Adonis Otogari and Microaggressions in Ensemble Stars
So, I'm sure you've all seen the most recent Adonis card. It's very pretty, it's got frills and other cute things Don isn't usually seen in...
...However, I'm sure at least some of you also noticed he's a bit on the pale side here when compared to other cards.
Why is this? Why would he be drawn noticeably lighter here and not other times? Well, one could imagine it has something to do with colorism.
Like I said before, Adonis isn't usually seen like this. The one time he's not shirtless for no reason or wearing something culturally insensitive, he suddenly looks paler.
Adonis is portrayed as "exotic" and "sexy" a lot of the time (which, if it wasn't already weird to do that with your only brown character, he's also 17, so...) and all those times, he's noticeably brown.
It's been a long standing stereotype that brown skin doesn't fit "cute" or "pretty" aesthetics. That those are for light skinned people, and light skinned people only.
Within the story itself presents another issue. In the story, Adonis goes to a flea market with Hajime. Adonis wants to sell a doll from his childhood, and has no luck until a little girl shows up.
(I'd like to specify I'm not a translator so I'm not 100% sure myself on what is exactly said, but this is going off what I read in the TL I read) The little girl tugs on Hajime to get his attention, because she's afraid to approach someone "as big" as Adonis.
This is something present in multiple enstars stories that feature Adonis. They even use Aira as a mouthpiece for this, a character who is not only supposed to be a fan of Undead, but a character who should also know what it's like to be made fun of for being mixed, as Aira was made fun of for having a half french mom when he was younger. Adonis is spoken about and described as if he's this huge, hulking monster of a boy, and he's just terrifying to look at, but is he? No.
I said on my Twitter just the other day, that every so often enstars will try to make a point about how people like Adonis are treated, but they fail because the point always comes across more as "he might seem scary but he's a really nice guy, don't judge a book by it's cover!" rather than what it should be, which is "there's nothing particularly scary about Adonis, people just demonize brown/black people for the color of their skin."
Now, you'll notice there seems to be a bit of a focus on how "big" Adonis is. How tall is he? About 5'10", which is about as tall as the tallest Ensemble Stars characters are. Adonis is around the same height as Midori, Eichi, Keito, the other members of Undead, etc. If people being afraid of him was really all about his size, you think we'd hear about it more from characters other than him. But, it seems like a topic very focused on him.
Now this isn't just a cover for characters being frightened by him for the color of his skin, the focus on Adonis being "big" when he's the same height as all the other tall characters in enstars is reminiscent of another stereotype. The "big black man" stereotype. Stereotypes about brown and black men don't just portray them as threatening creatures, but as LARGE threatening creatures. This stereotype of black men being very "big" and tall is not just a stereotype used for portraying us as a threat, but it's also seen in the oversexualization of black men.
This isn't just present in the narrative or said by other characters, but it's said by Adonis himself. A moment that comes to mind is a time where he refers to Mitsuru (and the other members of Ra*bits), as small, and talks about "protecting small creatures". Now, Mitsuru is 5'6", and the height difference between Adonis and Mitsuru is actually quite minimal.
And yet, the enstars writers feel the need to not only make other characters react to Adonis as if he's a huge scary guy, but have Adonis think that way about himself.
Like I said before, any social commentary Ensemble Stars tries to have fails when they feed into it like this. It shouldn't be "Adonis is a really nice and sweet guy despite looking scary", it should be about how he doesn't look scary at all.
Enstars wants to make good points, that much I can tell, but it contradicts itself with things like this, and that's pretty disheartening.
I mean think about it, Ensemble Stars has characters who have possibly committed murder, attempted murder, threatened other characters, carry weapons openly, are trained assassins, etc but the scariest of them all is the blasian middle eastern boy who's hobby is literally watching small animals and plays the ocarina? I mean c'mon.
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