Is Genshin Impact Racist? Why Representation Matters (Sumeru 3.0)

My thoughts on the current discourse surrounding Sumeru 3.0 and the lack of accurate representation of the cultures and people it is derived from.
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[@AsianGuyStream]

Please feel free to share your thoughts / discussions in the comments, but I ask people keep things civil!

[@zHealthy]

My thought, people care too much about this.

[@kuzoiki]

Thank you for addressing atsu! I always love how you try to voice things out in a logical manner

[@aratasaki]

@@zHealthy Anyone has a right to care about something, only issue is when they try to push that on other people.

[@zHealthy]

@@aratasaki Exactly, they ofc can care about it, but the way it is right now, its out of proportion.

[@alliu6562]

@@zHealthy it’s not nearly as out of proportion as the response to the anniversary or zhongli imo

[@senitaiwo]

I don't think they are racist I just think it wouldn't hurt to add representation, it doesn't necessarily mean only black characters, speaking as a black person myself. I think genshin is aware of their player base and the diversity it has. And with Sumeru I think appreciating a culture without representing their physical qualities isn't really that fair to be honest

[@dova7536]

you mean like how all the ''european'' and ''asian'' characters have the exact same skin tones?

[@2jkvqq]

they are aware that people will still play their game no matter what they do

[@GrEeN0666]

Your pfp is so cute

[@Maskkater123]

Leaks show's tan/bownish to dark skin npcs soooo yeee. The new enemies (which are quite mommy to look at) at slight brownish too :))

[@senitaiwo]

@@GrEeN0666 ty!!!!

[@shirleyyee3371]

Even Liyue doesn't accurately represent China. I see so many my Chinese fellows complaining the architecture is not the actual Chinese style, and said they're tired of the characters' western style tights (e.g Shenhe, Yelan, Ganyu). Even some of them said some Liyue female characters such as Xiangling are the kind of Chinese stereotype characters in Japanese anime. For Yunjin, her clothes is not Chinese at all and it's typical western style Lolita dress, and I'm not a fan of her design. Upon the characters release of Sumeru, there're many people that are unhappy about the character design and skin tone. I'm not part of the said community so I don't think I have a say about it. However, have you ever considered that Mihoyo may never actually want to "represent" any culture or even try to avoid the "accurate" representation? They put Enkanomiya, which is based on Greek-inspired culture, to Inazuma. For Liyue, the Azhdaha has a Persian name was inspired by a mysterious creature from Middle East. The Fatui Harbingers are inspired by Italian opera but they're at Snezhnaya. A Japanese musician that parcipated to the Inazuma music production once said the composer Yu-Peng made the music sounds like Japanese, but it's not real Japanse music at all. Given the fact that he perceived the music is not authentic, he still think it is amazing. From my POV, I think what they are doing is more like drawing inspiration from the world, and kind of mix & spin different culture into their fantasy. The reason why they wanted to create seven regions is because they intended to set distinctive tone & theme for each of them. For me, Genshin is an inspiration, not representation. Many people start to know more about and get interested in Japanese/Chinese/Germany or other cultures not because they represent them correctly. It's more like they way they integrated the traditional culture into a fantasy made it more intriguing and well-known. More people start to learn and delve into where the inpiration was drawn from and know more about its origin. Just like they way they promoted Italian commedia dell'arte and Chinese Peking Opera through the game. For sure, as a big game company that hired many well-educated talents and cultural researchers, they can definitely do better when it comes to other regions culture, I hope they can improve their knowledge, but still I won't keep my hopes too high. It's still too early to draw a conclusion from a region that is not even released yet. Why not spare them a chance and wait until the Sumeru chapter is finished?

[@rain7320]

This comment.

[@springday3842]

I have the same thoughts. Still, I find it interesting to see other people's opinions on the matter as well but I am just hoping it's too soon to say. One thing I noticed from the trailer is that the environment right now is more forest-like, not the sandy open desert that I was expecting but if they were to incorporate that later (say as the Dragonspine/chasm of Sumeru) then that would likely be the perfect opportunity to release more tanned/darker skinned characters! I mean Cyno has a darker complexion from the Teyvat trailer and with his appearance there is a sandy effect so that's what I'm thinking (and hoping) would occur later on with Sumeru's release.

[@raiza3363]

The problem i see to wait is if we wait, nothing changes. Everyone will forget about this once we get to Fontaine and the ones that complains will be told that Natlan will be different. I agree tho that they never did an actual real good work on representation, but its certainly way better that what we can see of Sumeru so far.

[@Yuunarichu]

In a way Genshin has become its own personification of the world now. It takes something interesting and amplifying it in a fun way to introduce the country. Look at anime, Kpop, Cdramas, they are far from proper representation to their respective countries to the point of romanticization but it only takes this chunk of fun to get people interest in the countries.

[@appolloschein5370]

This deserves wayyy more likes

[@karrapell]

As a middle eastern person, i really dont think it would hurt to add more skin tones in the game. %90 of the characters are pale white and genshin takes inspiration from a variety of cultures. Since there werent many regions that took inspiration from real life ethnicities with dark skin tones i was ok with with this , until sumeru leaks came. It kind of feels like they went out of their way to change the skin tone but tried representing everything else about the culture perfectly

[@Davinci_Fox]

I think more than 90%

[@yumiarigama]

Yeah. Honestly, the people that are trying to spin this around as everyone saying we need to hate on white or white skinned people are throwing putting me off a bit. Like if people asking for more representation is seen as an attack on you, I thunk its time to do some soul searching.

[@Flooofster]

Agreed. And let's be honest, most of the world's people are pigmented. The lack of true representation highlights the *true minority* 's skin preference in media. It's so lame.

[@Satou_Rin]

East Asian here (Japanese). I think the lack of diverse skin tones was harmful even *before* they introduced Sumeru. Contrary to popular belief, East Asians aren’t all pale white! Many Chinese and Japanese folks are tan to some extent. I of all people know this, being slightly tan myself. Not by much, but it’s still noticeable when comparing me to “Japanese” or Japanese-adjacent characters in media like Genshin. But it’s a beauty standard in many nations (including China, Japan, Korea, and even the Philippines and India apparently, according to “The Normalization of Skin Bleaching in Asia” by Edvasian on KZbin, a very good video I recommend watching) to have fair white skin. This beauty standard breaks my heart to see. It makes people feel less beautiful, less desirable, and in some places, even robs them of opportunities just because of how they look! I’m sad to see Genshin went along with it even until now, and that it’s becoming *even more apparent* and more insensitive now that we’re crossing into nations of people who we very well know are usually not white-skinned. I hope Mihoyo sees this as a wake-up call and makes things right.

[@Flooofster]

@@Satou_Rin Agreed, you spoke better about this than I ever could. This issue always makes me too angry and hurt to discuss clearly. The fact that they feel brown characters wouldn't be useful to the story is so heartbreaking. I mean, look how they handled Xinyan. It sucks.

[@Shiiwata]

Honestly, rather than representation, I would like to see more variety in the game. Many characters are slowly starting to look the same. We need more body types, especially for the males because they only have two options (teen or adult). I also wish they got someone from Honkai to design the females because I'm not the biggest fan of the recent outfits, however I can understand why some people take issues with the game's lack of representation as well. We barely have any dark skinned characters and the ones we have are 4 stars, one of them has only recently started to get some love in events and the other one is a starter character, but I don't think the way certain Twitter folks are dealing with this issue is doing them any favors - screaming at people and calling them names is not going to make anyone listen to you or try to understand where you are coming from, but this always has been an issue for Twitter.

[@arnowisp6244]

I would love to see the non tanned 5 stars to keep making record profits. If that happens I'll keep laughing.

[@ngsrkive]

yes. they should add different body types like male children, buff females and stuff like that

[@Danny-mp8dq]

@@arnowisp6244 just because you find your poor financial designs funny doesn't mean the rest of us do either

[@ducky6819]

this comment is a perfect example of why this is fucked up. the representation is terrible. i always assumed yunjin was good representation of chinese opera singers, but now i know shes not and its much different than that.

[@ngsrkive]

@al har ikr!! idk why they make those body types for npcs, who are supposed to be simple and all the same, but dont make buff playable characters, or child male characters or tbh any other body type!!

[@tenrous]

To me the weirdest thing about this whole situation is how defensive and annoyed people get because others criticize the limited skin color palette and act like they’re “involving politics” when even from a design standpoint it’s arguably uninspired to have so many characters almost the same 3 shades for no particular reason. People complained for literal months when Rosaria’s boobs got nerfed, wether it was in comments, on twt or in streams, and the game gets doomposted over every little problem in the meta or reward system but whenever people criticize hyv for how they implement cultures they’re called overdramatic and sensitive.

[@sialmfao]

Well said!

[@chaaaargh]

an actual sensible comment. wow...

[@unikatie6012]

incredibly based comment, thank you

[@mehnazrinik6582]

For real

[@Zoeraye11]

HER BOOBS???? bruh im a newer genshin player so i never heard about this wow thats just sad... why would people be upset ???? over some 2d BOOBS??????

[@ying_verse]

WELL SAID. I've been reading a lot of threads from various angles on the representation issues with sumeru and theories on the specific sources of inspiration and I appreciate your nuanced take on this (and particularly the call-out on community toxicity without meaningful action). really disappointed in HYV's cultural ignorance so far; I really just want people to feel the same elation of representation I felt when I first saw yunjin's opera cutscene

[@fiona8273]

your comment is really well said, better than I could explain myself. I wish hoyoverse put effort into all cultures shown in their game, so that everyone playing feels included and represented.

[@diezfrancis]

@@fiona8273 But to be honest, even though I am filipino and brown, It's not a big deal if there aren't any brown skinned character because they are still Hoyoverses' characters and they're trying to sell their art to the players. I can also say that it's not a big deal with Filipino Genshin community (our skin tones range from black - light) coz I joined two of the group pages on fb. We just wanna enjoy the game content and the characters. If people want representation, they can play mmorpg and create their very own characters with different skin tones coz Genshin Impact isn't one of those games with customizable characters. This kind of game is collecting characters.

[@user-md2ds2qh5i]

@@diezfrancis Agree with you there. If one is to raise an argument based on accuracy, face it, not even Liyue, Inazuma, and Mondstadt are accurately Chinese, Japanese, and German respectively. Snezhnaya is claimed to be based on Russia yet its harbingers are named after Italian opera characters. The mindset of making this as a big fuss in the first place is not really existent in East Asia, but I don't think it's really a problem. Why? Because not like what most people in the West world think, this kind of creation is not done in malicious attempt to "whitewash" cultures. It's not some intentionally imperialistic propaganda like what many "social justice warriors" think. East Asia did have a history of trying to compete with White cultures superiority by being super fascist about it, but in the end of the day, they just have a different mindset than those in the West, and that is not necessarily negative. In the end, the result is not the same as what many people who care had expected, Middle East culture will stay Middle Eastern, no harm will be done to its identity. In fact, while it's inaccurate, people who got interested in the culture of Sumeru could be interested in Middle Eastern culture because of its similarity, not accuracy. You can ask every Chinese or Japanese, or maybe German, to see Liyue, Inazuma, and Mondstadt, and ask them are they accurate. But in the end, people are interested in it. Liyue may not be accurately Chinese, but I've seen Japanese and Indonesians who play Genshin became interested in Chinese culture, even though these two nations are generally notoriously anti-Chinese in the first place. The same can apply to Sumeru, it makes people know that such culture is like this, and then it makes people understand that there are actual cultures that are similar to it.

[@ourloveisgreat1398]

@@diezfrancis u dont speak for all filos lol.

[@nagito177]

!!!

[@bringoutthet8212]

The main thing is. It's not about there being pale characters. It's about why there can't be brown characters. Because to take a culture where the most stereotypical image would be a brown to olive skinned person it feel deliberate to not or barely include them. And then the question is "Why are they not included?" the answer? Sadly probably just colorism

[@mayguardian1]

fr noone has a problem with pale characters. the problem is that only enemy npcs are allowed to have darker skin. if there was a wide range of skin tones represented it would be fine but 9/10 of the leaked characters are pale

[@pikachuwithagun1708]

There are a brown characters but alit of them are npc. And the only playable character that is brown is the cat girl (i forgot her name)

[@bringoutthet8212]

@TheBoltMaster I deleted my previous comment because I feel like my explanation doesn't need that much words. Are ALL middle eastern people pale? Are there only tanned people in the desert? Are there no tanned people in forests? Is Sumeru JUST the middle east? Okay that's all Edit: Playing the game rn. I wonder how people in rainforests (referred to as a rainforest by Colei) look like🤔 Wait.... No that can't be!

[@bringoutthet8212]

@TheBoltMaster People in rainforests are mostly brown to very dark brown. I think it's just interesting how the only tanned people rn are from the desert and have direct African inspirations.(Thus no tanned middle eastern inspired people that are playable ) It's also very interesting how they can make npc's that are tanned but when it comes to playable characters there's a problem. The whole "it's fiction" argument doesn't hold up when most people that are from Monstadt are blond because of the European influences. You literally meet a blond man in Sumeru and Paimon IMMEDIATELY points out he's from Monstadt even tho he's wearing Sumeru clothing. I wonder how she knew... But it's fine. You don't want there to be a problem and you can still just play the game. I'm trying to explain it too you the best way I can but I can't teach you anything you don't want to learn

[@bringoutthet8212]

@TheBoltMaster Actually cool to hear. And yes I was indeed talking about south east Asia because Sumeru also has inspirations from there just like India. We do agree that even if we're just talking about the middle east it's still diverse. Why can't Sumeru be? At this point I don't know what we're arguing about. I guess you don't like me calling things out. Or you feel like my call out is injust. You think it's just a dumb game and I agree. I'm not gonna do anything to change it but I can be salty about the tanned skin avoidance like hundreds of media before this. But according to some the fire nation (lol) is going to be Africa inspired and up until now all African inspired people have been consistently tanned (with the lightest shade of brown because we can't be too wild in our anime game) So ey. Maybe tanned Archon???

