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Asian Characters

Toxic_Beauty

Toxic_Beauty

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Which characters in SkullGirls are Asian?

We know for sure that Eliza is Middle Eastern/Egyptian, Ms. Fortune is Latina and Cerebella is Brazilian.

Could Valentine and Black Dhalia be Asian?
 
I think Black Dahlia is American. As for Valentine, I have no idea, but not asian.
 
Feng is from the Dragon empire so she could be considered Asian.
 
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@chickenwithtie I agree with that, Val is just a huge weeb. She IS white....but what ethnicity?........i have no idea bro.

From what I already know, Patricia (Peacock) is english, and Mary too. Judging on the amount of writing tropes in SG, it should be easy to figure out what everyones ethnicity is after doing a little resource.
 
I simply assume Val is canopian (American?) and that she's a huge weeb. While we're on the topic of ethnicity would Beowulf be considered Celtic or simply an American who acts Celtic? Like Val being a weeb.
 
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Magma442 said:
I simply assume Val is canopian (American?) and that she's a huge weeb. While we're on the topic of ethnicity would Beowulf be considered Celtic or simply an American who acts Celtic? Like Val being a weeb.
Oh boy..hmm...I honestly think he might be American! Beowulf is just his "persona" so yeah, he might be someone who acts celtic just for the show.
 
I thought that the Dragonian people were supposed to be an Asian-like race of fish people? I dunno, Skullgirls cannon is fucking wack
 
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Mc.Rad said:
I thought that the Dragonian people were supposed to be an Asian-like race of fish people? I dunno, Skullgirls cannon is fucking wack
It's actually a fact that most Fighting-Game lore is just stupid and rushed, I wonder how much better SG lore would be if it was an RPG or something..like Indivisible.

Dont u mean Dagonians?? Those are the fish people. The Dragon Empire is an actual place in the SG world, Wiki says its an "amalgamation of various Asian countries, with many Japanese and Chinese themes." So if Val was asian, she'd probably come from there.

Tbh, SG lore is such a nice concept. Shame it had to repress a bunch of info/Had to be simplified because it turned into a fighting game >:(
 
Sinclair said:
@chickenwithtie I agree with that, Val is just a huge weeb. She IS white....but what ethnicity?........i have no idea bro.

From what I already know, Patricia (Peacock) is english, and Mary too. Judging on the amount of writing tropes in SG, it should be easy to figure out what everyones ethnicity is after doing a little resource.

Just curious, what are the hints that Valentine is white?

Could Asians (who are not Japanese) be weeaboo too?
 
Toxic_Beauty said:
Just curious, what are the hints that Valentine is white?
Her skin colo-
Toxic_Beauty said:
Could Asians (who are not Japanese) be weeaboo too?
A weeaboo, by definition, is someone non-japanese wanting to be japanese and acting out that fantasy in an annoying way (roughly).
So, by nature and definition, no.
edit:
MISREAD THAT QUESTION ENTIRELY:
YES, THE ANSWER IS YES
 
Toxic_Beauty said:
Just curious, what are the hints that Valentine is white?

Could Asians (who are not Japanese) be weeaboo too?

....

image.png



Honestly she looks pretty white. Not Asian.

Sinclair said:
Tbh, SG lore is such a nice concept. Shame it had to repress a bunch of info/Had to be simplified because it turned into a fighting game >:(

Don't quote me on this but i think that the reason SG has better lore than most fighting games is because it wasn't created as a fighting game. It's more Alex created the idea and worlds "hey this is cool" etc, and Mike needed characters for his fighting game engine. Here's hoping that with the rise of fighting games story SG 2 (if it happens) will get a decent story.
 
Then it could be said about her eye shape too. I don't really want to go too into it but Val's eyeshape is not exactly Asian styled.

If I need to ask why are you so fixated on Val being Asian? Not trying to sound rude just curious.
 
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Magma442 said:
Then it could be said about her eye shape too. I don't really want to go too into it but Val's eyeshape is not exactly Asian styled.

If I need to ask why are you so fixated on Val being Asian? Not trying to sound rude just curious.

I heard that Valentine was created based off Ibuki's design from Street Fighter.

Since Ibuki is Asian, I figured Valentine would be too.
 
Toxic_Beauty said:
I heard that Valentine was created based off Ibuki's design from Street Fighter.

Since Ibuki is Asian, I figured Valentine would be too.

I wounds really say Ibuki I would say more female ninja. Still doesn't mean she's Asian. Besides like I said before there's an Asian character, Feng.

image.png
 
Thank you for the picture of Feng. She looks like an interesting character.

Could Black Dhalia be Asian?
 
Toxic_Beauty said:
Asians can also have pale white skin though.
Honestly, Val is white.

