Those were people Kisada knew, on the wall, prior to the attack. Tomo was a random bushi in full kit in the midst of a confusing melee.

How? Samurai armor + mempo, how should the gender have been clear from the beginning?

Pfffbbbttttth to the Kuroiban. How many top secret secret organizations does one clan need?

Thats fair, but there's pretty clearly an off copy of her art floating around that makes her look drawn blonde. The version on the artists page pretty clearly has white/silver hair.

I'm straight up not japanese so.....

Eh, probably not, I can say that the ideal of pale skin has its root in the concept of wealth. Basically having pale skin meant you weren't slaving away in the fields to survive (as in you weren't tanned and weathered, not everything is rooted in american racial dynamics) and had resources. The fact that you had those resources meant that a lot of the beauty destroying aspects of things like malnutrition and backbreaking physical labor didn't affect you. Basically its a holdover from WAYYYYY the hell back when that has only recently began to fade away.

Then i'm going to ask you, do you or himoto actually have a point? Because when people argue the points you seem to be TRYING to make you immediately walk it back.

Also the fact that the people bringing it up, aren't actually japanese, and regularly try to pull the "well these japanese people don't speak for ALL japanese people" . Well, they have more right to than a bunch of white kids do, and more right to than americans of X heritage do too. I'm actually japanese from japan and don't really care trumps "I took some classes on power and privilege in uni and read woke blog posts" every single time in the credibility department.

Or maybe, as ive pointed out the pic on bell of lost souls has some sort of filter on it that yellows the whole picture compared to the version posted on the artists deviant art. version on BOLS, pretty blonde, but the entire image is kind of yellow version on the artists Deviantart, pretty clearly white hair with shading. Also, artists name seems to be ignatius tan, and also seems to be based out of hong kong so the how they depict themselves vs how white people depict them argument seems to be based on an automatic assumption the artist is a white dude. Seems likely thats a faulty assumption.

I've seen a couple pictures and one definitely has a blonde tint to it, but theres also clearly some sort of brightening filter over it compared to the other versions i saw where the hair was much paler.

I suspect you have an artificially narrow view of the features and hair colors of asian people, especially in a setting where hair dye is a thing.

This is a dodge, its a dodge because the two of you have been given counterexamples for every complaint you've brought forward, then proceeded to shift the goal posts on your position. "Its complicated" isn't an effective cover for that.

The two of them aren't really taking a firm position because a firm position can be argued with. There's just a lot of vague statements about should, which get walked back or hit with "do you think i dont know that DUH" when they're contradicted or shown to be an inaccurate perception. However you want that doesn't move into caricature. You're always going to find someone unhappy with your depictions, eventually to the point that people will say you shouldn't even do so because you're a western artist.

Well the things you choose to criticize followed by the rapidly shifting goalposts when someone points out how you're wrong about the setting make me think you're not aware of all that.

Korea is the phoenix. Indonesia is the mantis Crab are a china/japan fusion. Naga have a south asian (india/pakistan) theme to them Dragon are tibetian/japanese fusion. This is what i mean when i say you don't seem particularly well versed in the story and setting yet choose to play critic of it.

You really come across as not very familiar with the body of work regarding this setting.

This is a PROFOUNDLY arrogant statement. Maybe manage some writing success of your own before you throw claims like that around.

Yeah like two of you.

None of what you said is actually a problem with the setting except for those who want to participate in checkbox diversity at the expense of focused storytime.

Dude china didn't NEED anything from the west, until british merchants started smuggling in opium. There was a whole war fought about it until the UK forced a bunch of concessions out of the emperor. Obviously modern times are different, but we're dealing with a medieval era setting.

Not as cringey as this. Its a fantasy world they could X if they wanted is the most useless comment. Checklist diversity is worthless. At least have the courage of your convictions to just own what you want them to change. Stop dancing around the reality of what you want which is to make sure every character isn't asian analogue in a setting about an asian analogue empire with loose historic ties to japan and china.

I mean i like the supernatural/nonhuman aspects too, its just that the line between their being a part of a story about the rokugani and the story being about them seems to blur the more they get included and you invariably end up with a grip of stories focusing on them and their POV.

Well, lemmie put it this way, i dont give a crap about the nations outside of Rokugan. I dont give a crap about the burning sands, ivory kingdoms, thrane or merinae except as antagonists to the empire. In fact I dont give a crap is too nice of a framing. I am actively hostile to the idea of their inclusion. I feel that time spent on them is time away from the core stories and focus that made L5R as successful as it was, and you can almost track the rises and falls of the game and community population by how much focus is diverted from the great clans and their stories toward other nations and species during a given arc. There is so much that can be done just with the families of the great clans and the minor clans that design and story time spent on cultures outside rokugani culture is pretty much a waste of FFG's time and energy.

There's a large segment of retcon ragers in the CCG fanbase. A gay champion is just as easily an aspect of the characters sexuality not revealed in story yet. Gender swap is going to clash pretty hard against those folks psyches.

Far as i can tell they havent chimed in one way or another on this subject matter so if thats whats required....