I was never an ATLA fan as a kid but kept up with news bout it over the years hoping to see their representation of Asian cultures improve. Good to know it's just getting worse instead.
These fucking pea brains consult chatgptrash over like, actual Asian people.
Also whatever the fuck this is...
They're literally trying to divorce their very clearly Pretend Asia universe from real-world Asians like. You're using our cultures show some fucking respect to the humans you stole from.
The bar was already in hell and then they kept shooting for the center of the earth. The original cartoon series employed a culture vulture to consult on martial arts.
Reading more quotes about this and fandom comments shows ATLA fans seem largely concerned the art was done with AI. Taiwanese American artist Kat Tsai (whose work is amazing btw) has stated no genAI was used in the art. Other people responsible for this artbook's publication have expressed the same. Here's prod designer Jake Panian missing the point (img).
These fans are completely ignoring the issue of CULTURAL ERASURE HERE. I straight up read ATLA enjoyers using "orientals" in reddit discussions over this and nobody bothers calling them out.
The point is that the IP has always taken directly from real-world Asian cultures. This isn't about the dummy who used CGPT.
This is in reality about the erosion of critical thinking and human erasure in the creation process continued to evolve in horrid ways. This is the existing problem of using other cultures to build fictional worlds but divorcing the people of that culture from it.
And if we write this one lazy and frankly racist decision off as a contained mistake then we will cannot claim to be truly anti-AI or anti-racism. I love some of the artists who did work on this, but ATLA will remain on my shitlist as cultural appropriation slop.
