History Main / AmbiguouslyBrown

* Pantha from ''ComicBook/{{Vampirella}}''. It certainly didn't help that her looks were DependingOnTheAuthor, and the fan letter pages discussed to hell and back if Pantha was ethnically black. The only agreement: She is black in her black panther form.

* ''ComicBook/MonkeyPrince'' has as semi-recurring characters the siblings Kaya and Rizalino Mayled. They have dark skin but their heritage is never explained or discussed. Kaya is a brunette while Rizalino is a DarkSkinnedBlonde, although his hair is probably dyed. "Kaya" is a common name in many cultures, while "Rizalino" is a Filipino name; meanwhile their surname is English and most commonly used in Anglophone countries. This suggests possibly mixed Anglo and Filipino ancestry, but their facial features don't resemble other Asian characters in the series.

See also ButNotTooForeign, of which this is a sub-trope, ButNotTooBlack, and MixedAncestryIsAttractive, for when a multiracial character (who may or may not be ethnically ambiguous) is seen as attractive and intriguing.

* Kevin J. Taylor also ''loves'' this trope as colorized or not, there are only ''two'' characters that aren't this trope, [[OnlyKnownByTheirNickname Blue]] (White) and Jesse James (Black with tan-tipped dreadlocks.) His main character, [[OnlyKnownByTheirNickname Girl]]/Jaliera Dane, originally could pass for Pacific Islander, then possibly Mexican, then almost the complexion of DCAU [[Characters/SupermanLexLuthor Lex Luthor]] during a cameo, and finally temporarily Indian for a special based on the Kama Sutra until time-travel reveals she's actually ButNotTooBlack by way of the original Dane being a Black slave and his lover being a white woman (and a [[HotWitch witch]]) in Salem, Massachusetts. Additionally, the reveal of contemporary relatives shows her younger brother being identical to Music/{{Prince}}. Girl's friend, Jill is even ''more'' ambiguous as she's got green eyes, apparently natural orange-caramel skin, matching straight hair, looks similar to Jaliera's French half-sister and while narrating her story, mentions the races of the men she's with without identifying herself with one or the other as well as an explicit RaceFetish for Black men with the ones shown being darker ''and'' lighter than her. Lastly, Marty (a girl) is similar to [[Characters/MarvelComicsStorm Storm]] with shorter, but still white hair with an extra referring to her as a "hot Black chick".

** ''ComicBook/GenerationX'' and ''ComicBook/XFactor'' member [[Characters/MarvelComicsMonetStCroix Monet St. Croix]] is the daughter of a dark-skinned French father and mother of Algerian citizenship and indeterminate ethnicity. She is always depicted as brown-skinned, with the precise hue varying from issue to issue. Whenever it gets too light, there's an outcry that Marvel is trying to make her [[ButNotTooBlack "less black"]] for [[RaceLift nefarious purposes]], and when it gets too dark, there are cries that she was never black in the first place, but it was never stated that she is or isn't. She and her siblings (who are more consistently dark-skinned, the few times we see Emplate's human form) are most likely mixed, though colorists should settle on a tone and stick to it. FridgeLogic answer: Her HealingFactor causes her to both tan rapidly, and lose that tan when it's no longer needed.

** Nothing is known about Henry’s racial or ethnic background, though he looks vaguely black, ButNotTooBlack.

See also ButNotTooForeign, of which this is a sub-trope, ButNotTooWhite, and MixedAncestryIsAttractive, for when a multiracial character (who may or may not be ethnically ambiguous) is seen as attractive and intriguing.

* Creator/SuzanneCollins has stated that we're so far in the future that racial mixing has blurred any categories that might exist today in ''Literature/TheHungerGames''. She refuses to elaborate on what modern races the characters would be categorized as. Katniss herself has olive skin and straight black hair just like her best friend Gale, in contrast to her blonde-haired and blue-eyed mother and sister. Rue and Thresh have "dark skin."

* Zan from ''Series/{{Atlanta}}'', in universe. Nobody knows what he is, and the other characters speculate that he might be anything from Indian to Dominican to half-black, half-Asian.