[@staby3956]

Honestly, I’m mostly scared for Natlan. Natlan has been said to be based off of Indigenous America and west African cultures, it is also the Pyro nation. In the trailer storyline Dainsleif says “The rules of war are woven in the womb: the victors shall burn bright, while the losers must turn to ash” meaning Natlan is more warlike and less civilized than other nations. People have been saying that the most darker skinned characters will be coming from Natlan and i’m very worried about that because it perpetuates the stereotype that POC are violent and less civilized. Edit: I’m talking about this because it’s relevant to the video ffs. Mentioning race doesn’t automatically make someone racist. I am mentioning a mere POSSIBILITY because I don’t want severe backlash from the community (the voice actors receive enough death threats as is). I DONT want hoyo to mess up on a nation, I DONT want unnecessary backlash, I DONT want people from either sides of this to be upset because I LOVE genshin and want it to succeed. Plus, why the fuck would you watch this video and expect not to see discussions about genshin and race? I misspoke on the last line, I meant darker skinned POC not all POC. I’m not that great at articulating my thoughts so it’s sometimes hard for me to properly word things.

[@McNugge.]

That's.... The biggest bs I've seen in a while like.... What? Why do yall always play the skin colour victim card imo🤠 Not everything is an attack against you💀

[@brithebean4341]

Oh shit that is a very good point 😭 I hadn't thought abt that and now I'm genuinely terrified on how Natlan will turn out and the reactions of genshin fandom if that is the case

[@nobetawedielikemysanity]

The day natlan gets released is the day the fandom implodes cause I have no hope that mhy is gonna be respectful or even put in an ounce of effort to not do stereotypes

[@WhyfallinLUVwhenUcanfallasleep]

Also the fact that we (the traveler), a “white” character, are coming to “save” the region from itself… I have a bad feeling about this guys

[@racool911]

I mean it's no different than the duels of Tenshukaku. Rip Signora

[@mohammadhamadeh5175]

I am an arab person and the moment the leaks began I tried my best to research as much as possible the history and cultures that hoyoverse were trying to represent from the names and the clothing to the story in some way, and although the common concept is lying that they are relying on stereotypes of arabs and appeal to the chinese market by differing skin tones I have a rather lengthy explanation t owhat I found in general. Firstly however I would like to discuss that dori's design is going towards the stereotypical Alaadin theme but it does not mock any religious figures or demons (as people have speculated it would be jin from Islamic cultures) dori just has a genie and the concept of a genie has been used by arabs alike to write and share stories so to be mad at it as an arab although valid of a reason it is not misrepresentation of religion or mocking, her skin tone however is something I didn't find a reason as to why it was on the brighter side. Moving on to other characters that have been leaked such as tighnari and nilou and al Haitham . Whilst the common idea that they are arab, they are in fact Persian and persians are known for their paler skin tone as compared to the rest of the middle east. Due to the common generalization that persian and arab people are one from the islamic history books is sadly inaccurate, it discredits them as the important islamic persian pioneers in their fields to being called arab which is not an insult but rather a generalization. Tighnari is an interesting situation because his name from what I could research is derived from arabic and meaning "fox" ehich explains his ears and tail but his skin colour could be attributed to him mostly living in the rainforest so even if he may be arab (which I am not sure about) his skin tone is rather explained due to his biome residence and this reflects upon the real world for places in the middle east such as Lebanon and Palestine have more of a paler majority in skin tones as opposed to the gulf countries. Nilou is inspired by the Persian dancing cultures which rely heavily on hand movements and the horns that she wears are of symbolysm as well and her name is derived from the Persian word Niloufar which translates to lotus. Al Haitham is a direct reference to the persian mathematician and physicist Hasan Ibn al-Haytham which although debated is mostly known as a persian origin pioneer. Which again in reference to the location could explain his skin tone. For other characters I am still awaiting for more information but the general conclusion that I have relied on mostly is that there is some misrepresentation but I am awaiting more characters to see if it couls still manage to be an acceptable respesentation due to the middle east consisting of many cultures and skin tones and going for all the characters to be black/ darker skin toned would also be a bad generalization/ misrepresentation. If anyone has any information to provide it would be highly appreciated and thank you if you read this any constructive critisism would be appreciated. (Also I apologize for any gramatical/spelling errors in my explanations)

[@Nora88xi]

Wow well said, I hope people be a little bit educated as you are and thank you for doing your research! Coming from a person who lives in Kuwait :)

[@mohammadhamadeh5175]

@@Nora88xi thank you so much ❤️❤️ much love from Lebanon ❤️❤️

[@daffakhairi6555]

Oh man, i liked you for the research you've conducted! Well said and I couldn't agree more on this

[@bita3318]

As an iranian I can confirm the inspirations based on NAMES! But only that. Like the clothing? Specially for nilou is so inaccurate like they just saw some old French artists orientalist painting and based it off of that instead of well...doing an actual search. Connecting the top and bottom half of her clothing and giving her a long(or at least flowy) skirt would do the job And they should've added more variety in the skin tone of even the persian inspired characters because...well even in my very low sunlight foresty area the ratio of darker and paler skin tones are a...5/6 maybe.

[@mohammadhamadeh5175]

@@bita3318 ai understand you and i agree with you and concerning the clothing specifically the way i saw it was the same way i saw how they treated Yun jin as although opera singers have a much more occasion specific clothing for Yun jin they made changes in the design to make her more suited for combat and that may be the situation with nilou, i could be completely wrong and I am willing to admit it and I will criticize hyv for it. And in the case of Dori which many people have also talked about her clothing being more towards the orientalist design it could be more of a "stereotypical" reference for people to associate with but by changing the story of her character and placing her as a merchant it could be the case of just referencing by clothing and not necessarily bad stereotyping. Again if I'm wrong i will admit to it and will bash the company for lack of proper representation. Thank you as well for sharing your criticism and information it's very appreciated!!❤️

[@BleachFactory]

I don’t think having pale skinned characters for Sumeru is bad since there are a lot of pale middle eastern people. However, hyv should make an effort to add tan/brown characters to this region which has just as many brown people as well. It kinda sucks to see people call you crazy for wanting to see your skin tone and culture represented in a positive way. Genshin is inspired by real life regions and cultures, proper outfits and more skin tone ranges is the least hyv can do.

[@sinsister]

it’s not even only middle eastern culture. they have references of south asian culture in the sumeru lore, and most south asians are brown.

[@BleachFactory]

Also thank you for talking about this with such care. Other streamers calling the POC community “angry twitter users,” or “white people who don’t know anything,” when actually a lot of the people upset are from regions Sumeru is based on. It just feels very demeaning for people wanting proper representation to be reduced to “twitter drama”

[@CoCo-ho1sp]

Agreed I don’t agree with the violence but people defending hoya spit racist things saying “It’s not a big deal” which do nothing except silence pocs voices which has been happening for decades I hate that people act like lack of poc representation isn’t a main stem of racism

[@nini-xk4sd]

agree with you lovely, Nilou is based in persian woman who rlly have white skin but it’s so sad see like… 95% of all characters are pale… sadly i don’t think this will be change

[@sunnybonnell409]

@@CoCo-ho1sp Yeah its not a coincidence that European culture is over represented as well. They probably think if they put black people in the game those people will boycott it.

[@sqlxzc]

As an Arab person I think that the characters' designs are so cool but it's kinda disappointing that there's just one girl with black/ brown skin (Dehya) and then Cyno with brown skin. I was also thinking about the NPC in the game, they're all white, (that's what I saw in the leaks) I don't mean that's something bad but in Arabic countries not all the ppl in the street are white :'). I think it would nice if they added some NPC with hijab or something covering their head, I mean the girls bc it would really look good (I'm talking as an Egyptian person and that's what I see a lot in the street). I also think that Nilou could have a face veil but that's a personal preference :p For me Genshin is a comfort game but it sucks that a region that it's supposed to look like an Arabic one it's full of white characters, again I don't hate that, the designs are beautiful and I love the characters but yeah

[@huggers]

Keep in mind that sumeru is not only based off of arabic countries but also ancient mesopotamian and zartoshtian myths (ancient persia)-- which is kinda what makes it worse becuase they're mashing a bunch of cultures together :( Nilou is actually *kind of* good rep for persian dancers, but they did like 0 research into actual persian clothing (she's wearing the clothes of an arabic dancer, even though she's clearly meant to be persian) and the lack of variety in skin color is so disappointing considering how diverse the middle eastern region is

[@personofculture]

Various parts of Sumeru are derived from South Asian culture this can explain the choice of clothing.

[@nabilshah9184]

@@huggers bro idk. I think its just a full on reference to islams gold age. In that age it was the centre of knowledge just like sumeru and it had a huge influence which wld explain why theres so many cultures mashed together. Its cuz its inspired by an empire of sorts. Thats why somehow turkish culture and india (india as in when it was with pakistan) culture gets involved with the middle east.

[@ririfulilith]

cyno aint even black atp he's slightly tanned 🤭😭

[@trashketchum9782]

Candace too

[@tuna869]

I think that if Mihoyo is going to use inspiration from real countries, they should try to at least accurately represent the people and not go toward a stereotyped path. While yes, there are people from the SWANA region that have paler skin, there are also a lot of people with darker skin in that region. Seeing as Mihoyo took the time to properly represent cultures before, I don’t see why now they are lacking in comparison. Characters like Yunjin and her association with traditional Chinese opera were beautifully expressed, but now it seems like Mihoyo isn’t putting effort into this new batch of characters and a whole new region. I understand why people are upset and they have every right to be. To take culture from real places and not even bother to make sure it isn’t being displayed in an offensive way is outrageous. I really hope Hoyoverse will take this feedback and learn from it, if they have changed some characters in the past, then I don’t see why it should be a problem now.

[@aqua5552]

They used stereotypes before with Snezhnaya and vodka. Not saying it’s good, but saying it’s there and people didn’t get that upset about it.

[@racool911]

But the thing is they're not trying to accurately represent people from any region. The genshin world is similar to many different cultures in the real world but it's not supposed to be the same

[@MrSignman65]

@@aqua5552 Because vodka isn't just a stereotype, it's a part of Russian culture, a very popular drink from that region. That's like saying Inazuma was using Japanese stereotypes because there were teahouses. It's a food item, and it doesn't define the people of that region any more than the people of the region define it.

[@Misora7303]

@@racool911 But they still do represent cultures, Ligue and Inazuma have obvious inspirations from china and Japan, and it is well done, from clothes, enviroments, food and festivities. Why can they be so careful with this two but not with sumeru? It is still a beutiful place and I doubt that they did it out of malice, but it is dissapointing.

[@racool911]

@@Misora7303 To be fair this whole discussion is pretty outdated now that we know half of Sumeru is dark skinned. But I wouldn't say they've been especially careful with Liyue and Inazuma either lol

[@farahmau]

For me as a tan-skinned asian, I honestly didn't have that much hope for Hoyoverse to represent skin color that much. Even here in SEA, white skin is still more preferred and considered more appealing. I didn't expect much from a game that needs to make a sellable 'appealing' character, even though their decision does still hurt. The thing is, it's just… skin color. It's not clothes article that needs complicated rendering (though this comes from someone that have zero idea about animation or 3d modelling). But I am pretty sure that making tan, brown, dark-skinned characters doesn't require Hyv that MUCH extra effort

[@sunnybonnell409]

It requires them to not be repulsed by dark skinned people, that is where the effort comes in.

[@ActionAbe1]

i agree. im as white and german as one can be but man the game is so diverse with its regions which are all based on real life regions and countries even going so far as giving them similar cultures just to end up making everyone some generic pale anime character. well we still have xinyan as a tanned asian and that one brown character from natlan from the old teaser trailer which is hopefully standard for that land. how can the game be so diverse while being not diverse at all lmao

[@BiscuitGeoff]

They’ve even got colour palettes already done from Kaeya and Xinyan so it should be simple to build from there.

[@Saito57G]

Time to throw my 5 worthless cents here. Well the thing is, that in my opinion yes, making a colored - tan, brown, black, dark-skinned in general - character is not an issue, I mean, you just render another color for the skin, but it's also about synergy with the design. Of course a black person can wear a hoodie same way a white person can, is there something aesthetic in that tho? The combination is important. I'm just thinking out loud about the reasons for company's actions, not justifying them, before someone jumps to the wrong conclusion. I think HYV is doing their best to make designs that they capitalize on as much as possible, not necessarily ones that will represent people. But then we come to the whole debate of "What is one's CSR approach?", since some people will opt for the "CSR of a company is doing business" or that it's their responsibility to care about all the global issues like misrepresentation, gender identities etc. So now we need to focus what brings the money in for them. Well, characters that people want to whale for, obviously and let's not forget that the biggest market for Genshin is China (which is really easy to see from e.g. censorship of chat, where you cannot say (of course except for swears etc.) anything relating to controversial stuff from chinese politics and history). Then they need to make characters desirable for that audience. China of course being pretty mono-racial with their set beauty standards, so to appeal to them it's easier to just fit in (pale skin, kinda like in Korea where they strive for that), instead of broadening their horizons (by using tan characters). Honestly I don't know where it came from? Maybe from the thinking that "tan=of low birth, because you need to work in the sun, getting tan etc." (same way rich white ladies would hide under umbrellas to shield from sun). So their actions are quite classical transnational business orientation "As much global as possible, as much local as needed" - in this case exchange global for chinese tho and voila, we have the business model, everything as close to their culture as possible with handpicked "flavours" taken from other countries to seem a bit exotic, yet still familiar. Is it ethical? In my opinion not really, it's kinda like e-colonialism or culture colonialism, exploiting what seems fit for their cause and bending reality, basically taking without giving back. Am I outraged about it? No. Am I disappointed? Maybe a bit. Are their actions racist? I don't think so, those are just money oriented moves, closer to ignorance of issue rather than malice. Those are my thoughts, but then again - I'm not really the person who is that much into "woke culture" and "PC culture", in fact it quite annoys me, since some people are taking it too far and we are getting to the point where you cannot say anything without somebody getting hurt and calling you racist, uncaring etc., ultimately cancelling you (I also despise cancel culture)

[@deathhs]

I am pretty sure that they refuse to make dark skinned characters because white characters are more simped for and therefore they will get more money out of them..

[@bellasparklez9583]

Its refreshing hearing a civil non toxic opinion on the issue. Being on genshin-twitter is like standing in hot lava right now. Representation matters, always! But the way people on twt handle this is just... child level 😣

[@yurifromfinland]

That is so true! I agree wy to 100%

[@sunnybonnell409]

Everyone always complains about "mean tweets" its just the internet, some people act like that on every topic. The vast majority of people don't do that.