I'll explain this to you in the perspective of a writer:
  • SG is build on a bunch of writer tropes.
  • You can look back at other (asian) characters in the story, and notice that they both have "asian" features, even names.
  • Both Yu-Wan and Feng come from the Dragon Empire, an Asian inspired fictional Empire.
  • Both Yu-Wan and Feng have Asian names, judging from all the names in SG, they're all based on either meanings or tropes. (look at Samson and Delilah.)
  • New Meridian is some 1950's-esque city, most worlds that are written around that time (And im talking fictional worlds) often show some culture clashes and stereotypes. This goes for characters design or even character personality.

As someone who had to world build for a project, I can guarantee you that it's kinda easy to see where everyone comes from in SG, and it's easy to present their ethnicity too when it comes to fictional writing.

This legit means that everyone who is Asian, might show that through their name or appearance.

val is a white weeb
 
Dahlia is based of a crime victim Elizabeth Short. in 1947 she was found dead and chopped up, dahlia in concept art has scars on her torso from being chopped up. Shes based of the worst of American mob killers and criminals.
 
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Magma442 said:
Dahlia is based of a crime victim Elizabeth Short. in 1947 she was found dead and chopped up, dahlia in concept art has scars on her torso from being chopped up. Shes based of the worst of American mob killers and criminals.

That is awful :(
 
Magma442 said:
Dahlia is based of a crime victim Elizabeth Short. in 1947 she was found dead and chopped up, dahlia in concept art has scars on her torso from being chopped up. Shes based of the worst of American mob killers and criminals.
Yes thank you!! Besides, she's on old lady and has WHITE HAIR. Suggesting she might have had (natural) blonde hair when she was still young.
 
Sinclair said:
Nope, i'd expect her to be American.
You can't really call her American because there is no America in the Skullgirls universe. Although New Meridian looks to be heavily based off of a 50's New York with the Canopy Kingdom being influenced by Nazi Germany and the United States.
 
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Toxic_Beauty said:
Filia and Fukua are also white correct?
Yes. From what I've heard she's that worlds equivalent of a French background.

Also if anyone is wondering Squigly has the equivalent of an Italian heritage.
 
MetroKoolAid said:
You can't really call her American because there is no America in the Skullgirls universe. Although New Meridian looks to be heavily based off of a 50's New York with the nation being influenced by Nazi Germany and the United States.
I'm talking about culture, what you just said "There is no America in SG universe" but there is culture..and often when writing fiction, the only thing you can do is take the culture and mix it with other (local) cultures to make your own thing.

It's honestly a thing a lot of writers do when they are world building. Think of the Neo-Tokyo trope, or heck, even Orlais. A kingdom in Dragon Age that is based on the French Empire.
 
For some reason I've always imagined Ileum as Asian. I know the term is Greek, but everyone at Lab 8 goes by codenames anyway. They seem like a pretty multi-ethnic group in general, by nature of how they were all pulled from various places over the years.

For Valentine, I believe the big reason we know she's White is simply because Alex answered a question about it at some point. That's where we also learned that she's apparently very low key and plain when she's away from the battlefield, which we never get to see in the game.

And c'mon guys, y'all know Alex didn't alter the story to fit a fighting game after he met Mike. Remember all of the stuff Alpha's shared with us? Alex had pictured SG as a fighting game for a looong time! He just likes world building in general.
 
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Sinclair said:
I'm talking about culture, what you just said "There is no America in SG universe" but there is culture..and often when writing fiction, the only thing you can do is take the culture and mix it with other (local) cultures to make your own thing.

It's honestly a thing a lot of writers do when they are world building. Think of the Neo-Tokyo trope, or heck, even Orlais. A kingdom in Dragon Age that is based on the French Empire.
Oh I know exactly what you mean. I guess I was just a little confused because you said "Nope, i'd expect her to be American." Since America doesn't actually have its own ethnicity (besides Native Americans) I was thrown off by that comment because it didn't answer if she was white or not. Although I do agree that the Skullgirls universe is heavily inspired by American culture.
 
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KaboomKid said:
And c'mon guys, y'all know Alex didn't alter the story to fit a fighting game after he met Mike. Remember all of the stuff Alpha's shared with us? Alex had pictured SG as a fighting game for a looong time! He just likes world building in general.
It's a fighting game, you'll have to repress an awful lot of story and lore and focus most of the attention on the basics, aka, "aesthetics".
The moment you decide to publish it, you'll have to realize what you can share and what you can't share. Most fighting games are made from Aesthetics and tropes, mainly because the entire game revolves around what you do, not who you are.

That is why I said "I wonder what SG(Alex's characters) could have been if it wasn't a fighting game." If I was ever confronted by a company who wanted my characters to be in a FG, i'd say no. Why? I put too much effort into the story, characterization and what not. I wouldn't want those YEARS of work on the STORY to be repressed.