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'':
** Simon Petrikov/[[spoiler:the Ice King]], back when he was human, though his surname is Russian.
** Also Moseph Mo Maestro Giovanni. Given the name he might be Italian.
** Marceline has [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation light blue]] skin, like her demonic father, but a flashback shows that her mother was a dark-skinned (possibly black?) human.
* [[http://static.wikia.nocookie.net/amphibiapedia/images/7/79/Ally_Render.png/revision/latest?cb=20211101143954 Ally]] from ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'' might be Latina like her [[Creator/MelissaVillasenor voice actress]], but also looks like she could be East Asian.
* ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'': While Frylock is just a red box of French fries, there are some hints that he might be of African-American descent. His voice actor Carey Means is black, not to mention Shake lampshades this in "Boost Mobile".
-->'''Shake:''' You ''sound'' black. Where are you from?
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'':
** A lot of fans think Francine is black but this has never been brought up in the show. She's Jewish and implied to be of Polish descent but is also second cousins twice removed with jazz musician Joshua Redman, who is of both Ashkenazi Jewish and African descent. The fact that she's technically not human doesn't help either.
** Even though his skin color is redder/less brown than Arthur himself (which, again, isn't saying much in this show), Allan/Brain is apparently black; one episode features a visit from his cousin from Africa, and in the Christmas special it's revealed that his family celebrates Kwanzaa.
* ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'':
** Darryl. It's even {{lampshade|Hanging}}d when Bob suspects that he might have been bullied for being a minority, but can't seem to figure out which race he actually is. Bob guesses that Darryl is black, but Darryl never confirms or denies it. The only other possible hint regarding Darryl's race is that his voice actor, Creator/AzizAnsari, is of Indian descent.
** The Belchers themselves are noticeably darker skinned then the white characters and they all have black hair. WordOfGod is that "Belcher" is from a French or French-Canadian ancestor, and the rest of their family are "Greek-Armenian-Italian-Jewish-German."
--->'''Mr Fischoder:''' Are you an immigrant, Bob?\\
'''Bob:''' No.\\
'''Mr Fischoder:''' Oh. I just assumed you were since you're, you know, swarthy.\\
'''Gene:''' What's swarthy mean?\\
'''Bob:''' It means dark and hairy.\\
'''Gene:''' That's you! And me in the future!

* The main family in the ''Caleb and Sophia'' videos are a light shade of brown, but no hint is ever given about their ethnicity, other than the father's [[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent bizarre accent]], which no one else in the family has.
* An interesting example is Gaia from ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers''. {{Justified|Trope}} in the fact that Gaia is the Spirit of the Earth, and was drawn racially ambiguous so as to embody all of Earth's ethnicities. Olive skin that can denote anything from a southern European to a northern Indian, wavy black hair, high cheekbones, and almond-shaped blue eyes.
* ''WesternAnimation/CarmenSandiego'' portrays the title character as a dark-skinned redhead and actually makes it a plot point that she doesn't know her ancestry. For the entire first season all she knows is that V.I.L.E. found her as a baby in Argentina with a Russian doll.
* Bill from ''WesternAnimation/CuriousGeorge'' after being given a RaceLift in the animated series. One episode shows his mother from behind, and she appears to be Caucasian, suggesting Bill is mixed-race.


* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}},'' a fair number of fans thought that [[{{Deuteragonist}} Jane]] is supposed to be Asian, though she's actually white. Interestingly, this might be because her final design is actually a modified earlier design for [[BadBoss Ms. Li]], the school's Asian principal.
* Athena in the latest ''[[ComicStrip/DennisTheMenaceUK Dennis & Gnasher]]'' animated series. It's not made clear whether she's half black or heavily tanned. All we know about her ethnicity is her father is white.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}''. [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/7/7c/Disney_Doug_Games_Wallpaper_1_800.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121129071209 Many characters]] seem to have brown skin color, but it's never known if that springs out of a real ethnicity when [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation most are far weirder colors]]. It's hard to tell if Patti is a dark-skinned blonde intentionally or the brown is stylized like the green- and blue-skinned characters.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince,'' [[ClassicalAntiHero Callum]] and [[CheerfulChild Ezran]] have an Asian[[note]]or whatever their world's equivalent would be called[[/note]] mother, a fact which many fans didn't realize until we see their maternal aunt. Meanwhile Ezran's father, Harrow, is clearly black while Callum's father is presumably white. (This whole issue was initially more confusing because early promotional materials described the pair as ''step-''brothers rather than ''half-''brothers.)