[@tanisha5709]

@@sunnybonnell409 Agreed. If you can't filter out the noise then you're probably part of the problem

[@matthiasvdc3726]

@@sunnybonnell409 im seeing that toxic community on top off all sumeru related tweets. They are a small part but definitely the ones that get all the attention

[@sunnybonnell409]

@@tanisha5709 Yeah I think people use it to deflect from the actual topic. Its always easy to find someone they can scapegoat as the problem rather than address the issues at hand.

[@Toix]

Mihoyo really struggling to add tanned people, not even a Middle Eastern variety of tanned. It's actually ridiculous and it isn't the fact that it's a Chinese company, they aren't locked away from the rest of the world they have enough money to research on other cultures and a large enough platform to know their fans are globally. The ignorance is completely ridiculous.

[@jevinliu4658]

Honkai player here We've had issues in the past where Chinese players held an effective veto on us, and I can think of two prominent examples. You know why we don't have bunny suits? Because an armed player broke into Mihoyo offices calling it totally disrespectful (well, maybe it is, but that's overblown). You know why we don't have male playable characters? Not because Honkai is a waifu collector, at least not immediately. Because _some_ CN players lodged a mass protest against the idea. This is to say that Hoyoverse's track record on listening to global players has been... shaky to say the least.

[@MomoDearestt]

They have Google :(

[@zara-zq1oi]

What’s more ridiculous is white washing Egypt that has been done for a long time in order to present black people as "uncivilised" so enslaving them was "justified" Candace is based on a black queen of Egypt.. one that act stood against Alexandra the great and beat him! She is so important! Taking away black history was how Muslim arabs and Europeans established 2000 years of enslavement and abuse of African people.! Genshin is disgustingly racist

[@kevatchiralzin3495]

The issue is some Asians are colorist they legit don’t like darker skin tones vs lighter for them lighter is better.

[@SaiyanDemon]

@@kevatchiralzin3495 I don’t know where you got that source from but that is very false. I’m black and live in Asia and I see good percentage of movies, games, and anime that has dark tone characters

[@LexxLo0]

i have noticed the lack of any skin color diversity in genshin for a while now, and i had been hoping that in general they would add more black and brown skin tones. with sumeru i had really hoped more diversity would be a given considering the location, and i am sad that thus far we havent gotten that. i hope that as the game continues to develop we will have much more skin color diversity than we do at the current moment, because even in a fantasy world real world people and their skin color deserves to be represented.

[@xdr.esther7500]

Ya hicieron otro personaje negro (una mujer gato) además muchos de los personajes como tighnari son de origen persa, los persas eran personas blanca a pesar de estar en asia, si a tighnari lo hubieran hecho negro estaría muy mal porque no es de una nación morena además que por su forma de vestir deja más que claro que vive en la zona tropical de sumeru (donde hay mucha sombra)

[@Nervous101]

Totally agree

[@LexxLo0]

@@Nervous101 im really hoping that as the game continues to release, we get a much more balanced looking cast. and maybe more body types. but thats just my hope.

[@voca-voca9469]

Well did you Know chinese government tried to fordib ears peircing in video game because its not manly enough ? You really think that government will allow People of colorS? When they are still Disney censuring movies? Its not a matter of what they want but about what they can....

[@Nervous101]

@@LexxLo0 yeah i think thats a great idea. People need to notice that no matter what a game is about, the audience will always be diverse in different ways and as a game creator, u should make it so that people feel as though you've taken it into account? If that makes sense. E.g not everyone is extremely pale in asian countries, some are a darker tone.

[@luckybug479]

The only characters with darker skin are Kaeya and Xinyan. Even Chinese people aren’t all as pale as they make them. I have a darker skin tone because I am Chinese. I wish theyd put more darker skin tones in Genshin.

[@chotochoto34]

Dehya(upcoming character) is dark-skin too.

[@VanessaACI]

@@chotochoto34 even she isn’t really dark-skinned though, just barely tanned

[@despair.7139]

Kaeya is Indian

[@4wakened74]

@@despair.7139 Damn didn't know Kaeya got sent from Earth to Teyvat

[@chotochoto34]

@@despair.7139 Uhh no?

[@SevyPlays]

I appreciate this conversation from you, especially with your perspective from an Asian in a Western country!! even the throwback to the anniversary "boycott" KEKL I really hope to be pleasantly surprised when Genshin explores Sumeru's lore or character arcs, but unfortunately my expectations are pretty low at this point. still really hoping that more players are given the representation they're wishing for.

[@Strawhat_David]

As an asian from a western country, my skin colour is absolutely not the most important part of who I am. Skin colour representation is not important, diversity isn't about race or skin colour, it's about character and personality, and diversity of thought and perspective (which are not limited to my race or culture at all). There are light-skinned people from the Middle East for starters, and what else about what they have revealed makes you think the lore will be shit? Not to mention HYV doesn't even have a responsibility to implement diversity in the "woke" sense in the first place. They are a company who are creating a game in a way that they want because they can. Any responsibility to bend to woke culture is projected and imagined onto them. It's their game, if you hate it, vote with your feet and leave. The ultimate unit of representation is the individual. Stop making this about race...

[@edgarkdb3403]

@@Strawhat_David very well said. finally someone thinks for themselves

[@lxvrrbxy]

@@Strawhat_David yes, hoyo can do what they want with their game but that doesn't stop them from making rather poor choices. hoyo decided to add humans as a species into their silly-quirky game, since us humans are diverse in physical appearances it would be expected to have the characters be a diverse bunch hoyo decided to have 7 nations inspired/based on real world countries amd places. so it'd be expected that they'd atleast put the effort in representing them well seeing as how well the did with mond and liyue as a tanned asian, my skin colour doesn't make up my entire being but it would be nice to see characters like me. just because you don't care abt skin colour doesn't mean other ppl do, for some- their appearance and culture means alot to them and their very person we live in a world where ppl of darker skin colours get represented very poorly, very often and that gets tiring for ppl who are supposed to be """represented""" by these caricatures. the majority of the batch of sumeru characters we're aware of are adding to that record of history which is rather annoying oh and abt the whole "personality" thing you mentioned, if it's all abt personality, then i'd like to inform to you that where someone is from and how they look can greatly effect how they act. are they from a place where the society favours for you to have certain physical attributes ??? then they might have some body issues. are they from a place with 'conservative' ideals ??? then they might be conservative. the way we act and think are caused by outside influences that most of the time- are out of our control: like where we're born and what type of ppl we grow up with

[@Pokayy]

@@Strawhat_David you seem very triggered by people asking for representation

[@richiboyedits]

I'm from South India and I do wish that I would see some Tamil references or at least Indian references or representations in Sumeru, but my expectations are pretty low too... But I do wish it...

[@thatbabybird1120]

It's not even just about representation. Having different skin colors could make their lineup more interesting. It could help make their character design look more varied.

[@whatever5401]

This. It's boring seeing the same skin tones and body types all over again. I think darker skin would compliment some characters' color palettes really well

[@shantisajnani805]

As an Indian living in America, it's hard for me to relate to other minorities. While I, thankfully, have not experienced much racism, I also have almost no representation in western media. Web I heard that Sumeru’s music was made with traditional Indian instruments I was so excited to see what other aspects they included. Yet even the darkest characters are lighter than me, and I’m the palest person in my family. I was so disappointed, and I know that it wasn't targeted, but there is so much more they could have done. Hopefully Hoyoverse can integrate characters of different races, but they would have to do it in a way that would not be depicted as caricatures as seen in some earlier Disney movies. It might be difficult, but so much effort already goes into the game, they can spare the expense.

[@alatsus]

I just think it's weird how pretty much all of the characters in Genshin Impact have the exact same, pale white skin tone. Xinyan, Rosaria, Bennett, and Kaeya are the only characters with different skin tones. I don't see why Hoyoverse can't just make the characters dark-skinned. I understand that Natlan might have more of a focus on dark-skinned characters, but couldn't they make the Sumeru characters at least a little tan? Not super pale white like every other single character in this game? I wouldn't be saying this if there weren't already a few characters with different skin tones in the game. At this point, it's just weird. I understand the marketability argument, but Kaeya is extremely popular. I think it would ultimately be a good thing if the characters looked more diverse, not just in skin color. Genshin needs more body types, like actually muscular male characters. Muscular women would be cool, too.

[@starcandy147]

Mihoyo is trying to pander to their chinese government. Same shit happens with disney and their removing of black people from posters in china

[@CyanideOwl]

you feeling okay? Xinyan is far from white.

[@DatLeo47]

@@CyanideOwl Uh, dude said that she's one of the ones with a different skin tone. Reread the sentence if ya need to

[@voca-voca9469]

Well did you Know chinese government tried to fordib ears peircing in video game because its not manly enough ? You really think that government will allow People of colorS? When they are still Disney censuring movies? Its not a matter of what they want but about what they can....

[@ultravioletgaia]

Rosaria is white tho. Why include her? Bennett seems lightly tanned but sometimes he looks too white

[@Kimi91]

Glad to see that you discussed this issue in a mature manner. As someone of color and from The Bahamas, I tend to see misrepresentation a lot from my country. It's annoying to see other entities do a form of media in or based on my country and have the characters/actors have a Jamaican accent. Or have others assume that you are Jamaican when you tell them where you're from. This tends to happen to other countries in the Caribbean as well. I've see misrepresentation a lot and sadly used to it enough to expect it from certain entities. Now with Genshin, I agree, I think that they are just really ignorant. I do believe that if you are going to represent a country then you better put the work in to research and acknowledge the people of that culture. Now will I stop playing Genshin? No but I don't think I will pull on any of the characters. As you say companies like this will only take notice when the money drops. Money or lack there of will always get their attention. As someone of color, I always knew that Genshin that is run by a Chinese company, will hardly give me the representation that I want. However I do have a small hope that this situation will somehow open their eyes a little but that will depend on how the banners will do when the characters come out. If the banners do well then this will go over their heads but if there's enough of a dip then it might catch their eye.

[@Iskou307]

Plot twist: every new character are extremely op and meta and they become a must have

[@keyboardwarrior8905]

Its all 3d pixels... Grow up damn

[@ForeverDegenerate]

@@keyboardwarrior8905 No User Name has been more appropriate than yours. And Atsu just got finished saying to NOT be toxic... (shakes head and walks away)

[@Miffyxoxo17]

I am from the Caribbean and yeah ppl tell me things too and call me Asian but not in a nice way ofc. I haven't done research on Kaeya or where he's from etc, but he is a character of colour comparing to the rest of them.

[@ForeverDegenerate]

@@Miffyxoxo17 Kaeya is from Khaeneri'ah.

[@LuisBrito-ly1ko]

In the terms of use, Hoyoverse states something about this. So, I think that their goal is not to actually represent, but to interpret and create a fantasy culture using existing ones as a baseline. For example, the Fatui Harbingers use Italian Names from Commedia dell’Arte, despite Snezhnaya being inspired by Russia. Mondstadt is supposed to be inspired by the State of the Teutonic Order, but most names in Mondstadt are English, Nordic, French, Italian, or even Spanish and Latin. They also gave it Roman History as they had Gladiatorial Combat at some point and still have Latin-named festivities ( Ludi Harpastum ). American influence is also there ( City of Freedom with big Statue representing the God of Freedom -> New York and the Statue of Liberty representing the Roman Goddess of Freedom, Libertas ). Or look at Enkanomiya which is Greek inspired and yet was attached to Inazuma. So, I think the company never really tried to accurately represent a region or culture. They wanted to just make the player look at the game and say “hey, this looks familiar to me” while still maintaining the fantasy aspect.

[@Average_mazatlan_citizen]

FINALLY

[@LuisBrito-ly1ko]

@Hanako Kun No one said that they’re not fantasy material. The point was that, by now, players should have expected the region to not be real life accurate. Nobody complained about Mondstadt being full of everyone but Germans. People looked at some clothing and the architecture, maybe the few names in German that you can find there, and were satisfied with that. So, I don’t see why Sumeru should be any different. And even then, these 4 unreleased characters being like that don’t mean that there will be only fair-skinned characters from that region. As for being canceled, you tell me what’s not being cancelled nowadays. Genshin is already being canceled over less and the complaints over ethnic representation were already a thing since Kaeya and Xinyan.

[@LuisBrito-ly1ko]

@Hanako Kun I’m not as knowledgeable in Chinese history as I am in European history, but I’ve seen comments from Chinese people stating that not even Liyue or Yun Jin ( the opera girl ) are accurate. I can only give the example of the Geovishap. The “vishap” is an Armenian dragon, and thus has nothing to do with China. It should have been a creature from Sumeru, if they wanted to be more accurate. As for the amount of lore, it’s to be expected. Chinese company gives love to the Chinese inspired region. In theory, you’re right. In practice, you also have to remember that artistic choices do not depend on representation. A character designed with heart is better tenfold than one forced onto the artist. Personally, I prefer that, if they make a character with dark(er) skin, they do it by choice with heart and not forced and half-heartily or lazily done. The difference is noticeable.

[@Andrew-ch3xj]

@Hanako Kun i mean. China doesnt like brown skin

[@idonthaveaname11]

@Hanako Kun As I said many times Dehya (the tall female character) is inspired from Thai female warriors, she doesn't look like she's from Honkai at all. Haitham (the guy) is a Su lookalike (Su is a character from honkai) so it's obvious that he's gonna look like he's from honkai

[@stavros2644]

comments saying "no one cares about skin tone" but you know damn well you'd be fuming if mondstadt, a nation based on germany was full of dark skinned/black characters with one pale character

[@sermajore1187]

Sumeru - (Mount Meru) one of sacred five peaked mountain of Hindu , Jain and Buddhist cosmology . Honestly, they do not have to make ALL characters dark /brown skinned.Having chars with light as well as dark skin tones would be good as it would accurate. But as of now the ratio of brown to light skinned char is just disappointing. Representation does matter.

[@Gennosuke1983]

@@ArsGratiaArtis792 And are they wrong?

[@vyabillie4415]

@@Gennosuke1983 you wouldn't know because there are no darker-skinned 5* to compare 🤷‍♀️

[@ahmedmubarak751]

@@vyabillie4415 Cyno : I'm not here ?

