Violet

Why (Good) Representation Matters

Beyond the fact that the lack of representation undermines Touya5's message, and that Black Americans deserve to be represented in a story that discusses the music they created while the main characters are in that country, representation matters for a few reasons.

First of all, representation allows for the voices and experiences of marginalized individuals to be expressed. It can be important for people to see people like themselves in the media they enjoy. Furthermore, it invites people who are not marginalized in the same way to empathize with characters unlike themselves, and understand them better. In other words, media has the capacity to bring positivity to the people that are underrepresented, and humanize them to the people who are unaffected by the same issues. In addition, good representation inherently enhances art. It is more interesting to have characters with a wide range of life experiences than it is not. It adds depth to a story's world and characters.

More Reasons Why You Should Be Critical of Colorful Palette for This (In other words, here's me anticipating bad-faith arguments in advance)

90% of writing is actually just researching for your story, any writer would know this. There is no excuse for ignorance.

There are thousands of resources online for how to draw Black characters, and write them without leaning into stereotypes. They have internet.

Just because other Japanese companies have this issue in their games does not make it less bad. Anti-Blackness in these games should not be normalized in the way it has been. It is something you should be openly critical of.

"Project SEKAI is intended for a Japanese audience" doesn't mean anything when Black people literally live in Japan.

You can still enjoy the story while understanding that this is an issue it has. They're not mutually exclusive.