* Jonny 2x4 and Rolf from ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'', though Jonny might be black. Jonny is implied to be black as twice he's been shown to have a curly brown afro when his hair is long, and his short cut is pretty popular with black boys. Rolf is heavily in the air though, with his {{Ruritania}}n accent.
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'':
** A CutawayGag of a trailer for a movie starring Stewie and the Rock is derailed when the narrator starts questioning the Rock's race.
--->'''Don [=LaFontaine=]''': One's a baby, and the other's... black. I think. Or at least... part black... Or... Hispanic. You know, I think there might be some Filipino in there, yeah, probably some Filipino. I mean, if he's black, it's definitely... diluted. I mean... one of his parents must be white. What the hell is Creator/JessicaAlba for that matter? If I were forty years younger, I'd plow that 'till next July.
** Peter wrote a romance novel called "The Hot Chick Who Was Italian or Maybe Some Kind of Spanish".
** Two recurring characters originally introduced as "Foreign guys who've been here long enough to only almost sound American." They're dark-skinned blond and probably supposed to be Europeans of some sort, but all clues as to their origin are deliberately vague or ridiculous.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'':
** When the main characters are temporarily turned into humans, Goliath becomes this. This is because the gargoyles' human forms were [[InkSuitActor designed to resemble their voice actors]], but it wouldn't have made sense to make Goliath African-American like Creator/KeithDavid, since the rest of his clan were white.
* Ursula of the second ''WesternAnimation/{{George of the Jungle|2007}}'' series has brownish skin and greenish eyes.
* Doctor Psycho in ''WesternAnimation/HarleyQuinn2019'' is shown to have a much darker skin tone than his own mother, yet apparently lacked the NWordPrivileges to avoid getting PunchedAcrossTheRoom by [[Characters/AquamanRoguesGallery Black Manta]].
* Rhonda's friend Nadine from ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' has skin that is a light shade of brown and her hair is blonde. (During the episode "Parents Day," it's implied that she's mixed-race -- one of the parent couples consists of a blond white man and a black woman who share Nadine's facial structure.)
* ''WesternAnimation/TheHollow'': Adam and Mira are both considerably more dark-skinned than Kai, especially Adam. [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in that Adam seems to be white-passing in real life, though Mira is Asian.]]

* [[LovableJock Jesse]] and his family in ''WesternAnimation/InfinityTrain.'' WordOfGod says that they're Apache.
* Viper from ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' has darker skin than the Chans, but her ethnicity is never made clear. The ChristmasEpisode shows her attending a Hanukkah party, implying that she's of Jewish and Israeli descent.
* Rio from ''WesternAnimation/{{Jem}}'' has a Latino surname and darker skin than the white characters but WordOfGod is it wasn't intentional to make him Latino. Future adaptations ignore this [[AscendedFanon and have him as Latino]].
* Henry from ''WesternAnimation/KaBlam''. He's tan...ish, with green hair. Of course, he and June are cartoon characters even InUniverse, so it's not like he has to make sense.
* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'':
** Bonnie Rockwaller, though it's implied she's just a white tanning addict based on her vanity and her family members. The alternative is that she is mixed.
** The Seniors (Sr. and Jr.) are dark and have Spanish accents. Junior is ''{{canon}}ically'' a tanning addict; in his first scene he's under a tanning lamp the size of a hot air balloon [[note]]FridgeHorror when one wonders how he'll reach his dad's age without succumbing to skin cancer[[/note]]. According to the [[https://twitter.com/bob_schooley/status/722161839363268609 series bible]], the Seniors are [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castilians Castilian.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/KipoAndTheAgeOfWonderbeasts'': Zane. He has brown skin and purple hair, making it impossible to guess what ethnicity he is. His voice actor, Creator/CarlosAlazraqui, is Latino, but he's a ''white'' Latino from Argentina.
* Henri Lefebvre from ''WesternAnimation/LibertysKids'' has noticeably browner skin than his two definitely-white companions, and everyone else on the show who is unambiguously white, but his ethnicity is never explained, his only backstory being that he is from France, his parents died from the plague on the way to America, and then the captain made Henri his debt slave until Moses and James rescued him. This is especially odd for a show that frequently dealt with issues of racism in the Revolutionary War period, with conversations about slavery, violence against Native Americans, and even Antisemitism in the colonies.
