Character Creation Has A Race Problem

[Enla]

There is absolutely an issue with the lack of diverse racial feature options in the character creator, and it's surprising to me that this is the first time I've seen it brought up on the forums.

Sure, there are a handful of differing face/hair options and a... we'll call it a "decent" range of skin tones, but the lack of options for anything that isn't small/dainty/straight is honestly concerning and always disappointing.

I'd think people would be happy to advocate for more customization options and the chance to ease the rampant same-face syndrome the game has been suffering from for years.

But of course if you talk about it as a race issue and not as an aesthetic one, you'll have a bunch of intentionally misguided people come out of the woodwork muttering "how DARE you talk about things that I PERSONALLY don't have a problem with!??? this is what's wrong with the world today and tbh YOU'RE the REAL racist for talking about racism!!!1"

Yes this is a fantasy game that has fantasy races in it. If one group of people can exist in this fantasy world with no one questioning their presence, then there is literally no reason to exclude anyone else.

"It's just fantasy!" should be used to explain why a dragon swooped in to steal the magic sword at the last second, NOT to excuse a lack of diversity in media.

I think the problem with making this a race issue sadly coincides with why it likely happened in the first place, Japan's lack of understanding towards inclusion and race issues in the broader world. I very much don't believe it was a malicious thing, but a good percentage really don't even recognize racial differences within their own native culture. Nor are they themselves ethnically diverse with an overwhelming majority of 98.5% of the population being of broader Japanese ethnic descent.

Does that mean we shouldn't push for more inclusion? Not at all. I'd like to see more variety and believe people have a right to desire more representation. I also believe that viewing the choices of a Japanese business company through a Western lens is only going to cause headaches in the long run. That's not me excusing them, or saying that it couldn't be better, but I think we shouldn't ignore the reasons behind /why/ the lack of representation likely exists. This is the same culture that spawned the ganguro girl fashion trend, not with malicious intention mind you, which if it had happened in the US would have caused a /huge/ scene.