Yeah, darker skin is usually associated with a whole other stereotype in Japanese media. They're mostly coded as Ryukyu islanders, from what I remember.
Indeed. It's funny how that stuff happens. There is a bit more variety in the Western games but even then it isn't by much. I do have a hard time with some characters though in determining if they are a racial minority because they toe the line between possibly darker skin and possibly tan
It really makes sense considering the majority of the video games that you consume are Japanese. First, there's the target demographic - most of it is aimed at teens, so they make the characters usually that age or younger, because it's easier for them to identify with someone whose life period they've experienced, in theory at least. And people over 30 seem like omg so old at that age, right? Which is why they're not there most of the time. The homogenity is also explained by the stuff being Japanese. Of course, you could argue the characters are usually presented as Caucasian, but that's not necessarily the case. The Japanese make a habit of making characters have colorful eyes and hair not due to some kind of self-loathing or white washing, but simply to give them more variety and make them more distinct. I once read a whole essay about how it's actually an exaggeration of how they view Asians, not Europeans, as Europeans are always distinctly different in anime, for example. The large eyes are there because in their culture emotion is mostly read through the eyes, the lips are thus small because they don't pay so much attention to them as Westerners do, and then they also have small noses, petite chins and round faces - these are all typically Asian features. And since Japan is a very homogenous country, it's no wonder that this is how they see the world and this is how they shape the narrative of their own fantasy worlds.
I do have it written down but I didn't feel like checking xD I'm writing out a list of minority characters in games I've played. Like non-white, non-straight, crossdressers, transgendered, overweight, elderly (as in actually elderly, not 35 or 1000 but look 16). I've noticed that children are much more present than people... heck above 30, let's face it. Which is weird because I would think a 40 year old would be a better choice for world saving than an 8 year old. And there's also many more minorities in terms of different species like lion people or whatever and robots or androids than there are just... actual racial minorities. It's... interesting
Of course The series is hard to grasp what with it being all over the place, so yeah, I had a hard time with knowing which is which until I played them and got a grasp of the timeline and stuff.
Oh okay. Sorry, it's hard to keep them all straight when you haven't played them xD
No, no, I recommended a game I actually liked XD Strange Journey. That one was darker and had more interesting characters, IMO. It was also more difficult and more 1st-person dungeon-crawler than this, which is an SRPG
Which is the other one you recommended to me before? Not Soul Hackers but the other one. Was it this one?
Definitely. Also, Devil Survivor has kinda grown on me. I still think it's much weaker than the other SMT games, being much less dark and thoughtful than the main titles and lacking the incredibly nuanced characters of Persona, it still has a solid battle system, a branching story, and I'm actually kind of invested in this story. The premise is certainly very interesting, even if it's not implemented as well as I'd like. But the characters are still mostly annoying as all hell (although it kind of goes around into adorable sometimes, with one character being so mind-bogglingly stupid that I kind of have the impression she's special needs and I need to take care of her) with terrible artwork. Also, the game is super easy for SMT, but I guess one man's meat is another's poison, eh?
That's a good sign!