* Jasper Jones of ''WesternAnimation/LittlestPetShop2012'' has brownish skin, dark-brown hair and brown eyes, but has visible freckles (a trait that only occurs in people of fairer complexion), a white dialect and facial features, a Persian-originating given name and an English surname that was adopted by numerous freed African slaves from their estate managers and owners.
* Kiva Andru from ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR'', who doubles as dark-skinned redhead.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'': Dethklok's new producer Abigail is definitely this. Leonard Rockstein/Doctor Rockzo, the Rock and Roll Clown (he does cocaine) appears to be at first, but is confirmed as Caucasian in "Cleanso".
* Mike Chilton, his sister Capri, Tennie, her father Bracket, Kaia and some of the Terras on ''WesternAnimation/{{Motorcity}}''. WordOfGod has confirmed that Mike is mixed race.
* Billy Jukes from ''WesternAnimation/PeterPanAndThePirates''. The taller twin from the Lost boys as well.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'': Guru Kid, the Diggers, Skeens, and Miss Grotke. Miss Grotke does have curly hair so she could be at least part black.
* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'': Rick last name "Sanchez" is a Latin American name and he has a ''very'' slightly different skin tone from the other characters, but that's about it. [[https://youtu.be/ANE1Bz7Qk0c?t=15m45s When asked about this]], Roiland stated that [[ShrugOfGod he considers it irrelevant]]. In the commentary of "Auto-Erotic Assimilation", Rick was confirmed to be of Hispanic descent. "Rest and Ricklaxation" shows that his skin tone might have something to do with his lifestyle, as once he's removed of his psychological toxins his hair and skin become brighter.
* The Rocket siblings from ''WesternAnimation/RocketPower''. Their skin tone is on a similar level as their tan Hispanic friends, and it doesn't appear to be a suntan, but their dad is white. It is suggested that their [[MissingMom late mother]] was of Hawaiian descent; in TheMovie their dad even got remarried to an old flame from Hawaii who was her best friend.
* In ''WesternAnimation/RoswellConspiraciesAliensMythsAndLegends'' one part of the [[ThoseTwoGuys Detail Team]] is a woman named Neema, who while apparently Greek can pass as a number of ethnicities, which is useful for her job, which requires her to be able to blend into just about any situation anywhere in the world.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** Judge Roy Snyder. His skin color has changed from yellow to brown repeatedly throughout the series to stay brown.
** Sherri and Terri. They have the same sort of pale skin as other Asian characters throughout the show, but it's unclear if they are Asian.
** The ethnic street food vendor from “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson”. He has a thick unidentified accent and his skin is a noticeably darker yellow than normal. He appears to be an immigrant from somewhere in the Mediterranean or potentially the Middle East.
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'':
** This show has a particular problem with possibly Asian characters, in part due to its distinctively simple style. When a character is specifically supposed to be Asian, they're usually designed like a white person who's squinting. The head sixth-grader has this look, but his race has never been noted in-story.
*** An early episode specifically notes that Kevin Stoley's parents are from China, and [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Chef]] calls out the others for making fun of his "ethnicity." However, Kevin looks identical to all the white characters (without a "squint") and has a rather European-sounding surname. Were his parents white people who lived in China? Was he adopted? But then, how is Chinese his "ethnicity?" Fans tend to just say he's Asian and not question it further.
*** Likewise, Michael of the {{Goth}} Kids is animated like any other white kid, but "[[ADayInTheLimelight Goth Kids 3]]" shows his parents to be a white guy and an Asian woman. To further confuse things, a line of dialogue in "Raisins" ''could'' be taken to say that his parents are divorced, implying this woman is his stepmom...but the Goth Kids are somewhat {{Unreliable Narrator}}s when it comes to angsty back stories, and he specifically calls her "Mom."
** Big Gay Al also counts. [[http://southpark.wikia.com/wiki/Big_Gay_Al The Wikia page for him]] just says he's "heavily tanned."
