Why This Isn't a Problem.

[@b3rry.564]

personally i don’t really care about these types of topics, but what really gets me is that the artist has "black edits" as part of their commissions (??) it is insanely disrespectful because they are disrespecting the original artist and it counts as art theft and they could be charged/sent to court if the illustrator sued them. (the og illlustrator can actually sue them, according to japanese law)

[@b3rry.564]

correction : the artist sells "black edits"* , i think it gets worse when you realize the person who traced over the og picture can actually draw humans. (also i love ur art ^_^)

[@Ilovesillykittens]

wait what? can you like, "dumb" it down a bit cause iont get it

[@b3rry.564]

@Ilovesillykittens it’s ok! basically the artist who drew black edits over offical art of anime/manga sells them for 15 dollars. this counts as art theft and they could be sued by the people who drew the offical art.

[@Ilovesillykittens]

@b3rry.564 Oh! I see, ty!^^ totally agree btw

[@niji8164]

She's tracing and selling yeah it is a problem

[@malachitaylor1579]

Is she selling it though I'm pretty sure I didn't hear anything about her after he's selling it or anything

[@niji8164]

@@malachitaylor1579 yeah

[@GreatRoostar]

​@niji8164 would it matter either way. If you don't like it. Just don't buy it. Yall fuming nothing.

[@niji8164]

@ uh it’s stealing. Theft

[@missasyan]

She seems to be real good at colouring and rendering, so I just wonder why she does edits rather than make her own fanart. I think there would be a lot less backlash if she didn’t only do commissioned edits…. Rather than edit art, make art, right? Or maybe try her hand at colouring manga panels. IDK, to me since she’s purposefully changing the original art it’s a bit iffy. I love seeing characters have different hair styles or skin colours, but tracing/editing isn’t the way to go. Honestly, from what I’ve seen of her original art (ex. the Yuri one), she seems to struggle a little with anatomy and dynamic poses. She could just practice that rather than the edits, since her colour theory and rendering are already really good. Overall to me tracing is iffy. Not raceswapping.

[@malachitaylor1579]

Bro but that is fine art this is fan art

[@GreatRoostar]

I don't see a problem with it. It doesn't affect anything official. And as for the commissions, if you don't like or want them, you can just not buy them so.thats not a problem either.

[@theunknownlegend8700]

Tbh its not about this artist specifically there was an artist who was japanese who drew a character slightly lighter than the orginal brown skin tone and recieved threats telling them to game end themselevs and much more and then the Japanese started to get involved then found this art work and black community were the majority of the race swap hate and they did it to many more people as well telling them awful things if they made them slightly lighter even tho they did the same some people were caught in the cross fire and this so haopens to be one of the unlucky artist so its really not about race swapping but black community hating on white or lighter skinned people because they feel like the other person is being racist Things like Brazilian miku isnt a problem cause the community isnt bad race swapping wasnt as big a problem before

[@ayanokawanegucci7230]

so... when Asians who are also a minority group complain about something they don't like about art originated from their countries, you call it stupid! this beyond me I'm black myself and i think yea if they hate it maybe they just have enough of something.

[@shamillamafuriranwa9601]

that what i dont get either they said they dont like it so just stop since its their stuff. plus i think this started due to the splatoon fan art a month ago

[@GreatRoostar]

The artist had no malicious intent. If try were saying stuff like "fixed it" or "better," then the hate would be kinda justified. But this is an artist having fun. It's not like she changed the designs in the actual show.

[@ayanokawanegucci7230]

@@GreatRoostar but she fails to adress how japanese artists are bullied to delete their accounts when they do slightly lighter skin of characters, not even white washing it, this is a double standard. When other artist white or non black in general lighten the skin of a character even with no bad itention for fun people bully them harass or even dox them if you want to do color swap it should be ok in both ways.

