Why are many Fantasy Anime inspired from Europe but no Moorish Spain-like kingdom?
 

How come Japan makes many Fantasy and Isekai Anime inspired from Medieval Europe but we have yet to see any of them including a kingdom inspired from Moorish Spain yet ?

They can just use fictional gods and religions if Islam is too sensitive to be used ( for fear of offending ) as I care more about the cultures, skin color and musical representation.

It's fantasy, but when the only brown and black people are demihumans it might give the wrong impression to Japanese people not well versed in history that Europe doesn't have any brown folks living there at all in medieval times ( which is untrue as they were living mostly in Andalusia Spain at that time ).

Turks were light-skinned so I don't consider them to be "Brown people" so that leaves only Moorish Spain for me.

I think brown people should be represented too with their own kingdoms and Sultans even in Isekai. So what do you guys think ?

Obviously I'm a brown-skinned Asian from a southern Asian country so of course I'd like to see more characters that share my skin tone.

By the way, I like the Korean webtoons "Sultan's Love" and "Amina of the Lamp" as they had superb brown people and Middle Eastern/N. African representation so I wish Japanese Isekai/Fantasy/Villainess stories had more of those characters.

Having brown people doesn't mean all the characters have to be brown. There can be white people and brown people in the same Isekai/Fantasy story as there should not be a rule of segregation on the basis of race and skin color even in fiction. Let there be inter-religious(fictional religion), inter-cultural and interracial couples and diversity or whatever to make the story interesting because having only demons and demihumans as central plot could get boring.

P/S : By the way, the Moors's skin colors were mainly light brown as most were Arabs and Berbers, but a small number of them are pale ( some pale Arabs and Iberian European converts )and another small number are black people from West African regions ( around Mali area ). This is a fact you can check from a Google search, which stated that " From the Middle Ages to the 17th century, however, Europeans depicted Moors as being black, “swarthy,” or “tawny” in skin color", so their skin being brown/tanned/slightly pale to black is not for debate.

Because most modern day Fantasy derived from lord of the rings, which Tolkien base off norse and europing mythology I.E. white people.

If authors want to do that, fine, but these stories are meant for Japanese people first and foremost so we shouldn't expect them to cater to other cultures. If we are looking for stories with people that look like us and share our culture the best way is supporting content made by local authors. Of course, if the goal is to have content reflective of our own culture specifically in the form of Japanese media like anime or light novels...well, this Is going to be more difficult and some compromises are probably unavoidable.

Tears to Tiara 2 game actually takes place in Spain-based kindom, but I don't remember the characters.

Both https://myanimelist.net/anime/14513/...rinth_of_Magic and https://myanimelist.net/anime/28249/Arslan_Senki_TV take place in fantasy Middle-Eastern kingdoms, but there aren't many brown characters around.

I recall Saudi having commisioned anime. There were big names in it, like Hiroshi Kamiya. I just cant recall the title.

I remember at least two of them being made. Don't remember the titles also, though.

As far as Narou Isekais goes, I don't think there is much reason. The homework they copied from just happens to be Europe, also known (in a fairly negative way) as Naroupe.

The only Middle Eastern inspired series I can think of is Anatolia Story.

I come from the UK, which while some may say otherwise is part of Europe and I am two hours flight away from Spain. From what I've seen of Spain in the times I've went on holiday there, the only Moorish influence is in the architecture in certain parts.

There is no mention of Moorish or Islamic influence on Western European civilisation. It was only through my own research did I realise how much Islamic influence had on shaping our Western European civilisation due to the sharing of knowledge that was suppressed by the Christian church for centuries during the (European) dark and medieval ages.

In that way, if there is no knowledge of the Islamic history in Europe by Europeans then how would Japanese authors, thousands of miles away, be aware of it?

I am so burnt out on the typical settings and wouldn't mind something like this :heh:

Utawarerumono is a step in the right direction. It prooves that unique fantasy world that is not a generic Dragon Quest clone are possible in the anime industry.

There are some fantasy/historical fiction stories that aren't based sorely in Europe like Altair: A Record of Battles, The Heroic Legend of Arslan, and A Bride's Story. But these are more historical fiction then fantasy.