How Naruto’s Live Action Movie Is Avoiding The Anime Whitewashing Problem1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe planned live-action Naruto movie looks set to avoid the whitewashing controversies that have plagued past anime adaptations. Live-action interpretations of anime and manga franchises have a fairly grim reputation among fans, and not without good reason. Although a select few Japanese-made titles have been praised, Hollywood’s record is fairly dismal, largely because the movies either ignore their source material, or due to a lack of quality across the board. One particular issue that has followed live-action anime movies is whitewashing, the act of casting white actors as characters who traditionally have a different ethnic background.
Examples of whitewashing can be found in the likes of Death Note on Netflix and Ghost in the Shell starring Scarlett Johansson. Death Note moved the Shinigami action from Japan to the US and cast western actors as characters who were explicitly Japanese in the original story.
Image credit: Screen Rant
