How do you feel about racial representations in anime?

For certain anime like historical settings the lack of representation makes perfect sense, however other mediums like Isekai or scifi settings it makes the setting seem shallow.

We see more beast people in anime than black people for example, please note Im only comparing representation and nothing else.

That’s not exactly inclusive.

Where there is inclusion it’s often racist stereotypes.

I found AoTs inclusion of Onyankopon to be fine and even, if very briefly, touched on initial reactions by cultures that have never encountered people of another skin colour before which I liked.

For Attack on Titan where this image comes from, they did a really good job.

The peoole had been cut off from the outside world so seeing Onyankopon obviously would bring some questions. But they never stereotyped him because the characters of the show literally had no basis of what to think of him. Once he proved what kind of person he was, they judged him based on that. The Marlyeans knew that there was a ton of stuff and people they had no experience and most of them who had exposure just wanted to learn more.

Additionally, Asian fetish surrounding Mikasa made a lot of sense for the same reason. Her race was nearly extinct as far as the people were concerned, and so they were seen as more exotic and valuable.

I have to wonder what the demographics are actually like in Japan, because most anime I've seen makes black people, especially, complete stereotypes or treated as exotic. Or both. Quite often, the depiction of black people in anime is the lowest point of the anime for me because they're often fairly racist caricatures.

Though to be fair, I'm more familiar with older anime than modern anime. Most of the stuff I like was made in the 80's and 90's.

There's a term used in anime called 無国籍 "mukokuseki" which refers to "statelessness". In a lot of anime, it's really hard to tell what specific race, nationality, or ethnicity a character is purely out of their design. Anime characters have varying degrees of colored hair and eyes. Their eyes are round and very often they have light skin. When you compare them to racial caricatures, they probably look closer to that of a "Western person" (American or European).

Although one can make out a character is "Japanese" based on their practices and environment, it becomes difficult when they're put in a setting that doesn't indicate this (like in fantasy).

While I do appreciate diversity in anime, I hope the industry doesn't go down the path that some Western studios and companies have taken. Particularly, commodifying cultures and ethnicities of marginalized people all over the world (Disney for example). There's already a lot of misrepresentations in anime and otaku culture in general (not just in terms of race and ethnicitity but also in gender, sexuality, mental health, etc), and there's a lot of room for improvement. It becomes increasingly important though as anime "globalizes" and there's an increasing demand and interest for such representations.

I don't care, really. It's just art so people can make their own if they want representation. Why force everybody to make room for you? Make room for yourself by doing things to represent you. that's the best way, imho, not by hijacking an already existing thing and making it about yourself.

I’m thinking of how Bleach used different cultures to make varying groups of bad guys.

Just make a good anime. Because if the anime sucks. No one will care about racial representations or whatever.

Also only racists care so much about race.