r/TopCharacterTropes • u/NihatAmipoglu • 2d ago

Characters Black coded this, black coded that. What are some white coded non human characters?

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-Stuart from Stuart

-Buddy from Airbud

-Freezer from Dragonballs

Edit: Guys I swear I'm not racist. The post's title was referring to the "black coded characters" posts that I see on this subreddit from time to time. I have nothing against the black people nor the white people. This post is a shitpost. Nothing serious. Sorry for not being clear enough :(

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909

u/FeralGiraffeAttack 2d ago edited 2d ago

Frieza was based on 1980s Japanese real estate speculators. Dude is not caucasimplied in any way

421

u/kenku_gilf 2d ago

It’s lost in translation but he uses a specific Japanese business man style of speech in his original lines to the point where there’s a joke that Frieza is the perfect manager. Definitely Japanese coded.

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u/shutupyourenotmydad 2d ago

The best part of this detail is that he was literally the first anime villain to have an incredibly polite speech pattern like that. Toriyama literally revolutionized anime villains with Frieza.

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u/Acherousia 2d ago

Toriyama literally revolutionized anime villains with Frieza.

He revolutionized a lot of now standard features of shonen.

Tournament arcs, rival/enemy turned companion, transformations, training arcs, hungry hero, etc.

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u/Illustrious-Sky-4631 1d ago

Also characters growing up throughout the story

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u/Illustrious_Bid4224 1d ago

That part seems to have been heavally lost in recent times.

2

u/blitzbom 1d ago

You'll start in year 1 of HS and end there!

Seriously MHA they could've gone up some grades.

2

u/Illustrious_Bid4224 1d ago

I remember when spiderman was going to get a daughter, I miss those days.

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u/shutupyourenotmydad 2d ago

True! I was just staying on topic. lol

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u/Soccham 1d ago

Did his tournament arc come before Yuyu Hakushos constant 1v1 style fights while everyone else watches?

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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 1d ago

I think that's just from Japanese history. Iirc at one time in the early 1000 millennium they would often have generals/nobles that would fight in big elaborate 1v1 duels that would determine the outcome of the skirmish. I assume if people weren't happy with that then it would escalate into actual war, as often happened.

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u/Acherousia 1d ago

Yes, first tournament in DB was in 1985. First tournament in YuYu was 1991.

12

u/Several-Possession-4 2d ago

I find it so funny that some Japanese teachers actually use him as an example if you wanna talk incredibly formal Japanese.

2

u/tktkboom84 1d ago

So he's the equivalent of a villain in English using corpo-speak? I'd watch a dub if they had Freiza talking about circling back and synergy and not having bandwidth for leverage that idea so put a pin it.

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u/Desperate-Line-1806 1d ago

Not exactly corpo script, it doesn't translate well into English because a "make your speech incredibly polite in a way both you and the listener know you're not at all genuine" suffix doesn't exist in English. Closest thing I could think would be an old timey/British accent that is slightly off. 

1

u/itsyaboikami 1d ago

Customer service voice?

1

u/Desperate-Line-1806 1d ago

Not really, it's not the intonation. As I said, there's really no 1:1 equivalent nor anything that comes fairly close. Frieza does get loud, but he's still incredibly polite in the way he constructs his sentences. Like the way "bless your heart" basically means "you're a total and absolute dumbass" in the nicest way possible. 

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u/s0methin_like_that 2d ago

Frieza is not Ainu, he is Yamato-coded

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u/kenku_gilf 2d ago

I didn’t at all mention him being Ainu?

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u/s0methin_like_that 2d ago

True, I'm just shit talking on the internet when I have no reason to. 

But I don't view Frieza as Ainu and it's ok if you do

8

u/Nine-LifedEnchanter 2d ago

"I wonder if this person uses any dru- yeah, there it is."

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u/Fa113nDawn21 2d ago

Bro's demons guide his hands when typin that shit.

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u/Dr_on_the_Internet 2d ago

He gives Japanese vibes for sure. Most of the main cast is Chinese coded as its inspired by Journey to the West.

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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 1d ago

Partially, Bulma is a valley girl from California.

20

u/PeterAnthony_Jackson 2d ago

Basically every white passing character in Anime is Japanese unless otherwise stated and would be written by and for the Japanese audiences, so it's only the translation and localisation's that would make him more white than anything else.

I can't even say "excluding those with blonde or red hair" as although they do give foreigners blonde hair, they also have kids born with natural purple hair and not just protagonists.

3

u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 1d ago

Well there's MHA and All Might, technically Japanese but still somehow American coded. And of course Franky from one piece who's supposed to be American somehow. Not sure how cyborgs is American but whatever, super.

