#servan rain code

Source: Behind The Voice Actors.

Character: Yuma Kokohead.

Voice Actor: Lucien Dodge.

Shared with:

Hifumi Yamada.

K1-B0.

Character: Yakou Furio.

Voice Actor: Kaiji Tang.

Shared with:

Yasuhiro Hagakure.

Gonta Gokuhara.

Character: Hana.

Voice Actor: Dorothy Fahn.

Shared with:

Sayaka Maizono.

Chihiro Fujisaki.

Tsumugi Shirogane.

Character: Servan.

Voice Actor: Derek Stephen Prince.

Shared with:

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu.

Kokichi Oma.

Character: Fink the Slaughter Artist.

Voice Actor: Sean Chiplock.

Shared with:

Kiyotaka Ishimaru.

Monotaro.

Character: Ama-Pal.

Voice Actor: Janice Kawaye.

Shared with: Peko Pekoyama.

Character: Various npcs.

Voice Actors:

Erica Mendez.

Morgan Lauré Garrett.

Shared with:

Nagisa Shingetsu.

Maki Harukawa.

While playing through Rain Code (I'm midway into Chapter 4 now), I've so far been a little disappointed to find that everybody in Kanai Ward seems to be similarly pasty. I mean... I get that the city has been under a constant cover of clouds and rain for three years now, but I still thought there could be some indications of more diversity among the citizens. Not that I'm surprised by this, but it's still occurred to me.

Then I finally met SERVAN. And right away, he's contributing to Kanai Ward's diversity by being one of the "This guy's design style isn't the same as most everyone else" characters we've come to expect from games where Rui Komatsuzaki is handling the designs.

HOWEVER...! There is more to it than that.

Despite looking almost as pale as the rest of the citizens in this godforsaken city of eternal night, I'm confident that Servan is supposed to be a person of some color. At least part-African by descent, certainly. I say that because of his hair, sure, but also... his lips.

Yeeeeeeaaah. YEAH. He's got the dreaded donut lips we still see too often in manga/anime — the ones inspired by old racist caricatures from the Jim Crow era. It's a choice that made me uncomfortable from the moment Servan appeared.

So, like... how do we feel about this character design, gang?

Are you like, "That is some racist-ass shit that should be patched out ASAP"?

Are you like, "I'm not at all happy about this but I don't think they meant any harm through their ignorance so I'm not sure what to do/think"?

Are you like, "It's so common to see this in Japanese media that it just rolls off my back without me noticing at this point so meh"?

Are you like, "None of those previous things describe me bc I'm feeling something in-between all of them"?