[@sunny-he2yi]

@@ahmedmubarak751 yeah, he’s not even here yet

[@swordmaster4448]

@@ArsGratiaArtis792 yea, id understand is the character that ugly when it had dark skin??? i see character from FATE-GRAND ORDER WITH dark skin with anime Style OC its lookin VERY CLEAN my opinion

[@Megumi_Bandicoot]

This aged like fine wine, with how they nerfed Dehya.

[@chaoticred9849]

I really appreciate your use of empathy. I personally think that is one of the main roots of this issue. Not many people are empathic or try to understand why this may bother a good number of people. It is clear that those behind genshin take a great deal of inspiration for their in-game content from cultures that exist irl. That is totally fine in my personal opinion so long as you are respectful. It being a fantasy world, I don’t think they have to or should stick strictly to what is real. That is boring and limits creativity. With that being said, I personally do not think there is a reason for them to be lacking in skin tone variety. Dark skinned people exist, simple as that. While I don’t think them racist, perhaps colorist at most unintentional thought it may be. Teyvat has proven to be a vast world with people who come from all over the place for various reasons, there really isn’t a reason why they could not have tossed in some respectfully made characters (playable & npc) that are of darker skin tones. It’s cool and also a way they can bring more life to their game. Overall I just think the way people bend over backward to excuse the lack of skin tone diversity in games (not just genshin) very odd. Especially when you think about how much darker-skinned people are deemed as less desirable and attractive for being dark. The fact of the matter is that lack of darker skin tones as well as other features is rooted in a lot of mess and I think people really need to start thinking about why that is.

[@parip4108]

I’ve said it before and I say it again. As a middle eastern person I’m not that bothered with skin colors as much as I am with the stereotypical genie outfits. Please stop it with crop tops and baggy pants. I’m so tired of seeing this stereotype being used again and again. I love Genshin because it uses Persian names for characters and those aren’t butchered and finally it gives me a nice feeling of being included somewhere, but the character design is a bit of a disappointment.

[@CallieBlader]

nothing wrong with crop tops or baggy pants. they're cute

[@chadikhr7258]

@@CallieBlader they ugly, let agree to disagree

[@parip4108]

@@CallieBlader nobody said they're not cute. It is a misconception and misrepresentation about midde eastern traditional/old outfits and it's EVERYWHERE.

[@alpicoo]

They did the same though with the other nations, they are all wearing key aesthetic elements from traditional clothing in their cultures with an modern anime design.

[@ancalyme]

@@parip4108 I mean, short kimonos and ancient chinese lolita dresses and full body thighs are not accurate either. Genshin has never been about accuracy.

[@persimmon9870]

I think a lot of people miss the point that yes, representation in media DOES matter, especially for younger consumers. I grew up as a Japanese kid where my media was all white people and for some weird reason genuinely believed that I, too, would have a "glowup" and become white when I was older. Because these examples were so normalized, I began to believe that I wasn't considered "normal" and when we had to share our middle names, I pretended mine was "a secret." With the spread of certain medias, I was told that I "looked like a real-life anime girl" or that "I look like a pretty Mulan" when I'm not even Chinese. It wasn't hurtful but it was a little tiring of constantly being compared to a pop culture reference, but I think that goes to show how much of an impact media does have on people. In regards to Genshin, obviously there are paler people in the regions its based off of. However, not everyone is like that, and while it is supposed to be fictional, it's obvious that Hoyo is attempting to at least base the regions off somewhere. I'm older now and have expanded my horizons, but more impressionable people who aren't exposed to these cultures sumeru is based off of may begin to develop false notions or stereotypes of what the "real" cultures of these countries are... I would like to see them do better than this but the chance of that happening is extremely low due to the fact that their money comes from whales in Asia, so they take their input first of course. The most we can do now is just learn about and respect the cultures sumeru is based off of, because screaming at each other in comments won't do anything

[@haruyanto8085]

We already have hugely incorrect representation of Chinese, Japanese and German/Dutch, as someone with relations to all the aforementioned cultures I'm not surprised that a Japanese-inspired anime fantasy game made by Chinese developers is not focusing on cultural appropriation/representation... The CN players have been complaining about the representation since western bogaloo Zhongli came out lol, I don't think representation is Hoyoverse's main concern here, their main concern is to make characters fun and interesting, while I do agree we need more skin tones, representation is definitely not a priority. But I agree more skin tone is needed, but representation doesn't matter

[@jadibdraws]

Thanks for not immediately dismissing ppl concerns when it comes to lack of diversity so many youtubers were doing that and it was pretty annoying. They definetly could've easily put more characters with darker skin thats based on regions with brown ppl. They really dropped the ball here when it would've been so easy to get it right. I love genshin but this was pretty disappointing.

[@zurielkamara]

Everyone cares about skin color and no one can lie it doesn’t matter this is ridiculous it’s a fantasy and they can do whatever

[@missy8932]

words cannot express how happy I am that you’ve addressed this. I’ve been so upset about this entire situation, especially when people in this community dismiss it and attack people like me for caring. You explained it wonderfully and factually, and remained so respectful throughout it all. Representation is very important and many people don’t seem to understand how damaging misrepresentation actually is. Sumeru is just one big disappointment, honestly. Thank you for making this video.

[@ducky6819]

people dont understand how bad misrepresentation is. you go to some areas in south asia and the middle east and all the mothers are telling their daughters they need to "scrub" more because their skin is too dark. they need to buy skin bleach. that their lighter skinned cousin is prettier than them. hell, even in yemen the word "slave" is still very VERY commonly being used as an insult (even jokingly...) to those with darker skin. do people think nothing will happen when all the south asian and middle eastern characters in the media are pale?

[@gorou2983]

Hm. I don’t think so lmfao. I’ll still be playing and pulling for all the characters

[@aaronmendoza2010]

@@gorou2983 yeah same, but not for all of the characters though since I wanna save for reruns hehe

[@rocu5036]

I know a lot of the big streamers and KZbinrs are directly sponsored by hoyoverse or genshin so they have to keep their mouths shut or be willfully ignorant about this situation

[@suquoia]

@ameera - I was really happy to see a CC addressing this too! I was reading through the comments & I really like how you express yourself here. I couldn't find the right words to express it any better.

[@noncanoncentral]

I feel like the biggest issue with Sumeru is it's lack of a concrete cultural identity, every region before it has been based on ONE country like Monstatd being Germany, Liyue being China and Inazuma being Japan while Sumeru is taking things from many different places and putting them all in one place, there's south asian, middle eastern and north african influences there but these three are so different and presenting them as one region is... ignorant to say the least, Sumeru should've taken inspiration from one place (Either India, Egypt, etc) and try to do that one place justice instead of mix and mashing multiple places and doing them all badly

[@ayatomainn3273]

Mondstadt is based off different countries too

[@noncanoncentral]

@@ayatomainn3273 Yeah but it's still mostly and blatantly Germany

[@ayatomainn3273]

@@noncanoncentral not really, i am german myself and the most german thing is maybe the buildings…the rest tho is extremely mixed with other countries

[@Borat69able]

Mond is a mix of different European cultures. I don't mind Sumeru being a mix but it can also be dangerous if you're pulling from many different cultures and in the end representing none of them well.

[@noncanoncentral]

@@ayatomainn3273 Hmmm... fair enough. I think people are more upset about Sumeru's mix and mashing due to the middle east, south asia and north africa not really having any good representation in media

[@ChaseAshton1]

personally i am Egyptian and i am white passing and a lot of people SPECIFICALLY in Egypt are also white passing BUT ONLY BECAUSE Egypt was colonized a million times but thats a topic for another day. It still bothers me that they're not adding darker skinned characters especially in sumeru (for at least the first batch of characters) since its supposed to represent Indian, Persian, Egyptian (middle eastern in general) cultures. Whats upsetting me the most is that when people complain about the character design and skin color of characters A LOT of people are like "omg yall are never happy about anything just be grateful stop complaining" LIKE HELLO??? Do yall even hear yourselves? Almost all playable characters added to the game are fair skinned we only have Kaeya and xinyan. Just 2 characters. Yall dont see the problem in that? People just want representation especially in an area that was made to represent their homes and cultures. Obviously white washing the characters is upsetting?????

[@ChaseAshton1]

And aside from that tighnaris design.... he is wearing a HOODIE and some sweatpants??😭😭😭

[@nini-xk4sd]

yes dear, that’s the point

[@shenvega6688]

My Avatar in Genshin is Kaeya because he's the only character that remotely represents me as a person of color (black and Hispanic). I don't even main Kaeya. He is just my only option for representation

[@ChaseAshton1]

@@nini-xk4sd ik im just ranting 😭

[@Amexella]

OMG THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS, I’m Pakistan and brown and it not only just irked so much when I saw most of the first playable characters are just pale but how the most of the npcs and enemies were brown, like it just feels so off

[@Qui95Qui]

The issue is not about "feeling represented" it, at least for me as an adult, it is about the underlying commentary. I don't think anyone cares that there are predominantly fair skinned characters in the game. The characters dont even look human they look like anime characters. No one has complained on this scale before that their werent dark characters. I think most of the community is fairly sensible and understands that we are choosing to play someone else'sgame in which we will play according to their aestheic. We love the game and it's cast. People are upset that Hoyoverse is effectively saying "you can't be dark and be cool/attractive/etc, you can only be cool if you're fair-skinned, that's why we only have fair-skinned people from this region". More than likely people will still play this game, but u cannot deny that it is weird to go out of your way to make everyone look pale when they're in a country based off of the middle-east 🗣IN THE BLAZING SUN! 😆 And plz don't comment: i'M fAiR anD iM fRoM ___ cOunTrY iN tHe MidDle EaSt. That isn't contributing relevant info to the point that is being made. No one said fair skinned people can't exist there. Ofc they can and they do. Lastly, to those commenting it is just a game, you are very right. However, if you don't follow many dark-skinned cosplayers you probably don't see all of the negative comments they will get for cosplaying fair-skinned characters. 🙄. And man, plz don't say white people can't cosplay black characters so why is the reverse okay. I never said that X race shouldn't cosplay Y characters. You're making a different point entirely.

[@sammy_923]

The archon is GLOWING 💀

[@charisleath]

I feel like with Sumeru they smushed a bunch of cultures together to get an "exotic" middle eastern and south east asian blend of stuff that will appeal to those who want something new, exciting, exotic, etc. With other regions they based it on an obviously recognisable country or area. For example, Mondstadt is old Germany, Liyue is China, Inazuma is Japan, Fontaine is probably France, etc. But with Sumeru it feels like they took a bunch of stuff from different places that would give the right aesthetic and the right lore to build off and just stuck it in a blender. Which definitely feels inappropriate.

[@tireduwu1734]

I've been thinking about this too! When Sumeru leaks first came out people were like this region is going to be based on Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia; and to that I was like,,,, okay but which one? You're just naming different cultures at this point.

[@haruyanto8085]

Have you not seen Liyue, Inazuma or Mondstadt? What part of the characters are accurate to their cultural representation? Zhongli and Yunjin had huge backlash from CN players for being heavily westernised and don't get me started on Inazuma or the architectures or the bare minimum Germanic/Dutch takes....

[@haruyanto8085]

Sumeru is Persia/Iran, the name originates from the Sumerians you can read more on your own, but with each region there's one dominant cultural influence while the rest are minor inspirations

[@haruyanto8085]

@@tireduwu1734 Mostly Middle Eastern, North African and a bit of South Asian, Natlan will be South East Asia, Polynesia/Oceania, Latin America and probably a bit of Africa, Fontaine will probably be South Europe/Mediterranean and Western Europe, Snehzaya is Eastern and Central Europe It's just the general guess of the sphere of possible influence or inspiration

[@star.lilies]

as a pakistani i don’t really mind them blending indian/arabic culture together seeing as how they can be intertwined in many spaces. i think the biggest issue here is the fact that mihoyo is too scared to properly represent the skin tones of the people within those cultures. :/

[@nishikipuff]

Some middle eastern/south asians are white passing so it wouldn’t be bad if they did like a 50/50 on that since it’s more of a mix of cultures. What I really dislike is especially dori as a whole because of the blatant racist stereotypes. And also with the characters the fact that they’re *all* white/white passing is pretty bad. They could’ve done good research on the culture, and make sumeru so interesting … Though I guess this was kind of expected since it’s quite rare to get good representation for Middle Eastern/south asians. I’m so glad you made a video on this and I hope people continue to speak up and not just forget about all this because of the newer content.

[@xsushicatx2248]

Yep my Arabic friend is white passing so I’m not tooooo pressed about these first few characters. Hopefully though they branch out.

[@aqvanii]

@@xsushicatx2248 im iranian and white passing aswell haha

[@aqvanii]

But even as a white-passing middle eastern person I definitely wouldnt be paper white like dori if i lived in a hot nation like sumeru I'd at least be a little brown from the sun

[@joe_darksoul12]

Let's just pretend this is a problem now when Jean literally looks like yoimiya and kazuha looks pretty much like Aether.. Lol beyond their outfits and accessories nobody looks pigmentally (pretty sure I made that word up) accurate to their race imo.. Like does anyone think Yae Miko Looks Japanese?! 🤣

[@cl0k3]

@@aqvanii the thing is though, sumeru has huge ass trees, it's more like a forest. Not to mention the fact that sumeru people are probably shut ins because they study a lot. So I can understand elite sumeru peeps being lightskinned simply because they don't need to go out.

[@feettickler7026]

im saying this as a middle eastern myself; the thing people dont understand is that genshin was never about accurate representation, they make money based on designs and gameplay mainly. they always picked the more stereotypical, more "appealing" and modernized versions of different cultures. and theres nothing wrong with that since they never claim that it "represents" certain countries in any way. you can see the inspiration in names, clothes and the environment but its never accurate, i dont think it was ever supposed to be "accurate". if youre going to be dissapointed when something in a fantasy game doesnt match up with reality 100% i feel like you should think twice about your opinions and values before commenting on it. its nice to get darker skinned characters yes, but measuring how good representation is based on just skin color (which seems to be what a lot of these western fans are doing) seems disrespectful to me since theyre watering down entire ethnicities to just "brown skin". yes there could be more brown characters, that would be nice. but when onlly 6 characters have been leaked and 2 announced, it seems stupid to just come to conclusions and not give sumeru a chance months before it even comes out. this game was never about how accurate it was to in real life, i feel like we shouldnt forget that this is an east asian corporation thats trying to appeal to a certain audience, whether you like it or not nearly every character has aspects of fan service to make them more appealing. when you look at liyuan chlothing you can see its inspired by chinese culture, but do you really think people ACTUALLY wear qipao's as a crop top and shorts. if you expect the playable vision holder characters to be historically and culturally accurate youre going to be dissapointed, because that was never the case with hoyoverse. this just shows peoples ignorance on different cultures because well, no western fan batted an eye when they saw inaccurate clothing for other cultures, because they see that in media commonly and believe it, people only cared and noticed when it was a culture they were familiar with.. just like the cn fanbase complaining about liyue characters. its ignorance, not racism. and its normal because thats the world we live in. imo only npc clothings would look similar to irl cultures, the playable ones are just interprations, inspirationsi designs. theyre not going to be a carbon copy of real life. its just dissapointing to me how people (especially twitter users) are so eager to jump on this bandwagon without forming their own opinions or doing any proper research.