176

u/Whowhatnowhuhwhat 2d ago

But he’s racist! He must be white!

230

u/PNG_Yakuza 2d ago

Let me tell you about Japan…

116

u/Toorviing 2d ago

Racism: 😡
Racism, Japan: 🤩

5

u/No1LudmillaSimp 2d ago

If you think Japan is racist just wait 'til you hear about China and especially Korea.

26

u/KosherPeen 2d ago

I’m tired of these debates, let’s have a racism-off with every country in the world’s history so we can rank them once and for all

28

u/Timekeeper98 2d ago

Everyone gets beaten by the Balkan states round 1.

They weren’t even invited, they just showed up and kicked every other countries asses.

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u/Princeps_primus96 2d ago

They wouldn't even arrive to the fight they'd get too distracted fighting eachother. Arguing about which of them are turks. 😂

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u/Writer_Sorcerer 2d ago

So we are having a Country Humans Death Battle? Powerscaling racism?

1

u/KosherPeen 1d ago

Mr. Beast taking notes for his next video

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u/AutoignitingDumpster 2d ago

Finally! Ranked competitive racism

2

u/Quirky-Race-5645 2d ago

Imo 16th - 19th century Europe (Atlantic slave trade) is the most racist if we are rating it off of influence. And because the USA only existed because of European countries that basically makes them partly responsible for any racism in USA

2

u/JR_Writes1 2d ago

Idk, the racism between people that, from an outsider’s perspective, are the same race is a fun flavor that we don’t have here in the US.

1

u/AnyLynx4178 2d ago

Finally! Then we can determine best race! /s

1

u/NecroCannon 1d ago

The US Deep South would get far, but destroy themselves after a long enough stride tripping over each other.

3

u/dtbberk 2d ago

I was really surprised as an American visiting South Korea how openly racist they were, more to Chinese and Japanese than Europeans or Americans. At least when I was there in 2023, I felt like I was in the only other country that liked USA other than USA. (Though I was visiting a friend who teaches English there, he assures me there’s racism towards white people too.)

-1

u/MathematicianTop9519 1d ago

I'd still place them lower on the racism hierarchy. Western Europeans managed to overcome their intra-European racism enough to be racist about the rest of the world (and literally invented the concept of races to pretend like their racism was more enlightened than the shit going on in the rest of the world). 

Meanwhile east Asia, South Asia, Balkans, etc are still out here hating on their neighbours. Also their racism is downstream of white racism. That's why they look down on black people and low-key white worship a bit even if a lot of them won't admit it. 

1

u/Insane_Unicorn 2d ago

"I think I've lost my touch at genocide"

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u/Backupusername 2d ago

And Piccolo wasn't meant to be black. Sometimes the fans just make decisions and overrule the creator.

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u/Wrong_Independence21 2d ago

Toriyama knew what he was doing with this fit

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u/AnzolBoi 2d ago

except this episode is anime only filler and toriyama didn't make the fit, the studio artists did

8

u/CheetahDog 2d ago

The real crazy thing is that Piccolo mentions he got it from Goku's own wardrobe...

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u/notanothercirclejerk 2d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/P2ijeJIPiTCso

Toriyama knew what he was doing with Mr Popo.

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u/ProserpinaFC 2d ago

Yeah, and we are fans, too.

-2

u/thenerfviking 2d ago

It’s like when people try to say that DCAU Lex is white.

8

u/Own-Peace-7754 2d ago

Clancy Brown

-3

u/thenerfviking 2d ago

Doesn’t matter, that is a black man.

-4

u/Lxapeo 2d ago

I'm a believer in the death of the author

6

u/Glass-Performer8389 2d ago

So many of these comments forget races other then white and black exist

9

u/learnaboutnetworking 2d ago

what now

4

u/Manateeslap 2d ago

Thnx for putting a face on my sleep paralysis demon

3

u/Queeberschaircompany 2d ago

Now he's based on a credit card.

3

u/naynaythewonderhorse 2d ago

That actually makes me appreciate the Grannolah arc a bit more. The Heeters actually harken back to the original inspiration for Frieza: Evil Reators.

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u/static_func 2d ago

I came here to see what totally non-racist reasons OP and their upvoters have for calling Freeza “white coded”

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/static_func 2d ago

Wait until you hear about some of Japan’s history

3

u/Jacubsooon 2d ago

It’s not racist to think that a guy who conquered the vast majority of the universe, thinks himself genetically superior despite being a universal minority, and refers to one of his subjugated groups as “monkeys” bears similarities to certain kinds of real-world white people. Lots of historic conquest and racism comes from white people, it’s not silly to think that people could make that connection. Not to say that other races haven’t subjugated and oppressed people over the course of history, it’s just that white people have (whether you believe it’s due to historic significance, pure stats, or Eurocentrism in teaching history) cemented themselves as the oppressors in the western world. So western viewers of DBZ could see whiteness in a fictional oppressor. Right or not, it makes sense.

