Okay, so it seems like for a long time, everyone had to have Japanese characters (usually with completely unrealistic names and Chinese PB's, but that's more of a topic for the rants forum I guess). It sort of got to the point where at a lot of places, Japanese characters were immediately frowned on as 'Sue-ish' (maybe not accurately so, but again a topic for the rants forum, not here). This honestly kind of sucked for me, because I have a Japanese canon (X-verse) and OC (Buffyverse) who I have much affection for.

Now maybe it's just my imagination, but it seems like this trend has died down a bit?

I never saw the trend, so I'm unsure what to really say other than trends come and go, just look at the HP one for example.

Well, I know a lot of sites that just plain banned Japanese characters. I dunno. I don't have a Japanese descent character, although I am a big fan of Japan in general (used to live there). I do have a Korean character, but I do like picking backgrounds that other people generally wouldn't consider.

One of the things that annoyed me with all these Japanese characters was that many of the players really had no grasp of Japanese history or culture outside of anime and manga. Of course anime and manga are important parts of Japanese history and culture, but they are not the sole cores of them.

I wouldn't necessarily call Japanese characters as "sue-ish." But, it did get on my nerves at the number of "Japanese" on my board. I dub those players as either Wapanese or Weeaboos. I have no problems with having a bunch of Japanese characters on my board. But, I do wish the players would go more in-depth on Japanese history and culture itself.

EDIT: Depending on the type of genre, Japanese characters can be either a trend or a fad.

I can agree with you there mate, too many people say that there character is japanese yet they have little cultural or historical background. I'm not much of a fan when it comes to japanese styled boards, but I do enjoy a well thought of and developed character.

Most of the players behind a lot of the Japanese characters on my board were people that watched way too much Sailor Moon, Naruto, Ikki Tousen, Tenjho Tenge, etc. It started to really irk me a whole lot.

I was very close to sending a mass PM to tell players to stop making Japanese characters if they don't know anything about the history or culture outside of anime.

D:

I HAVE THREE JAPANESE CHARACTERS STILL!!!

There is still love and I LOVE Japan!

Japan became sue-ish when all the Mary Sue Litmus Tests listed 'japanese name' as a large mary-sue trait. Which made it seem 'ooh, that's so very predictable and cliche' to everyone. Which meant that no-one wanted to play japanese characters anymore. Which, in that circular way, made Japan cool again. Now japanes characters are somewhat rare. So they're going to become popular again. Maybe.

Arg, the retro/popular/cliche/history/retro chain continues...

I have Japanese characters.

The popular thing now, however, is that people are starting to gravitate more-so towards trendy Western celebrities. A lot of RPs on here are people who don't even like Anime. A lot of Japan PBs generally are in the possession of someone who tends to like anime or some other facet of Japanese culture as well.

Depends if they're Japanese, or Japanese-<insert nationality here>.

I'm more tolerant of people who give their characters a different heritage to their nationality.

I never had a problem with Japanese characters. What I did have a problem with was Japanese-like non-Japanese characters. Like the white guy who carries around a katana (fantasy games usually) and/or adds Japanese phrases into the mix. It just doesn't make sense and usually they have a very Sue-ish history attached to them, which is frustrating.

As far as characters that are actually Japanese, though . . . I guess I just haven't seen too many of them around. Of course, I don't know to what you are comparing them; I've only been RPing for about 3 years, so if you're thinking of a time before that, then I guess I'm out of the loop.

OOOOH. You know what would be great? If someone created that white guy with the random katana and he just carried it around because he thought it was cool. And he used random Japanese words out of context because he thought it was cool, but he had no clue.

That would be hilarious.

^Yeah, that's always hilarious. ;)

Japan will never stop being cool, I just think that awful roleplayers have lost interest in their horrible Japanese characters. XD It's just another example of one of those things that poor roleplayers can't handle- a culture they don't understand. There's nothing wrong with Japanese people and characters based on them (they shouldn't be disliked for any reason, because that would be placing the blame on the wrong people), just people that don't have their facts straight when playing them.

They are often rare because people don't want to step out of their cultural comfort zone. When they're extremely popular, it's often because inexperienced players are messing with concepts they aren't ready for. A happy medium would be good. :)

I have to completely agree on that. I have no problems with Japanese characters. But, a majority of the players on my board with Japanese characters never really got their facts straight. Granted, most of my players were inexperienced to the point where they messed around with concepts they don't understand. I only have one Japanese character, which I made her an aspiring punk rock singer and guitarist. But, I took the time to do the research on the culture and the influence of rock in modern day Japanese culture.

Then again, most XIN RPers really don't get their facts straight playing them and so forth. And most of them are very poor role-players. Again, most of them don't know anything about Japanese culture outside anime or manga.

In addition to that, a lot of roleplayers like to play off of stereotypes of others. I've heard people say that "Hey, I don't know how to play this set of people." That's crap - if you can play someone who is white well, you can play someone who is a PoC just as well.

And this is even more so with Japanese characters.

Yup.

Korea's the cool place now. Any character that I've had that's not white and not black has been Korean.

But, then again, I live in Korea now so... that might explain it.