The PROBLEM with Candace

The new Genshin character is bad
0:00 Intro
0:32 History lesson
1:39 Redesigned Candace
2:15 how many products are there?
5:00 Sumeru
6:01 why is there Beijing opera?

[@user-uf5jz2kq3e]

Thanks for bringing up the issue Asia has with "light skin = attractive"! As you said, body positivity around skin color and weight is a pretty big problem in Asia so I thank you for bringing it up :D

[@meiroseos]

Thanks for the comment! There's things I love sm about Asia (food, history, etc) but some things I don't love as much like these issues. Hopefully talking more openly about them helps people understand and be more accepting :0) have a good day !

[@thechocobotamer6938]

This made me realize that it's not as maliciously intended as I had previously thought. I'm an American POC so racism is so overt and loud that I'm kind of used to that. This situation is probably, as you said, a result of the colorism that is so engrained in their daily lives that they don't even realize what's wrong. And if you think about it, of course they're going to white wash characters, their main target audience is China. China would have an aneurysm from seeing c4 hair, they would be slandered by tabloids for promoting such ideas. The company will go out of their way to please the money makers. It would be nice if they grew a backbone though. If they did it gently and gradually threy could be a good influence, but that would be a business risk. If their main target audience was the US then they wouldn't have had a problem with diversifying the characters.

[@meiroseos]

You make a good point, it would be interesting to consider if more representation would be more appealing for and gain a larger western audience. The west has it's own ways of appealing to audiences abroad, but I have never actively compiled the ways cross cultural products make international market decisions.

[@fishfingers3646]

Only chomos refer to non-whites as " POC "

[@somethinganonymous1723]

Normally I just sort of tune out anything involving complaints of race and representation from Twitter at this point, but going through this I gotta agree it's really questionable to put all this effort into creating these fantastic reflections of real cultures and countries with all these details and clear inspirations, but not bother to make the average skin tones of a sunny, partially desert-filled country based on South Asia and the Middle East a few shades darker than the ones based on Germany and China. Also, is it just me or do most of the light-skinned characters seem to have roughly the same skin hue/tone? Even among a mostly-white population I'm pretty sure there'd be a small amount of variation, even discounting people who get tanned from hanging out in the sun a lot. I think I might be nitpicking here but it seems like an oversight or a sign of laziness on the part of the artists at Mihoyo.

[@meiroseos]

I went into the game and tried comparing the "darker" tone in game models to the trailers of characters I don't have. All the in game models have a bit of a "glow" effect, so that probably makes them literally a bit "lighter". But, though I can't confirm 100% , it does seem like the "dark" tone is pretty similar if not the same across characters

[@galaxymoon8071]

It’s pretty common for light skinned anime characters to all have the same hue, I have no idea why but it’s annoying.

[@cursed-cat9126]

@@galaxymoon8071 prolly cuz it gets irritating seeing only one part of dark skintone represented, even though there's a plethora of em

[@lotusdragonjbh]

Sometimes something can be colorist and racist at the same time. Both are bad, both are two different things, but both can intertwine. but still. If a contributing factor to colorism in a country is colonism, then some of that COLORIsm is based or influenced by RACism. Therefore it could be RACIST and COLORIST , depending. And both imply ignorance as well. Also. Geeze, Nobody is deleting genshin impact over an opinion . One can dislike an aspect of the game or a trend and still enjoy the game. Or they simply want it to improve. Plenty of people have said something about then game and changes were made in an attempt for the better. Or did we ALL forget last year's anniversary?? If its "just a game" should the anniversary rewards from last year have been taken and the player base stay silent? Noting some, they'd have done so. You fav thing can and will be critisized. Vid still has a point. Hoyo base a character on a real life dark skinned person, base them off their name and legend , there is obvious reference to said person that is easily available to look at- and they still make them super pale and barely used any of the source material. But no one is allowed to have ANY opinion on that? Not even a passing observation? But let this year's anniversary be unsatisfactory... And if they didn't want complaints or didn't want people of other countries expecting anything- they should have kept the game in China and/or just portrayed countries with mostly pale people. Simple as that. But no, they didn't. Instead they did other countries and they showed us all their varying degrees of effort. And with how they hide important story events in timed trials we almost never get to play again- there is plenty to voice contempt for. Hoyo has a lot of problems. Either way, you are giving money and/or advertisement to a gacha product , and should be able to voice dissatisfaction or confusion.

