Okay, that page is really nice, but it doesn't say one word about why of all the characters that inhabit outworld, none of them exhibit truly asian features, though many have caucasian, black or ambiguous brown racial features.

I really don't care if you're rude to me. What you're saying is BS and I have to call it out.

And whether or not they're taxonomically (is that a word) human, they are very obviously based on humans, and share features with humans, so I find it very strange that they have obvious representatives of caucasoids and negroids, but no mongoloids. (except maybe li mei. Cue the illogical facepalms).

Jeesh, why is this so hard to get across? And why does everyone blow the f*** up when someone says "race?"

What is it with this forum and how everything look in the game? Not actual graphics (except one thread about the fatality backgrounds) but how the characters look? and how the clothes look, and how much the cover, and that almost naked Mileena isn't the best thing in the world? I can understand all the costume talk and appearance talk before the game was released since none of us had any other gameplay than the demo to go by. But it's not even as much talk about actually playing as it is about clothes even now!?

In other game forums you come across a few threads about why Taki doesn't look japanese in SCIV and why Chun Li doesn't look chinese in SFIV. But not this much. Can someone answer why MK fans is like this or is it just this site?

And yes I know I don't have to read these threads and all that, but it's not that there is much else to read either.

Completely agree with Buckfuddr btw.

It's because we're all casuals.

And I have posted threads about why doesn't taki look japanese.

I probably would have done the same for Chun Li, but I don't really play street fighter.

1. Double click the pictures to enlarge.

2. They have their backgrounds posted once you finish.

Just because it proved the point doesn't mean you can just disregard it.

(The point being that race is a social construct, not a biological one.)

Okay, as I saw this topic constantly devolve further and further, I just had to create an account just to say how offensive I find this topic.

TC, you say that you want Asian female representation, but why do you want or need such a thing? Personally, I do find that it is annoying to be constantly tied to a white (and mostly male) avatars within video games, so diversity is indeed something that I'd like to see.

But looking at Mortal Kombat's history, the diversity seems to cause more harm than good. Oftentimes, we are served with racial stereotypes and archtypes that are just painful to look at. The characters are almost parodies of what one expects of someone from such racial profiles. For characters like Nightwolf, you can already see the problems with his name itself, and then you see the typical feathers stuck in his head, followed by the rest of his costume, and his catch phrases which all have to do with the typical "spiritual" Native American. As an Asian, when I look at Kung Lao and Liu Kang, I keep being bothered, wondering to myself "is this really how game developers picture people like me?". It's just really perplexing, do you really want to see more stereotypes occur? Note to everyone: I'm not trying to cause offense to fans, but this is just how I see things in MK, no intention in trying to "change" anything per say.

In that vein, it seems like you are personally trying to reinforce such stereotypes, by claiming that characters like Li Mei are not "Asian enough". Really? Does she need to be a full-blown stereotype to represent Asians? What more needs to be done in order to make her "Asian enough"? I think that having traces of Asian influence is enough, better than making it possibly tastelessly "too Asian".

I really don't know what else to say. But while I understand the want for racial diversity and representation, I do think that people are too obsessed with race. Ethnicity is something more important after all, and that goes beyond just genetics. And as others have mentioned, many of the characters in this game seem ethnicity free or ambiguous, at least from our perspective.

People, please, give it a rest.

The thread is NOT about the definition of race, so stop getting sidetracked.

The issue is simple enough. The OP said that, in his opinion, it would be more interesting to have more characters who resemble Earth asians, since, in his opinion, for the most part, MK characters (whether they're from Earth or elsewhere) look like Earth Caucasians.

Please stop missing the point like it isn't obvious ("They're from Outworld, not Asia!" - No shit)

Please stop changing the topic ("There's no such thing as race" - Yes, there is)

Please stop calling each other racist.

And if you're going to go into a discussion that has no real answer (is Jade asian or black or latino or a third ''negroid'', a third mulata and a third polish) don't be rude to each other, what's the point...?

Honestly, I think wombat's just incorrect or being way too anal about how ethnic the characters' face designs look and frankly, he's said some things that sound downright racist. Like on the last page where he accused those portraits on that website of lying about their ethnicity because they didn't match his guesses.

I just noticed this. How many people from East Asia do you know with vividly emerald green eyes?

This is fiction.



Pffft! Silly Razor, don't you know if someone doesn't fit the EXACT stereotype believed by the masses they OBVIOUSLY aren't what they claim to be.

Naturally green or with contacts? Because I know precisely ZERO.


yes naturally green. it is possible, believe it or not.

I still don't know why some of you don't count Outworlders as humans. For fuck's sake, if they aren't a Tarkatan, Shokan, or Centaur, they're a damn human.

Right, there's absolutely no difference between this guy:

And this guy

Those two look pretty much the same. Not a bit of difference between them other than their stature, hair color, arm length, etc. GTFO.

Whether or not any politically-motivated "study" shows that race "doesn't exist," normal human beings with a lick of common sense can spot the main difference between the russian president and the nigerian president the instant they look at them.

