Actually, you could easily integrate African inspired elf in media, you just need to do a little syncretism and find an elf/fairy equivalent in said african culture.
Actually, you could easily integrate African inspired elf in media, you just need to do a little syncretism and find an elf/fairy equivalent in said african culture.
Well, Shadowrun does have black elves; for example, Zulus were one of the ethnic groups that ended up manifesting more elves than average when Awakening happened. Then again, using SR is kind of cheating given that it is Earth but with cyberpunk elements and magic coming back.
Doesn't help that in Eastern medias, fantasy races are more coded as fetishes rather than a worldbuilding element.
Like, how many times do you even see animes with MALE elves that have prominent roles but not as antagonists? Or female elves that aren't love interests?
Hell, a lot of animes actually use fantasy worlds as an excuse to not have to worldbuild because it expects most audiences to already be familiar with the tropes and cliches.
Hell, a lot of animes actually use fantasy worlds as an excuse to not have to worldbuild because it expects most audiences to already be familiar with the tropes and cliches.
To be fair it's not specific to fantasy worlds, a large chunk of anime and manga are built utilizing that external meta knowledge of characters, plot points, world settings, etc so that they are more or less paint by numbers, cookie cutter, and/or a check list of tropes. It's a crutch to readily establish something without having to put the effort into the story to naturally develop it. Such as coding characters visually to be what the general audience already perceives as a character of a specific personality, and thus all the expectations one may already have pre-established with it. It takes little to no effort to establish a character, though better works at least can utilize that as a starting point to make something better, most of course won't.
azurelorochi said: Like, how many times do you even see animes with MALE elves that have prominent roles but not as antagonists? Or female elves that aren't love interests?
There's at least one example in Dungeon Meshi... But being able to count your examples on one finger isn't really a lot of evidence.
There's at least one example in Dungeon Meshi... But being able to count your examples on one finger isn't really a lot of evidence.
Probably best example of a prominent role male (half-)elf in recent anime is Meneldor who becomes the first friend and companion of the protagonist in The Faraway Paladin. The next one in anime may end up being Megrez from A Wild Last Boss Appeared!, which has a future anime adaptation announced, though he's a secondary cast member.
Probably best example of a prominent role male (half-)elf in recent anime is Meneldor who becomes the first friend and companion of the protagonist in The Faraway Paladin. The next one in anime may end up being Megrez from A Wild Last Boss Appeared!, which has a future anime adaptation announced, though he's a secondary cast member.
Another instance of Black elves is from Pathfinder (no surprise). In the Age of Ashes adventure path the PCs meet up with a friendly tribe to find out how they drove off Dahak the first time.
@AlgaeNymph : Pathfinder, generally do a good job, introducing non-Europeans fantastical creatures in their setting, but they have drooped the ball with their "international" elf/dwarf/orc by just making them instead of try to mix them with similar being from other culture.
Another source of black elves you might be interested in comes from the Pathfinder 1e/D&D 5e campaign setting, Amethyst. They literally do have African wood elves basically (the general wood elf race are called "chapparans" but the like ethnicity can be different I mean).
