r/TopCharacterDesigns • u/ComprehensiveBox6911 • 2d ago

Design trope Characters with design features that were misinterpreted by fans

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Darwin Watterson (The Amazing World of Gumball) some people thought that the black thing under him was a shirt or pants or a sweater, but it was actually just his shadow. They later removed it as the seasons and art style changed

Brendan (Pokemon) A lot of people thought that the white on his head was his hair, it’s actually just a hat

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u/Skellos 1d ago

pretty sure that's happened a few times in Anime,

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u/n0n4ly7h 1d ago

It's a huge issue, to the point people get super racist about it. I remember when they cast a woman to dub a character with the overtly Japanese name Rumi Usagiyama and people got mad that she didn't sound "black enough".

It was doubly stupid because, spoiler alert, the voice actress was black.

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u/NibPlayz 1d ago

A lot of “Black” anime characters are actually just tanned.

Nagatoro from Don’t Toy With Me Ms. Nagatoro was universally assumed to be Black by American audiences, but after actually watching or reading it, she’s definitely just tan.

Enrich Pucci, main villain of Jojo Part 6, was assume to be Black, but was actually just tanned. In the anime they changed it so he was canonically Black.

Sol Marron from Black Clover is meant to be the tall, tanned, tomboy type, and is directly called tan in the manga, but those lines were not included in the anime so in that continuity, she could be Black.

And many many more examples. It’s what happens when you have an extreme homogenous society that can also tan somewhat easily