Lack of "black" hairstyles

[QuCont]

Most of the black people I see in Japan are bald.

[SekhmetM]

I wonder if TC knows that African culture doesn't exist in a FANTASY WORLD?

[Seif]

Gotta have that black hair for OP's white hair I see. MMmhmm.

Seriously though I wouldn't mind more "close to skull" mini braids. I'm sure the art team would come up with a lot of cool stuff in that area.

[Domira]

I wonder if TC knows that African culture doesn't exist in a FANTASY WORLD?

Its not about culture. What you are really saying is afrocentric hair can't exist in a fantasy world, in other words fantasy characters can't have hair that grows upward naturally. But they only can have straight hair that grows downward.

The only reason why african's have hair styles like dreads, cornrows, braids etc is because of their hair type not the culture.

[Kuroyasha]

Please keep in mind the majority of this game's development team is Japanese. The lack of "black hairstyles" is highly likely to be due to the fact that the development team can probably count the number of black people they've ever met on their hands. It's hard to conceive of or design for something you have no regular contact with.

A simple google search can show some hairstyles if they wanted to look for them. Dont really need to have met a bunch of us to go look it up.

[Domira]

Long story short, a lot of the Japanese people I meet don't realize that people of African descent have naturally curly hair, and I'm inclined to believe it's a general perception amongst many people here.

This could be true, even in the USA most black women have perms in their hair to make it appear European. Not many of them wear it natural, so I can see what you mean.

[IfritReborn]

In this 5 pages of ignorance I have not seen any pictures!

I would LOVE to be rocking these hairstyles!






Also, I find it VERY hard to believe that a simple google/yahoo/bing search of "dreadlocks" or "afro" will not bring up results depending on where you live.
What does google bring up then? "Sorry no results found"??
Please.

[jadan2000]

as a black person, i like to make characters that look like me. I pretty much never get to do that in ff games.. It would be nice to have some hairstyles that are more ethnic, and not always stringy hair.

[Kyousha]

Please keep in mind the majority of this game's development team is Japanese. The lack of "black hairstyles" is highly likely to be due to the fact that the development team can probably count the number of black people they've ever met on their hands. It's hard to conceive of or design for something you have no regular contact with.

I'm sorry but that's the dumbest argument I've ever read.

Actually... since we live in a university town, there are a LOT of international students who come & go each year, and, since my boyfriend is a Japanese-language/business double-major, we usually befriend a lot of Japanese students to make them feel more welcome and enjoy themselves while they're here. Many people might be surprised to know that--LITERALLY--each of our Japanese friends have said that most Japanese people are quite fearful (or overly-cautious might be a better term) of dark-skinned people. Since the amount of dark-skinned people in Japan are next to none, they heavily rely on american TV influence... One of our Japanese friends thought "America" was like Jersey Shore... and we were all like, *faceplant*... that's literally what she was looking forward to when she came here. And the Japanese students we befriend visit from all areas of Japan, so it's convinced us that this is actually the way most (or a lot of) Japanese people feel. I've had black friends visit Japan (I will give you one of their facebook pages if you don't believe me: she's an elementary school teacher, there), and they've been pointed at, asked to take pictures with, and everyone wanted to touch their hair (relevant to this post, eh?). Black people in Japan is actually a phenomenon. XD

So, this definitely is not the dumbest argument regarding the lack of African (or any other ethnic) culture in the game. It's quite valid from a realistic standpoint, even though there probably other reasons just as valid regarding developmental ideas.

Despite this, however, I know it's one of SE's missions to appeal to everyone, and they DID say that they were going to make hairstyles that reflect that idea, in that sense. I don't remember reading where they were going to develop black/African hairstyles into the game, but I may have missed it (As of typing this, I haven't read this thread further ahead, so maybe someone posted a link?).

In any case, I clearly understand that obviously not ALL Japanese people fear darker-skinned people. I just know what our friends talk to us about regarding their culture & life in Japan. We sometimes drink (safely, mind you), so the truth comes out of them, at times, when it otherwise wouldn't.

[kyuven]

This has got to be one of the most misguided and ignorant things I've read on here in a long time, not to mention how you contradict yourself. Outstanding work.

The United States of America is home to more ethnic diversity than any country in the world. That's just a fact.

OK before jumping to conclusions, read this carefully because I make this point several times.
The United States is one of the most ethnically diverse nations on the planet, and I am not disputing that whatsoever nor have I said any different in this thread.
Japan is, by contrast, one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries on the planet.
I'm American. When I say OUR CULTURE I am referring to AMERICAN CULTURE because I'm AMERICAN.
The culture that I am referring to as not mixed is Japanese culture, which is homogeneous.
Therefore, allow me to restate.
AMERICANS HAVE GREAT DIFFICULTY COMPREHENDING WHAT A HOMOGENEOUS CULTURE IS LIKE BECAUSE AMERICAN CULTURE IS THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF HOMOGENEOUS.
Please, read more carefully.