Skin complexion in animal crossing

[ChixChi7]

Not being able to change your skin tone is the way the game was made; Gracie being turned from male to woman is censorship, two different things. When it comes to gender and gender identity I think AC does a good job. When the able sister's tell you that a clothing item is made for another gender that is just as offensive as a clothing store in the real world having a women's and men's section. At least in the game, a guy can still wear a dress and pumps if he wants to. AC takes a lot of time out to adjust holidays,calendars, and such to adhere to the different cultures/countries they're making the game for (Christmas= Toy day). Why not consider skin tone as well? Yes, the series was started a while ago and times have changed since, and I will admit that they have been advertising the "tanned" character design more, but why so behind on the times? As I said before they took the time out to adjust holidays and such already. For nintendo, you could change your mii's skin tone back in 06. I'm not trying to argue, just bringing up some points.

- - - Post Merge - - -

Hypothetically, They could go with the Harriet Tanning Salon solution, but that sure would stink if you had to unlock that feature or wait X amount of weeks to access it. Plus, many people are wanting a skin color, not a skin tan. Maybe it'd be more than a little awkward for Rover to look straight into your soul with those big red eyes and ask, "So on a scale of marshmallows to fudge nuggets, how would you describe yourself?" But maybe that's what we need, especially considering that Nintendo is thinking on a global scale these days.

Instead of asking that, can Rover ask something like "Who are you?". You select your mii and whatever skin tone your mii has your character will be.

 

[Angerfish]

Instead of asking that, can Rover ask something like "Who are you?". You select your mii and whatever skin tone your mii has your character will be.

Hm, that'd work!... Though I personally feel some mii skin colors can look a bit...bright. And if they went in that direction, wouldn't it be easier to simply default to using a mii face? That'd be unfortunate.

 

[Reindeer]

You don't see many people of "color" over in other countries since the characters are technically ASIAN. You mainly see that skin tone there and they are in no way trying to offend anyone or degrade them.

I agree that they're not trying to offend anyone, but the Miis allow for various skin tones. Same company that made it, so why not have it in ACNL as well.

Your other post (too long to quote) raises a lot of good points. Pokemon did have characters of color before, but not really in a big way until Gen 5. Up to Gen 4 it was based on Japan, so I can kinda understand why there were so few.

When the able sister's tell you that a clothing item is made for another gender that is just as offensive as a clothing store in the real world having a women's and men's section.

I like that they tell you that you're so stylish that you can make it work anyway, regardless of your gender.

Anyway, I'm white, but having come from a country where skin color was (and still is) a big issue I can understand why people are bothered by it. I don't feel connected with my characters in games, so they often just end up at a point where I find them aesthetically pleasing, rather than looking like me. But I know that a lot of people actually do want them to look like them, or even want to create an ideal version of themselves.

I agree with the whole sentiment that this is one of the big things that should be added. With the tanning, it's obvious the skin tones are already in the game. They just haven't been made readily available to players.

 

[ChixChi7]

Hm, that'd work!... Though I personally feel some mii skin colors can look a bit...bright.

True, that's why I would prefer a scale rather than just choosing from 6 or 8 different colors. Like I said before I don't know much about video game programming, but I would hate to play as a mii in AC. Rather just have my mii's skin tone.

 

[Hirisa]

In the localization process, they added different eyecolors for starting mayors, from the original all black eyes in the Japanese. That's proof that they are aware of demographic differences and can tailor their products in acknowledgment of them. Now they need to start adding skin tone options.

 

[debinoresu]

I agree they need an option for darker skin without tanning but im going to mention technically japanese people are poc and are of very diversing appearances, not every single one is very pale with dark hair and brown eyes fyi lmao

the only possible excuse I can think of for them not integrating a permanent skin color changing feature is bc they dont know how to integrate it into the game while keeping rover's introduction scene as immersive. thats still not a good excuse though

 

[Nkosazana]

Hummm... it kinda does bother me, I mean it would be nice to have a brown character and not have to
waste my ds battery tanning on the island ._. But tbh im too lazy to care about it o.o
TEAMDARKSKINC:

 

[nammie]

While I'm personally fine with the current skin colour in game, I do feel that they should add options for darker skin tones in the future. I mean considering they have the tanning mechanism in the summer, I really don't think it would be that difficult for someone to just choose the skintone they want to be all year round during the Rover scenes. If they can't do that, then at least they could add a tanning station or something similar...

and the Saharah and Gracie issues... I had no clue Gracie was supposed to be male, but I thought Saharah was a boy the first time I saw them back in like WW or something lol... I mean just because they have long eyelashes doesn't mean they have to be a girl... all camels have long eyelashes anyway?? ._.