[@meiroseos]

Thanks for the comment, I think you put it in a really concise way! I agree, I think it's an impressive game and product, but I still have stuff I wish was better.

[@tildecorrera7697]

What a great informative video! Thanks tor shedding some light on the topic It's kind of sad seeing those comments attacking you or excusing Mihoyo's choices, like people you can like a game and still be critical of its elements

[@wishfuldorian]

my god these comments. But anyways yeah you're absolutely correct and it's sad. ESPECIALLY now that we have the eremites and one with locks. :/ the designs they got look sooo much better than the playable characters its sad and another thing, the promotional art REALLY doesn't do the characters favor. They look twice lighter in them then the actual game

[@yourlocalviewer5171]

Thank you for pointing out the colorism here in Asia. As an Asian myself I wasn't as woke to discuss this topic till I stumbled across this video. And honestly, it just disheartens me the fact that Candances, Xinyan, and Kaeya's color will be the closest will be getting for a playable dark-skinned character, as for now.

[@DaichiOkami]

The only reason yun jin is well represented is because she is based of Chinese culture and the game is Chinese, they never cared about realistic representation for anyone else and never will you are wasting your time. They did the same for zhongli, just because he is the god of liyue that sort of represents china, the Chinese players throwed a massive tantrum for the characters being suppusedly too weak to represent their country so they had to buff them. The only representation genshin care about is Chinese and that's only so the Chinese playerbase and government don't spear down their company.

[@meiroseos]

Thanks for giving your opinion. I think it's still worth bringing up- I'm technically representing Chinese culture in a sense so I think I should point out where there are issues.

[@katya8496]

I'm Kabyle Amazigh btw in case someone tells me I'm not affected, and tbh my main problem with Sumeru in Genshin is that not only did they use historical REAL figures Kandake which is a title as you said, Al-Haitham an Arab researcher who was definitely NOT that pale in his representations, Al-Tighnari an Arab botanist (and they also mixed Tighnari with Kabyle Amazigh influences even though his name is from an Arab botanist), the Amazigh queen Dihya etc etc... and gave them either orientalist, European-inspired or weird mixes of diff clothings that are not supposed to go together. And YES pale people totally exist in SWANA/SA, however can y'all see the lack of diversity in the Sumeru cast?? None of the playable/important characters are darker than tan/sand-colored, and some of the outfits genuinely annoy me so much. I'll only comment on Dehya and Tighnari because both have clothing based on my culture and I don't want to speak over people from other cultures. Dehya's outfit feels like an orientalist version of Chaoui Amazigh clothing (the top instead of being a dress being a weird bra/crop-top, the jewelry being placed in weird places like the fibula under her top is NOT supposed to go there it's a brooch 😭) and Tighnari's outfit is based on many Kabyle Amazigh elements but used in such weird ways I didn't notice it was Kabyle at first until someone made a deeper analysis and I finally recognized the cultural pieces. And just because pale people exist in SWANA/South Asia doesn't mean brown/dark-skinned people should be put on the side. (Just because you've only ever known pale people in your region doesn't mean Brown/dark-skinned people don't exist, you may just not live/be from an area where they are the majority. Plus representation from media even from our own countries are colorist and won't allow brown/dark-skinned people into stuff like fashion/acting etc so you will mostly see pale people on TV/brands obviously. I hoped to get better from Genshin but this kinda ruined it (I wasn't expecting much from Sumeru to be honest, the architecture of the rainforest side is fine but the desert side is ugh.. stereotypical) at least the music is good and done by people from SWANA/SA 😭

[@meiroseos]

Thank you for the comment, I didn't know about any of those cultural pieces at all and it was really interesting to hear from someone connected to that culture. I would not have known about those connections otherwise. I'm sorry to hear that they bungled the rep on those characters in particular... bummer.

