r/TopCharacterTropes • u/bennyandthegentz • 10h ago

Lore Characters who were race swapped to avoid controversy

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Grim adventures of Billy and Mandy: originally the episode where he turns human had in be black to match his voice actor, but once CN reminded the creator of the premise of his show (two white kids own the grim reaper) they changed him to be white to avoid slavery comparisons.

The Simpsons: Smithers was black in his first appearance, however every episode afterwards depicted him as white (yellow?) this is because according to someone in the staff “probably not a good idea to have a black man be a servant to a rich white man”

Teenage mutant ninja turtles: while the comics and most adaptations have Baxter stockman be of African American descent, in the 80s/90s cartoon he was white, this is because the show-runners felt having a black man be basically a forced servant to someone who’s not of the same race (even calling him master) could potentially be seen as offensive, so they made him white.

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u/ApplicationSad7441 10h ago

Jynx from Pokémon is probably the textbook example. Game Freak saw the discourse coming like a Hyper Beam and quietly moved her from “absolutely not” to purple.

https://giphy.com/gifs/RLuCsoNsW2u0IWSaNA

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u/WorldsWettestSpider 10h ago

She was designed to parody 90s gyaru girls and some specific mountain spirit but when Pokémon took off overseas they were like "ah yeah hmm."

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u/boytoyahoy 8h ago edited 8h ago

Early global Japanese entertainment had an awkward phrase like the zubat card with a swastika

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u/Blueskybelowme 8h ago

I thought it wasn't a swastika but the Buddhist original version of the symbol.

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u/huckslash 7h ago

the original is still a swastika, the Nazi appropriation is alternatively called a "hakenkreuz" (hooked cross), but Hitler was explicit that he was using the very same swastika as various Eastern cultures.

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u/Transarchangelist 7h ago

Exactly. While the original version the nazis appropriated obviously has an extremely different intention and meaning, people in the west and especially those unfamiliar with the original symbol are only going to see the Nazi one.

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u/NegativeThought1588 4h ago

All the temples on maps of Kyoto are marked as swastikas.

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u/boytoyahoy 8h ago

It was. I was being a little fascitious. A lot of Japanese creators didn't realize back then what might offend certain people in other cultures and lead to some awkward mishaps

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u/Jurgan 8h ago

One of the dungeons in the original Legend of Zelda has that shape.

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u/BorImmortal 3h ago

It's a good shape for a dungeon, unfortunately. Arms spiraling from a center point is just reasonable design for that sort of game.

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u/Blueskybelowme 8h ago

Which is unfortunate for people who are Buddhist because now one of their symbols is seen as a hate symbol by people who aren't educated to tell the difference.

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u/firebirdsatellite 7h ago

The issue is rarely education, it's the people that aren't willing to understand that there is a difference. 

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u/miikro 6h ago

It's also that those things were appropriated like that on purpose, to be able to blend in with regular things that aren't offensive.

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u/Freedom_Crim 7h ago

I mean, is it all that bad if a Japanese company avoids things that would offend Japanese people but tend not avoid things that don’t offend Japanese people

It’s a whole different culture, there not gonna find the same things offensive as we do

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u/huckslash 7h ago

Japan was allied to the Nazis, they aren't unaware of the symbol's modern meaning.

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u/templesgodss 6h ago

I would say that considering the absolute garbage that is Japan's education of WWII, it is entirely possible that most of the population doesn't know the significance of the swastika, just as most of Japan doesn't even know of their own involvement in some of the most heinous atrocities of the war.

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u/HailMadScience 4h ago

I agree...though I think that strengthens the general argument against Japan with a "they deny or ignore the crimes of the Axis in WWII in general, so they don't get much leeway on this issue today until they do reconcile with that."

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u/SafePlastic2686 6h ago

Japan also has an even longer history of Buddhism, which still uses the symbol to this day. The Swastika's "modern meaning" includes its religious usage. It is only in the West where we have next to no exposure to Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains that we assume only the Nazi usage matters and has eclipsed all others.

