Black characters in non-North American cartoons

C

cesbal787

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Was curious about this: what cartoons not produced in North America (outside of the US/Canada) feature Black characters in them? As a second question (spurred by seeing a picture of what I gather is supposed to be a "black" character on "Dragonball Z"), do said Black characters get drawn stereotypically (i.e. the manner US cartoons depicted Black characters in 40s/50s cartoons)?

-B.
 
I just want to go on record to say that I've never been comfortable with the term "black" to describe a people (I really wish that we as a people would come up with a new title for American Americans and Caucasians besides the outdated derogatory terms of "black" and "white"), although in this case, we can't use the term "African-American" to describe characters outside of North America.
 
A number of British cartoons have black characters, generally presented in much the same way as in in American cartoons (ie, not looking like golliwogs), although I can think of one where the main character is black: Mama Lou, which was also made by a black director. Interestingly, although the heroine has distinctly Afro-centric facial features, her skin is blue. Maybe it's a pun on her being a blues singer.

Oh, yeah - and check out the French movie, Kirikou and the Sorceress. Great stuff.
 
Canada's Total Drama Island has a black or two in its' cast. Well, we know the character of La Shawna is obviously black, as is that black fellow (I'm blanking on his name right now) but I'm not sure about Katie; she could be black or perhaps a Latina or Pacific Islander or something. (I read in an earlier post here that Courtney was also black, though she doesn't look like it to me.)

Italy's Winx Club added a black fairy named Layla (Aisha in Italy) during its' second season, although the official Italian website describes her as being Arabic. On a similar vein, Disney's W.I.T.C.H. originated as a European comic and also boasted a black in its' central cast, Taranee Cook, though she's technically only half-black; her mother is Asian.

One infamous example was an anime called The Chocolate Panic Picture Show (1985); described as "jaw-droppingly racist" by The Anime Encyclopedia, this musical starred 3 grossly caricatured African canniblas: Manbo, Chonbo and Chinbo causing chaos in civilization while attempting to be 'tamed' by their pretty tour guide. It's worth mentioning that this production was partly inspired by the film The Gods Must Be Crazy.
 
There was also Nadia the circus acrobat, from the anime series The Secret of Blue Water (1990). Unique in that it was an anime series in which the heroine was a "person of color" (I didn't say African-American because the series took place in Europe).
 
Most other countries as of late gotten pretty good at depicting us in animation, though I used to dread watching anime that had black people in it, since they always managed to make us look like Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs. :yawn: About the late 90s is when they started actually designing us normally.
 
The first...and probably only non-North American black character that pops into my head when I ponder such things is Moonbay from Zoids Chaotic Century/Guardian Force.

Oh yeah, just remembered Cluadia Grant from Robotech, iirc she was one of the ship operators, along with Lisa.
 
It's DJ, other characters i can think of are Mr.1(One Piece),Gedatsu(One Piece),Tousen(BLEACH),Gunkan/Battleship(Bobobo-bo),Kilik(Soul Eater),Kidomaru(Naruto)
 
We're supposed to referring to shows that didn't originate in North America.



Oddly enough, in Jungle Emperor Leo, there's an circus acrobat that's black.

Cyborg 008 from Cyborg 009 is African. Blood+ has two, and I saw one in Full Metal Alchemist.
 
North America= United States and Canada

My sense is that Euro entertainment doesn't get as hung up on race, either in terms of regular use of token ethnicities or regular casting of white leads as a matter of hedging their bets.

Now what do I mean about 'hedging bets'? Well, Hollywood still considers "urban" (industry code for black) movies a hard sell in Asian markets. That's probably how we got the interracial buddy cop movie. It's gotten better, but you still have lots of antiquated black images circulating in Asia, from 'black man toothpaste' to Song of the South to the pickaninnies. The latter is why blackface characters do exist in the likes of Shaman King, Pokemon, DBZ and YGO, but their numbers appear to be shrinking.

And then there's this recent uproar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82J-TDASyY0
 
Seconded, it's a great movie, I need to see it again.

I haven't seen the movie in question (just a few bits and pieces on youtube) but one of the main characters in "Azur & Asmar", made by the same guy who made "Kirikou" is black.

A bit of a stretch perhaps, but there's also the dutch/japanese cartoon "Alfred J Kwak". The hero's girlfriend was a black duck who came from a country that was clearly meant to be South Africa during the apartheid-era.
 
It's odd how characters that are pictured as a stereotype black person (IE: Rapper, loves chicken, always taking in slang) are hated by anti-stereotype people, but if they are black and act/speak properly, then others will say they're white and insult them.

Of course, most of these examples that come to mind are old sitcoms (Cosby Show, Fresh Prince), but, haha, you know.

Just to add to the topic.

The only show I can think of from the topic of my head that's not made in America is Corneil and Bernie and Pokemon.

C&B doesn't have any black characters that I remember (Or if they did, they were very minor) and Pokemon had Brock.
 
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