That would be concerning natural skin color though, wouldn’t it? If you look closely at some of the drawings, including the cover, you can see that she has tan lines under her swimsuit, so her skin tone is most likely similar to the other girls on the island and just tanned from constantly paying outside in the middle of summer on a southern Japanese island.
That's one way to read it. I perceived it otherwise. Particularly, lighter skinned people tend to get reddish sunburns, and don't tan as easily (you can see that on the cover). Also, even MC's tanlines don't seem that light.
Japanese media don't portay dark skinned people the same way that the West does. That's why Ursula LeGuin questioned Miyazaki's rendition of her Earthsea books. From her point of view, they had whitewashed her characters. Ghibli proceeded to explain that there is a cultural difference in skin representation, and that her characters would be perceived as black by a Japanese audience. Whether or not there was actual whitewashing is up to debate.
And one way or the other, in my country the characters from the cover would still be perceived as an interracial couple, much more often than not.
last edited at Apr 13, 2019 10:21AM
