Beasts and thinly veiled racism?
I've been gaming for a few years now, about 20, and I've always scratched my head when it came to Japanese portrayal of minorities in video games and Anime.
As someone who's always wanted to cosplay, I've found it increasingly more difficult over the years to pick a good character. Why? Probably because the only African-American males in Japanese games and Anime lack diversity. I'll give you a brief example:
-Dee Jay, Super Street Fighter II
-Barret Wallace, Final Fantasy VII
-That one douchebag who's a clone of Barret in the newest FF game.
-Zack, Dead or Alive
-Jax, Mortal Kombat
It would seem to me that there very few respectable roles played by black characters in JP culture. In fact, the majority of these roles do the opposite of promoting any positive images of black people. Any people of color seem to just fill the "token" role, and badly, at that.
In fact, at most times, the intelligent or seemingly normal dark-skinned characters tend to be explained away as "Ganguro" or some form of spiritual being or extraterrestrial. Most normal portrayals of people of color are in American made games.
Enter the Beast race in Phantasy Star.
I love PS games, don't get me wrong, but it would seem that the Beast race draws entirely too many similarities to African Americans, or rather, a misrepresentation of African Americans.
Regardless of the story structure surrounding Beasts, and what elements of their culture are simply plot devices, I'd like to point out a few things that I found a little unnerving.
1. Despite the war of the races being over a century ago, the CASTS have managed to rebuild the ENTIRE ECOSYSTEM OF PARUM, and yet, the Dark-skinned Beasts still manage to mostly only steal from the other races....
2. In fact, Neudaiz, Parum, and the G. Colony all manage to have working democratic governments, but not those darkies on Moatoob! Here we have a Solar-System spanning culture, on the cusp of INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL, and the Beast heavy planet is nothing but entire families of thieving lowlifes that can't even manage to form a F***ing counsel. How is it that in a century after they gained freedom from oppression, they manage to institute an arguably equally oppressive form of government?
3. Now, yes, I understand beasts were engineered to be strong and not smart, but the fact that they managed to fight for their independence and WIN it, would at least imply that they could evolve the ability to act professionally in uniform or on the clock in a hundred years, right? Wrong. It would seem, according to Sonic Team's writers that only Leo and Laia would at least be remotely educated. It would appear the Guardians can't even find ONE beast on Moatoob to take time out of her busy schedule of chewing gum, filing her nails, and cussing out her baby's daddy on the Vision Phone run the front desk with some iota of self respect. (okay, I took some liberties with the imagery here, but you get the idea)
Beasts are essentially a once-enslaved, dark-skinned, lazy people who apparently wouldn't know what to do with an entire planet to themselves. They turn to a life of crime at the drop of a hat, are prone to violent outbursts even faster than that, and seem unable to use formal speech patterns, even though the only language is ENGLISH. In fact, I'm in awe of how this is even remotely possible, as reading would have to be a requirement to exist in their world, even as a slave.
The similarities are glaring, and I know that even though PS games are preachy about everybody being equal and many plot points of the story revolve around the aforementioned preachiness, but leaving in stereotypes like these make the entire message moot.
I don't want to come off as being over-sensitive, and I don't want to seem as if I'm reaching for the Race Card (I only use that when I get pulled over). I play all races of the game, and Beast was my first Character's race. I'm simply perplexed, and wonder if any game developer in Japan knows if black people are real, much less actually trying to understand us for more accuracy...
Whatever the reason is for the way things are in Video Games these days, I would hope that companies either go all out with their prejudices so I can stay away, or actually attempt to define characters by their actions instead of outward appearance.
Am I seeing only what I want to see, or am I reading between the lines?
I eagerly await your opinions
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Originally Posted by Khorian
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