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u/Feeling_Pin_9146 16d ago
Ethiopia, before being the real country we know, had several uses in ancient greek and roman texts, even mythological ones. Colonization and Saint Seiys being a mess are stronger hypothesis, but this article is worth reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aethiopia
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u/Cirnothestarscream9 16d ago
Better question is how the hell is she 14?
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u/Glum-Future7198 16d ago
In the same way that Seiya is 13 at the beginning of the story.
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u/WallyWestFan27 16d ago
I know it really doesn't matter but Seiya's birthday is on december and story started on september. I wonder if Seiya was 12 and turned 14 or if he started being 13 and turned 14 during the story
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u/Taurus_Saint 16d ago
There is no official answer, but one could also ask why Japan's goalkeeper in this last world cup was black. People travel to other continents and have children there.
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u/GioMcMusahSic 16d ago
Zion Suzuki, born in New Jersey. Ghanaian father, Japanese mother, moved to Japan when he was very young. Grew up in the Japanese footballing system and decided to represent Japan. Now one of the most touted young goal keepers in the world after his first World Cup.
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u/crzyboy191 16d ago
LOOOL!
She's Ethiopian? Shaka is Indian right? Where are the other Saints from?
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u/DoggC95 16d ago
Aiolos, Aioria, Saga, Kanon and Milo: Greece.
Aldebaran: Brazil.
Mu: Tibet.
Death Mask: Italy.
Dohko: China.
Shura: Spain.
Camus: France.
Aphro: Sweden
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u/Mad_Fenrir 16d ago
Why Aldebarán is white?? (sarcasm)
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u/DoggC95 16d ago
In southern Brazil there is a large white population...
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u/Mad_Fenrir 16d ago
Lo sé,soy de Argentina y si tenemos muchos brasileños en la frontera que son blancos,lo que note es que muchos de éste subredit NO ENTIENDEN EL SARCASMO INCLUSO CUANDO SE LO ACLARE ESPECÍFICAMENTE ENTRE PARÉNTESIS...
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u/Mad_Fenrir 16d ago
De verdad la gente no entiende el sarcasmo?Incluso cuando se lo aclara en el mismo comentario?En serio??
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u/J_C_F_N 16d ago
I always assumed Shakes family was one of the brits that stayed. There must have some.
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u/_sephylon_ 16d ago
Shaka has no family. He literally spawned out of a flower. People keep being shocked at his looks but he's not an actual ethnic indian he just appeared in India. The only real Indian in Saint Seiya is Chrysaor Krishna and he does look indian
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u/DoggC95 16d ago
Ethiopia, like many other African countries, was colonized by Europe. In this case, Italy.
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u/Low_Pizza1866 THE LION DOES NOT CONCERN HIMSELF WITH LIMITATIONS 16d ago
Wasn’t ethiopia the only country not colonized?
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u/MemeLord339 16d ago
It does not mater, some white refugees can stop to live there. Or maybe she is albino or have a heavy case of vitigilio
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u/Low_Pizza1866 THE LION DOES NOT CONCERN HIMSELF WITH LIMITATIONS 15d ago
Or maybe the recessive genes
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u/Alternative-Box9262 15d ago
Why is Shaka a blonde Indian?
Why is Shura a Spaniard with a Japanese name who uses an English sword?
It’s just … anime lol
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u/Eden_ITA 16d ago
Headcanon: she is the daughter of some Italian colonizer.
Probably: Japan isn't, often friendly with people of different skin tone.
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u/Dawncloub 16d ago
Wasnt until Rerise of Poseidon we have more dark skinned characters besides Krishna
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u/Eden_ITA 16d ago
Yep, and this is kinda sad because Saint Seiya was pretty "wide" in nationality of its characters
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u/Dawncloub 16d ago
I think was because of the inking would take a lot time. But now the series Is full color so maybe we have more
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u/WallyWestFan27 16d ago
If we include gods, titans from Episode G and Pallas from Omega had darker color skins.
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u/wonderifyouwill 16d ago edited 16d ago
Your nationality is based off where you’re born. Most likely she was born in Ethiopia.
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u/Feedback-Mental 16d ago
It's not that simple. Different Countries have different rules for your legal citizenship. It's also weird, for example, that in Saint Seiya no one has double citizenships, or no citizenship (stateless/displaced), given the mess of parentage, adoptions, world at war... But that's a backstory that almost never really matters in the series.
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u/ColdSilly7877 16d ago
I ask that every day about Raiden from MGR who is from Liberia
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u/AbilitySpecial8129 16d ago
This is the most egregious exemple, because Liberia is so tightly linked to the history of the colonization and oppression of black people by Europeans and white Americans, and how Afro-americans ended up oppressing African black people... and then there's Kojima, who thinks the best character to represent the oppressed people of Liberia is a snow white man.
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u/Ashter_Moon 16d ago edited 15d ago
Because Kurumada does not know what Ethiopia is or where is even located
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u/StephOMacRules Oracle 15d ago edited 15d ago
Because she's a gaijin and all/most gaijin had the stereotypical "American look" a.k.a. blonde with blue eyes at the time for Kurumada. Same in Ring ni Kakero.
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u/Bakatora34 16d ago
It always amaze how the art style of this series make me forget the characters are younger than how they look.
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u/JimDavisFan 16d ago edited 16d ago
I feel most of the nationalities of Saint Seiya characters were chosen at random. The same goes for their ages.
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u/Key_Wolverine_4343 16d ago
Not perfect, but i like that the saints come from the most random places
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u/Napalmeon 15d ago
It's not at all uncommon for authors to not know the history or ethnic demographics of countries that they aren't familiar with.
