forreal's Questions (3)

I think it's too normalized I've seen some authors put disclaimers but I think Mangago itself should have an actual warning tagging system cuz sometimes I dive into a manga without reading them and immediately i feel sick

Sorry for the typos in the original post. I had to edit it. There seems to a bug in the site, where the replies disappear as soon as the OP is edited. Someone has to post another reply for all the replies to appear again.

I find Western webcomics are more likely to warn for triggers at the start of a chapter than Korean manhwa or Japanese manga. If there are warnings in the latter, it's usually added by the English translators and not the authors themselves.

You should also keep in mind that some of the legal sites that these manga/manhwa are being ripped from have age restrictions (or at least they used to). I recall Naver, Bomtoon, and Toonmic used to require age verification to read their mature series. I imagine the lack of warnings is also partially due to cultural differences concerning mental health and awareness.

If the official sites have it, then the uploaders here are not putting those warnings?

I am Asian, and I would really appreciate if authors and uploaders start considering mental health. I am not saying they have to put warning for all kinds of stuff. But rape, child related sensitive content should have warning. Child related stuff should not be normalized, period.

I think you've misread what I wrote. The official Korean sites do not have warnings. They have age verification and restrictions.

Oh. Got it. Thanks.

Then it's just bad if the official sites themselves do not have these warnings.

But even if there's no warning in the actual manga , there's many warning in comments.... But of course there's none on new manga so u have to wait for a while before someone post the warning in it

I partially agree to this. Yes we can get the info from the comments, but that does not always work. First it's not glaringly obvious which Trigger warning should be. Second, if the manga has a lot of discussion going on, then you might not find it on first page. And I don't know how many people actually go through all the comments.

But yes, someone adding the trigger warnings in the comments is greatly appreciated.

Painter of the Night _ Mad Dog _ (both ML were raped in their childhood.)

Thank you. I remember reading Painter of the night, but I don't remember any child r@pe in that. I think he was physically and mentally abused.

Any more suggestions?

Everybody has dark hair in Painter of the Night , obviously. (It's historical) _ and yes it is implied that if ML has turned out to be a sex addict (suffering from priapism as they say) in his adulthood, it is because his childhood was robbed from him, and that he suffers from the consequences of multiple sexual assault facilitated by his father (!) _ it's in the end of the story in the redemption arc of ML. _ the servant is the one explaining the history of the ML to the MC.

That's so messed up. Father doing that to his child is just... No amount of torture is enough for them. Why have children when you yourselves are going to abuse, r@pe or sell them into prostitution.
Sorry, I read it a long time ago, so I might not have read the later parts. I will check it out.

I don't know what you are trying to prove , but to me it's obvious that the authors are japanese or Korean or chinese so that means the majority of the population in their country ( where the story takes place ) are dark haired . The choice of various hair colours in manga is made only for aesthetic reason ( and to make the MC look outstanding so as to make the potential readers to want to dig in when they see the MC and the ML on the cover of the comic ! ) different hair colours help the readers easily distinguish between the many different characters in the story as well. The norm in these countries for children is to be born with dark hair. It's called genetics!!! _ characters that are not dark haired are implied either to be mixed raced, but more often are implied to have used hair dyes or so once growing up, so basically what I am saying is that the majority if not all and every characters had dark hair in their childhood because they are born from asian parents and they are characters written by and for asian people.

Now before saying that every author viciously chose to harm the ML because the ML was dark haired (is that what you are saying?) You could go ask every author , why they chose to make the MC look different than the ML, and why was the ML the one who had to have dark hair. (But again a lot of characters in those stories have dark hair, the other hair colour are the exception !) _ I guess that would lead to an interesting conversation ! _ I feel that you are angry with those authors for some reasons, but only the authors could give their own reasons (but again it's probably not '' racial domination '' and '' discusting fetishism '' if the authors are asians themselves and living in asian countries and writting for asian people ? It's just that all children have black hair !!! _

I totally agree with you that majority of these characters are not foreigners. Which is exactly my point, why would such high number of people in these countries dye their hair. If I am not wrong many work places and schools have strict rules against it. But all these manga clearly depict them being students and in workforce.

