Of course, I say this as a diaspora Asian of sorts.
Noizumi is half-Japanese, and she found herself thinking, “Why am I so excited that my daughter has blue eyes? What’s the big deal about that? And why am I so excited that I have a baby who looks more white?”
This is the kind of statement that would get a white celebrity cancelled for saying it, but apparently it's just a fun tidbit for Netflix.
In their early creative conversations that would eventually span 15 years, they started spinning a tale about how “back in the Edo period starting in 17th-century Japan, it would’ve been illegal to be white.
Wtf based Edo period.
CW: Rape
According to some of the promotional materials, the main character is a product of rape of a Japanese woman by a white man, which is a terrible and insensitive if they play it straight and a weeb fantasy if they redeem the dad at the end.
Idk if the series is as good as they say, but how the fuck did they think that publishing any of this was a good idea?
I love references to Yasuke. His life is just such a fun story. It feels so innocent in a way. Imagine seeing somebody who looks really unusual and literally just not knowing why. You haven't really heard stories of people who look like this. Nobody's got any racist tirades they can go on. It's just a novelty. He may as well be from another planet as far as you're concerned. I think it demonstrates quite well that racism isn't some kind of ingrained behavior that's inherent to humanity. The natural reaction to somebody who looks different is to be like "Huh, that's neat. I wonder if he wants to be friends." You have to be taught to be racist and afraid of the unknown.