Diversity

[Cass Hoban]

Yes, I feel this was important enough to make an announcement.

We have 79 accounts on this site. I did a breakdown of how many are non-Japanese characters, based in other locations. These are my findings:

Arthur
Suzie + 3 Shadow
Kyle+ Rookie
Ezekiel
Cass
Noa
Jerome
Aiden + Tia + Alicia + Drew + Christian + Tyler
Nicholas + Cara
Cassie
Alex
Kenton
Kyle
John
Oliver
Courtney
Ryan
Byrne
Trey (Japan based)
Jane
Johannes
Graham


22 out of 79. That leaves the other 57 to be Japanese. Does anybody else see a problem here? We have, what, three Americans, if that? Really puts a problem on people who want to make Americans. This also really makes it hard for people who want to make Europeans or Americans to get anything done, since everyone is in Japan.

Why is this? Why do so many people gravitate towards making Japanese like this?

It's making it harder and harder to get good things done. Can we please talk about this, and figure something out? While some people put all or most of their plots in Asia, you have no problems advancing things. For those of us who have plots we want to do elsewhere, what then? We're effectively stuck or very limited.

So, let's figure this out.

[Itano Tomomi]

I'm perfectly willing to make American or European characters. I've got an American international agent in the works at the moment, and I may repurpose a character or two to be European.

[Alex Drake]

I'd love for the Megaranger to be American if that helps. And most of the characters I make are European or American, so it gets REALLY annoying.

Part of me assumes that the reason people put their characters in Japan is some kind of grandfather clause. Ya know, the shows were there already so we might as well etc

[Cass Hoban]

You see, I don't believe that. No offense to anyone, but it almost seems lazy to do that. Besides, there are Power Rangers, so that doesn't explain the Sentai.

[Arthur Ingram]

Aye, I mean the site was designed as a worldwide type thing. Hence why the other countries are major locations.

I have a feeling, and this is a problem I have on a lot of sites, that people kind of feel like they have to make a Japanese character since it's a tokusatsu site.

You shouldn't feel bad about making a character whose Japanese, American, English, Korean, African, Russian or any other nationality. But that being said it is a huge number of mainly Japanese people and characters, I suppose that's mostly because a majority of the canons are going to be Japanese (Power Rangers is the only American tokusatsu that went past three series).

Even though we use the canon suits there's nothing against putting your own spin on them. I've been on one site where there was a power ranger team just about Evvvveeeeerywhere (MMPR were South California, Dairanger were Japanese, Jetman were English schoolkids, JAKQ were French conmen).

But like Ren and Crimson have said most of the action's going on in Asia. Why is that? I mean yeah we have the Tokyo Tower, and the Great Wall Of China and Fuuto and all that but they're normally included in tokusatsu for spectacle (Like Kabuto's first episode and the climax of the W movie on the huge landmark buildings). You've got the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Pompeii, K2, Ayers Rock and everywhere else!

This is essentially a long winded way to say:
Feel free to make a Japanese character but also feel free to make someone from somewhere else.
Feel free to start a thread in Japan but also feel free to set one somewhere else.