It is common in isekais anime for the protagonist to die and be reincarnated in ANOTHER different WORLD where everyone is white and Asian. Generally the protagonist is a Japanese person who was reincarnated in a fantasy world based on European mythologies in which he starts to live with elves, fairies, elves, etc.
So my question is: how likely is it that someone would complain about a story that takes place in another world where all the characters are black? Would a fantasy story based on African mythology be subject to complaints?
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Why limit it to black VS white? Go lizard or amphibian or fish or something. Just making the people black isn’t that interesting.
…and? I think you forgot that I asked a question.
“Just making the people black isn’t that interesting”
Hmm…it’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? This is why it is necessary to create a script and character development. I didn’t say that just creating black characters is enough, I really don’t know how you interpreted that.
I also don’t understand “black vs white”. It’s just a question.
I personally think it would be weird if the fantasy world is big enough that it wouldn’t make sense for there to only be one type of people.
Exclusively white people living in a place like Africa would be weird and exclusively black people living in a place like northern Europe would also be weird.
Le Guin’s Earthsea almost doesn’t have white people.
Meanwhile, every adaptation is filled to the brim with them.
Would a fantasy story based on African mythology be subject to complaints?
Absolutely. People will complain about anything. Fuck them and write what you enjoy writing.
Uh, why are you getting downvoted? Seems like a legit question to me.
There’s a lot of closet racists here. Its a lemmy unwritten rule that an explanation comment should accompany a doenvote.
Not at al weird. NK Jemisin’s books, while she almost never describes skin color, unless it’s some extreme, like, obsidian or alabaster, seem (to me, a white guy who grew up in Golden Age sci fi) to be populated mostly be people of color. She avoids describing race - as in skin color - but there are hints that white people, as we have them in our world, either don’t exist or are rare.
It works fine.
No, it would not be weird. Yes, you might get complaints. Write what makes you happy.
You’re writing fiction. Do whatever you want. People who complain anyway.
Not weird at all.
Based on the title, I was originally going to say “Simpsons did it!” as they acknowledge they’re yellow, though Karl, Apu, and some others are neither white nor yellow.
Would anyone be mad at a story like you mention in your story? Of course they would! See the backlash to something like The Woman King (2022). If you go by the time period it was set in, many would not consider the Portuguese white, and the rest of the cast is black. Even something like Black Panther that did have multiple races in it got complaints about how people “couldn’t relate to the characters.”
Or think about when people were mad at the female Ghostbusters movie before it even came out.
From a less potentially bigoted position, you have another issue. If you isekai into another race, you need to be mindful of how you write it. For example, if you have a white person reawaken in a black person’s body, now what? You’re either going to be writing a black person who now acts white, or a white personality who now tries to act black to fit in. I think a team of multiethnic writers could lend good perspective to this, but it’s a lot of landmines to avoid if you did it solo.
It could end up being very good if the story shows how much we both have in common and addresses our misunderstandings, but a lot can go wrong.
I’m sure you can think of a male author who writes very terrible female characters, even though his male characters are great. With race, I feel your touching something even more sensitive and personal.
So, there’s a number of furry works that don’t have humans at all, but I don’t think that’s what you’re asking (and isn’t really that weird even for people outwith the furry sphere).
I’m a white person who, to be honest, isn’t really that knowledgable about many cultures. I’d personally love to see media exploring african mythology. It would certainly be more interesting than all those reskins of greek mythology.
There’s, sady, a group of people that want to deminish and erase history of non-white races who would almost certainly complain that you’re being too “woke” or whatever. I’d ignore them, and focus on building your world with the respect and dignity that it deserves.
Just avoid having black people (and other marginalised groups) be used to fill up a “diversity quota”. That kind of thing is obvious and just generally feels lazy.
I’ve actually been experimenting with writing short stories that contain no humans at all, no anthropomorphic creatures or objects, and creating cultures and identities that have as little human-like qualities as possible… Which is fucking hard because, as a human, I only know human shit. Coming up with something completely alien to humans, as a human, is nigh impossible. But I am not gonna give up trying and pushing my imagination to the limit. 😤