If we go by your logic then vampires can be considered human too. Hell, anything with two arms, two legs, and a head can be considered human. Sorry, but no. The "Outworlders" are not human. Nor is the Edenians.

I don't know many humans who can live 10,000 plus years and still look 25 years old.

Did you read my post before that?

I didn't say "anything with arms, legs, and heads is a human". What I am saying is, if it looks like a human, sounds like a human, has the anatomy of a human, then it's a human. Don't give me your "Outworlders and Edenians" bullshit. I don't care where they are from. As far as I'm concerned, Kitana, Jade, Tanya, Sindel, Li Mei, Bo Rai Cho, and everyone like that are humans. Yes, they have special abilities and characteristics, but so do Johnny and Liu Kang. They are humans too, right? So therefore, I see Edenians and Outworlders as humans.

And don't give me anything about Baraka or Shao Kahn either. I didn't say EVERYONE from Outworld was a human. But if they look and sound exactly like humans, that's what I see them as.

You can believe whatever you want. But you are essentially saying what I said above. Sareena looks like a human, sounds like a human, and has the anatomy of a human, does that make her human? No. It makes her a demon in disguise.

As I said before, humans don't live 10, 000 plus years and stay looking 25. You keep overlooking that. A MAJOR flaw in your logic son.

Tyra Banks has green eyes. I actually know quite a few black people with green eyes. And I've only met one with naturally blue eyes. That was stellar.

I mentioned nothing of Sareena. She is a demon that uses visual representations of a human, while Edenians and Outworlders and Orderrealmers and such are essentially humans.

And yes, humans don't live 10, 000 plus years and stay looking 25. But they don't shoot fireballs from their hands and turn into dragons, nor do they throw green balls of energy. So within this fantasy universe, Edenians and human-looking Outworlders are humans to me.

Do you know what an "example" is? I was using Sareena as an example. Try to keep up, it's not rocket science. Just because something talks like me and you, look like me and you, act like me and you, doesn't mean it's human. You're the one who asked why people don't see them as human,

I'm just telling you the reasons.

the doctor on doctor who looks human but he is a time lord.

One thing people need to realize is that this is damn video game and creators like to.... hmm BE CREATIVE with the characters they add to these games. For some reason it seems like people have trouble identifying black women in video games. One thread had my mind blown when some one on gamefaqs claimed up and down that elena from street fighter isn't black because she has white hair and blue eyes.

Mind you the street fighter universe is filled with outrageous looking characters as well as blonde haired blue eyed japanese girls, but yet Elena can't be black...... anyways, just annoys me when people think that everything has to be a certain way and that creators can't think outside of the box aka giving jade green eyes.

This seems to happen all the damn time with female black characters for some reason. It's weird as hell. Go to a Bleach board and say Yoruichi is black. People will fight you tooth and claw. "She has a Japanese name! Her hair is PURPLE! Her eyes are yellow!"

Which is funny because Kaname Tousen has a Japanese name, purple hair, and non-brown eyes but no one EVER argues against him being black.

Well said. I know there was one thread where everyone were posting what they saw Jade as, it was very innocent, but I swear this one douchebag was jumping down ANYONE's throat if they said they saw her as black. Everything else was OK, but say you see Jade as black and he was down your throat. Even when he was shown the MK9 casting call for her voice actress to be African American he still was defensive. Smh, People...

OMG! What does happened to this thread?

Oh come off it. If you saw this woman on the street and for whatever reason she told you she was black, once you determined she wasn't making a terribly unfunny joke, you would give her the queerest look if you weren't actively suppressing it, while in your mind you would be thinking
"Like HELL you're black"

Just because someone has a single great-great grandparent who was black does not make them black.

If that makes me a racist, then I guess I am one. I doubt the Klan will be accepting my application though, since my wife is Chinese. (FOB and actually LOOKS Chinese, doesn't just "self identify" as Chinese)

Finally, this horribly political, bleeding-heart sorting game (Why didn't I realize they were just trying to make a point, as it was from PBS) made DAMN sure to pick people who have mixed racial ancestry to deliberately make it hard to sort them. The ones who didn't were easy to get right. and while I realize that many Americans are mixed exactly like that (one even lives in my home and another is about to be born in July), if you ask ANYone, even a "non-racist" what does a black/white/asian person look like, they will quickly form an image in their head, and even if they won't say it, or will tell you some BS about how race is just social (The Nigerian president is indistinguishable from Vladimir Putin), they will know it to be true and will go to sleep later that night filled with white guilt.

So please drop all this PC garbage already. I just asked if we could have a damn asian female in the game who doesn't look like she had one great grandparent who was asian and "self identifies" as asian.

F***. At least Zentile gets it.

Not to be too picky but... most MK females aren't from earthrealm.

And if they aren't from earthrealm, they are not necessarily like humans from earth, with defined ethnic backgrounds.

Edenians aren't asians, or white, or black, they are Edenians, they have more than 10.000 years of lifetime to begin with.

*Screams*