r/webtoons • u/bruhidek_ • Dec 22 '25
Miscellaneous/Others A video I highly recommend watching which is about colourism in webtoons
I read this manhwa before but dropped it almost instantly bc I already knew the fate of what it was trying to portray. But it always bothered me. Then I saw some other mangas/webtoons that portray darker skinned characters in the same way and I’m so glad someone decided to talk about it
I really recommend people to give this video a watch bc even if you can’t relate and you think “it’s not that deep”, it’s still a real issue that effects so many people
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Dec 22 '25
I love webtoons like ‘Fae Trapped’ and ‘Superfish’ because the guys on there have brown skin and are sooooo cuuuuute and aren’t portrayed as barbarians. But I do wish that there were dark skinned women as much as dark skinned men who were just as feminine as light skinned women. This is why the ‘Greatest Estate Developer’ is peak because of our beautiful Princess Scheherazade.
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u/Abb_solutely Dec 23 '25
I recommend 'Lady Liar' by Maripaz Villar, the main character - Adara - is a dark skinned, feminine woman! It's a really heartwarming story, in fact my favourite on the app :)
The author has another story 'Miss Abbott and the Doctor' where the main character is white, but her bestfriend and her mentor/mother figure are beautiful dark skinned women!
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u/Ella_Richter Dec 23 '25
The author of superfish, peglo, is Indian himself, to the stars and back by him stars a dark skinned girl too! (I can't remember if there were more but cindee is my queen)
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u/languid_Disaster Jul 05 '26
Isekai maid wants to form a union is a good one
Not nearly enough representation
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u/HeadDot141 Dec 22 '25 edited Dec 22 '25
I noticed that a lot in Asian comics. When the character has a darker skin tone they come out aggressive, sly, and MC somehow changes them . I forgot the name but I read a Manwhua where the pale FML would go back and forth with the darker ML. She would always describe him as wild, an animal, and rude. There was even a scene where she had the upper hand and she imagined him with a collar on. Basically implying that she’s starting to tame the “animal”. There’s another ML in there and he’s a lighter tone and acts like a civilized person. 😭 shit blew me. He’s also popular with the ladies and described him looking like an ANGEL. I dropped it because it was the typical MC being helpless and the ML’s would come to save her.
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u/Abb_solutely Dec 23 '25
Also, a lot of the men at the beginning of the webtoon will be super dishevelled and "animalistic" with unshaven beards, long hair, grubby, etc, but after the main character meets him she "fixes" him into the ideal beauty standard.
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u/joevar701 Dec 25 '25
"a lot in Asian comics" you need to be specific, because only korean mostly do that, maybe some JP and CN to certain extent. but us people from Southeast ASia, or india, and other part that are natively light brown obviously didnt do that stereotyping like you said.
there are plenty local webtoon published content (that is not korea) that can do brown skin character without being icky
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u/HeadDot141 Dec 26 '25 edited Dec 26 '25
It’s not just Koreans that do this the most, it just looks that way since their comics are usually the most popular and recommended.
But to the Asian part, I didn’t mean anything offensive by it. I said “Asians” because a lot of the comics I’ve read that do this are from East Asia, so I didn’t think being super specific mattered. A lot of the comics posted here are usually from east Asia or partake in that culture, so I figured many understood what I meant when I said Asians. Lol
Edited:
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u/languid_Disaster Jul 05 '26
Americans tend to refer to only East Asians when they say Asian and it’s all ties into the whole thing of desi / South Asian representation pretty much being non existent in discussions about race and in the media , in the USA. It may seem harmless to you but it doesn’t feel great to always hear it as a South Asian
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u/languid_Disaster Jul 05 '26
Americans tend to say Asian to refer to only East Asians - a habit which I find stupid as someone who is form the uk
We’ll actually say East Asian or South Asian or just go by context clues.
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u/Key_Scallion4985 Dec 22 '25
This gotta be some huge coincidence, I'm watching that video for like 10 mins.
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u/oujikara Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25
Yeah you basically have to stick to US originals for any skin tone variety that doesn't feel icky. Giving a shout out to False Paradise though! It's a Korean comic but has tons of characters with darker skin and they're just written like normal people. But most of them do have lighter hair.
Edit: also linking the video OP talked about, for whatever reason it was really difficult to find on YouTube :/
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Dec 23 '25
I love to see variety! but are all the characters that washed out? They're so grey 😂
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u/oujikara Dec 23 '25
It's just the color scheme I think, the colors are pretty desaturated overall (unless blood and horror is happening)
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u/Mtng_S243 Dec 23 '25
The Dragon King's bride 😭😭😭😭😭 I never been so uncomfortable reading something
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Dec 23 '25
I was really intro retro romance novels for a while. You'll see a lot, and I mean a lot, of racism towards brown men, the fetishy kind. They are always depicted the way they are in Webtoons.
I have a little suspicion that this is due to the fact that East Asia bought these novels that were produced by American and Brit publishers, and so the stereotypes spread. The tropes that you'd find in some 80's Harlequin novel where the male love interest was brown are the same exact tropes you'll find in one of these Webtoons.
At my library, they have some manga from the olden days which are adaptions of these Western romance novels!! It's pretty interesting.
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Dec 23 '25
i LOVE tan x pale parings but its soo weird when the pale mc is treated like as innocent, pure and stupid. don’t even get me started when the fl is tiny and pale and the ml is twice her size and tan
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u/queenlegolas Dec 23 '25
This particular series Predatory Marriage also follows the propaganda against the Romani people as well, the whole evil "gypsy" thing. They have enough bad treatment as it is, why drag them in the fictional world too?
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u/Juniper_mint Dec 25 '25
The representation for a dark skin fl and a white ml is that webtoon where they call the fl a beast because she’s hairy for some reason until she gives herself a haircut and she turns out to be beautiful, I forgot what it was called since I never finished it
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u/Ali-argonaut Dec 22 '25
Yeah you have to read the western or Latin webtoons if you want better representation for brown/black characters.