* Good luck telling what most of the many {{race lift}}ed characters in ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'' are supposed to be (except for Ned Lee and Kenny Kong, who are clearly Asian). Race-lifted Liz Allan is at least part Latina, though her exact background is somewhat complicated (to explain why she has a typically British last name despite her ethnicity and slight Puerto Rican accent). WordOfGod says that Liz is half Puerto Rican (and half white?) For another example, the Warren brothers are supposed to be Indian.
* [[TheHero Ezra Bridger]] of ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' is a tricky one. He’s Arabic, yet his eyes are blue. Blue eyes are not impossible but highly uncommon in real-world Arabic people. A picture of his father reveals that his father had brown skin and curly dark hair, while his blue eyes come from his mother who is lighter but still non-white. There has so far been no confirmation of his ethnicity, although saying something like ‘Luke Skywalker is of European descent’ would make no sense considering there’s no Europe in a galaxy far, far away. [[note]]Luke is half-Tatooinian and half-Naboo, making him obviously far removed from the original Coruscanti Human stock, but not enough to make him a "Near-Human" alien.[[/note]] Word of Pablo Hidalgo is that all the human leads are multiracial by Earth standards, and supplementary material as well as the background characters reveal that Ezra's features are common among the humans of his home planet. So if anything, his ethnicity would be "Lothalian".
** Sabine from the same series is also ethnically hard to pin down. Mandalorians are a bit more diverse and we've seen clearly white and black members, with the most famous being the Māori Jango Fett and his many clones. The reason this stands out is that in ''The Clone Wars'' the entire planet was lilly white and one of their leaders loudly claimed Jango wasn't ethnically Mandalorian at all (a later series established he was adopted). Her father is clearly East Asian, though.
** Kanan, Ezra's mentor, has the darkest skin of the crew but doesn't have a family or even a planet to pin down. The creators have confirmed he was designed without a specific race in mind (although some fans see him as Latino like his voice actor).
* In ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'', Kelly has dark skin, but mint green hair (and is more similar to wool than hair), has no nose and comes from another dimension. It is the same case with Brunzetta and Princess Quásar Caterpillar, who look like black women but are actually from another dimension (and Brunzetta is apparently thousands of years old).
* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'':
** Lars in the unaired pilot had brown skin and dark hair, but in the final show he is noticeably lighter (though not quite light skinned) and has orange hair. WordOfGod initially just stated he was not quite. Later episodes implied he's Filipino on his fathers side and got the orange hair from his lighter-skinned mother.
** Jamie, Kevin, and Buck have somewhat dark skin tones and no stated ethnicity, though Buck's father is clearly white. The same goes for [[spoiler:the Zoomans,]] but seeing as [[spoiler:they are descendants of a small group of humans from various different ethnic groups who have been breeding amongst themselves for five millennia,]] it's unlikely they are any ethnicity we would recognize.
* In ''WesternAnimation/StormHawks'', Piper's race isn't stated, but she is the only dark-skinned human in the Storm Hawks.
* [[Characters/SupermanLexLuthor Lex Luthor]] in ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries''. He has the same skin colour as Superman, which is slightly darker than most of the other white characters -- but he has fuller lips, a more prominent brow, and a voice that to many sounded like it had African-American accent (his voice actor, Creator/ClancyBrown, is white). He was supposed to look like Creator/TellySavalas, a Greek-American actor. In ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', he is given a lighter skin tone to rectify the confusion, which led some viewers to think he'd been given a RaceLift.
* Whyatt from ''WesternAnimation/SuperWhy'' has olive skin, and it's unclear if he is Caucasian or Latino. It's possible he's biracial, since his mother has fair skin and his father has olive skin.
* Princess Ariel in ''WesternAnimation/ThundarrTheBarbarian.'' Justified, since you'd expect there to be different ethnicities 3000 years in the future.
* Quite a few characters on ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'', though WordOfGod has cleared up some of the confusion: Courtney is Hispanic, Noah is Indian, Justin is native Hawaiian, and Katie is white (with a tan). Sierra remains unidentified, although it's been stated that she has German family members.
** Mostly averted with the ''Revenge of the Island'' cast, where the ethnicities of the various minority characters are pretty obvious -- with the exception of Mike (who is stated by WordOfGod to be Italian) and Anne Maria (who is probably also meant to be Italian, since she's a {{Joisey}} stereotype).