[@bababooey7418]

What pmo is how much she blew up so quickly over nothing while actual talented and respectful artists can barely scrape by interactions and commissions 💀

[@Giebachii]

@@bababooey7418 Wait.. she actually has commissions for anime edits?? And the person in the video calling it art? 😭

[@Giebachii]

The issue here is race swapping. People praise black edits and then hate on anyone for having someone be even a shade lighter. It's a stupid double standard and frankly it's either you support neither or support both because they're practically the same thing. And is it really fan art when it's a raceswapped edit? It is genuinely not that hard to draw your own black characters, this is coming from a black person and an artist. At the end of the day, don't raceswap kids, it benefits literally no one. 5:47 Exactly, so why do people who have no ownership over these characters wanna change their race? 7:03 You don't need to be able to change someone else's character to have fun with art 🤷‍♂️ Edit: The user sells black edits, not fan art, not original art, they're selling edits. I'm pretty sure selling something you made from tracing over another person's work is art theft and is not exactly legal considering copyright laws. As usual because it's black edits no one gives a damn that it's art theft which the community doesn't usually support.

[@tamapng]

I see your point. Honestly, I just don't think this specific fanart was drawn with bad faith. I feel like this issue is being blown out of proportion waay more than it needs to be.

[@Martial21396]

I don't understand what's hard to understand here, it's a 16 year old artist expressing himself through art. It's just art, you could whitewash black characters as long as it's fan art. Why are people making a big deal here?

[@pillyhere]

EXACTLY!

[@pillyhere]

@@tamapng It wasnt but I think the Japanese, from the twts I've seen, theyre purposefully reacting the same way the "opposing side" would react to a black character being changed into a light skin character. They're uno reversing.

[@Giebachii]

@Martial21396 The last thing I would call art is a raceswap edit but art is subjective so I digress. Also, the reason why this is such a big deal in particular is that the Japanese people didn't pay much attention to black edits before someone pointed them out after a bunch of people went to hate on Pop Team Epic creator for using a lighter skin shade on a dark skinned character. So, the Japanese are just retaliating against anyone who makes the black anime edits.

[@garlic_kun]

would you still say that if it was the other way around when someone whitewashed a character? you failed to address that the raceswapping was not the problem but the hypocrisy is, when the Japanese artist drew a dark-skinned character a shade lighter and got tons of backlash from it, before that, few bat an eye at artists making black edits

[@GreatRoostar]

Yeah, but it's unfair to lump these crazies with a large majority of people who really don't care. Like most people on Twitter, the people complaining are a small minority. But if you look at it from the other side. There's hypocrisy on the ani-black side, too. A lot of the people saying race-edits are bad also, race swap, original black characters(sometimes gorrilla swap them too), and insult other artist for making original black art. Not to mention that most black edits are at least made with love, all the white edits I've seen are people just wanting to be racist, they're even racist against the japanese that they say they support. If someone made a white-edit out of love for the character, I'd be defending them just as hard. But very few to none of them are like that. And I wouldn't lump they racists with that artist until I have a valid reason to. So I say let this girl.make her edit. She never hurt anymore.

[@garlic_kun]

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠@@GreatRoostar I never said anyone racist and I get what you’re saying and appreciate that you’re a good person, we need more people like you but still I never see them on twitter at all, and I guarantee you that an artist will be dragged to hell and back if they whitewash a character regardless of their intention Not to mention Ive seen quite lots of cases where black edits are made out of hatred too. But. Even so, your intention alone isnt enough, you have to consider how others might feel too y’know? If the Asian are uncomfortable with it, it’s time to take a step back. The artist in the video sure didn’t do anything wrong but she just happens to be the victim of this whole drama when Japanese artists had have enough

[@garlic_kun]

@@GreatRoostar I never said anyone racist and I appreciate that you’re a good person, we need more people like you but I never see them once on twt. I guarantee you that if an artist whitewash a character regardless of their intention, they will be dragged to hell and back on twt Not to mention Ive seen a handful of black edits made out of disrespect too, so don’t try to bring up the intention argument because Ive heard that 1000 times already, either both exits in peace or none and since whitewash has always been frowned upon by the majority, black edits shouldn’t be excluded either. The artist in the video wasn’t a bad person indeed, I never said she was, just that she got in the middle of whatever this is right when the Japanese stands up for themselves

