

[gamerdian]

wtf finally a sane voice in the anime commentary nieche 💀

[RoanCrowley]

It goes both ways depending on culture. I can watch a show with diverse elements and it can be done well and move me. Sometimes forcing diversity can reinforce stereotypes and place groups into boxes. People call something racist or harmful when it doesn't have diverse elements or progressive values. Many corporate entities follow have pregressive values but will remove certain characters off of posters in china and hide elements to make money and appease others. The main problem is that whats considered right is what was the status quo and whats left is some great change. The fact that people consider just having heterosexual characters or that there isn't enough representation means something is right or somethings far right is what makes it easy for people to blame diversity and 'woke' ideas. At the end of the day far right and far left are both just as bad and you should be careful who controls the narrative.

[darthnius]

Thank you for spelling this out, mr. re zero man. Great video
There are some people that can't wrap their heads around this

[eliotanderson]

Me listening to this without having my representation in western media and entertainment as a south asian(indian) which is 25% of the worlds population more than few continents combines, compared to other people like whites blacks east asians etc..
As someone who really feels im the most influencial civilization in the world im the center of the world kind of..my contribution and representation is not mainstream either due to prejudice of west and east asia putting only negativity and bad news about indian civilization

[johnz]

Bleach has badass black characters, not just those ones who are used as thugs

[CineflickProductions]

As always, we go Woke, we go broke

Anyway, great vid all around. Loved the way you dived into the subject as a whole.

[NoxteliLo]

This made me emotional as a trans woman. I found myself through representation of weirdos and outcasts in Animanga that were shamed for expressing their gender outside archaic norms.
Even when the tropes were at the bane of someone like me (and examples today are still plentiful), to see myself in media and represented was another step towards self actualization. Thanks for the vid ! great one