[@katya8496]

@@meiroseos No problem! I understand someone not related to the culture wouldn't notice ofc. That's why I try to spread awareness on that issue especially since Amazigh/North African people are often not put as part of the discussion about Sumeru when our culture is also misused here.. I actually reworked on the design of Dihya (which I'll redo sometime because I wasn't completely satisfied and want to include more the "fighter" aspect as I worked on her redesign before I played 3.0) and I hope to work on a redesign of Tighnari as well soon

[@cursed-cat9126]

When I compare dark-skinned Candace to tanned Candace, they look like 2 different characters to me. Obey Me has the same problem to with Simeon, Diavolo and Mammon :/

[@personperson1254]

I don’t get how it’s still misunderstood that Sumeru is based on South Asians not Africans, and nowadays the usual South Asians have a lighter skin complexion.

[@meiroseos]

You're sure that most South Asians now have a lighter complexion? How did you confirm this?

[@meiroseos]

I don't want to rain on your parade, but isn't her character based on "Of red sands and glimmering gold", and is described as "a true descendant of King Deshret"? Is this meant to be South Asian?

[@personperson1254]

1: I confirmed this by simply looking at images of South Asians online and the majority do have lighter skin tones similar to Candace while there’s still some exceptions that do have darker skin. 2: Sure the design and theme of the character have ties to Egyptian mythology, however she still exists in a region of Genshin impact that involves South Asian culture with the designs of characters that we have in game and the environments the we’re able to explore and the most obvious of all a whole rainforest right next to a desert. I’m not saying that Candace does spend a lot of time in the rainforest section of Sumeru but spending some time in large amounts of shade can still stop people from getting darker skin if they don’t have a dark complexion naturally.

[@meiroseos]

1. This is okay, but I think we have some difference in our sample sizes. I grew up with mostly south Asians. There is great variation even among one ethnicity. And, there are people who are darker as well. 2. I suppose that could explain it- given the faux-egyptian theme you could even justify it as her being "royalty" and all the associated Egyptian history with that. But, I'm not seeking to give an explanation for it here, I'm just trying to point out that there are still NO truly "dark" tones represented here. And, if we consider that they want to fantasize many regions, it seems like a missed opportunity. That's just what I think , thanks for commenting and discussing it even if we don't agree

[@andina1987]

@@meiroseos and not all asian is that black.whats wrong with u kiddo

[@SkruRot]

As a milk bottle white dude, I have no rights to speak for any of ya'll, so i'm glad I found this video with opinions and thoughts that i can get behind. i was disappointed in mihoyo, when I saw the new characters, my first thought was, "wow, that's kinda...boring?" and cuz me and my Genshin friends are ALL white, they were uncomfortable when i talked about it, talking about how "lowkey kinda these designs are just tan ppl fr" i don't really hold the rights to talk about it, so I stopped. I always thought it was kinda sus, so hearing about this side of like "skin whiting" and everything, I finally know *why* i had this bad feeling in my stomach. Candace, is one of my favorite 4 stars atm, (She's mom, and she makes me happy cuz she's nice, and also like Leyla cuz she's a mood) but when I make fan art, she'll have textured hair, and darker skin, along with Cyno, cuz i wanna see more actual rep for everyone, not just ppl who look like me, with a tan on lmao.

[@johnmobley9369]

Growing up being into Japanese and Asian culture a bit being a black person the beauty standards and lack of diversity or respect for darker complexions was prevalent to me when looking at the parts that did things like marketed pale skin, whitening products, had these unrealistic standards of beauty. Not only the but the treatment of darker foreigners and even natives. Even in media like anime being extremely underrepresented and in the past when they were it wasn’t always great.

[@briapika2377]

This is gonna be a hit...

[@meiroseos]

I try

[@AgathaVara]

' hit'.