[@garlic_kun]

@@GreatRoostar I never said anyone racist and I appreciate that you’re a good person, we need more people like you but I never see them once on twt. I guarantee you that if an artist whitewash a character regardless of their intention, they will be dragged to hell and back on twt, you said that the people who are complaining are a small minority but this "small minority" has been harassing artists who draw black characters a shade lighter for years and it always affect their mental health Not to mention Ive seen a handful of black edits made out of disrespect too, so don’t try to bring up the intention argument because Ive heard that 1000 times already, either both exits in peace or none and since whitewash has always been frowned upon by the majority, black edits shouldn’t be excluded either. The artist in the video wasn’t a bad person indeed, I never said she was, just that she got in the middle of whatever this is right when the Japanese stands up for themselves

[@SaiyaGaiden]

If the creators really did give a shit, they woulda said something a long ass time ago. There silence leads me to believe they don't care. We also not about to go be the rules of quite frankly idiotic bigots who've never picked up a pen or pencil ever, just consume anime. Especially when they're hurling racial slurs at black artists and VA's. These same people laughed at the creator of Uma Musume when he requested that people stop drawing hentai of his characters (they are based on real life horses and he and the horse owners were uncomfortable) and just kept on drawing horse girl porn. I'm not giving opinions from these people a shred of thought. I'd take their complaints more seriously if it wasn't full of hypocrisy and racial bias.

[@thekiwiflare]

The thing is that people are used to seeing this kind of fanart where the artist pretends they are "fixing" the character by changing their skin color. There was no malicious intent on either side. It was just a sad misunderstanding between an innocent artist who was just having fun and a group of people who are so tired of pointless drama that they accidentally started fueling pointless drama.

[@wraeeee]

I think it's sort of a whiplash from the years of abuse japanese artists faced on twitter for drawing black characters a bit lighter in shade. Heck genshin impact had massive backlash and death threats when their character wasn't black enough. I don't think she was specifically in the wrong, however this is a very sensitive topic right now and she just got the short end of the stick.

[@hadrianhexe9603]

Again, the difference is, black ppl have been getting whitewashed maliciously for years while these black edits are literally done because these ppl are fans. Context matters

[@malachitaylor1579]

​@@hadrianhexe9603for me as a black guy I don't really see these black headaches as anything bad

[@hadrianhexe9603]

@malachitaylor1579 As a black artist, personally, I prefer making ocs but I'm not going to discorage ppl who do black edits because it's literally harmless, versus whitewashing which has historically been used to erase darker skinned ppl for years

[@wraeeee]

@@hadrianhexe9603 You can't be so morally Inconsistent. Either all of it is fine or none of it is. I'd say you can do whatever fits your artistic choices with a character, like drawing them few shades lighter or darker, gender bending them, whatever you see fit with your artistic vision. The problem comes in inconsistencies and portraying someone else as evil if they chose to take their creative liberty expressing themselves. Saying black washing is fine but white washing isn't really makes your biased.

[@CheriMochas]

The issue isnt the black edit its that they do edits for commissions imo

[@usernameart]

Am I in trouble? I am creating various versions of Hatsune Miku country/ nation/ state. I am concerned about the consequences if I change the skin color. Or this just only happen in twitter cuz I don't have a twitter 😅.

[@fragmentsofsoren]

no i think miku is totally fine since she doesn’t really have a super canon look, just look at how popular brazilian miku is and loads of people have been making her in their country, don’t worry about it as long as you’re respectful :)

[@CheriMochas]

Miku being raceswapped is fine, she's a voice bank and she can look however you like

[@neoneodelilibeth]

This is a very complicated topic... But who cares what my opinion is. Hey I just discovered your channel and your art is amazing!

[@tamapng]

Thank you so much !!!