[@theunknownax3513]

Well that's Twitter for you 🤣, anything can be an issue there. They will literally fight for breathing at different intervals 🤣🤣🤣

[@Someone-rc2xn]

Exactly! Plus, Genshin Impacts countries/regions and characters are *inspired* off of said countries and cultures. They’e not an exact replica lmao

[@jesterparty6947]

@@theunknownax3513 no it just that we treat people equally and people like you treat white people better, we get it.

[@jesterparty6947]

@@Someone-rc2xn then don't get inspired by brown people's culture if you're not going to add in brown people. But bigots will be bigots.

[@abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwyxz102]

i have a Persian friend, i asked her and she said that people tended to be very light skinned.

[@sflwr788]

But did we all forget when they released a woman of colour in honkai impact her dialogue was mainly ab how she hated her skin and bleached it ?

[@moonawilks8240]

THIS

[@sirchasm624]

Objective: to get inspired by different cultures. Reality: to ignore the people within these cultures.

[@maybe1637]

Inspiration doesn't and shouldn't equate to accurate portrayal.

[@Gonzora]

@@crowing3886 Ah, yes, it's true that it's common to meet blondes in Japan (and I'm talking about Yoimiya, not Thoma who is a foreigner) or even blue-eyed women in China. It's really representative of those regions, isn't it? Seriously. Most of the Asian characters in the game already look like white and it surprises you that those coming from an area inspired by Arab countries are not 100% made up of people with tanned skin? Perhaps you should have reacted sooner. Too bad for you, Mihoyo and most Asians don't care. If a chara designer wants to make a light or dark character, that's up to them and your opinion doesn't matter. Go with it.

[@miuoorin]

@@Gonzora "most Asians don't care" I hate that so many people are saying that when it isn't true. Chinese people are disappointed about this too, how do you even know that they don't care? "Most of the Asian characters in the game already look like white" they don't? yes there are blondes in japan, lots of japanese people dye their hair blonde but it's not like 99% of the inazuman characters have blonde hair, just yoimiya. unlike in sumeru 99% of them are pale. And we're not expecting them all to have tanned skin...just more than one. There are literally 50 playable in genshin and only TWO have darker skin, do you not see the problem with that? And it's not even about the skin color, the clothing sucks too. dori is literally just a stereotype.

[@lazyvoid7107]

@@Gonzora Clown card

[@m_milos]

Yep. They're taking the parts they like and find useful/marketable and leaving the parts they don't.

[@icefire2941]

I agree completely with you. They could easily represent the cultures their regions are based on, but they don't. I am not misrepresented in this game (mostly because there is no region based on my country, so there is nothing to misrepresent about my culture), but I wouldn't really care if I was. I do feel really bad for the people who do care, and who it matters to though, because Hoyoverse kind of ignores the people themselves by only taking parts of their culture and people and leaving out others.

[@alliu6562]

Strongly agree. My own culture is well represented (being Chinese) and I just feel frustrated because everyone’s cultures deserve the same respect and love.

[@Stormtide]

sorry, i'm not disagreeing with you, i mean this with all due respect, but did mhy ever explicitly say that X region is based on Y country? i'm genuinely curious because everyone seems to act like that is the case, but i don't recall them ever saying that, so i'm wondering what i missed? for my own personal reference.

[@gekota7325]

@@Stormtide names, architecture, basically everything about the culture in the region

[@eauxkei702]

@@Stormtide It's pretty obvious. They don't really have to say it. Just like how Mondstadt is clearly based mostly on Germany (even though some of the names have other European origins).

[@Stormtide]

@@gekota7325 hmmm... if they haven't explicitly said anything about basing it off of specific countries, this doesn't necessarily hold them to preserving everything from the country, no? i'm all for diversity in genshin, but to be fair to mhy...?

[@busyg67]

I wouldn’t say racist, it’s more of a problem with portraying different cultures. It’s clear MHY takes heavy inspirations from real world cultures but never wants to implement it truly. Portrayal of some cultures, however, has never been the most positive irl, (orientalism, actual racist depictions) do it leaves a sour taste to people when cultures are portrayed the way they are in genshin. Again I don’t think it’s a problem with racism, more a problem with how MHY not really wanting to represent these cultures fully (up to you whether you believe this is good or bad) but real life negative events/history also affecting this approach.

[@blithefulbee]

i always thought it was a bit suspicous as to why kaeya is the only slightly darker skin toned character ive seen.

[@moonawilks8240]

The fact that u can see the difference of kaeyas skin tone in his profile picture compared to xinyan is crazy. Why couldn’t they keep that seem energy with sumeru? Why does only one shade of “brown” exist when it comes to playable characters, but they didn’t hesitate with brown variations when it came to the desert npcs?

[@Eletrocinese]

its great that a big game like gi is trying to portray different cultures in its worldbuilding, but whats the point if they dont actually put the effort to do it correctly? they did well so far despite a few bumps here and there, and like you said its because hoyo understand aspects of chinese and japanese culture the best, but if they arent well acquainted with other cultures then they should reach out to people who actually have a firm grasp of how said cultures work, to make sure their content is accurate to reality (after all the game has been largely praised so far for how well they portray chinese culture........) hoyo is a huge company, theres no need to babyfy them by saying "they dont know any better"

[@sacrashin]

They absolutely didn't do well so far if we talk about realistic depiction. Mondstadt is inspired mostly by germany and a little bit by other european countries but some of the buildings aside it doesn't feel like those countries at all. Same goes for Inazuma for the most part. Even Liyue isn't exactly accurate in its depiction of China (Yun Jin aside) because all of those regions are just inspired by the real countries and never meant to depict them realistically.

[@neiro_]

Tbh, I'm not expecting anything from them when it comes to culture representative 🗿

[@haruyanto8085]

Lol they don't portray anything well with Chinese nor Japanese culture, you don't know the backlash they had for western bogaloo Zhongli or Gothic Lolita Yunjin, but you think they did cause you don't know anything of these cultures outside of stereotypes, same applies for Mondstadt btw

[@seliamila1005]

genshin is never meant to be 1:1 correct cultural rep of each region, more like inspiration, but i do hope they put more care into the poc rep

[@crocorobin2613]

I love your clear, level-headed takes on these more political topics. Thanks for discussing them like that, it's a breath of fresh air.

[@joiri9498]

its still funny to me how people really give a shit ton of care for anime pixels this much lmaooo.

[@lilkamie6042]

its funny how hard it is for a multi million dollar company to add some skin shades when clearly they are adopting my culture its not japan

[@Eveningcomet]

Thank you Atsu for for talking about this. As an Egyptian which is one of the many regions represented in Sumeru( there is a literal pyramid in Sumeru) and an Arabian I was very upset to not see my country properly represented despite the presence of Arabian and specific Egyptian inspiration in Sumeru such as character names, traditional music, and again a literal pyramid in the Sumeru desert which has caused me to feel offended as a proud Arabian and so, I am very pleased that you understand.

[@sirensblood4177]

Hey, Iranian here! I just wanted to mention that sumeru is also based on Iran and its culture as we can see from names like nilou and parvaneh. I say this because no one seems to remember us when discussing these issues, and representation matters to me because we usually dont have any. But all that aside, my main problem isn't with the skin color (tho a little bit more diversity would have been nice) but more with the clothing. Like Dori's outfit is just a stereo typical genie or nilou is dressed like a stereo typical belly dancer. I just think that with all these rich cultures to derive inspiration from (india, iran, all the arabic countries, etc...) They could have made better designs. But at the end of the day, im just happy that we are getting represented in the game that we enjoy

[@Dina-kc77]

I'm really confused though. As an Arab, I think Nilou's clothing isn't all that far from the truth. Do belly dancers dress differently in Iran? Because if we look at Egyptian belly dancers, for example, it's pretty accurate.

[@sirensblood4177]

@@Dina-kc77 well we actually don't have official belly dancer outfit??? (Side note: we havent had belly dancers in our country for a long time now since hijab is mandatory here). So my complaint about that part was that her clothing should also be inspired from our culture if they wanted to be true to the character. Honestly they had a lot to work with since we have a lot of myths and stories and history. I just think that when even with all that, they went with some generic belly dancer outfit, that was a bit disappointing.

[@milotuxedo7176]

Chinese complain hell about the liyue clothing and architectures too, in china it's almost a crime in the eyes of genshin haters and people who's serious about culture. But sure non-chinese hardly notice or understand, most people seem to think genshin did well in regards of chinese culture... So let all just take the cultures in genshin as jokes. You lose the impression of China from liyue, and we won't linking upcoming sumeru to middle east.

[@haruyanto8085]

@@milotuxedo7176 this

[@penguinxrock]

@@milotuxedo7176 that's really interesting, because i've heard that when conflict comes up between gacha games (one example being genshin/hoyoverse vs arknights), the diehard genshin fans supposedly saw genshin as very "chinese" and positive (a whole region for "china", "chinese" god zhongli, an opera singer, chinese dub in game, etc) while they put arknights as "anti-chinese" (game's early story mostly takes place in fictional hong kong, story touches upon themes that go against ccp beliefs or something, only had JP dub originally). however idk how true that is, and its also possible those are just trolls that want to create conflict and dont actually know anything about either game. do you know if regular chinese genshin fans care a lot about the "incorrect" liyue details? or is it only the haters?

[@bluejellyfish4983]

Goodness I didn’t think you’d personally talk about this but wow I really appreciate such a big creator talking about this topic. In a nuanced way. I’m personally not upset with them adding pale characters because Arabic people are pale but it’s clearly also based off South Asia aswell who are mostly tan and brown. Also the setting is inspired by south East Asian and it’s truly ashame there isn’t a mix when it comes to npc’s and playable characters. I just really hope they add more variation in their character design that truly represent the cultures people. I don’t think hoyo is racist but I do think they are incredibly misinformed and there’s always room for improvement

[@michaelshahoe]

Let's wait, Cyno for example, that coolass Anubis looking dude is tan/brown. I doubt they would only make one. People jumping to conclusion way too quickly, however I can understand the issue even tho I think it's too early to judge

[@InotiaKing]

The region is actually based on Achaemenid Persia which stretched from Egypt to India. Their people are just like you said Arabic pale. So miHoYo didn't misrepresent. It actually is these people who have nothing better to do with their time than to throw their own uninformed biases at a company that's actually accurately representing the region for once. Think about all the Hollywood productions showing tanned white European people in Arabic roles.

[@InotiaKing]

@@michaelshahoe There's also Dehya.

[@lazyvoid7107]

@@InotiaKing Shut up Hero Hei shill

[@bluejellyfish4983]

@@InotiaKing even with that I still except a good selection of tan/brown NPC’s and tan/brown playable characters. Not just one or two. And I’m not mad and people getting passionate about this topic because I know that the majority of them genuinely want to be seen. Also CN players have been saying the most racist shit about refusing to buy darkskin characters and calling western fans who are disappointed monkeys, simply put those people complaining are hurt. And it’s all a whiplash of colourism that goes beyond this game and joins a bigger issue that a lot of Arabic south Asian and south East Asian people have had to deal with. And Twitter is a platform the profits off of outrage and the worst is always expected in every scenario. I’m not upset there’s pale characters and I wouldn’t want to change the already made characters but still it should be an evened out.

[@oskr2643]

imagine how sad your life has to be to want to be "represented" in a silly isekai gacha game, sumeru only took middle eastern culture as a fantasy inspiration, it's not something 100% accurate

[@Danny-mp8dq]

Genshin KZbin got to be all the only place where well articulated sentences and videos can still get misinterpreted You say "This anime game is based on Middle Eastern and African cultures so they should add more brown skinned characters like literally every other anime game in existence right now" and someone will tell you "Oh so you want this to be 100% accurate to real life?" No bitch. That's a completely new sentence. Wtf are you even talking about right now.

[@Dhoomie]

you took the words out of my mouth

[@binasdna]

i’m convinced they released the harbingers to distract from this

[@Lanternnn452]

I think you're the first Genshin streamer who actually talk about that

[@sammiesmith3454]

He is the first one of the streamers that I watch to talk about it but all of the streamers that I watch are white-skinned Asian or White Americans so its not suprising.

[@Lanternnn452]

@@sammiesmith3454 yeah

[@KamisatoElias]

Tectone did too but of course he’s on the “nobody should care it’s just a game” bandwagon and blatantly ignoring the issue.

[@justsomeguy727]

Yea because social political topics don't belong in video games . That's why other people avoid them. Cause these types of discussions are just drama waiting to happen

[@KamisatoElias]

@@justsomeguy727 yes they do. Would you ignore it if a game was promoting nazism? Equally why are you trying to ignore Hoyoverse’s blatant refusal to add black people into the game?

[@aratasaki]

As well-spoken and articulated as any content creator out there, and more importantly you're always candid and good-intentioned. Great video Atsu!

[@d1tto232]

All this controversy is pure nonsense and him is just milking for his own gain and that is absolutely okay because we all love capitalism. The majority of the people misrepresented could care less because many of them don't even have a computer but barely getting food but the ones that have the privilege to have all they feel offended and misrepresented.... If all the people complaining about this really cared they should boycott the game on launch and also boycott the anime industry but No because what is really important is making money and that is for both the company and content creators.

[@Hiro-rc2wr]

I'm subscribing you for this. Thank you so much for this video. A lot of content creators aren't bringing this serious topic up, I appreciate a big channel bringing this up.