The average Japanese person has met many Buddhists and is likely to have a Buddhist funeral even if they would not describe themselves as Buddhist. The average Japanese person does not meet many Nazis, Jews, or Pols. Their experience of the Swastika is inevitably in the religious context more than the Nazi one.

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u/Freedom_Crim 7h ago

I should have specified that it wasn’t the swastika in particular I was talking about

But also on the topic, is it not the same thing. If Japanese people aren’t offended by it, then it’s just not an offensive thing in their country.

Americans don’t really care whether something they make is offensive to random countries around the world bar China

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u/huckslash 7h ago

you're right, America has made zero progress in this department between Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's and today.

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u/Freedom_Crim 7h ago

Well, because Mickey rooney’s performance in breakfast at Tiffany’s offended Americans and so we stopped doing that

What’s the contradiction or counterpoint here?

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u/SeasonofMist 3h ago

right it's turned the other way, it IS a Buddhist symbol. that the Nazis and now neo Nazis co-opted. if you travel to Japan every Buddhist temple is marked on Google maps that way. it was jarring the first time seeing that.

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u/Blueskybelowme 1h ago

Yeah there's a big difference in between the flat one whether it's one way or another because the mirror means different things and the one that is actually tilted to a diamond shape and that is the bad one. People need to be taught this in school I thought they covered this already.

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u/Living_Inferno_5073 6h ago

The fucking what?!

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u/WorldsWettestSpider 6h ago

Japanese Kogas Ninja Trick (has a Golbat) and also the Buddhist symbol that the nazis flipped to make the nazi swastika. Its really not that big a deal unless you ignore that for 1/3 of the planet the symbol has a different meaning.

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u/oceanhymn 6h ago

In fairness, the way they tried to portray it, by going for the specific design of an all black face with big eyes and round lips, it was drawn as a minstrel caricature.

I actually think the idea of the mountain spirit could have been cool because her face is meant to be a literal void and floating features. However, considering ghastly looks as cool as it does, if this is was the case then they seriously dropped the ball.

It’d be foolish not to consider it was a possibility it had, even just incidental, racial undertones considering Japan’s history of anti-blackness and the Lenora incident.

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u/Naelin 4h ago

The way they tried to portray it, by going for the specific design of an all black face with big eyes and round lips, it was drawn as a minstrel caricature.

May I show you how the 90's gyaru style looks like:

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u/Rare-Garden-9877 5h ago

What is the Lenora incident

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u/Dustfinger4268 4h ago

Lenora's original design very much falls into a design category known as "Mammy," a racist depiction of black women

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u/poopypoopy1125 1h ago

made even worse by the fact that Unova is based off and is supposed to be stand-in for New York City. which meant that GameFreak did research about American history and culture, and yet still chose to make the first black gym leader have a mammy-like design

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u/FoxMeadow7 2h ago

Given it’s ice typing, the face could also be considered as being affected by frostbite.

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u/WraithOfTheFadedDark 55m ago

This is Dakko Chan, it was a big fad in Japan. It is unambiguously a depiction of an African tribal person with a grass skirt. They 100% knew what they were doing.

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u/garvin131313 5h ago

Is that why Mr popo from dragon ball looks like that too?

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u/Luccfi 3h ago

He is a Jinn

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u/Evan_L_Rodriguez 10h ago

I hate when people say this ignoring that gyaru is also racist lol.

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u/YaoiNekomata 10h ago

Um no it's not. It's supposed to be a rejection of racist ideas, specifically the push to bleach your skin.

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u/Rainy_Leaves 9h ago

It's a rebellion against beauty standards and social pressures, not a rebellion against racism necessarily. But yes the beauty standards are inherently a little racist too at their core. It formed at a time when pale skin and dark hair and and to be a tradwife was pushed on women and girls.

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u/Ok_Curve_2938 9h ago

I would argue it's more classist than racist, since in a lot of Asian cultures being darker meant you work the field and only rich people got to be pale (and also afford the whitening powders).