 

[Atlas]

yes

 

[PopteenPrincess]

it's kind of funny that people think dark skinned japanese people aren't a thing. i come from osaka and i can say that my family's a nut brown color, although my father happened to be the whitest of the white which is why i ended up with something a bit paler than what they even have in animal crossing.

it does bother me though. once my ac character turned a lot more darker then i was and i got pretty upset about it, i can't imagine how other people feel when they don't even get a choice.

also games tend to tailor to gender/sex differences better than racial differences in general. race is a whole lot more bigger of a problem and i really hope they add some way to be able to change our skin color in the next game, since i get that rover asking something like that is a bit...awkward.

 

[debinoresu]

it's kind of funny that people think dark skinned japanese people aren't a thing. i come from osaka and i can say that my family's a nut brown color, although my father happened to be the whitest of the white which is why i ended up with something a bit paler than what they even have in animal crossing.

it does bother me though. once my ac character turned a lot more darker then i was and i got pretty upset about it, i can't imagine how other people feel when they don't even get a choice.

also games tend to tailor to gender/sex differences better than racial differences in general. race is a whole lot more bigger of a problem and i really hope they add some way to be able to change our skin color in the next game, since i get that rover asking something like that is a bit...awkward.

most people have the stereotype that all japanese people are pale with dark hair and dark eyes. that's how they're represented in media, and there's that whole "they all look alike" stereotype for anyone who isn't white

I like the choice to choose a mii, so that way you can pick a mii with your skin color, but I still dk how they'd put that in rover's introduction. I'm white myself, but it'd probably be annoying to constantly have to play as a person who isn't of your ethnicity. most games have you playing as a white main character, and I don't think a game with a main feature of character customization should force people into that as well.

I hate when people say tanning is a skin color choice and that it should stay the way it is, bc darker skinned people shouldnt have to really TRY for like an hour to be their own skin color. plus it's not really a choice because its temporary, your character is still technically light skinned regardless.

 

[Blockmayus]

I think right now the strongest point as to why "Just picking a skin color from the begining" is that it would be SUPER awkward to make it fit into Rover?s initial set of questions, and it almost makes me wish that part of the game could be tweaked just a BIT, like I understand that keeping certain traditions and staples to a game for the sake of familiarity, but is keeping a certain tradition from the game really more important that helping darker-skinned people identify more with their in game character early on in the game?

I do have to say ACNL is my first Animal Crossing game and as much as I think Rover is adorable, Im not a big fan of the whole "Weird questions will define your face?s apearance forever" so I could do without it, people who have played the game for longer will probably differ though.

And if people really want Rover to stay the way he is trough the games, maybe once the whole thing that sets what your face-initial hairstyle will look like ends, you somehow end up looking at a mirror and are asked to "focus your sights on in", which opens up a grid that lets you choose between natural hair-eye-skin colors? (That way you can still look forward to Shampoodle opening so you can get cool unatural colored hair and maybe weirdly colored contacts that they might add in future games so its not like you just have the option to 100% choose your wanted image from the very begining, but the character feels at least a bit like you from the very begining and skin color is just there as an easily adjustable thing without havint to implement awkward questions.)

 

[ninjavenus]

At the very least, maybe they could give the option to permanently wear the selected shade of the tan you get (either from the Island or during the summer). If I tan for 4 hours, I want an option to keep that 4-hour tan. I have to sigh every time I watch my character's color diminish because that'd mean I'd have to visit the Island again---I don't have the time to keep doing that. I love my skin, and even though I don't really think of my character as a reflection of me or anything, it would be pretty awesome if she could be brown, too, with little to no effort. These sort of things wouldn't come up if developers just considered reality.

TEAMDARKSKINC:

LOL yeee

 

[Ropera]

That's another good reason why it probably hasn't been implemented yet is that they would have to figure out a way to have Rover ask a question to get you a certain complexion without it sounding a bit weird and I don't know how that would work.

Also no the reason why I'm not bothered by it isn't because "It's Japanese who cares" like some people think.It's just not that big of a deal to me because I personally don't see myself as that character.When I saw that I couldn't change my skin tone my exact reaction was "Oh you can only be one skin color...alright."It doesn't bother me that I can't look black in this game I just accepted that that's the way this game is and moved on.Not to say that I wouldn't like to see this feature implemented in the future because I would, I just don't have that big of a problem with it not being in New Leaf.

 

[radical6]

imo if they add a tanning booth in, your character should start off with a random tan. because while it is easier to change your skin, starting off with the current skin tone seems to say that it's the default. using your mii's tan and having a tanning booth to change it later is better.

but yeah rover asking what your race wont work.. unless the questions had nothing to do with race and you had to keep whatever you got. (like what we have with the faces, though id imagine they would let you change it)

 

[Hana-Nezumi]

I think some Japanese companies have just been scared about putting ANY dark-skinned people in video games and anime meant for the international market ever since the West freaked out about Jynx, Mr. Popo, etc. in the 90s. It's a bit extreme to exclude dark-skinned people entirely but they would rather be safe than sorry. Particularly with Nintendo, they've only recently been including more dark-skinned people in games like Zelda and Pokemon and you can tell they're still being very cautious. In Animal Crossing, by making the only way the players can get dark skin by actively tanning or using their own Miis, it makes it so that nobody can find ANY way to claim the game creators were portraying a race in a negative way.

