The new black guy in Final Fantasy XIII

new_age_reject

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Haha, I love the dudes totally stereotyped afro.
Come to think of it, is there a race that isn't horribly stereotyped in Japanese manga?
 

shadow skill

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new_age_reject said:
Haha, I love the dudes totally stereotyped afro.
Come to think of it, is there a race that isn't horribly stereotyped in Japanese manga?
I honestly don't think so, though there are always exceptions.
 

ace_of_something

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Trivun said:
ace_of_something said:
I have never met a black person with a fro quite like that...
Surprisingly, I have, four of my friends from Sixth Form looked just like that. Crazy thing was, only two were related (although they were the ones who had afro's about twice the size of the one above)
it's not the size. it's that it's flat...
 

IOwnYourBase

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Jan 16, 2009
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THATS PICTURE IS OF AN ACTOR FROM MAD TV DUMBASSES!!!
ITS OBVIOUSLY A JOKE!!!
Sorry, outburst.
Im at a loss of his name, but that is deffinatly him. A real guy. An american television actor.
 

Ace of Spades

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It seems like he is going to be an incredibly racist caricature, but I'll wait until I play the game until I judge.
 

Damien the Pigeon

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Why on earth is everyone already saying that it's going to be a racist stereotype? What's the big deal here? He has an afro, so what? The character looks awesome to me.
 

Silvertongue

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I think it's undeniable that Sqare's treatment of people of African descent has been less than sensitive in the past. I mean, if you don't believe me, look at this horrible character! Square no Tom Sawyer was pretty terrible in this respect, and I can say that without ever having actually played the game. I can only assume, however,that a game in which Tom Sawyer fights off giant snakes and whatnot by throwing rocks in turn-based combat would be less than sensitive to the nuances in the original work. I mean, what were they smoking when they came up with this? [link]http://i.somethingawful.com/rompit/tomsawyer-square/pic-01.gif[/link]

Edit: However, I think that while our fears are fully justified, we should give them a chance...this is just my personal aesthetics speaking, but I feel as if he's not blatantly offensive, looking at the above picture. I mean, when I heard people describing him, I was afraid he had a 'fro like that guy from "Ready 2 Rumble Boxing".
 

TheSKSpecial

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cobra_ky said:
so wait, japan is co-opting black culture, which has co-opted asian culture for decades.

my head hurts.
Yep. Because eating chinese food and watching kung-fu flicks is equal to making EVERY black character the equivalent of Little Black Sambo. They're totally the same.
 

The Wooster

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Jul 15, 2008
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I'd like to see Square Soft do a believable black character (or any believable character for that matter) the character design and what little we've seen of him in the trailers gives me a niggling feeling that they're going to make him either a joke character or profoundly fucking inept like Barret was (seriously, how many times did Barret fuck things up?). Sure Black people can be funny and inept but when there's only one (so far) black PC in the game, and he's one of only a handful in the genre, it just seems like a waste.

Plus SquareEnix can't pick out a decent voice actor to save their god damn life. These are the same people who got Lance from Nsync to voice Sephiroth. I wouldn't be surprised if they hired one of the Jonas Brothers to do the voice work.
 

Ago Iterum

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Touchy subject I see!

I'll be as PC as I can...

Okay. Here goes. While I agree that the lack of African culture in Japan could lead to stereotyping, I don't think this character would've gone without research, as he is to be on an incredibly popular worldwide series. Since rasism is, and always will be a hot topic, they will have made sure not to offend anyone.

*Sweats outragiously*

I'M DONE. I'm Done... :'(

TheSKSpecial said:
cobra_ky said:
so wait, japan is co-opting black culture, which has co-opted asian culture for decades.

my head hurts.
Yep. Because eating chinese food and watching kung-fu flicks is equal to making EVERY black character the equivalent of Little Black Sambo. They're totally the same.
Oh GOD that made me laugh. Hahaha.
 

Aiden Rebirth

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Ago Iterum said:
Touchy subject I see!

I'll be as PC as I can...

Okay. Here goes. While I agree that the lack of African culture in Japan could lead to stereotyping, I don't think this character would've gone without research, as he is to be on an incredibly popular worldwide series. Since rasism is, and always will be a hot topic, they will have made sure not to offend anyone.

*Sweats outragiously*

I'M DONE. I'm Done... :'(
lol if i was pc like you where i woudn't have got probation, so good job!
 

