This weekend, more details about the upcoming remake
of the anime adaptation of “ ONE
PIECE ” were finally revealed. Although a promotional video was
not revealed, perhaps because the project is in very early stages of
production, some production materials were revealed , with one
immediately drawing attention on social media.
One of these materials included the
design that will be used for Usopp within this new project. The
Straw Hat Pirates' sniper and one of Luffy's main officers, he was the third to
join the crew and is one of the most popular characters in the franchise. Well,
this revelation brought an inexplicable controversy to social networks, with a
variety of people criticizing that 'whitewashing' was done in this new remake. Let
us remember that this term refers to the action of 'using white actors to play
other ethnic groups', and in this case they mean that 'Usopp is whiter than he
should be'.
If we review the official description of
the character, we can see that Usopp is described as 'a young man with white
but tanned skin' , which would put him in the same
terms as Hayase Nagatoro. However, author Eiichiro Oda also noted in a previous
interview that if “One Piece” were based on the real world, Usopp would be
African. Evidently there are also white people in Africa (especially in the
southern part), however, this last statement by the author served to make fans
claim that 'Usopp is black'.
The latter also gained more acceptance after
author Jacob Romero Gibson , a person of color, was selected
to play Usopp in the live-action “ONE PIECE” series, so to some extent it
is understandable that there is confusion. given the fact that WIT STUDIO puts
the character without all these characteristics.
Something to remember is that these are only
designs and we have not even seen a single animation frame yet (the
images that were shared are only sketches, pre-production schemes), so it is
possible that the situation changes in the future . However, Internet
users did not hold back their opinions on the matter:
- « Are
you seriously still with those damn lips? If Shaman King could fix it for
the anime remake of it, One Piece could easily do it too .
- « Brother,
Zoro is darker than Usopp. What is this world we live in? ».
- " The
fact that Usopp's melanin just disappeared is incredible ."
- " This
is crazy ."
- « Usopp
is paler than ever, I'm honestly surprised! His hair is just as dark. He's
paler than in the current anime (he's already been super bleached!) .
- « “Why
is it white?” Literally Usopp is like that throughout the damn manga .
- " They
had the opportunity to make Usopp darker and remove his thick lips, but
they didn't ."
- " Are
you kidding? ».
- « Who
is this random guy next to Nami? ».
- « Did
they somehow manage to make it even more WHITE? ».
- " They
made it whiter than it is in normal anime ."
Source: Twitter