 

[PopteenPrincess]

I think some Japanese companies have just been scared about putting ANY dark-skinned people in video games and anime meant for the international market ever since the West freaked out about Jynx, Mr. Popo, etc. in the 90s. It's a bit extreme to exclude dark-skinned people entirely but they would rather be safe than sorry. Particularly with Nintendo, they've only recently been including more dark-skinned people in games like Zelda and Pokemon and you can tell they're still being very cautious. In Animal Crossing, by making the only way the players can get dark skin by actively tanning or using their own Miis, it makes it so that nobody can find ANY way to claim the game creators were portraying a race in a negative way.

damn, that's a really good point actually.

 

[ChixChi7]

I think some Japanese companies have just been scared about putting ANY dark-skinned people in video games and anime meant for the international market ever since the West freaked out about Jynx, Mr. Popo, etc. in the 90s.

I wouldn't consider that an excuse for Nintendo. There is a big difference between being dark like Mr. Popo and simply just having a dark complexion.

- - - Post Merge - - -

It's just not that big of a deal to me because I personally don't see myself as that character.When I saw that I couldn't change my skin tone my exact reaction was "Oh you can only be one skin color...alright."It doesn't bother me that I can't look black in this game I just accepted that that's the way this game is and moved on.

As an adult it doesn't bother me as much anymore, it's just a small disappointment. But little kids play this game too, during the stages of their lives when they're developing their confidence and views on society. They may look at it differently.

 

[Hana-Nezumi]

I wouldn't consider that an excuse for Nintendo. There is a big difference between being dark like Mr. Popo and simply just having a dark complexion.

I'm not saying it's an excuse, I'm just saying why they might be hesitant. Keeping with the Mr. Popo example, in Japan he was just seen as a cartoony exaggerated character, but in the West he was seen as racist for looking that way because of the resemblance to things like blackface and Little Black Sambo which is entirely dependent on the cultural context of our history. So a big company with a family-friendly image like Nintendo would probably want to avoid the issue entirely if possible, especially when the main development team is Japanese and wouldn't necessarily be familiar with the intricacies of Western racial sensitivities. And with how cartoonish the humans are in Animal Crossing, and how exaggerated cartoony features are often linked to those old racist caricatures, it could be seen as potentially being a problem, if they didn't make it clear that the dark skin is a tan and not a portrayal of a race.

 

[Blockmayus]

I'm not saying it's an excuse, I'm just saying why they might be hesitant. Keeping with the Mr. Popo example, in Japan he was just seen as a cartoony exaggerated character, but in the West he was seen as racist for looking that way because of the resemblance to things like blackface and Little Black Sambo which is entirely dependent on the cultural context of our history. So a big company with a family-friendly image like Nintendo would probably want to avoid the issue entirely if possible, especially when the main development team is Japanese and wouldn't necessarily be familiar with the intricacies of Western racial sensitivities. And with how cartoonish the humans are in Animal Crossing, and how exaggerated cartoony features are often linked to those old racist caricatures, it could be seen as potentially being a problem, if they didn't make it clear that the dark skin is a tan and not a portrayal of a race.

I kinda fail to see the point there though! I mean, we have the Pokemon series that had a lot of dark-skinned characters all around the place who looked perfectly normal on its 5th gen and then they even put a dark-skinned option as a choice for the main protagonist on its 6th gen! (I believe the more aparent cultural diversity show is based on the fact that the regions are based in New York and France). I also definitively have seen darker-skinned colored characters pop up in anime every now and then (Not THAT usualy though, but they exist). Also, the tanned skin palettes are already there in Animal Crossing and have been around for many games without anyone complaining about them looking racist, its all about tweaking the first part of the game a bit so you get to choose your initial and "original" skin colour without making it awkward!

I still stand for my idea of having the character have to focus on looking at a mirror really quickly while getting off of the train-bus-whatever takes you to your Town, once your face-initial hairstyle has been decided by Rover?s questions, just so you can quickly select skin and (Natural) hair color there. Like, maybe you just see a blurry silouethe of your character on a mirror (Just blurry enough so you cant see your face well, but visible enough so the color changes are clear and not missleading), two of those sliding thigns that appear when Harriet asks "What hair color you want" appears when you slide them you can see their skin-hair color changing, and once you are happy with the selection, you press a button and your face becomes clear. (The only downside I can see to this is a couple extra steps for plot-campsite reseters)

I understand why Nintendo would be wary of touching racial topics when there have been some terrible situations in the past... but this really is just as simple as "adding one more layer to character customization with assets that are already available in the game", I seriously feel like it wouldnt be that hard!

Im really crossing my fingers that they consider stuff like this for the next release of Animal Crossing if there ever it one.