Alex's writing wasn't far advanced when he met Mike, and from what I can remember, he enjoyed designing more than writing.
 
Sinclair said:
That is why I said "I wonder what SG(Alex's characters) could have been if it wasn't a fighting game."
I agree that the choice of genre obviously has a massive effect on the style of writing needed for the game, but I disagree that a creator's ideas are necessarily "repressed" because of it. Since we're talking about the overall conception of Skullgirls here, we have to go back extremely far in Alex's creative life.

Based on some of what he's told us, if in highschool Alex had focused on imagining his ideas as say, an RPG, instead a fighting game, there's a high possibility he might have developed something completely different. Heck, we could have eventually ended up with a game closer to Indivisible (i.e. SEA influenced fantasy universe) rather than Skullgirls. Games like Darkstalkers and Guilty Gear obviously had a big impact on how Alex wanted to stylize his characters and setting over the years in order to create the Skullgirls universe, and I think that genre focus played a big part in how he and Mike were able to click their ideas together so well once they met.

So I believe SG being planned as a fighting game for such a long time is a big part of how Alex even got to this dynamic world we're all now so interested in. I think it's much more worthwhile now to think of the lore's potential based on where it currently is, rather than speculate too much on what it could have been before.
 
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KaboomKid said:
but I disagree that a creator's ideas are necessarily "repressed" because of it.
I've had talks with publishers before, and I disagree with that.
When you publish something, you're creating a brand, a "work" that you share with people, the world even. Sadly enough most of the time stories DO get repressed/censored/scrapped an awful lot when you're working on something that you'll eventually plan on putting on the market. Alex was lucky to join an indie developer like Mike, and even luckier to have a writing style that sells easily on the market. (Pretty women, cute girls etc.)

I remember during the Indivisible stream, Mike was talking about /why/ they need and want 505 games to publish their project for them. Mainly because 505 games agreed with giving them the artistic freedom of writing and designing, 'cause lets be honest; a lot of $$$publishers$$$ would be skeptical about the idea of a "videogame that features a colored girl and even more colored cast.".


I know a lot of people who started out as Alex (Including myself), just drawing their characters and giving them personalities, and spending a lot of time designing them and writing them. Half of the people I know who did this are now doing web comics on their own, other friends made their own indie games and (sadly enough) had to market it, scrapping an awful lot of the stuff they wrote. Some of my friends who wrote REALLY GOOD stories were send emails by publishers, and they turned it down because they know that when they publish it as a game or animated movie or whatever, the guys will be thinking in money and want to change a lot about their stories. I know this, because it happened to me.

Again, it's just an opinion: I think SG has an okay story-line for a FG, but most of the writing is based on blatant tropes and rip-offs, if it wasn't a fighting game then i'm sure the story would have been much, much better and not reduced to a pile of rushed off-the-shelve tropes :(.
Aesthetic doesn't make everything, and plot holes will remain plot holes unless explained canon wise.
 
Sinclair said:
I've had talks with publishers before, and I disagree with that.
A lot of that's dealing with publishers/producers though, not genre choice specifically. What you're describing can unfortunately apply to every medium under the sun...music, comics...comedies, platformers...the whole shebang. However, even though publishers typically hold the keys to the market, they don't hold the keys to our imaginations. A person can still picture a girls' cartoon with gore and violence, or a fighting game with expansive background lore, if they really want to. Thankfully, Alex did the latter, and we got Skullgirls.

But yeah, despite having to sign away the IP, Alex and Mike were certainly fortunate to be in a situation where they were allowed to continue building the game mostly how they envisioned it. I'm hopeful that projects like SG, Indivisible, and other indie successes, can be examples to these publishers of why it's still worthwhile to put a developer's creative vision before the bottom-line. With any luck, we'll get to see more "LabZeros,"and "505s" building the industry in the future.

Anywho, we're definitely off topic here, but I do hope all of your friends are able to find success and freedom in the creative field, despite all of the growing that still needs to happen. Best of luck to you guys.
 
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What do you mean, "a bunch of off-the-shelf tropes"?
What, we have like, an off-the-wall sociopathic nurse...cat and fish people...religion makes you evil...and I guess the way that Sampson is on Filia's head, it references a Japanese style of monster. So that's 4, maybe 5 tropes? Hardly the entire lore, if you ask me.
 
Toxic_Beauty said:
latest


Does this character look Asian to you guys?
She looks anime, and considering anime she could be any handful of ethnicities...
But since it's anime and I have no clue to which series she belongs she defaults as Japanese to me until proven otherwise.

I would like to raise a question I wish I had asked before:
What is the relevance of this discussion anyways...?
I'm guessing you just want to know if there are any asian characters?
 
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