[@tiamelancholyjeoncockity]

‘They like the culture, but not the culture’ words have never been truer tbh 💀

[@rubyaddison5446]

I agree with everything you said and I really wish the people talking about this issue addressed it in a very calm and respectful way without being toxic about it. Because as a black person, i feel like it encourages racist twitter people to act even more worse towards POC online and will cause less people to listen and understand where we’re coming from because they will then jump to the conclusion that we’re trying to be “woke” and forcing “politics” when we just want to ensure we’re represented correctly. And the people that don’t care about this need to learn to just kept it to themselves instead of being rude and discriminative about it because it makes the situation worse.

[@ketokeko]

this reminds me to hero hei, that channel is annoying lol

[@rubyaddison5446]

@@ketokeko Literally 😂 I understand where he’s coming from at times, but I don’t like how he assumes that everyone who wants representation is being “woke” when that’s not how it is and his supporters are the ones that act worse

[@ketokeko]

@@rubyaddison5446 exactly lmaoo the whole situation is just funny, i used to watch his channel thinking he wasn't that bad bc i understood him, but the fact that in every controversy there was a video of him that just dismissed peoples feelings as if all we are is mad lil twitter users it's so hilarious, this guy lives in twitter so much that he doesn't realize people exist outside it

[@rubyaddison5446]

@@ketokeko Facts, like only people on twitter think and act like that 😂 most people don’t have that mindset or even worry too much about those topics.

[@shura4365]

@@ketokeko Annoying because he shows how stupid Twitter is?

[@elixxon]

I wonder when will people realize that they can't boycott anything by themselves, they need to CONVINCE others to do it. Hoyoverse's sales won't be affected by your Welkin and BP money,nor your momentous occasion one time top up.

[@sunnybonnell409]

Will take time to convince people not to hate dark skin people, its been a process thats been happening for a while.

[@joshbrosh6626]

People just need to learn to difrinciate reality from fantasy

[@FreneticPotato]

@@joshbrosh6626 these are genshin players we're talking about here though.

[@joshbrosh6626]

@@FreneticPotato im saying this in general all game fandoms People seem to mix it up

[@elixxon]

@@FreneticPotato it's just the same crowd that keeps moving from mainstream thing to mainstream thing following the trend and being loud but they are not that many compared to the full size of fanbases, just big enough to make social media a cesspool. The average genshin player is weebs and normies that don't even Twitter.

[@Xavier-ye8eh]

Thank you for this! I’m a white European myself but it makes me really sad that so many people feel unrepresented and offended by the new Genshin characters. I hope Hoyoverse is able to listen to the advice that is being given and that they actually do the right thing with the next batch of characters.

[@voca-voca9469]

Well did you Know chinese government tried to fordib ears peircing in video game because its not manly enough ? You really think that government will allow People of colorS? When they are still Disney censuring movies? Its not a matter of what they want but about what they can....

[@voca-voca9469]

Also sad that people thinks représentation are more important than the game itself...

[@nobetawedielikemysanity]

@@voca-voca9469 characters are part of the game. It's simply lazy if the vast VAST majority of your characters have the same skin color and body type. Also when it comes to world building why do they all look so similar and have similar clothing, again that's just laziness.

[@Vivony]

They be like the darkest people you ever get is gonna be xinyan and keaya.

[@sereneknight]

As someone of Indian descent, I was kinda upset that a nation partly inspired by my culture (& other brown cultures alike) didn’t represent the diversity of skin tones we have. I’m light skinned myself, but I felt there could have been more of a variety to represent the population as a whole. Atm it kind of feels like they took elements they wanted and left the rest like they’re “undesirable” 🥺

[@fwoop4848]

Exactly how I felt! Like you said, it’s like they pick and choosed which elements of our culture is desirable and ignored the rest. I’m also a Indian who was upset by this just like you, except I’m brown. Ngl I was looking forward to more brown characters.

[@SoulHydron]

the thing that's weird is that they have made darker skinned characters, and even teased one for natlan. I feel like we can just wait and see. Also Cyno which has been teased in the pass does seem to have a tan-ish toned skin which we can expect for sumeru as well.

[@InotiaKing]

@@SoulHydron I feel most people sadly aren't interested in waiting just yelling. The thing is just like many Persian gamers themselves have stated this region is accurately represented. Persians are actually pale and this region is based on Persia specifically Achaemenid Persia. It would have been a misrepresentation for Sumeru to be more dark skinned but these guys on the internet can't see passed their own biases or just don't want to so they can continue yelling. But also it's a fault of the localization team in English. Again doing the research and you find that most of the Indian terms in the English version are actually Persian in the original dub and even in Japanese and Korean. Darshans for example are the Persian Amesha Spenta and are just called 6 Schools of Thought in Chinese. Although the names of the Darshans are still based on their Amesha Spenta names so that would have been a clue that there's really not too much Indian in Sumeru.

[@piiewithtwoeyes]

i mean they want to appeal the chinese proportion of their audience. which btw, has different beauty standards. they are making characters that are inspired by the middle eastern/south asian culture but also putting that into their beauty standard. i understand that this could be upsetting, but at least your not harrassing them :)

[@nafets6265]

well i dont care.

[@suryav1397]

Thank you for this video Atsu, it's a great and nuanced take. A lot of people have gone "who cares, it's a fantasy game" or "make your own media if you want to see representation" but that to me is a really weird and bad faith take. If they're going to profit off South Asian, Middle Eastern and North African culture and incorporate those elements into their game they should at least feel some semblance of responsibility to represent demographics of the people who live their more accurately. Asking them to do that isn't entitled or "being an SJW" it's wanting the bare minimum in a game that has 2 darker skinned characters out of 55 with one having the worst kit in the game.

[@Bottlenosedolphin_]

Thank you for this, you summed up what I thought concisely

[@wreckingvi2265]

it is a fantasy game, NO ethnicity has those big ears, it is a fantasy driven design . Are you ppl dumb or acting dumb?

[@sussybaka9878]

First i dont see your point, mihoyo also "stole" the culture from europe and r@p€d it? Do you think most of our people in germany have french names? Do you think the only thing we eat is Sauerkraut which is very much the only thing which was mentioned? Do you think we ever had dragons or a Femboy ruler? No but still they profit from it and i dont care because its a FANTASY GAME, YOU HAVE TO REALISE NOTHING IS REALLY SERIOUS. And btw. Whats the Problem that dark skinned characters have a bad kit? Is a black a overpowered skin tone that makes every character strong?

[@Rose-my4wb]

To be fair Xinyan's kit isn't exactly the worst in the game. Thoma's kit is also pretty bad, and Kuki's isn't the best either. As well as, this is a Chinese game from a Chinese country where their main player base is set in China/Asia where pale skin, whiter then snow really, is a standard of beauty for them. They do take inspiration but it isn't representation or even accurate depictions of that culture simply because....the fantasy regions aren't supposed to be fantasy versions of irl places.

[@alpicoo]

To be fair, a lot of characters from inazuma and liyue don't look like Chinese and Japanese people either, they are anime characters. We might view them as "looking Asian", but they don't actually look like anything normal out in the world. The real problem is that there is a lack of dark skinned characters (and yes, there are dark skinned Chinese and Japanese people, even Europeans!), which seems to me like a deliberate aesthetic choice to fit the anime mold better which I don't appreciate at all. Xinyan and kaeya are the single dark skinned characters in the entire ensemble. Would have been a good move to introduce some brown characters with sumeru, and they chose not to.

[@theonewayroad3867]

You would have a point except Sumeru isn't complete they're releasing the rainforest first then the desert and the leaks have show dark skin characters both playable and npcs.

[@alpicoo]

@@theonewayroad3867 sorry I don't really look at leaks so I wouldn't know. It's good to hear that.

[@MomoDearestt]

@@theonewayroad3867 Sumeru is coming out today. “Dark skinned” characters aren’t even as dark as Xinyan or Kaeya and their suppose to live in the desert. :(

[@P1ggl3z]

You have a point, but once again genshin isn't really trying to provide actual representation, more like taking parts of culture from the real world and adding a fantasy aspect to it. So the "anime character" style sort of makes sense. Like how raiden's outfit is clearly inspired off a kimono but is not a traditional one. I do agree Hoyoverse could add more diversity in their characters though.

[@theonewayroad3867]

@@MomoDearestt except they don't live in the desert. The majority of Sumeru citizens live in the forest the only ones who still inhabit the desert as far as we know are various tribes of the Eremites who are descended from an ancient civilization that fell to ruin some thousands of years ago. And yes all dark skinned people must look alike,no not like different skin tones exist or that there are people in real life who if they were any lighter skinned they'd be as white as milk and yet have been born and raised in some of the most hot climates and don't even get me started on were I live.

[@gigitrix]

It's such a missed opportunity. There's a reason genshin aligns it's content to the real world and puts so much effort into representing other cultures. Caricatures, yes - but inoffensive ones that are enjoyed by players across the world. The skin colour here is just going to leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth as Sumeru progresses, it's going to cheapen the experience a bit compared to the other regions

[@Jaz-tk5vx]

Representation is important, whether it be a game or film or book or whatever. And if you're a creative person, and you want to create a fictional world that is based on real places and real cultures, then you owe it to yourself and your audience to do your due diligence and research those places and cultures. Don't be lazy, is what I'm saying. However, having said all that, I have to admit that I feel a little disgusted when a writer or a corporation expect a medal for doing any of these things. We are taught to do the right thing in life, but is it truly the right thing if you're only doing it because you want a reward? I hope that someday we reach a point where it feels natural and normal to have a culturally rich and diverse cast with nobody jumping up and down talking about what a victory it is... you know... because it has become the norm.

[@myfault.5735]

Feel like even if hoyoverse adds more tanned characters it will just be a mere tokenistic action, which I believe is the case for many writers and corpos. As long as we keep harping on how we “should” have representation and how it is “important” I feel like this representation will forever be something forced, a performative action carried out merely to meet societal standards

[@kitnal4143]

@@myfault.5735 like why are the two tan characters in the game 4* and objectively very weak/bad ;-;

[@bloody4558]

Representation is only important when it makes sense. If you make a whole new world based on only one single culture, it stands to reason that all aspects of that culture should be represented. What wouldn't make sense would be for people to complain about lack of reprentation of things that don't belong to that culture. That would be actual forced representation. And a genuine problem because forced representation actually detracts from the whole vision the writer has for the story. Same can be said about people asking black characters in Sumeru when Sumeru is all about middle east and India and not Africa. It's trying to ask for a representation that doesn't need to exist in the region and should be reserved for another region.

[@Jaz-tk5vx]

@@bloody4558 I agree. There are plenty of examples of “forced representation” that have the opposite of the intended effect. Like that new Lord of the Rings series, for example.

[@maybe1637]

Disagree, they are fully in their right to take inspiration from real places and do whatever they want in their FICTIONAL game, no obligation to accurately portray whatsoever. Even being from SEA myself I see absolutely no problem with these characters because I separate fantasy from reality. A "creative" person will make what they want, and if hoyoverse designed them to be pale then they should be able to be pale without people yapping about it not being "realistic".

[@deathray2242]

Truly, what makes this situation so much more distasteful is that Hoyo went the extra mile for Yunjin and went on about how happy and honored they were to introduce their culture to the rest of the world. And now that *they* have decided that they want to take aspects of other cultures for their product they are refusing to show the same respect. It really is disappointing.

[@user-vd9zv4qr1f]

I think sumeri is not released yet.

[@Ringingalong7008]

Exactly. There's no respect and blatant discrimination

[@granthiksharma4626]

YUN JIN Is their culture their culture is superior to others, according to china

[@RealFoodEater]

Its a Chinese game company what do u expect. Thats like asking a Indian game company to celebrate American culture and add it into there game. Mihoyo is comfortable with there Chinese representation and i wont complain about it as an African because its a Chinese game.

[@xiaolongbao.]

@@RealFoodEater FACTS

[@masdontcare]

What gets me as a black person is that they have 7 nations based off of real world nations 5 of which are based off of nations with paler skinned citizens. Not a single region is based on a nation that is mostly black. When we get characters from regions that have darker skin tones that’s the only representation us black players get. So I’m sure you can see the frustration when we don’t even get to see darker skin tones in those regions.

[@alexjd1278]

Exactly our only hope now is Natlan in 2 years 😭

[@AA-cf4es]

Chinese people aren't interested in black (well i guess i can say African continental) culture. It's just a reality. They are colourist and most of them don't find black skin appealing and African culture engaging. It isn't fair, it's just true.

[@swordartonline6719]

Yeah it’s really messed up.

[@Jerm_Kage]

fr

[@seyybunny]

you did an amazing job at explaining this, i don’t see them as racist i see it more as a way that they lack the representation because they aren’t from and don’t really know about the cultures they put into game outside of their culture, i feel like they could do way more research on what they are putting into the game and the gameplay, as someone who is from the culture “relating” to sumeru i do find the lack of color disappointing but i do think the designs are beautiful nonetheless

[@fwoop4848]

Thanks for making this video! I’m Indian and I actually DO care about this, as Sumeru does have some Indian elements to it I feel like there should be more brown characters. Also not everyone in the Middle East are pale, I know a lot are but are also many who aren’t. Even if they live in the forest surely they shouldn’t be paper white.

[@backyardbiology1596]

Thank you for sharing I am white and wanted to hear someone else’s opinion since I couldn’t help but notice they have not added diversity since the start of the game

[@stardustwashere]

@@backyardbiology1596 white people can't talk about this problem. only south asians

[@The-Cookie]

I respect that people would like to see more diversity in the game, but at the end of the day none of the nations are suppose to actually represent reality or a real country/race. It’s only taken inspiration from these countries, not actually replicated them in a game or chosen to represent them. It’s made up and merely only fantasy, not real life.

[@backyardbiology1596]

@@stardustwashere that is why I was listening to the comments and asking to hear other opinions /gen (I couldn’t tell if I offended you and if I did I take full responsibility and am sorry)

[@kinuuni]

Aren't they supposed to be Persian though?

[@kammie225]

so many people in the comments clearly did not watch the video. you gave a very good opinion on the topic atsu, I agree with everything you said. I also hope to see more tan or brown characters in the future, but at the same time I'm not expecting it, nor will i stop playing if they dont add them.

[@NetjunkyXXX]

Just because people don't agree, they didn't watch the video? It may surprise some, but outside of twitter people don't care that much about skin colors and reprsentation

[@justsomeguy727]

Ah yes. Because people don't agree surely that must mean they didn't watch the video 😒

[@Rex13013]

You know people are allowed to have their opinions ya? Doesn't mean people didn't watch there's a thing called nuance, things aren't always black and white.