Dastardos

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A lot of people on this thread have got suspended.
Anyways I think it pretty funny. It's not the worst stereotypical character though. Their are far worse
 

cobra_ky

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TheSKSpecial said:
cobra_ky said:
so wait, japan is co-opting black culture, which has co-opted asian culture for decades.

my head hurts.
Yep. Because eating chinese food and watching kung-fu flicks is equal to making EVERY black character the equivalent of Little Black Sambo. They're totally the same.
yep. because an offhand comment about the irony of cultural adoption is equivalent to a bombastic exaggerated statement about racism.

i don't want to get into a pointless argument over which culture is more racist. but what exactly would a black character who wasn't equivalent to Little Black Sambo look like?

ElArabDeMagnifico said:
Oh my God. They gave him a Frocobo. I love Square Enix now.

I hope that Frocobo's name is Jasper.
it's Sazh Katzroy. Jasper seems stereotypical to me.
 

jezz8me

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Mar 27, 2008
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He needs a Hendrix style fro and he will be cooler i am not afan of this triangular shaped one.
 

SenseOfTumour

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Yeah, about the fro...look at every hairstyle Square has ever created, now look at the picture, I think that's possibly the most understated and subtle haircut ever in a FF game.

It hardly even counts as an afro in video game terms, at least he's not a crying androgynous blonde ladyboy like Tidus.

The only stereotype I can see is that Both Barrett and him look like fun characters, damn you Square for saying blacks are cool and fun!

Really tho, there's no racism going on, but until people quit leaping on every non white, non male non hetero character that appears, we're gonna be left with armies of stereotypical 'Doom guy' clones.

So no, the japanese are not being racist, or if they are, it's not a bad racism, its just a touch of ignorance about the outside cultures. Unless of course there's a QTE where you get bonus points for setting fire to a cross on his lawn, and they make him sit at the back of the airship. Then maybe they were being racist after all.

I also think whether you like it or not, most people carry the stereotypes around in their head anyways, you just try not to let them escape via the mouth. I don't really believe it, but at the same time, for instance, I wouldn't be surprised if the little old guy in my local chinese restaurant could take down a robber with his amazing combat skills, even tho he's like mid 70s. I know it's wrong, but its there still, and at least it's a positive bit of a racism.

As Louis CK said 'Why can?t we have racism that?s ignorant but nice? You could have stereotypes that are positive about race. You could say, ?Those Chinese people, they can fly!? ?You know about the Puerto Ricans? they?re made of candy!?'

Really, tho, until Mirror's Edge , did we have many asian characters who didn't have highly trained martial arts skills and wore pyjamas all day?

I so wanted to do my 'if there's two things I hate its racism, and the damn (insert race here) joke)' but I think I'll skip it given the banhammer shadow looming over my head, and the lack of humour shown whenever race comes up in the forum.
 

TheSKSpecial

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cobra_ky said:
yep. because an offhand comment about the irony of cultural adoption is equivalent to a bombastic exaggerated statement about racism.

i don't want to get into a pointless argument over which culture is more racist. but what exactly would a black character who wasn't equivalent to Little Black Sambo look like?
There's a major difference between enjoying some parts of a culture (food and movies), and seemingly enjoying the most exaggerated stereotypes, and ONLY them.

The best example I have off-hand of black characters who aren't stereotypically "black" are Raven and Bruce from Tekken. They're not loud or obnoxious, they don't look like blackface caricatures, they don't curse every other word, they're not boxers...they actually look like someone made a rational decision in regards to character design when it came to them.

Compare the black characters in Tekken to black characters in...just about any other game.
 

cobra_ky

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TheSKSpecial said:
cobra_ky said:
yep. because an offhand comment about the irony of cultural adoption is equivalent to a bombastic exaggerated statement about racism.

i don't want to get into a pointless argument over which culture is more racist. but what exactly would a black character who wasn't equivalent to Little Black Sambo look like?
There's a major difference between enjoying some parts of a culture (food and movies), and seemingly enjoying the most exaggerated stereotypes, and ONLY them.
i didn't say there wasn't. i'm not really familiar enough with either culture to know whether that's the case.

TheSKSpecial said:
The best example I have off-hand of black characters who aren't stereotypically "black" are Raven and Bruce from Tekken. They're not loud or obnoxious, they don't look like blackface caricatures, they don't curse every other word, they're not boxers...they actually look like someone made a rational decision in regards to character design when it came to them.

Compare the black characters in Tekken to black characters in...just about any other game.
all of which appears to be true of this Sazh Katzroy guy, too.

incidentally, bruce was a kickboxer living in poverty before learning muay thai, and raven looks like pretty much a blade ripoff. i can't find a primary source, but a lot of websites say that when asked about the similarity, Namco's response was they wanted a ninja and "a cool black guy."