The Elephant in the Room Concerning Project SEKAI's Depiction of the United States: Colorful Palette's Anti-Blackness
Introduction
In a few ways, Project SEKAI's depiction of modern America (in context of Vivid BAD SQUAD's story) indicates that the writers have done research. Vivid BAD SQUAD are shocked to learn just how impossibly high the cost of living is in New York City. They are also faced with microaggressions and racism by the people they come across. Touya5 touches on how many different people live in New York City, and express their cultures through their music— and says it should be celebrated.
Furthermore, the location of America— and New York City, especially— is important for Vivid BAD SQUAD's story. It is the place where hip-hop, the genre that Vivid BAD SQUAD most often performs in, was created by Black Americans.
And yet, the Americans that Colorful Palette has deemed relevant enough to be depicted within the story look like this:
Every single one of these characters is white.
There is absolutely zero excuse for this. The writers have done enough research to know all of these troubling aspects about the United States, but continue to do anything but make a Black character. That is complete willful ignorance, and I think this fandom needs to talk about it more.
Now then, if you are, for some reason, not convinced that this is an issue worth discussing, the rest of this post will be explaining why you should care.
Why (Good) Representation Matters
Beyond the fact that the lack of representation undermines Touya5's message, and that Black Americans deserve to be represented in a story that discusses the music they created while the main characters are in that country, representation matters for a few reasons.
First of all, representation allows for the voices and experiences of marginalized individuals to be expressed. It can be important for people to see people like themselves in the media they enjoy. Furthermore, it invites people who are not marginalized in the same way to empathize with characters unlike themselves, and understand them better. In other words, media has the capacity to bring positivity to the people that are underrepresented, and humanize them to the people who are unaffected by the same issues.
In addition, good representation inherently enhances art. It is more interesting to have characters with a wide range of life experiences than it is not. It adds depth to a story's world and characters.
More Reasons Why You Should Be Critical of Colorful Palette for This (In other words, here's me anticipating bad-faith arguments in advance)
90% of writing is actually just researching for your story, any writer would know this. There is no excuse for ignorance.
There are thousands of resources online for how to draw Black characters, and write them without leaning into stereotypes. They have internet.
Just because other Japanese companies have this issue in their games does not make it less bad. Anti-Blackness in these games should not be normalized in the way it has been. It is something you should be openly critical of.
"Project SEKAI is intended for a Japanese audience" doesn't mean anything when Black people literally live in Japan.
You can still enjoy the story while understanding that this is an issue it has. They're not mutually exclusive.
If anyone wants to contribute any additional thoughts or discussion on this post, it is greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading.
Crazy how VBS can engage with Black American culture from the very beginning (being a hip hop/street music group) and then when these characters go to New York City and meet other hip hop artists they see zero (0) Black people!!
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