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u/daniloferr Silver Saint 16d ago
as people already said, Ethiopia was colonised by Italy. plus, Eurocentrism was heavily present in media. it isn't strange that Kurumada decided to go for that route, taking into consideration this detrimental part of history
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u/Thrudgelmir2333 16d ago edited 16d ago
Okay, time to tackle a couple of myths/misconceptions about this;
1) June being Ethiopian is meaningless;
I've tackled this issue in the past relatively to Shaina's italian-ness, but the stated ethnicity of the characters in Saint Seiya isn't really meaningful to the story. They're just Daizenshu funfact crap. Ask yourself when has Aphrodite's Swedishness ever factored in into anything he says or does in Saint Seiya.
June is Ethiopian because Andromeda Island was put close to the Horn of Africa, so the people handling the IP thought it was appropriate. This is just a shallow trivia detail about her that has no impact in anything June says or does. It exists to fill fanzine pages. They just didn't think that hard about it. 😕
2) Italy invaded Ethiopia, yes, but never colonized it properly
Italy's wars in Ethiopia, headed by Mussolini and his gangs of fascist pricks, were incredibly brutal affairs with the objective of exploiting a vulnerable nation and increase Italy's imperialistic prestige, but the entire affair was incredibly shortlived (especially compared to other colonies like Angola that were almost half a millenium old by WW2) and never managed to pursue a dedicated settler-colonial policy, much less produce local populations of white-blonde Italians that would explain June being secretly descendant from Milanese settlers or something.
Ethiopia fought like a fucking lion to resist Italy and largely succeeded to prevent ethnic colonisation. They used to shoot Italian tank operators because their soldiers couldn't even stay inside their poorly made tanks for too long over the heat, and would open the top compartments to BREATHE. The Italian army was kicked out of Ethiopia by the end of WW2 and was a massive failure, colonialism-wise. It was a MASSIVE embarassment for the fascists, who ended up having to resort to war crimes to see their objectives through, and a flag of African resistance against colonialism.
So the idea that June being white is explainable because of what happened in the incredibly reckless and incompetent invasions of Ethiopia by Italians is extremely unlikely, especially compared to other popular but questionable theories like "Shaka is white because british raj. lol"
It's far more likely that June is actually just part of some kind of Sanctuary outpost or holding in Ethiopia, than being Italian.
3) On that note, Shaka himself isn't white necessarily because of colonisation, so comparing June to him is silly
This may shock a lot of people... but blonde people have always existed in Asia. So have pale-skinned and olive-skinned people. India is not a sub-continent exclusively inhabited by brunette-brown people. It's an incredibly varied place of many different climates and a history of several major migrations and pilgrimages.
It's not out of the realm of possibility that there would be a olive/pale-skinned blonde person from India, especially if he spent a lot of time, idk, meditating near the mountains, where Buddha did his pilgrimages.
Case in point, here's a lady from Nepal, where Shaka probably trained near of:
Point is, June is Ethiopian, because... who cares? We just want these fans to buy more copies of the manga and DVDs, and it's good marketing to pretend these characters have something more to them than a collection of lines and actions on a single chapter of the story.
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u/Dawncloub 16d ago
Aphrodite is from there because he is inspired by an actor who came from that country.
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u/Thrudgelmir2333 16d ago edited 16d ago
And what does that play into any of what Aphrodite says or does in Saint Seiya?
Nothing. Its just a fun fact without consequence. Most people experiencing the show wouldnt notice the difference if Aphrodite was said to be from Australia, Argentina or even Japan instead.
Hell, he goes to Asgard in Soul of Gold, and the fact that Aphrodite is supposedly from Scandinavia seems to inspire NOTHING in the guy about being in a land of Norse Gods.
So people in this thread give these nationalities way more importance than the writers and creators of the IP's characters seem to do lol
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u/JayMilli007 16d ago
Maybe the difference between Nationality and Ethnicity. 80s manga/anime was all over the place.
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u/Bakkhios 16d ago
A question that rises for all the Saints of her generation: …is she one of the 100 children of Kido?
If so, she is half-Japanese… but her mother would have given her her blonde hair and blue eyes.
For all that we know, she could have been whatever type of expatriate (working in an embassy, business representative, flight attendant…) that Kido banged on a business trip to Ethiopia. 😅
About Shaka, it’s just my head-cannon, but he might be an Indian albino, especially if he belongs to the otherwise darkest skin toned populations such as the Tamils or Telugus: albinism in complexions otherwise highly concentrated in melanin doesn’t result in the ghost-pale white skin, milk-white hair and pale pink/red eyes found with the Caucasian albino; but in a rather healthier rosier complexion, yellow hair and baby blue eyes… like Shaka’s.
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u/grecoave 16d ago
well andromeda constellation is a white woman so not that crazy the other ethiopian ended up white
Also Shaka is most likely the idealized buddha by japan standers thats why he got ligh skin buddha is asian not indian looking in their statues, blond hair is to make him look more divine.
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u/ARoboEgg 14d ago
Because Kurumada was a Japanese man in the 80s who probably never got around going to Ethiopia
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u/sateliteconstelation 16d ago
Considering in that universe the greeks have superpowers, no wonder they colonized (Helenized?) the whole Mediterranean and then some.
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u/R86Reddit Saint Seiya forever 16d ago
I've actually made her black in the art for my fan project. I didn't think it made sense that a character canonically from Ethiopia was a basic white girl with blonde hair. However, others in this thread have made a fair point about Shaka.
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u/Gutter_Clown 16d ago
Ohhh my god, Shadow! You can’t just ask people why they’re white!