And how come predominantly only the people who dye their hair end up being uke, seme with tragic past, male characters in other genre with tragic past. Heck even women (leads) in hetero manga/anime end up having predominantly light hair, in countries with predominantly dark hair.

Now the issue I have with this is exactly with the depiction. Why are light colored hair considered aesthetic pleasing or why does MC look outstanding only with light colored hair or if you are saying it helps in distinguishing ML and MC why not have the light haired guy predominantly be the seme instead of uke.

These may look like small things but often times there are very deep rooted problematic reasons for these choices - like wanting to racial dominate due to past grievances or abuse, or severely deep seated insecurities where you are not comfortable in your skin.

You might say people are just reading it for fun, why bring up this at all? Many people are actually highly influenced by content they see in movies, read manga etc. These things have a very deep psychological effect on them unconsciously. Have you ever heard of White/Fair skin obsession. It's rampant in east, south and south-eastern Asia. Food for thought.

Note: I know Painter of the night has everyone with dark hair and hence why I read it. I am not saying all the manga have need to dark haired characters, but at least strike a balance where it's not just majorly light haired uke. Also create more manga with all dark hair being encouraged.
1. Because feeling comfortable in your skin is important.
2. Because may be sometimes letting go of past grievances is the answer. The people who abused your kin or ancestors are most likely no longer here. So there is no point taking it out on the people who are living now.
3. Because black does not represent men and white does not represent women. White is neither weak nor innocent. And you don't have to force yourselves to fit into these stereotypes.

Of course just me thinking this and posting about this is not going to change anything. At most a few people might agree. Majority would just think of this as a nuisance and ignore it, but I am stubborn like that.

Here seme got raped as a child by his own mother -
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/umbilical_sex/

Obsession with white/fair features is a thing. And it is exactly because the authors are Asian themselves I am saying this. Because this is a THING in China, Korea (ever heard of plastic surgery), Japan, Indian subcontinent, Indonesia, Vietnam and so on..

Also I think you misunderstood something. All my comments about disgusting author was about not condoning child r@pe, making the child in question say "Even thought he was not a good father and r@ped me, he is still my father." as a grown up, writing explicit child r@pe and severely twisting up genetics.

Honestly I have been reading/watching manga/anime for 2 decades, BL in the last decade. I am not a personal who is active on social media. Heck I don't even have any social media accounts except fb which I do not use. I opened this account very recently because I was done with this. I was hoping things would be better at some point.

Back in the day there was this huge disturbance in the BL fandom about height stereotypes. Because people were seeing that pattern, were sick of it and started raising their voice about it. So more people are aware and acknowledge that is a stereotype today.

Also about speaking with the author, maybe in the future. As I said I am not much of a social media person. But logically speaking, authors mostly only want to write things which sell. If I can't even convince people here of this stereotype, how can anyone expect that I can convince the author.

So yes, part of it is because I am pissed off, but definitely not at the authors but at their works. Except for one author (I don't remember their name) who I coincidently found wrote 3 of those problematic books (Those were her only works). When all her books have either child rape, grooming, teacher-school student relationships, child prostitution and severe abuse with out properly condoning them, can you really say I can't be angry. Otherwise, I generally do not look at the author name when picking up a book and do not care.

Thanks for you reply, but kindly read the request.

Sorry for the typos. Also I went of the tangent and deviated from my original request again. Sorry about that.

Anyway back to the point. Still looking for suggestions and would appreciate your help.

Any more suggestions?

I meant condemning not condoning. Sorry for the typo. I just realized it.

I do want to clarify that I see seme/uke/switch as just s*x positions and has nothing to do with behavior or physique. Also I am not talking about seke here (though I do see most seke being light haired as well).

its hard to say, i for one, do not care about hair colours or stuff, to me they are just hair

I think I should add more context in this case. Hair is just hair, but hair says a lot about a person's ethnicity. Since these BL are mostly Japanese, Chinese and Korean, genetically they are supposed to have black hair or dark hair (majority). There are special cases where a small ethnic group in china has blond hair. Now consider who actually has light hair.. and what these ukes mostly go through in these manga.