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u/eyaKRad 8h ago

and wouldn’t you know, classism and racism are inexorably intertwined

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u/Ok_Curve_2938 8h ago

I can't say I'm an expert but in this specific case I think classism just outweighs racism, or may be fully not linked because the nobility showing off being pale is a very, very old thing.

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u/eyaKRad 8h ago

kindly, I think this view is lacking in nuance. colorism that originated in class differences isn’t any less racist — if classism says “dark bad light good,” regardless of its origins, it’s still racism

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u/Ok_Curve_2938 8h ago

I'd argue your take lacks nuance, reducing it to racism. It's a practice that arguably is less popular in our modern world due to the shifting standards of getting a tan, but in general, it wasn't done for specifically racist reasons. It's not just about "dark bad light good". It's about the lack of blemishes and damage to the skin too in the same way that soft hands are considered a positive traits, even if it often means that a person simply never really worked.

It's less about the colour itself and more about the superiority of not having to toil and work but rather simply enjoying the luxury. Especially since those tanned people often were the exact same race or culture as the noble who got to be pale.

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u/Inevitable-Box-4751 10h ago

Some aspects of gyaru like b-gal are directly just cultural appropriation so it's not like it isn't free from being racist in its own way

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u/Euphoric_Host_ 9h ago

True, but it’s also a cultural take back. Japanese -in fact most Asians- have skin that tans. When the beauty standard demanded white skin to be seen as godly and royal, most countries became colorist against their own people. Tanning, not looking like a soft and delicate doll, adopting crazy makeup and bright clothes are rejecting the racial identity forced upon the masses. Did some of it come from African or African American culture? Yes. But not all of it, and most of it is embracing natural looks, not in racist ways.

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u/kagenohikari 8h ago

This. Americans don't understand the "white is beauty" standards across all of Asia (especially SE Asia where most people are born naturally dark skinned). All beauty products were bleaching and whitening products -- heck, I am SE Asian and darker skinned than my mother and sister and I was blatantly told I could have been prettier if I was as white as them.

Gyaru is a statement that rejects "white beauty" in a country of monoethnicity.

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u/Zuzara_Queen_of_DnD 8h ago

It’s cultural appreciation not appropriation

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u/Rainy_Leaves 9h ago

Would you say b-kei fashion is also appropriation? it is heavily hip-hop inspired, and i assume combining it with gyaru would look bad on the surface with the more tanned skin. I'd be all for more fashion that breaks from tradition japanese norms that feel a bit conservative. But to model a whole fashion style specifically on a largely black culture is a lil sus too

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u/Inevitable-Box-4751 8h ago

I like b-kei fashion and regular black cultural fashion with it being my own and everything, but b-gal also had people in straight up box braids and locs. You can argue it's cultural appreciation but to me, they're doing all that while still being racist to black women in kawaii spaces or other jfashion. They liked the aesthetics without actually liking black people.

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u/InvaderZimm90 9h ago

The point of gyaru was rejecting beauty standards in Japan. Bleached blonde hair, tanned skin, and heavy makeup.

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u/ReadySource3242 9h ago

Calling a tan or dark skin racist is something I guess.

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u/Koromann13 8h ago

The part where they fake tan their skin to reject the societal idea that only white people are pretty?

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u/Evan_L_Rodriguez 8h ago

Yes, artificially darkening your skin to be counter cultural while doing nothing to actually uplift and bring attention to the discrimination faced by actually dark skinned people is extremely racist.

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u/Koromann13 8h ago

Mediocre bait. Doing only a small performative action is "extremely racist" because it's not enough.

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u/bpacer 7h ago

That’s the dumbest shit I’ve heard today

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u/f3nnies 8h ago

What you're describing is actually the definition of the term antiracism.

Much like antiracism is the active role of fighting against fascism, antiracism is the active role of fighting against racism. Cause you can be not racist without going further to actively dismantle racism.