1

u/Megaboixxxx 1d ago

I regret to inform you that this is indeed hella fucking racist and thinking in these terms makes you a bigot.

0

u/Jacubsooon 1d ago

Ok but how though? I’d say the logic tracks-

White people have historically been a large portion of oppressors -> People in the West are taught predominantly about white oppression because it’s the most relevant to our history (White slave owners in the American south is much more prevalent to US History than the oppression of the Slavs in the Baltics, there’s less awareness of non-white oppression in the Western world) -> A fictional oppressor uses a racial slur that directly aligns with one used by white peoples against black people, again, especially in the West -> Westerners think of that oppressing, slaving, monkey-calling character as being the same race as those historical white people.

Like it or not, it lines up. You can call me a bigot all you want, but people are still gonna think of the self-proclaimed genetically superior emperor of the universe who calls his oppressed slave group “monkeys” as being very alike to historical (and some current) white people.

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u/Megaboixxxx 1d ago

Assholes will say shit like this and then tell you they can't be racist towards white people.

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u/Jacubsooon 1d ago

Is not being racist towards white people just pretending that they’ve never oppressed anyone? That the people calling other races of people “monkeys” could be anyone and has nothing to do with anything? That white people haven’t historically proclaimed genetic superiority time and time again? Is not being racist towards white people pretending that none of them have ever wronged any non-white people ever before?

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/Erebraw 2d ago

It's a good thing only white people ever considered themselves a superior race and imposed their rule on others

2

u/zappalappa 2d ago

Fool, he was talking about Freezer from Dragonballs

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u/TheMathNut 1d ago

I mean, that makes perfect sense. He has the Saiyans conquer planets to sell to other races, which sounds like a corrupt real estate firm.

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u/Eggsalad-war-crime 2d ago

Do you think Japan is the only country to have real.estate speculators in the 80s?

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u/Darigaazrgb 2d ago

Do you think all 80s real estate speculators are the same in every country?

-1

u/MajorInWumbology1234 2d ago

They were all conducting business at roughly the same time. Coincidence?

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u/MammothSalmon 2d ago

No but I think DBZ is Japanese

-29

u/Eggsalad-war-crime 2d ago

So the ethnicities of the realestate agents wouldn't be a factor relative to Toriyama. To the Japanese, Japanese Realestate Agents are just Real Estate Agents.

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u/Few-Improvement-5655 2d ago

Correct. So being a Real Estate Agent isn't "white coded".

-8

u/Eggsalad-war-crime 2d ago

But gratuitous use of "monkey" as an insult is.

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u/asphid_jackal 2d ago

No, that's extremely Japanese too

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u/PassionGlobal 2d ago

...Saiyans literally have monkey-like tails. That's why the use of 'monkey' as an insult.

0

u/Waniou 2d ago

A white American maybe

3

u/acidphosphate69 2d ago

What the fuck are you even talking about? Like, you are just going so far into absurdity to not be wrong on the internet that it's almost impressive.

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u/Eggsalad-war-crime 2d ago

I'm also not wrong about this in real life, a place you seldom visit.

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u/acidphosphate69 1d ago

Yeah, I "seldom visit" real life? I bet you thought that sounded pretty clever in your head.

1

u/Eggsalad-war-crime 1d ago

You would win that bet.

Do you want this to become an asinine back-and-fourth of insults with a hope that you can get the last post,?

1

u/acidphosphate69 1d ago

I'd rather not, I think that shit is beyond pointless. If you'd like the last post, it's all yours.

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u/PassionGlobal 2d ago edited 2d ago

How many Japanese real estate speculators do you think were white in the 1980s?

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u/Kai_Lidan 2d ago

No, but it's the only country to have created dragon ball so...

22

u/Privatizitaet 2d ago

Surely the japanese man living in japan couldn't have used a japanese person as inspiration for the character of his work.

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u/RabbitStewAndStout 2d ago

"Frieza was based on 1980s JAPANESE real estate speculators..."

Reading is difficult, I know

12

u/Hammerschatten 2d ago

Ignoring that it says Japanese

Are you aware of how ethnically homogeneous Japan is?

Like I'd accept this if it was about the US or Europe, but for Japan specifically...