Firstly I don't understand why such a huge amount of people have light hair in these manga living in these countries. Are they ALL magically mixed race with countries which have light haired people (I have read BL where the seme has dark hair as foreigner, which is understandable. But uke has light hair being a pure Japanese. Where's the logic in that?). Or did all of them dye their hair. Asian countries are somewhat strict with uniforms and such. Since many BL showcase students and salarymen, how are they able to even dye their hair and continue schooling and work?

Warning - The following has sensitive content.
Thing is I don't see this restricted to ukes. Cases where seme was r*ped as a child or even shonen manga with child rape. 50 to 60 % of the time they are blond or light haired. Just to clarify I condemn Child abuse of any kind.

Well with manga it’s a bit different since they usually use the „blonde“ hair to distinguish the two and often the hair is not supposed to be blonde or white but not black but a shade of brown. Also I think with these stories you have the suspension of disbelief effect aka it’s fun to have different hair colors and it is not always supposed to represent reality. Then we also have the „yankee“ and „delinquent“ characters who dye their hair. While I think your observation is quite interesting I am not sure if it has any cultural meaning that can be applied to stories with lighter haired characters.

I hope it is clear that this is not me criticizing you, but simply an explanation of where it may come from.

Classic example of my case for "Light Haired Uke Stereotype".

Heat and Run manga - 2 brothers are in relationship with another pair of brothers. Each pair of brothers has an uke and seme (omega and alpha).

Joo brothers - Joo Ian has blond hair and Joo Jihwan has black hair
Ro brothers - Ro Jaeho have dark hair and Ro Miho has blond hair

Joo Ian is omega/uke and Ro Miho is omega/uke. Both blond hair. Being the uke.

My understanding of genetics says that brothers would not have such complete 180/ opposite hair colors. Ok assume that due to some rare strong genes, one of them might have inherited a different color (extremely rare chance of this happening). How did only the omega/ukes inherit this trait? And not just one but both the omegas from the 2 pairs of brothers did. Where is the logic in this?

And this is not the only BL. I have seen this in others as well. Though I don't recall the names at the moment.

Just a quick fyi. The light haired people in manga are still racially meant to be Japanese unless specifically stated as a foreigner. The different hair colors simply serve to differentiate characters (similar to Japanese anime with green, pink, purple, blue hair etc. It’s simply part of the art style). One shade may be seen to represent a more dark brown hair vs jet black black, but they aren’t meant to be considered blonde again, unless stated (eg in some delinquent stories, they will be in trouble for having bleached hair).

Apparently for shading in the B&W manga, it’s easier to have black or white hair. The few times you find a character with mid tones, I read from a mangaka a while back that’s more challenging to consistently produce. Same with brown skin.

Finally, in response to the “do more ukes seem to have the light coloured hair?” Yeah, I can agree that the numbers seem to roll that way. I can think of several explanations that fit within the usual stereotypes for that. But there’s plenty of mangaka that mix it up

Shade of brown is still depicted as white. Also brown is still lighter than black :P
Still does not answer my question about why the guy with lighter hair has to be uke in most cases. And this obsession of some authors and readers leads to manga like Heat and Run, where there is no logic.

I don't see any part of what you said as criticizing me. You just have a different view point than mine.

Another viewpoint is men are dark tall and handsome. Women are fair, pure and innocent (often represented with white). The truth in this stereotype is highly debatable, but there are many people who blindly and religiously follow this. So the seme (men) are dark haired and the uke (women) are almost always lighter haired.

I personally do not attribute personality traits to gender, even if some hold true that's mostly social conditioning.

I do fully agree that they are not foreigners and hence my point.

I do understand the need to differentiate, but most authors majorly choose the light haired guy as uke, which is again my point. I have seen plenty of authors just blindly going with this stereotype (like the reverse is not possible for them). Even the ones who mix it up do not find a balance. They still lean heavily towards this stereotype.

Well I think your point about the stereotypes about women and men explains it really well. Tons of ukes are indeed portrayed with very “stereotypically” female traits. A lot of times it feels like they just changed the gender of the bottom to male to get more readers. Not all of course but I do think what you said fits very well.

Same

I feel that this is deeply problematic. The thought that women are seen as weak fair pure and innocent just because they are women. I know plenty of strong women ( irrespective of other traits), so this is just disrespectful. :( And the thought that men are forced to always stay strong..

