Recently, a heated debate arose on social media in the West regarding Ashido Mineone of the most charismatic characters in “My Hero Academia“The topic arose after the reveal of a preview of the anime's next episode, where Mina is shown losing her signature pink skin due to overusing her powers. To the surprise of many fans, her natural skin was revealed to be light, which caused quite a stir on social media and forums, as Many had assumed she was dark-skinned.
The situation that caused the controversy was summarized on a Japanese forum:
- «In “My Hero Academia” there is a pink-skinned character named Mina Ashido -> Due to overuse of her abilities, her real skin was exposed, and a huge uproar arose because her skin was not really pink. -> It is worth mentioning that in the past, someone had drawn Mina imagining what she would look like with normal skin color, which brought her criticism because she had drawn her with light skin, leaving comments like: “Don’t whitewash!”».
Comments from Japanese people were not long in coming, and many netizens expressed their amazement and opinions on the matter:
- «If she's pink, then she's not dark-skinned, right?».
- «Just like they do with Picoro and his green skin, they consider him to be colored».
- «Since there are few dark-skinned heroines, as soon as they see a character with a different skin color, they assume that character is dark.».
- «It's pink, isn't it? It's not dark skin! What are you thinking?».
- «Why would anyone think it's dark skin if it's pink? It's ridiculous».
- «In the story, there are a lot of heroes in America, so of course there would be heroes of color there. Why would a character with a Japanese name in a Japanese school be dark-skinned?».
- «It's absurd that they get angry if the voice actor is not of the same race as the character.».
- «It's ridiculous to try to relate a fictional character with pink skin and horns to a real race.».
One of the factors that has contributed to this confusion is that Mina Ashido has a very distinctive appearance due to her pink skin and horns, which has made her stand out visually among the characters in “My Hero Academia.” Some fans, especially in the West, assumed this pink hue was a stylized representation of a dark skin tone (something they also assumed was true of Piccolo from “Dragon Ball,” for some reason). Furthermore, the fact that there are few characters with darker skin in the series contributed to some considering it a representation of a character of African descent.
The revelation that her natural skin is light came as a surprise to many and sparked a variety of reactions online. Some fans in the West have even gone so far as to criticize this revelation as an example of “whitewashing,” arguing that it would have been preferable for the character to be dark-skinned.
Fountain: Otakomu