** In the ''Pahkitew Island'' cast, [[SanitySlippage Dave]] (who is Indian according to WordOfGod) and [[AwesomeAussie Jasmine]] (who is popularly believed to be Australian Aboriginal, but this has never been confirmed by the creators). Also [[PassionateSportsGirl Sky]], whom many think is Asian but is said by WordOfGod to be Native American (which is hinted in the show as she is able to speak Cree and her audition tape has a dreamcatcher in the background). Some fans also think that [[BigBadWannabe Max]] looks Asian and that [[ConspiracyTheorist Shawn]] may be Hispanic, though these are less obvious examples and have never been confirmed by WordOfGod.
** Then there's ''WesternAnimation/TotalDramaPresentsTheRidonculousRace'' contestants [[AsianAirhead Devin]], and [[FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling sisters]] [[CompetitionFreak Emma]] and [[CameraFiend Kitty]], all of whom appear to be East Asian, but it's never specified what kind. (Though in Kitty's case, she's likely Japanese due to the hair ties she wears, as well as the pigtails she has, which signify her GenkiGirl personality. Also, her name, Kitty, is short for "Kitsune", which is the Japanese word for fox). There's also Brody, Ellody, Jen, and Lorenzo, who are all dark-skinned but never have their ethnicity stated in the show (WordOfGod says Brody is Hispanic, Ellody is Indian, Lorenzo is Italian, and Jen is white with a tan).
* Alex from ''WesternAnimation/TotallySpies''. Her dad is white (shown in Season 4) and her mom [[StrongFamilyResemblance looks exactly like her]] but darker. Her dad gets a [[SeriesContinuityError complete makeover]] and becomes brown in Season 6.
* Sari from ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' is a dark-skinned redhead although her adopted father Isaac Sumdac is obviously Indian, complete with accent. This may or may not have been intentional, [[spoiler: it's revealed that Sari is something of a [[HalfHumanHybrid human/Cybertronian hybrid]] from a protoform absorbing Issac's DNA]]. [[SpannerInTheWorks The German dub gives Isaac a Chinese accent]]. Make of that what you will.
* Sam Alexander[=/=]Comicbook/{{Nova}} from ''WesternAnimation/UltimateSpiderMan2012'' is shown to be lighter than [[Characters/WhiteTigerMarvelComics Ava]] and Characters/{{Luke|Cage}}, but darker than [[Characters/IronFist Danny]] and [[Characters/SpiderManPeterParker Peter]]. The comics establish that he's mixed race, with a white father and a Mexican mother.
* ''WesternAnimation/VoltronLegendaryDefender'' has Allura, Hunk, and Lance as varying shades of brown. This is a departure from [[Anime/{{Voltron}} the original source,]] which depicted the entire team as white.
** Hunk and Lance were eventually confirmed to be Samoan/African American and Cuban, respectively, removing the ambiguity for them. Meanwhile, Allura is of an alien species, so the ambiguity was likely intentional for her.
** As seen in a flashback episode of Season 3, [[spoiler: Honerva, prior to becoming Haggar, though she regains her true form in Season 6]].
** Adam, [[spoiler: Shiro's ex-boyfriend]], and Curtis, [[spoiler: Shiro's eventual husband]] also fit this trope.
* ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub'':
** Nabu looks like he could be black, white with a tan, or Hispanic. Similar to ''WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'', this may have been done to avoid controversy since he was engaged to Princess Aisha, the token dark-skinned fairy. Judging by his parents, many fans think he was meant to be Indian-coded.
** Flora is this to fans as well. There were constant debates as to whether she was a fair skinned black girl or a tanned white girl (and having a sister who's red haired). She's officially supposed to be Latina, going by the WordOfGod that she was modelled after Music/JenniferLopez.
** Despite being a pale blonde, even Stella could get this, as she seems to be coded as a white Latina/Spaniard. Not only does her Season 1 outfits (such as her princess outfit), her pink princess dress from Season 3, and concept art invoke Mesoamerican and Spanish influence, WordOfGod confirms she was inspired by Creator/CameronDiaz, who is also Hispanic. Her skin is slightly darker than Bloom and Tecna's, but it also makes sense for a "sun and moon" fairy to have a tan.