Welcome to Asia, there are so many problems about this but there are always very clear tendencies. Even when a woman is portrayed as strong in the beginning she will become clumsy and stupid as soon as the male lead arrives (every kdrama ever). And yea it goes both ways, it is ridiculous how men are portrayed as well. I try to find the stories that are more nuanced and break away from this. And while I don’t mind reading about a weak woman/ uke and a strong top I hate that it is the norm. But we are also talking about a culture (japan) where it is expected if the woman to not want sex and say no no no until it just feels like rape.

Perhaps because light tends to signify innocence, sweetness and is a more vulnerable color than darker shades that we tend to see as more intense and.. well dark. So it’s a quick way to convey a concept about a character, and as the uke is the one perceived as in the more vulnerable position a lot can be conveyed just with hair shades. I think it’s why so many people love a story with a “power bottom” because of the reminder that preferred position doesn’t define your personality traits.

Anyway, it’s not a bad thing. Just another tool in an artists bag to convey a concept without words.

That's just sad :( And it's not just BL, Shonen as well has the same issue. And as you pointed out Kdrama.

I am Asian as well, so I do understand.

I don't know about others, but when something is overused like this innocence trope it just becomes boring. Nothing fun about it.

And based on the men/women stereotype, the perceived notion that light haired or short men are not handsome or black haired women are not beautiful is just...

And as I said uke/seme is just s*x position. Why do people attribute personality traits to it. Like what does personality or physique of a person have to do with if he prefers to be uke or seme or switch.

Here's my opinion about this, and honestly it's something I'm pretty sure about. So hear me out, hair color in manga/manhwa has A LOT to do with the characters' personality. That's the main reason for the hair color, really. Everything depends on the kind of dynamic that the author wants to portray. The main point is that dark hair visually represents "seriousness", while light hair represents "brightness". A character can have a dark or a bright aura based on the hair color (note that there are many variations, but the "aura" will always fall into either one or the other of those two categories).
Basically we have 2 main categories:

- dark hair "top" x light hair "bottom" : the dark haired one is the more serious/calm, or the more dominant (one example among many, is the CEO top who will always have dark hair). The light haired one is more fluffy and soft, can be innocent and also a bit of an airhead. As I said, there are many variations, but in this kind of couple the top has a "dark aura" while the bottom a "bright aura". [Note that dark aura is not something negative, it depends on how it is portrayed. Many authors can't do it right which leads to asshole characters]

- light hair "top" x dark hair "bottom" : the light haired top is fluffy, soft, maybe innocent, maybe airhead etc ---> one of the most common case of this are our beloved puppy semes [Note: the personality traits are fundamentally the same as the light haired bottom of the previous category, but only in the case of the bottom those traits are perceived and/or portrayed as "feminine"---> the hair color doesn't matter, unfortunately it's a problem with the representation of "sex roles" which shouldn't be seen as something that affects the personality. Maybe someday more authors and more readers will understand this...]. The dark haired bottom is more serious/calm (for example megane uke will always have dark hair). Usually dark haired bottom can also be the more dominant one in the realtionship. Again, in this case the top has a "bright aura" while the bottom a "dark aura".
Dark haired uke is actually really common, especially in Korean manhwas but there are plenty in mangas as well. I have noticed that it usually goes together with a super fair skin, it's the classic ideal of Asian beauty (there's a lot to say about this but I'll stop here).

There are two more categories, less common and that can ultimately be brought back to the two above, but I'll list them:
- dark haired top x dark haired bottom: Both have a "dark aura" It's probably my favourite dynamic. Usally one of the two will have dark brown hair and the other jet black, so it can still somehow fall into one of the previous two, but it's still a bit different because we don't get "bright energy" here.
- light haired top x light haired bottom: Probably the rarest combination ever, usually one of them will be something like dark blond or light brown and the other light blond or white. again it can fall into one of the previous two categories, but still different because we don't get "dark energy".


Sorry for the long rant, but I hope my explanation was helpful!

