Race war on Twitter, racism or equality

By Duong Minh Hien

December 16, 2024

A blackwashed traced drawing of the anime "Dandadan" has sparked another race war, raising questions about racism from the Japanese and the Western media.

The cradle of race war

The race war between the artists and the Western so-called activists has been going on for a long time on online media platforms. On Twitter, or now is known as X, the topic about color, the race of the fan art has always been hot debated. And only on Twitter that this war receives more heat and attention than other platforms. On Twitter, the censorship is lower to the minimum to ensure a free speaking space for everyone. However, this also allows for hate speech and racism to spread without any restraint or punishment.

This war will spark when a fanart of a character has a whiter tone than the official artworks. For example, a fanart from the account (Alias: Okawa Bukubu) received waves of backlash, and even death-threat after his art of Marina from the game Splatoon 2 is accused of whitewashing the character. This attack on Bukubu leads to an outburst argument between the Japanese and the Western community.

Fanart by Bukubu Official artwork

However, in contrast to the aggressive approach to the slightly brighter color tone, when a character is blackwashed to the point that character become a whole new person, that fanart will receive praise from the Western media. Recently, a traced fanart of 2 characters in the anime Dandadan from the account @Lynn6Thorex has received polarized opinions. The Western media praised the artist for her talent, but the Japanese community got furious since the characters’ nationalities were change blatantly. Okarun (the boy) got changed to African American, and Momo (the girl) got changed toa dark-skinned American.

Farnart and the original (Source: animesenpai.net)

Japanese community accuse the Western media of double-standard, while the Western side called the Japanese racist since they do not respect the black community. This opposition has been going on Twitter for years.

2. The underlying cause of the war

The reason this conflict occurs can be traced back to multiple reasons. The difference in culture is a big factor. Japanese is a single-race country, where a dominant ethnicity rule the country. The Western countries, notably America, England, France, are multi-race countries, with multiple ethnic communities living together. Therefore, the national identity of Japanese people is very high. Their awareness of races therefore is lower. Japanese people do not care too much about how other races look. Western countries, in contrast, care a lot about the physical appearance and the cultural identity of the races within their community. Also, the black community’s activists are more prominent in Western countries, leading to the preference for the black people in these cultures.

For example, the BlackLivesMatter campaign progressed strongly in America, European countries. But in Asia, this movement did not receive much attention due to black racism is not prevalent in Asia areas.

However, Western’s preference for black people leads to their “disrespectful” attitude towards Asia people, or in this case, the Japanese people. American artist, often blacken the skin of a Japanese character and change their nationality. This provokes the Japanese community’s nationalism, leading to outrageous online argument.

3. Racism or not?

At the surface level, Western community’s preference for black and Latin-America people can be seen as a movement for their own fight against racism. However, their behavior towards other races is a form of racism.

In the comments aiming towards Bukubu, the dominant phrases are “black”, “colored”, “whitewash”.

Hate comment towards Bukubu

The Japanese community and supporters on the other hand, shows no preference for any other races in fanart and respecting the original. But does this mean that they are prioritizing their own race over others?

Supportive comment towards Bukubu

Japanese commentors do not use “sensitive terms” about a people’s skin like some Western Twitter users, but rather they use many neutral terms that do not direct at a people’s skin color to support the artist. It is quite hard to find a repost from a Japanese supporter that has words aiming at the colored people community.
On Twitter, and other media platforms, the language can be coded to convey subtle meanings. In this case, the overuse of “black,” “colored,” “whitewashed” from many Western users may suggest that lurking behind the seemingly racism-free attitude is an attempt to assert their power upon the artist. Especially due to invisibility and anonymity provided by Twitter, these actions can be put to an extend that beyond social morality.
However, in the case of Lynn’s fanart, the Japanese community’s attitude is more aggressive since the race-swapped directly affect Japanese pride. Although race-swapping a character is widely acceptable in the artist community as a way to show appreciation to the character from multiple cultures, the reaction to this fanart from Japanese users is the other way around. The pride of the Japanese and pre-recorded conflicts between the 2 cultures can be an explanation for these behaviors.

Death threat repost towards Bukubu

On the other hand, the Western media still shows their preference for this fanart despite the backlash from Japan, where the character’s nationality originated.

Criticism towards Lynn

Supportive comments towards Lynn

Overall, the Western media shows preference for black people, while often disregard the races that are not prevalent in their countries. The Japanese community shows to preference to other races but will reacts strongly if the race-swapped characters are directed at their nationality. Whether these reactions indicate racism or not, are up to individual judgements.