** Princess Galatea is an interesting case. Not only is she a light-skinned blonde, her name literally means "white as milk" and she was even given an Irish accent in the Cinelume dub. That said, she is from Musa's homeland, which is normally painted as Asian-inspired. During the Nick run, her father was introduced as being much more Asiatic in appearance, complete with a kimono, suggesting she is Eurasian coded. By Season 8, however, she practically turns into a clone of Stella.
* ''WesternAnimation/WordGirl'' :
** [=WordGirl=] gets double points for being a generically-brown girl adopted by a different-color-of generically-brown (a redder shade) family, nothing about whom seems ethnic in any specific way (last name being Botsford), and possibly another half-point for actually being a {{Human Alien|s}} foundling.
** Minor villain Miss Question is this as well, though her curly hair implies she might be black.
* ''WesternAnimation/XavierRiddleAndTheSecretMuseum'': Xavier and Yadina have tan skin, but their ethnicity is unknown. However, "I Am Tomioka Tessai" implies that they may be Hispanic.
* [[Characters/X23LauraKinney X-23]] from ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'' is ambiguously brown despite being a [[OppositeSexClone clone]] of Characters/{{Wolverine|JamesLoganHowlett}}, who is white. It's explained that the Wolverine DNA sample was incomplete, so the female scientist that made her used some of her own DNA as well. Since she was [[CanonImmigrant moved to the comics]] she's generally depicted with RavenHairIvorySkin, though she occasionally appears darker, such as during her stint as [[Characters/MarvelComicsCaptainUniverse Captain Universe]]. In ''{{Film/Logan}}'' she is depicted as Mexican but played by a Spanish actress.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'':
** Godot and Juan Corrida were this in Japan, although they were made Hispanic in the American translation.
** The jury's still out on Damon Gant and Colias Palaeno, although given the former is an ardent swimmer and the latter is a different color from even his countrymen, they're probably just tanned.
** Both Zak and Magnifi Gramarye as well. Made more ambiguous by the fact that Magnifi's daughter is clearly white, and his grandchildren (one of whom is Zak's child) are even whiter. Some fans have speculated that the Gramaryes are UsefulNotes/{{Romani}}. Also, Zak's real first name is [[spoiler:Shadi]], a distinctly middle eastern name.
** Lotta Hart is pale, but not pink -- unlike the other characters. Americanisation gives her a stereotyped Deep South accent and dialect to match that afro. With that and the name, she ends up coming off as a stereotyped, pale caricature of blackness.
** Marlon Rimes is a caricature rapper with a black bone structure but an ambiguous complexion. He mixes street slang with pirate talk. [[spoiler:He goes super-Saiyan and looks whiter, but reveals dreadlocks and rapper bling.]] Turn on the 3DS' 3D mode for even further ambiguity.
* ''[[VideoGame/AdvancedVariableGeo Advanced V.G.]]'': Judging by her name, you'd think Jun Kubota was Japanese, but her caramel complexion and green eyes makes her appear to be a foreigner. Or, it may imply that she's of mixed heritage. But, since no one ever comments on it, it's unlikely that we'll ever know.
* ''VideoGame/ANNOMutationem'': Absalom has fairly dark skin, which is contrasted by his light gray hair. He's mentioned to be from the Middle East, the rest of his origins aren't known.
* Mr. Big from ''VideoGame/ArtOfFighting'' and ''Franchise/TheKingOfFighters''. Either he's a tanned white guy or a very light skinned black guy. His official birthplace is listed as Australia, if that's of any indication.
** K' from the ''NESTS Chronicles'' of ''KOF'''s early sprites have him with the same complexion as Heavy D! (who's Black American), but later depictions lighten his skin. Whip, a clone of K's biological sister is largely depicted as light skinned with the exception of her art for ''KOF XI'' (see [[http://snk.wikia.com/wiki/Whip?file=Whipxi.jpg here]]). To make this even more confusing, Krizalid (K's own clone) and Original Zero (not a clone, but still a high ranking member of NESTS) share K's skin and hair colors while Kyo's other clones are both darker skinned than the original. All considered, it's possible K's current looks are from the experiments he went through under NESTS custody and aren't what he really looks like.
* ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'':
** Desmond Miles' ethnicity isn't immediately apparent from looking at him, but this is intentional, allowing him to have [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI Syrian]], [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII Italian]], [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII English, and even Native American]] ancestors. For the record, Desmond's face model, Francisco Randez, is of Spanish descent. The same also applies to his father William since he has tan skin.