[@Ac1d_dragon_editz]

My only problem with it is that it is traced

[@Hatsune-Miku_Fan]

As long as she didn't profit of it i wouldn't have a issue It can stay a free edit

[@mokacoka9321]

People just hate when artists are hypocritical, and the girl drew that at a bad time when both sides were clashing. It all started with a Japanese artist making a harmless drawing of a fanart character from the squid ink game and made the skin color a lighter and sent the girl death threats and etc. So Japanese artists have been coming them hypocrites because they claim whitewashing when they said they are blackwashing And the black voice actor was being rude saying black characters should be voiced by black people and called him a hypocrite for voicing the japanese and saying that the Japanese artist were racist for not liking the art honestly he shouldn't have said anything because he made his situation woese

[@Nihhgguikn]

I think what the artist has done was somewhat wrong to some extent however the hate is a bit too much for a just 16 year old no?

[@yutokiwa5532]

Just draw fan art and have fun. She was selling it for money. 　It's a crime called copyright violation.

[@nightowl2190]

if you pull the copyright card, literally nobody would be able to make fanart or fan media to sell because that too, falls under copyright violations.

[@yoobaboba]

​@@nightowl2190 bro literally just said that tracing is just as fine as drawing someone from reference. technically doing such commissions is not allowed, but it's sooo much below the line of tracing and selling. i mean, wouldn't you defend the author of this vid if someone traced her oc, turned it into middle aged asian guy and sold it? bruh :/

[@b3rry.564]

@@nightowl2190 thats… exactly NOT how copyright works in japan, tracing and selling it is against the law. learn how copyright works, and try again

[@malachitaylor1579]

The thing that kills me is that I saw somebody making a George Floyd joke which is like what the WTF

[@feardieshogun8153]

I don't think there's anything wrong, they can change the color to blue or red.

[@CrystalRubyMoon]

AJ BECKLES DELETED HIS TWITTER ACCOUNT!? holy frick I didnt realize this fanart caused such a stir among the fans. I saw the QRT tweet in passing (the one where they said "dont turn Japanese characters blacl bc they arent Disney characters) and didnt think there was a lot going on after that.

[@eletricangel]

you explained it so well!! you've grown so much ever since your first video

[@PastelPixie99]

How about when people make fan art we leave them alone if u wanna make a dark person lighter do it and if u wanna make a light person dark do it its just fan art man

[@inotaddy]

I honestly dont know what to think about race swap.. can someone inform me?

[@LegendsOfRaylor]

This is just my opinion, so do with this what you will but from what I’ve seen, there’s a serious hypocrisy when it comes to white and black washing. My problem isn’t the race swapping itself, usually I find these types of edits/art to be pretty cute and sometimes even in good fun, but other times there are people who draw a dark skinned character a few shades lighter and get attacked. Usually people will then ‘fix’ the art by editing it to make the character darker. The hypocrisy comes from people making black skinned characters and getting praised for it while those who make dark skinned characters lighter are called racism. I’ve seen people claim the whitewashing is done out of hate while blackwashing is done out of love, and while I can see the point as there isn’t as much black representation in media, I still feel that there needs to stop being a double standard when it comes to this. Intentionally is important, but either both is ok or neither is. I also think there’s a point to be made in regards to the original media and the root issue. The OG creator made these characters and I think it could be considered disrespectful to them to change the character in a way the creator didn’t make them, but I could also see people being angry about this because gender or personality swapping is also a root change in a character but isn’t considered wrong. This part is less me saying my opinion but more so something for you to think about. Lastly, the root issue. I think the issue comes from a lack of good representation in media. But race swapping isn’t going to fix this problem, it’s not going to suddenly make the characters more diverse, and probably just fuels the flames. I can see where black people might be coming from, seeing a character that looks like them (I’m white, btw) but it isn’t going to solve anything. I think instead of race swapping, the people that make these edits and fan arts could make their own media to give better representation because I think that’s what they really want. All in all, this is just what I think, so I would suggest doing your own research, there are plenty of videos I’ve seen talking about race swapping fan art. Like ‘Twitter artists drawing black characters is problematic’ by Mohammed Agbadi, ‘Blackwashing the ‘good’ cultural appropriation’ by Just Some Guy and ‘Is blacktober problematic? - Art Commentary’ by Fionapillo. Go check these out if you want to learn a bit more.

