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badmofo666 (2)
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I believe "*washing" in some contexts is OK, or even beneficial. I see nothing wrong with taking show or movie from another country, and re-localizing it for the purpose of making the characters/story more relatable for the target audience. In these cases, it's generally assumed that most of the target audience hasn't seen or heard of the source material before; or it isn't palatable for the target audience because of language barriers and things like that.
*washing where actors are portrayed as a race that is not their own is a little bit offensive. But, I don't think this is done very much anymore.
In some cases, I find *washing in remakes, such as Annie and Karate Kid, too forced, and cheesy.
In the case of this movie, I think their target audience were Americans who have never seen the original anime. BUT, because they didn't re-localize the setting, or offer some kind of explanation for the apparent western invasion of Japan, it was a bit confusing, and not very effective.
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