[@blueberry1vom1t]

as someone with Mongolian, korean and Indian blood it genuinely makes me angry that my country, Korea a nation built on being mixed race is using so many skin whitening products.

[@LoL-sp3wu]

Genshin impact location and characters are currently based on Germany, China and Japan so if we want the characters to reflect the cultures the locations are based on it makes sense that they're all white. Now what I see with sumeru is that the 2 characters that are from the desert region have darker tones that are closer to the skin tone of south asians than completely dark skin would be. They could be darker and I'm not saying there's not an issue but Its not that serious.

[@meiroseos]

I know at the end of the day it is ultimately just a silly gacha game, but I think the overall larger reasons why it may be created this way are important to examine

[@csarlimon6844]

Como alguien color café que solo entiende un idioma apruebo este video :] Pero ahora me interesan esos productos para dejar de ser color humilde

[@jennyreaper6664]

i understand this issue but there is other issue and thats is the cencoring there they will cencor any black poeple so yes it is big issue

[@officialhooded]

Excuse me fucking what?!

[@mushi3120]

Huh??? Where did you get this???

[@jennyreaper6664]

@@mushi3120 i saw video it was about disney something about how they will cencor anything with black people in theyr movie if i find it i will put link so people can watch it

[@dancingthief3501]

How did we get here??

[@meiroseos]

long history of particular beauty standards in Asia

[@somethinganonymous1723]

read this in the voice of that guy from the Talking Heads song

[@Lu14355]

Maybe I'm just biased by my own appreciation of the game, but I really think it's a marketing thing, compared to the rest of the game. In the environnements, the names, the lore and most importantly to me the music, I feel like they make much more efforts to respect and represent cultures. But while genshin's OST is amazing, it's not the part of the game that will bring mihoyo money. (Ps : not saying there isn't a problem with the rest, for example with the fact that we had regions inspired by Germany, China, Japan and then "a group of countries that are really different")

[@meiroseos]

For sure it's marketing lol. I totally get you, the music is great and there's a lot of amazing art, sound, design, etc. especially in the game. I still appreciate the work going into it. The gacha thing is a whole nother thing entirely too I didn't even get into

[@meiden7620]

Mihoyo is honestly very restricted by Chinese laws, and the public out look of the Chinese people, I donno if this is one of those situations and that's why they gotta do this to their characters or something I donno but Mihoyo is already walking on a bit of a thin line by even having characters that gay, they can never say it, obviously, cause china but they do their best, and with 2 games where most characters are gay I don't know how they do it, but on the topic if race, I can't really comment because 1 I don't know if it's about laws or not,2 I don't know why but I've always had trouble distinguishing skin colors, don't have any type of color blindness but for whatever reason skin colors are not easy for me.

[@__ccyin4113]

*as you can see*, people in Asian countries find lighter skintone people more attractive. genshin impact is a chinese game made for chinese players, characters are made to attract of course, chinese players to rank up the sales. they already made many dark skinned characters in this patch to let eastern players be content. and now they're fucking complaining about it. also I have no idea how you appeared in my fyp but hi 😀

[@meiroseos]

I understand this, I'm saying the east has a problem with their beauty standards more than just in a game. I get how the Chinese culture views it and I don't think just saying slightly darker characters are in the game should purely be seen as appeasing the west. I don't think that I agree there are "many" dark skinned characters, nor do I think they are "dark". They're just kinda tanned.

[@cursed-cat9126]

@@meiroseos Yeah I agree, tanned and dark are 2 different things

[@MrTurturtulTea]

How about you play a different game and move on with your life instead of playing genchin impact put simple if you play gencin impact it saying that the decisions that genchin makes. you are okay with them henceforth they will continue like this

[@meiroseos]

While I can change the games I play I will still always be Chinese and be affected by these types of issues

[@tatarsauce6314]

You can like and play a game while having issues with said game. You think all people criticize Genshin only exist on Twitter?

[@theflowergal6433]

@@tatarsauce6314 Exactly, accountability is key. Whether you like a game or not