Maybe it’s coz of twinks and bears? Brats and daddies, Maybe coz even in the real world the stereotypes exist to some degree in some groups ╮(￣▽￣)╭

Whatever an authors reasoning, the thing is you are likely to get a 50/50 choice light or dark hair in manga, and from there a smaller chance of a mid tone if the author doesn’t mind spending the time on the shading. They are going to pick a body type reasonably consistent with the plot and personality that they have chosen and if it’s just a regular guy, that will be a regular build, if it’s a sporty guy, an athletic build, and if it’s an introverted bookworm a leaner build. Unlikely to get plump ones coz culturally that’s not usually encouraged so that would be a specific choice.

So just saying, this is why it doesn’t bother me if a uke is dark or light haired and same with seme. I have seen serious semes with light hair, they are often portrayed as icy and controlled though, maybe the type that melt for their partner. Pretty common in Omegaverse, maybe it’s the symbolism with alpha wolves and white wolves?

I don’t tend to let things like hair colour or builds bother me. If I want something different then I just search for and choose those stories. Let me share a couple that aren’t your average tropes for your potential enjoyment. It’s been an interesting debate (●'◡'●)ﾉ

https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/norainu_no_yoru/

https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/lion_and_venus/

But that's the thing right. I would not be even creating this topic if not for disbalance. If it was 50/50 chance it would still have been ok. But that's not the case 8 to 9 out of 10 manga have Light haired uke. Which is exactly why it bothers me so much when these come out of countries with predominantly black hair.

So far from the comments on this topic, the likely hood of it being because of uke being considered a women is more.

In the first place Tall, Dark and Handsome for men and Weak, Fair and innocent originated from the west. So the idea of this being implemented so thoroughly not just in hetero manga (I see this trend there as well) but also in BL from countries predominantly having black hair.. It's not Racial Domination but Racial Fetishism（￣へ￣）. For me this is as bad as the one before.

I watched a few interviews from Japanese on their views on people from US. Many clearly stated that they prefer blond hair because it's beautiful and black hair does not make them feel beautiful. The thought that these stereotypes have actually penetrated so deep in the minds of people, so much so that they can't feel confident in their skin is just plain sad.

I mean I know many people might feel that me bringing up Light haired uke as a stereotype is just plain rubbish and some who actually like this stereotype might be against me for bringing this up. But I fell this trope is most often seen (80 to 90% of the time) but NEVER acknowledged as a stereotype.

I've been thinking about it a lot too but never decided to actually discuss with a lot of people since I'm afraid I might receive backlash from it, also because I'm not good at phrasing words just like you. My vocabularies are very limited and I can't explain things that would make sense.

So to keep it short, I disagree. It's on me, it's my personal opinion. Though not only in BLs but also in straight manhwas/manhuas/mangas.

Most I've seen is light haired female leads and dark haired male leads. It would also go with BLs as well. When I noticed these small details, I started ignoring it. To feel satisfied, I would rate 1 star and leave, regardless if the storyline is good or not. It is also to avoid causing arguments and/or misunderstandings.

I would read stuff that would be the opposite like dark haired female leads/ukes and lighter haired male leads/semes since it's so rare to find them. Still I respect if someone doesn't have the same thoughts as me.

Might be because the more I see the same thing over and over again, the more I get tired of it. :(

You explained your points very well, don’t worry about that.

The hair colour preferences of authors doesn’t bother me but it makes an interesting debate. I can understand using visual stereotypes to get points across easily, and I also respect an authors personal preferences and choices, so whatever their motivation, I don’t let it carry any power to upset me, especially to the point that I would not read a story.

We are all different though in what bothers us, and what doesn’t. But it’s always interesting to challenge old views and have a friendly chat.

I think I went too deep into this discussion. My original intension with this question was just to see if people recognize that most ukes are light haired. Nothing to do with personal preferences. People will have preferences and I am not in a place to question that.

What I do want to know even now is, if people see the pattern of ukes being light haired most of the time.

Yep, we were just giving reasons and thinking about it. It is something you can’t help but notice when you read a lot.

I think you explained it very well :)

But I do have to clarify that my original question was not about whether people care about uke's hair color or not. It's more about if you see the pattern. I just went too deep into the discussion.

Just my rotten luck. Found another piece of shit work with child rape without any specific trigger warnings. The seme was tortured all throughout his childhood and has severe anxiety attacks due to it. And guess what? Surprise surprise (not really) the seme has light hair. This stupid disgusting trope needs to stop.

https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/phase-me/list?title_no=122102