About loop lips and Oda constantly drawing em. I am not completely defending Oda, but I was thinking perhaps the dude doesn't know that such imagery is offensive and that it's origin are quite ugly. His art style was pretty much inspired by 'cartoonish' features like looney tunes type and his characters are quite diverse in their design inspired from different places too. Old cartoons would have such imagery of black people. I just bring this perspective that perhaps it could be the case? Bc i am not american either and i didn't even know that such imagery was racist or offensive until i was 16 and nvm that but i didn't even know the N word is offensive bc I would hear black actors say it often in movies (like Chris Tucker) and thought it's a cool way to call your friends that :| until ofc i got into social media and youtube where i learned otherwise
you'll have to forgive me if i hold a grown man who is an industry professional to a higher standard 😑 i'm not american either. this isn't a ground-breaking perspective you plated up for me. i just don't see how at his age and at his professional level, the ugly history of anti-black racial caricatures slipped his notice. if somehow, this was the case, it honestly just speaks that he should've done his research better into the atrocious history of slavery in one of the most obvious examples in the world. same sort of research he'd do for the cultural influences on his islands, especially considering the whole fishmen allegory is a thing — i don't get how he missed it.
let's say he missed the memo on that, even though that doesn't make me remotely inclined to say 'aw, poor oda' lol. the narrative core of his fishmen allegory still sucks shit. he showed he actually understood justified anger and not imposing that on your kinsmen if they chose to handle their trauma differently through fisher tiger perfectly... and then scuffed that to the side for whatever the fishman island arc actually ended on. the existence of arlong itself, dedicated not only early in the manga but to an important part of one of the main character's backstory, is infuriating. the way it's built into the biology of fishmen is infuriating. like yayy the fishmen can oppress humans back lol so you'll see the protagonist violently beat the shit out of them 👍 there is this lack of understanding on how systematic racism works on such a basic level. reverse racism doesn't exist because people of color don't have any biological advantages to oppress people with that 'makes up' for our societal disadvantage. the whole point is that we've been disenfranchised to the point where much of our agency has been taken away to even hold ourselves up in dignity. most importantly, holy shit, why would we want to. some of us are fucking angry but it doesn't mean we're going eye-for-an-eye on hate crimes lol
do you see the problem? do see it's further than 'aw poor widdle oda a 29-year old industry professional living in the 21st century might not know what violently anti-black caricatures are 🥺'. you learnt when you were 16. i learnt, too. oda has a team of managers and editors and peers and whaddya know! the internet like the rest of us. like, do you get it. it's important to me that you get it.