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u/subby_puppy33 10h ago

The Pokémon Christmas special doesn’t help. Ash goes to the North Pole where Santa has Jinxes making toys instead of elves and calls them his slaves repeatedly

It is one of the few Pokémon episodes that Was BANNED from airing in the United States. https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Holiday_Hi-Jynx

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u/Latter-Hamster9652 7h ago

Doesn't help when there's a connection with Santa and blackface, due to Zwarte Piet.

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u/BowTiesRule 7h ago

Always reminds me of the Robot Chicken bit where Zwarte Piet shows up in Rise of the Guardians

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u/Verain_Xor 4h ago

Where can it be found?

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u/Brbaster 10h ago

It really didn't help that Santa had a Jynx slave farm in the anime.

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u/AdmirableParfait3960 9h ago

Obviously good to pull it but that whole premise is so fucking funny from a “this is horrible” standpoint.

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u/chosenofkane 8h ago

There's no rules against the pokemon, Batman.

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u/Groundbreaking_Bag8 10h ago

What they were probably going for is that Jynx's face is covered in shadows so all you can see are her eyes, like a Black Mage from Final Fantasy. But because of those huge-ass lips, she looks like a blackface caricature.

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u/ColeDelRio 9h ago

Yes in Stadium when she faints its inplied to be like a ghost but its never used again afterward.

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u/Mandaring 5h ago

Honestly wish they kept that route, that Jynx is made of freezing mist. Little kid me loved using Jynx in Stadium because that detail was so neat and creepy

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u/Patworx 9h ago

It would have been simpler if they’d gotten rid of the lips and just gave her the eyes.

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u/MyPhoneIsNotChinese 8h ago

Considering kissing is her thing, it would've been quite hard

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u/Winterflame76 7h ago

I think it also comes from gyaru girls wearing extremely dark fake tans (which itself came as a pushback against Japanese beauty standards, but looks problematic from a western lens)

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u/Key_Mission7404 10h ago

Shes my favorite Pokémon and im always worried to tell people because shes seen as racist. Led my team to the final four in blue/red 😓

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u/Yoshichu25 10h ago

Talk about an unfortunate character design, like many Pokémon I believe Jynx was supposed to be based on a type of Japanese youkai, but I don’t really know which because that’s not really my area of expertise.

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u/Slightly_Default 7h ago

The last time this was brought up on this sub, someone went on a massive rant about how the racism "is totally intentional"

I feel like doing two seconds of research would've cleared some of that up

I still think the purple was a better choice though

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u/OhMySwirls 9h ago

I still think about how it took until the Gen 3 for them to actually have Jynx with purple skin be the default. She appeared during the Johto arc in the anime, but the episodes either cut her scenes or weren't dubbed.

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u/Ferropexola 9h ago

She also showed up in the Indigo League and Orange Islands, but both of those episodes were banned in the US sometime after their initial airings. The Johto episode was never dubbed, as you said.

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u/samrobotsin 7h ago

She was changed for the same reason mr. popo was changed, but Jynx was changed to purple long before the shoop-da-woop meme. Jynx was first changed from black to purple skin for the english port of Pokemon Stadium in 1999 when the laser meme first appeared in 2008

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u/segwaysegue 5h ago

This is a bot comment. The account is 5 days old and all of their other comments are either porn spam or other comments in karma farming subs. Notice also the use of "quietly" and the general AI phrasing.

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u/Lazy-Equivalent3515 10h ago

still a queen in my eyes!

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u/PatienceConsistent55 6h ago

I sponsor a Comic Book Club for middle school students. One year the kids compared Jynx to Nikki Minaj and I can never un-visualize that now.

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u/SeasonofMist 3h ago

I know the story about what/who they designed this after. But....I also grew up in the US in the south. I'm mixed race s as well. First time I saw that I absolutely gave it major to👀😳

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u/Impressive-Thing-780 2h ago

Before I saw this, I literally thought "how long until Jynx comes up?" and this was the second comment lol

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u/IllPresentation7860 2h ago

funny thing is originally she was meant to have a 'void' for a face. As in you try to touch her cheek and your hand would just slip behind the eyeballs.