[@lenlavandula]

exactly people who dont care are trying to silence us who care as we speak :)

[@sussybaka9878]

It may surprise you but everyone has opinions :o Yours are valid and so are ours valid Just because we disagree doesnt mean we didnt watch it

[@Xelluse]

If we will forget that this game is in minimalistic artstye and have racial differences in D&D and Lord of the Rings style and if we will forget about color-works and focusing and problems with color cooperation, then: Dori was inspired on "One Thousand and One Nights" - "Tale of the Trader and the Jinn" (on older version, there are more than 20 versions, if exclude modern interpretations)", but white man became a white girl in a game. That's why she was called Dori (دُری) means - "Shining", "Glowing" in Persian. And do not forget, that Sumeru is based on more than 30 different cultures and nations and from different periods of time and that legends, tells, stories and other cultural aspects differ from one to another, so kinda weird that people do not talk about "Representation" when Dori became a girl from a white strait male..... Nilou is inspired from goddess Astarte (Ishtar in East Semitic culture), Goddess of War, Love, Sexuality and Hunting with "Marble White" skin... Also both live in forest part of Sumeru, therefore their skin should be brighter in compare to people who live in Desert... And I'm curious, when people will complain that Shogun is female ? It's not a "Proper Representation" of culture in time btw.... Or about Female captain of Ship in "China" and Female leader(s) of ruling organization.... It's also not a "Proper Representation" btw... Also Eremites wearing very open cloths to live and travel though dry desert areas... Also "Inappropriate Representation"... But if someone want's just Part of Representation, but not another, then they are simply a Hypocrites, when game never was even promoted that it will be Documentary or Representatively accurate, vice versa, game exactly points, that it's a pure Fantasy Fairytale which have inspirations from multiple, Multiple, A lot of different things, cultures, stories, legends etc.... Would I like to see more characters with darker skintones ? Yes, but - their game = their rules...

[@sayyidash-habussunan]

this

[@namedkenzo]

Your comment is a the best commen here you researched for this comment. As a Iranian you have my respect. Most of them are from America or idk ch and jp. Sumeru showing the time that Persians owned most of middle east and most of Persians are white and it's hard to find black people in iran or it's impossible sometimes. And yes there are a few little brown skins. Sorry if my English is bad btw

[@biblicallyaccurateangle6960]

Speaking as a poc myself I'm more weirded out by the character designs, the accessories and colors are all over the place it's not as polished as other designs genshin has came out, I'm also really dissapointed by the lack of skin variations but not as much as tighnari's god-awful design. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate just make your character designs unique bro, literally almost everyone is starting to look the same so having varied skintones would be better if genshin has no intention making new character models. For now I'm just a bit dissapointed with Sumeru, the environment looks cool tho.

[@banditdoggo]

Yeah i just want more unique looking characters instead of just all having the same skin color like copy and paste

[@moonawilks8240]

Like the new characters Cyno and Candace (who is literally based off a black woman, Kandake) have the same skin tone of tan, why is it so hard for them to have 1 or 2 shades darker? Like Nekomata from Zenless Zone Zero??

[@EroticWalruss]

I honestly think that this was NOT a malicious attempt at racial misrepresentation but rather a business decision to appeal towards the massive East Asian market. It's great we are trying to educate them but I think calling them "racist" is a bit much. China has grown so big so fast that they have yet to educate the modern generation of youths and workforce of first world matters. Remember people, Chinese people were mostly farmers just 3 generations ago. Give them some time and guide them with care and understanding as opposed to name-calling and harassment.

[@mikkolaki24]

So rather than racist, they are capitalists using a culture for profit without the proper representation of people they are getting this culture from

[@saorsa6607]

i just hope everyone can be understanding like u

[@aashmitsingh3628]

The thing with the genshin community is that they may have genuine problems worth discussing (eg the anniversary rewards and this current case) but their way of tackling them are so extreme that it's hard to support them

[@mikkolaki24]

@@aashmitsingh3628 sadly thats how the world works. If someone of authority (in this case genshin) doesn’t listen to discourse, what other method do the people have for them to listen. In the end, the only force that makes the people be heard is outrage and backlash in sales and ratings. This is similar to real life like how in Sri Lanka. Due to the horrible state of the government, they had to revolt. They were not listened to, so they fought with outrage.

[@glurppuffloid9796]

I think this video is just Clickbait. Sumeru isn't based on India. and Iran has a lot of Pale ppl.

[@l.b.m1059]

As a person of Arabic descent, I don't really care for this issue but I am kinda disappointed as I was very excited to be able to play characters that look culturally accurate to my background. I enjoyed the culture from past regions and have hopes for future regions.

[@ousamadearu5960]

8:10 it actually depends. Especially on lifestyle and living conditions. Some North Indians look more fair skinned than you would expect. Or a very luxurious Arab not going outside as much or have Iranian traits. Its complicated, especially in SEA, where we got literally Fair skinned Indonesians and Filipinos who are so light skinned that you can only use their familial background to determine whether or not they are not with other bloodlines. Its 100% complicated and it just bugs me that people still use the same argument while not seeing nuances that are more complicated than geopolitics.

[@peaches50]

Im so happy to see you take this seriously, hero hei and his fans sadly fail to realize why representation and diversity matters. Mans does nothing but clickbait and complain about «twittards» for wanting rep. «Its just fiction» lmao fiction is still inspired/based on reality, doesnt change shit

[@McNugge.]

It's BASED on, not SUPPOSED TO BE EXACTLY. It was never supposed to be LIKE the real counterpart. It's a fictional game in a fictional word, grow up snowflake. Your twitter bubble is just a tad bit crazy imo🤠

[@CutsiePie_]

yes! I hate Hero Hei bc he just shows the most extreme views from Twitter and basically preaches to his audience that those that want diversity (that is natural and should thus be treated so in the game) are stupid and whining. He's the perfect example of people speaking over poc

[@regirblx2424]

@@CutsiePie_ Exactly

[@McNugge.]

Imo yall are the kind of people who uniriconically use "but I'm black" as a victim card all the time. Exactly you whiny people are the ones Hore Hei mocks imo, because the only thing you indirectly racist mfs see is skin colour. Yall are so delusional you can't even comprehend the fact that ALL of this is fiction 🤡🥴

[@regirblx2424]

@exquirentibus veritatem Bro really said touch some grass 😂

[@natime]

before expressing my own thoughts i just want to say that i really appreciate that you're bringing up this discussion as big genshin creator. a lot of genshin content creators shy away from talking about it or are just straight up saying that people that culture is included in sumeru are dramatic and never happy which can be upsetting. personally i feel like hoyoverse is really avoiding represention and think that one or two characters with a little darker skin will solve the issue and make unhappy players satisfied enough but it's not enough and we should say it loud. all dark skinned characters are 4*, briefly talked about and not very popular - just look at xinyan who is basically completely forgotten by fandom or kaeya whose topic is only brought up when there are any khaenri'ah crumbs. every unhappy person with represantation was always told to wait for sumeru or natlan since those are "dark skinned people nation" but now that were getting sumeru it's not looking promising as well. dori is looking like an aladdin character and aladdin is already problematic and very orientalist piece of media from disney, while tighnari who's based on real arab botanist doesn't have any arab traits like just tanned skin... it can be very disappointing to see a popular game profiting from your culture while still implying harmful stereotypes and designs that are just not it. you would expect more research from developers that made such detailed regions like inazuma or liyue.

[@The1andonlysharpshooter]

Well said.

[@ryu246]

thank you 👏🏼

[@justsomeguy727]

People shy away from these topics because social political agendas have no place in video games that are meant as a form of *getting away* from those aspects of the real world. Also it's funny y'all say they're profiting off your culture but I don't see y'all trying to shit on Disney for making Aladdin a literal racial stereotype lmfao

[@natime]

@@justsomeguy727 your escapism argument has no sense since hoyoverse already managed to intertwine real life places, people and culture into their fictional world so it is hard to avoid it and it's really not surprising that people related to those cultures want proper represantation. regarding aladdin: well, are you serious? it was controversial on its first release but live action raised discussion once again to this point that original movie got warning on disney plus to be beware of harmful cultural depictions. it's still controversial and not seen in very nice light...

[@kiiuunn]

FACTS ONLY FACTS

[@xianlotus]

i’m not that annoyed with the fact they’ve added paler characters for sumeru, obviously pale people exist in south asian/arab countries - however it’s clear that hoyoverse is just colourist and scared to add a bit of melanin into their characters majority of people from south asian countries are much more darker skinned, it’s extremely ignorant to blatantly disregard the rich diversity in those countries. how come could they do such extreme research on yunjin, but couldn’t do even the bare minimum for some sumeru characters? also why is the ONE slightly tan character we are getting from sumeru (dehya i believe) another aggressive looking pyro claymore woman? this might be me looking too into it but seriously , this is getting ridiculous edit: a lot of u mihoyo asslickers cant read so let me clarify, xinyan *LOOKS* aggressive - thats literally one of the main stereotypes for darker people, thats why i have an issue with it.

[@Amexella]

Dehya is also based off a North African Queen who was a warrior, this type of design is so weird like

[@haruyanto8085]

You're acting like aggressive, brutish or loud pale characters don't exist lol, Childe, Itto, Benett, Beidou? And what do you mean another, Xinyan isn't aggressive, she's just a rock fan

[@xianlotus]

@@haruyanto8085 darker skinned people are STEREOTYPED as aggressive (especially women), the characters mentioned aren’t at all even remotely aggressive looking. Why does the only other pyro dark skinned (pushing lmfao) woman HAVE to be another stereotypical angry lookin punk character? just admit mhy refuses to allow their tan characters to be anything other than stereotypes bc they’re colourist and stop being a bootlicker 😭

[@maymas8862]

@@haruyanto8085 they literally always describe her as scary looking to other people, kind of hard to ignore that.

[@winterwisteria]

@@maymas8862 I understand where you're coming from, however, a big of xinyans character story is that people initially judge her and her music rudely, but come to find that they like her music, and that xinyan is actually a really a nice person. I mightve explained that weird lol

[@Pinglen]

North African here, I honestly couldn't care less

[@beans11138]

It's very obvious hoyoverse doesn't create characters out of respect towards cultures. They are white because it sells better. Same logic as revealing clothing in games. I get how people can be upset, but at the same time hoyoverse needs cash. The one thing I'll never understand is the 'there are fair skinned people in this region too!!' argument. Don't lie, the majority of people living there has dark skin and you know it too. Understanding this decision from a business point is completely different from trying to justify it.

[@trashaimgamer7822]

I think unique looking chatacters would sell better than 50 characters that look the same...

[@beans11138]

@@trashaimgamer7822 No, anime games doesn't work like that. People sell their houses for the 103739th version of the same blond girl in fgo (another mobile game)

[@mitsume_slay]

Makes sense if you think about it

[@xcookiesandcreamx]

I think you've expressed my feelings about 3.0 well. I must say, I'm rather surprised that you came out with a take like this since other creators have been silent or dismissive. I think it's really insightful having these sorts of conversations, I also believe it's just as important to think critically about the entertainment we take in instead of just accepting things as it is.

[@re4ptilerea4er55]

What if.....their not from sumeru? Sumeru is home to the best college of all. That which all people who study and wish to learn to to, people from around the whole world. So......wouldn't it make sense if.....they could actually be from another country. And just wear those clothes cause that is what's in the nation to help keep you cool in the desert like area and it's heat? Example is collie She isn't from sumeru If I recall she was kidnapped from her home and expiramented on and was then escaped to mondstat And then went to sumeru. We have met people like this too People who come from sumeru but say their birth place and families live in fountain, mondtsat, inazuma, natlan. So every character may not be Arabian and these could just be people from various other cultures and places who went to the college to study........wouldn't that also be a possibility?

[@harfi212]

Im not that surprise, he have that typical sjw aura on him. Weak ass liberal who love to pandering.

[@thelying2594]

@@re4ptilerea4er55 even then Hoyo needs to not copy and paste the same skin tone because artistically that's just shallow and repetitive- not saying everyone should be dark but just more variety..

[@re4ptilerea4er55]

@@thelying2594 did you not see the dark skin panther girl coming out? Just chill. We may get more later on. Just relax.

[@thelying2594]

@@re4ptilerea4er55 1, 1 out of 6 new characters 3 out of 50+ again not asking for only black characters. Is it really so wrong for me to ask for more diversity? Or does that just annoy you?

[@eldoodlez4362]

As a mixed poc(I’m way too many ethnicities to count at this point but Indian is one of them) I feel like part of what might make Sumeru feel a little off is that, from what I know, it’s taking inspiration from many Middle East and South Asian cultures. With the previous regions, they each focused on one culture for inspiration. Monstadt taking inspiration from Germany, Liyue from China, and Inazuma from Japan. With Sumeru(and Natlan, if I’m correct) they take inspiration from multiple cultures from multiple countries and regions. Since Sumeru’s inspired by more than one culture I feel it may end up doing things that may be culturally accurate for one area but not for another, which could cause a lot of confusion in the community. I’m aware that there are quite a lot of pale-skinned people in the regions Sumeru’s inspired by, so the fact characters are light-skinned isn’t necessarily a problem in of itself. However, the fact that the game so far only has 2 dark-skinned characters and that they have yet to show any more dark-skinned characters coming in Sumeru is slightly worrying to me, considering the fact that it’s been leaked that all of treasure hoarders for the region have been shown to be dark-skinned. Considering the fact the regions not out yet and we don’t know much more, I’m gonna give the benefit of the doubt and not jump to conclusions, but I’m still gonna stay a little skeptical until more info is released.

[@haikukyu]

I have never agreed with a comment more. I hate that people are simply jumping to conclusions before the region is even released, and aren’t considering the fact that only three Sumeru characters have even been announced. We absolutely need more representation in Genshin, however attacking Hoyoverse for a region we know close to nothing about about is completely illogical. There WILL be more characters with dark skin; this I’m sure of. It’s just a matter of time.