[@distro6423]

whitewashing began in the 1900's with roles meant to be POC being played by white actors with facepaint or another enhancement to make them look like another race. whitewashing has roots in minstrel shows, typically mocking the portrayed people. blackwashing is a term from 2009 and refers to racebending. the reason why one is real and the other isnt is bc whitewashing has real historical consequences and significance, the other stemmed from people being upset that the race of the cast was changed in the 2010 avatar movie.

[@flex434]

​@@LegendsOfRaylor OML YOURE DAMNN RIGHT finally I found someone who isn't hypocritical and actually smart holy crap

[@b3rry.564]

@@LegendsOfRaylor thank you for being so real

[@Toka-x7n]

I am not from Western or Japanese society, but this artist is rude because she believes that the color and shape of someone’s hair needs to be modified to suit her beauty standards.

[@Lyric_artist]

Who said they made the art cuz it match their beauty standards????

[@Toka-x7n]

@Lyric_artist So why did she do this? ` You will not change anything unless you think it is bad and needs to change to become good in your opinion

[@Ilovesillykittens]

There are two POVs I, as an AE (african european) both agree on: 1) It's FAN art/fanmade, which means the artist is just drawing things the way they want it to be/see it/like to. It's not like they changed the characters in the anime ITSELF. It's their OWN drawing, there's still art out there of the characters with their original skintone. 2) If the roles were reversed and the characters were originally white, I'm pretty sure a lot of black people/Africans would send a lot of hate because the characters in drawing would've been turned from black to white, which I also understand. This point kinda fights against my first one. Me personally if we're speaking about the disney characters, I feel like they've fucked up by changing the race of the princesses/characters. A lot of kids grew up with ariel being white and dhaving red hair, and now they're changing it? I understand disney wants to make it more inclusive, but we already have Moana, Mulag, Tiana, Jasmine, and so on... So what's the point of changing it in the original? You already ARE inclusive. If they wanted more coloured characters, they could've made one. I understand the hate since it would be the same if the tables were turned, but at the same time it isn't necessary because it's FAN art, it's ONE person's opinion, like jeez. Tone it down and quit being racist.

[@CunnyVirus]

dont care tbh. and dont want to care anymore for future encounters. bye

[@flex434]

The fact that if they were black characters and they were WHITEWASHED it would have been worse and the person who drew it would have get cancelled. Lmfao people are so hypocritical and pathetic. I bet you wouldn't have made the same comment when you said "the artist had no malicious intention" if the the characters were black and they were whitewashed.

[@bluueestarr]

I think you’re not realizing the complexity of“blackwashing” and how whitewashing is made out of malicious intent and is a response to “blackwashing.” and how these things have historical relevance. A lot of people blackwash characters (or have ethical headcanons for them) either just for fun or so they can see themselves in the media that they consume. They are fully aware that these characters are not canonically the races or ethnicities that they see them as, while almost everyone I see who does whitewashing has some vendetta against POC people. I’m not gonna deny that some people who make black edits do so to “fix” the original source, but it’s a very small community. And this artist had no intention of doing so. and even if people “make their own characters/content” people will still find a problem with it, because the existence of POC people in media in general is considered “”woke””.

[@flex434]

@bluueestarr oh wow yes DEFINITELY people who blackwashes white characters doesn't mean anything bad like whitewash YEAH RIGHT holy crap I can't with this stupidity of yours and racism dawg if whitewashing characters is bad then blackwashing is BAD TOO we ain't gonn pity anyone just because of history I can't believe I just wasted my time texting this to someone like you.

[@PastelPixie99]

How about when people make fan art we leave them alone if u wanna make a dark person lighter do it and if u wanna make a light person dark do it its just fan art man