![]() ![]() Thus, all we are left with are some suspect choices in character design and a lot of implications. ![]() No one has interviewed them about the controversy, so we haven't been able to get their own thoughts on the matter. In other words, were they accidental or purposeful racists? We can't look to their previous work for any hints because this is the first manga both have produced. One important point to consider is whether these choices in design were intentional or unintentional on the part of either writer Yu Sasuga or artist Ken-Ichi Tachibana. You don't have to do a lot of research to find parallels in those sentences to the 'Sambo' caricatures of yore, and if so that revelation either re-frames the story as a sort of colonial battle between the native 'savages' and the technologically-advanced, land-seizing representatives of 'civilization' or it's making some terrible implications about black people being somehow 'alien'. They're shown at first to be simple savages wielding clubs and tearing people apart for the sheer joy of it, although later chapters imply that they are capable of simple speech and terrible deception. The bug-men are tall and dark-skinned, with tightly curled short hair, with a large gap between their nose and their large-lipped mouths. The accusation is that the character designs for the bug-men took a lot of cues from old, racist portrayals of black men, and I can see how people can get such an idea. If anything, Terra Formars has a lot of noxious ideas and prejudices that go beyond mere racism and each are disturbing and questionable in their own right.īefore we go much further, let's talk about the racism. Based on my own experiences, though, that's selling the series short. Even before it hit the shelves, people were accusing it of being massively racist, and a lot of argument has been spent debating that point. Terra Formars has certainly been one of the more controversial manga releases of the year. Now they possess the powers of various insect species, and they intend to take Mars back for the humans. They have assembled another international team, each member having submitted themselves to painful gene modification for the promises of a big payday and a chance to right the wrongs of their poor, traumatized lives. The team is slaughtered, but the political and scientific forces behind the project have a back-up plan. The cockroaches have turned into giant, hulking humanoid beings with incredible strength and ferocity. Hundreds of years pass before humanity sends a team to check on the progress, only to discover that things have gone all wrong. They set their sights on Mars with plans to terraform it through a clever scheme involving genetically modified moss and ordinary cockroaches. In the not-too-distant future, humanity wishes to expand its reach beyond planet Earth.
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