[@sakuragurl88647]

I'm black and play Genshin. It would be nice to see some range, yes. Different shades of brown and tan characters. But I'm not really losing sleep over it. Not gonna lie Sumeru did seem like a great chance to add in some really different-looking people but they didn't. Honestly, I'm kind of just hoping they bring in more complexions at SOME POINT. Surely they can't stop with Xinyan. I do think that they are getting inspiration from real-world countries...but like someone said none of these places was probably meant to be spot on but still. Spice it up. In general, the game may have a 'same shit different day' vibe, so maybe switching up the appearances will keep people interested.

[@MomoDearestt]

I’m praying the people living in fire are gonna be dark. Because fire, heat = tan. Hoping for Natlan. :(

[@masterspark9880]

There’s something racist about genshin that I haven’t seen anyone mention yet. And it’s that your character is racist towards certain ethnicities like Russians and Egyptians (Snezhnayans and Eremites) even if you don’t want them to be. Like when you find those Snezhnayans starving in the chasm. I wanted to help them out and be nice to them, but the game didn’t give me that option. Also, when you see that Eremite woman and two men at the start of Sumeru, you have no choice but to distrust them just because they’re Eremites and therefore “must be up to something”. That one made be especially uncomfortable because I’m Egyptian myself and was essentially forced to racially profile fellow Egyptians

[@MOI-rt5zi]

I never expected Hoyoverse/Mihoyo to represent POC properly. Knew that they are gonna take some inspiration from different cultures/ countries, combine them together but the characters are barely gonna represent the people in terms of looks. Until now, we have like 2 characters which have dark skin and that too, looks just mildly tanned. Asian depiction of black and brown people is terrible and it's especially true for the BIG 3 East Asian countries. It doesn't make them racist. They're just ignorant about other cultures/ countries due to poor representation in media. It's the same for anime, manga. I've learned to accept this fact. I'm brown and i don't mind representation of my people but i also don't expect to be represented.

[@brahyonetta]

i mean never expect a full representation from games its not really fun sorry.. and since genshin haven’t explicitly announced that every region based on real places i have always thought they just take inspiration the only problem i had is that skin is so white and glowing so it hurt my eyes from design standpoint other than that if the character drippy and has enjoyable gameplay i wouldn’t ask for more

[@suisui7481]

@Zyszzy just a reminder the npcs according to leaker blank appeared 2 weeks after the summer is whitewash outrage also pre to that the only humans we fought in sumeru were all poc desert raiders which tell you something don't they

[@arnowisp6244]

You represent youself. That's what I learned.

[@arnowisp6244]

@@suisui7481 It tells absolutely nothing if DESERT raiders are tanned.

[@suisui7481]

@@arnowisp6244 its tells something if they are the ONLY SUMERU HUMANS WE FIGHT

[@da_void6170]

I keep seeing a lot of brown people saying that they are ok with it and I know that there are light skinned people in Middle East and South Asia but as a brown person myself sometimes I do want to see brown characters because they take soo much stuff from our culture yet there is no represent for us. And on top of that most of the characters name are Muslim or Egypt yet even though they have used Sanskrit terms even in the trailer and is heavenly based on Indian culture there is not a speck of representation for Hindus and not gonna lie its kinda sucks. And those who say that brown people are ok with it, only few are, not all. So please stop trying to "represent" the whole community

[@ceryn8751]

I feel like Mihoyo needs to dodge any religion as altogether as much as possible. Much in the way that the Church of Barbados isn't really at all related to Christianity even if it has a similar motif. I thought the Yaksha were at least somewhat related to Hindu / Indian mythological references. Maybe I was wrong on this. I figured we would get into their origin story along with the discussion of how the Dendro Archon was assassinated 500 years ago. The topic of religion is really sensitive for some, I have a co-worker who is Muslim who quit the game altogether because the 'talk of gods' within the game has no basis in truth and so its bad for him to experience it. (His words not mine). I think its much safer to go after mythology rather than currently existing religions just to avoid causing large backlash from various cultures.

[@ahmedmubarak751]

Well they are not gonna change their colour if you complain, and it's just anime anyway why do people really care that much .it's not something on a political scale , it's just for fun , I honestly don't get it .

[@Rex13013]

You know it's ok for you to voice your opinion right? Just like people like me who are mostly indifferent, I talk for myself and I personally don't really care that much I'm just trying to have fun, I don't need to see myself in everything and I relate more to personality instead so race has never been an issue even tho im latino tan. I've never once said I "represented" anybody else and the people who are more in my camp that I've seen here haven't either so idk where that's coming from tbh.

[@head_honcho192]

@@ahmedmubarak751 same here basically I don't care about skin colors or etc There are names from Ancient sanskirt is enough for me also story quests etc matters the most than skintones

[@raineisme]

Atsu..you are so important to this world and I hope you get everything that you deserve. Thank you so much for using you platform and your voice. You have taken big risk and you show that these topics are more important than followers..thank you so much for you work..take care of yourself!!

[@tt4days346]

you are a creator that acknowledges and isnt scared to talk about stuff like this when it comes up and i really respect that, especially since this lack of representation doesnt directly affect you in this instance

[@czar17_28]

As an African American person of color, I’ve never expected Genshin Impact, a Chinese gacha made by a Chinese company, to ever have good or accurate representation of any POC. Asian depiction of darker people of Hispanic and African descent is typically and historically terrible or completely ignored. I don’t necessarily believe any one company racist, but there’s simply not an audience, understand or want to included people of those skin tones across the Eastern World. It’s a reality I’ve learned to accept when watching anime and reading manga, I don’t expect Video Games to be any better. EDIT: I was quickly made aware that Sumeru is referencing the Middle East and South Asia. (Which makes sense considering the music lol). Doesn’t change anything about what I said involving traditional/typical/majority perspective of darker skin tones in Asian culture.

[@capricorn2723]

As black person (Caribbean)I agree. I welcome representation but that’s not something I expect from them.

[@sammiesmith3454]

You are missing the fact that there are several Asian countries with brown skinned people and that there are brown skinned people China, Korea, and Japan. This situation is not about Black people getting representation, this is about brown skinned Asians having their culture used and misrepresented.

[@czar17_28]

@@sammiesmith3454 Undeniably so. I was under the assumption that Sumeru was based off South America or Africa BEFORE I looked into the comments and saw Indonesia, the Middle East, India etc. The exact same rules apply.

[@Lilyyyyy20588]

I think it's fair if the game was catered towards only Eastern audiences however they purposely made the game for multiple audiences worldwide and have been doing official promotions in places like the US and UK where the racial diversity is much more vast. We can't let companies want to branch out of their region but let them off for only catering to their 'Eastern' audience

[@isabellamaclean7357]

@@sammiesmith3454 I have a question, what’s being mispresented? I thought genshin only took inspiration from the culture and not actively trying to accurately get everything correct, considering the fact that it is a fictional world?

[@soumikd794]

As a south Asian person, it is very disappointing that there is no representation for us and I was very excited for Sumeru. However at the end of the day, it's a game and I don't think people should so far as to attack the creators. Knowing Hoyoverse, I don't have much faith, but I'm still hopeful that the upcoming Sumeru characters will show proper representation.

[@sunnybonnell409]

Why not speak out against their dislike for dark skinned people? They are a billion dollar corporation, they can cry in their pile of money. They can at least know about why people don't like what they are doing if they plan to expand more into the international market.

[@suryav1397]

@@sunnybonnell409 this exactly. If Hoyo wants Genshin to be a truly international game, they need to recognize that there are a lot of players that aren't just in CN or JP. If they're going to use our cultures for their game, then they should at least do the bare minimum and try and represent our demographics a little more.

[@kiiuunn]

@@sunnybonnell409 frr, genshin fandom did the same with the anniversary bs but nobody said sh!t now its a big deal that people are "attacking" hoyoverse 😹

[@deathhs]

@@sunnybonnell409 fr why do they refuse to make dark skinned characters?😭😭 xinyan or wtv and kaeya just have a SLIGHTY darker skin tone and out of like 50 characters theyre all WHITE and only 2 slightyyyyy darker wtf? And now they have the perfect opportunity to make more dark skinned and they dont make it

[@bletwort2920]

If you look closely both Japanese and Chinese draw heavy inspiration from ancient Indian religions and cultures in their media. But fail to represent Indian people.

[@wailsharkk]

stan AsianGuyStream for being one of, if not the only prominent genshin streamer to actually acknowledge this issue

[@hazelnut1294]

The issue is too ridiculous to be addressed imo

[@wailsharkk]

@@hazelnut1294 well thats your opinion :) sorry that the want for accurate rep of our cultures in media is "ridiculous"

[@saikikku]

@@hazelnut1294 genshin community complained about the rosaria boob nerf and the bad anniversary rewards for months but when people complain about something actually reasonable we get dismissed and called dramatic and sensitive?

[@uqino.]

Yes they are racist. Wtf are yall saying in these comments.

[@Flow-Fi-]

Since we don’t have all of the character models or art leaked so far, I’m not gonna jump to conclusions. I do feel however, that the three current ones being extremely pale don’t make much sense. Dori and Collei look fine, but I honestly think Tighnari would’ve looked just as great with darker skin. I know that since the characters might not be out in the sun much due to it being covered by tree tops and all, they may be lighter, but they shouldn’t be that pale, as the current 3 so far seem to go outside more. Tighnari and Collei lead a forest ranger patrol, and Dori is a merchant, meaning she probably travels. But I’m sure when the desert comes, there will be more dark skinned characters.

[@UberWraith]

To be completely fair, Tighnari isn't even Human to begin with, judging from his ears and his Constellation he is a 'Fennec Fox' humanoid - a fox native to the deserts of North Africa (like Gorou is a 'Shiba Inu' humanoid, Yae Miko a 'Kitsune Youkai', Diona and Sucrose Katzlein - basically cat people - , Klee an Elf of sort... the list is long). And to add to all of this, Rosaria is a character from Mondstadt and she is PURPLE. We don't know if she is a regular Human, a Dhampir or something else.

[@kkoganee]

I don't think there will be more darker skinned characters. Even in the desert, most will be white... we are talking about hyv

[@Cecil1213]

We actually do due to leaks

[@Flow-Fi-]

@@kkoganee We won’t know until they release. We don’t even have have half of the Sumeru cast characters yet, so assumptions should not be taken as fact. We have three darker skinned characters leaked already, that is more than we have gotten in the past, which asserts that we should get more in the desert region.

[@kitnal4143]

@@Flow-Fi- it is a fair guess, look at the entire Honkai roster lmao

[@ActionAbe1]

genshin already did a bad job with representation with mondstadts characters. mondstadt itself is a good fantasy representation of germany and austria but the characters mostly feel so off outside of them being white. they dont even really have middle european sounding names. With sumeru i hope they get the characters and their characterization right and hopefully also add coloured people to the game. not only for racial reasons but also just for purely game variety

[@NetjunkyXXX]

As a german i agree with your assesment of mondstadt and also i couldn't care less about that. The only thing that triggers me is that nobody can pronouce "Prinzessin der Verurteilung" lol

[@ActionAbe1]

@@NetjunkyXXX no one in the game can pronounce anything german lets be real lmao lyre der himmel to name one. the only thing even close to being correct is Eula saying gebratenes fleisch mit sauerkraut which at least sounded kinda funny instead of insulting like the rest

[@NetjunkyXXX]

@@ActionAbe1 yes and that's perfectly fine tbh :) german is hard ^^

[@swordmaster4448]

umm Kaeya ??? lul

[@ActionAbe1]

@@swordmaster4448 what about keaya?

[@GreenNari]

Hearing Sumeru was coming out and that it was going to be based off Arabic culture got me exited, as a mixed race girl myself I thought there was going to be some diversity within the characters skin tones. I truly adore anime culture and have always wanted to do cosplay,however most characters in anime are white. Now I’m not saying that POC can’t cosplay as white characters but in my opinion, I want to *truly* feel like that character, be able to look in the mirror and say “ that’s [insert character name]” so with Sumeru coming out, I saw that as an opportunity. That’s all I wanted to say, thanks for reading if you have

[@notayoush_]

I am from arabic background and tbh although i was glad that hoyoverse included some sort of middle eastern culture in their game i think that they could have done better in their character's design; contrary to what a lot of people think, not all middle eastern/north africans have a tan skin tone, it is actually not uncommon to see light skins in these countries; however, the problem is that MOST of these characters are just white so it's a pretty inaccurate representation. i don't think it's necessarily racist, hoyoverse simply has some inaccuracy in their representations it's not really something that i care deeply about and i will definitely keep playing genshin impact- this is simply my opinion on the matter and i am definitely not offended by this ps: idk if this made sense I'm not really good explaining stuff lmao

[@sxs2665]

I would love to see more diversity with the genshin characters.

[@Gloverfield]

I really doubt its gonna happen, after all china isn't very... fond... of black poeple.... And Muslims are a big no no because of a certain "Re-education" thingy happening in Tibet...

[@xenoemblem7]

Nice and simple. I like it

[@justsomeguy727]

Forcing diversity just leads to tokenism. Is that really what y'all wanna have end up happening ? Cause that's what's going to happen if people continue trying to force diversity everywhere they go.

[@emiliaserra1333]

@@justsomeguy727 It's not forced though

[@KamisatoElias]

@@justsomeguy727 fine have it your way, let’s continue to have the next 50 characters in this game to be all white. They’re purposefully missing out black people. It’s easy for you to say probably as a white person, you’re the main characters in everything.

[@zeruma.1264]

I really appreciate Atsu for discussing topics like this, especially when I see most KZbinrs say “It’s just a game, don’t bring politics into games, this isn’t an issue” about the whole representation issue. But the fact of the matter is, often times there is politics in stories to help illustrate a narrative, and it helps with world-building, and that good representation helps to bring light to potentially heavy issues in a more palatable manner so that more people are aware that these issues exist, or help to portray people in a better light to combat the stereotypes. Great video!!

[@nothing3887]

It brings attention from people other than the usual crowd. Either way looking for representation isn’t the be all end all.

[@wreckingvi2265]

He does it for viewership and that's all, it was dragged and had no meaning lol

[@crozsol4278]

Love this video so much. Thank you for discussing this because it’s important, and you have a great sense of empathy. I hope/wonder if HYV will make changes for Natlan…

[@thepiggstein]

Wonderful video. I'd watched a few of your 'yelling excitedly at people getting garbage gacha pulls' videos (not to talk them down, they're good fun!) so this took me completely by surprise. Nuanced but assertive argument, well-reasoned and compassionate - definitely subscribing!