** Invoked in the case of ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'' where the half-English, half-Mohawk Ratonhnhaké:ton who is 'advised' by his mentor Achilles Davenport to pass himself off as a Spaniard or Italian, due to the constant discrimination against his people, hence his English name of Connor. Of course, the impracticality of trying to pass as Spanish or Italian with a name like ''Connor'' is [[LampshadeHanging brought up]] all of once.
** Connor's father Haytham Kenway is the son of the clearly white Edward Kenway and Caroline Scott in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIVBlackFlag'' but he has a swarthier complexion than most British characters in the franchise and an Arabic first name.
** There's no shortage of diversity in the Hellenic-influenced Ptolemaic Egypt in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOrigins'' though Bayek has a considerably darker skin tone than most Egyptians since his actor is Black British and his wife Aya has a Mediterranean phenotype [[spoiler:since she is the ancestor of the Eagle Bearer in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOdyssey'']].
* Kiesha Phillips of ''VideoGame/BackyardSports''. Unlike, say, Ernie, you cannot tell if Kiesha is African-American or not.
* Jade of ''VideoGame/BeyondGoodAndEvil'' was deliberately given an ambiguously brown design so that she could appeal to players of all ethnicities.
* Escher from ''VideoGame/ChaosRings''. He has dark skin but blue or grey eyes and has white hair.
** Maya and Meena from ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV''. Considering their designs and abilities evoke stereotypical occupations for [[UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} Roma]] (fortune telling and dancing) they might the Dragon Quest IV version of that ethnicity.
* Owen from the ''VideoGame/ClueFinders'' is ambiguously light-skinned.
* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'':
** The default female [[PlayerCharacter V]], shown on the game's boxart, merchandise and promotional materials has a noticeably darker skin than her [[DistaffCounterpart male counterpart]]. It's unlear if she's of another race/ethnicity or just tanned. Doesn't apply in the game proper, where either V can be of any race/ethnicity.
** [[BadassBiker Panam Palmer]] has a darker skintone, dark eyes and hair, but European last name and features. She belongs to a Nomad clan, which means she travels a lot across the deserts of southern United States, meaning that her darker skintone might just be a tan. Doubly strange is that she's the only [[RomanceSidequest romance option]] that doesn't have an explicitly stated ethnicity ([[GadgeteerGenius Judy]] is Latina, [[TheRockstar Kerry]] is Filipino, and the artbook confirms that [[ByTheBookCop River]] is Native). Her voice actress, Emily Woo Zeller, is of Chinese ancestry (other characters' English voice actors correspond to their characters' ethnicities).
* [[https://web.archive.org/web/20120511103728/http://www.konami.jp/bemani/ddr/jp/gs/hp/difficult/images/chordia_s.jpg Chordia]] from ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution Hottest Party'' has light brown skin; [[https://web.archive.org/web/20120511105501/http://www.konami.jp/bemani/ddr/jp/gs/hp/difficult/images/gliss_s.jpg Gliss]] and [[https://web.archive.org/web/20140406203104/http://www.konami.jp/bemani/ddr/jp/gs/hp/difficult/images/sharp_s.jpg Sharp]] are in the same range, but they look more obviously tanned. The game has [[http://www.konami.jp/bemani/ddr/jp/gs/hp/difficult/fun.html much darker black characters]] too, so it's not just ButNotTooBlack.
* Ellie Langford from ''Franchise/DeadSpace'' has brown skin, hazel eyes, dark brunette hair, and an English accent. Her ethnicity is never discussed, but she seems mixed-race. (Like her voice actress, whom she is also modeled after)
* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'':
** Lucia and her mother Matier from ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry2'' have tan skin. Their home nation, Vie de Marli, is an island off the coast of the Americas and [[AllThereInTheManual according to the DMC2 instruction manual]] was founded by refugees from the Mediterranean. [[https://i.imgur.com/dywRxiQ.jpg According to character designer Daigo Ikeno, Lucia was designed to be of an indigenous/racially ambiguous ethnicity to contrast her with Trish, the female protagonist of the first game.]] Further complicating things is the fact that Lucia and Matier aren't actually related and Lucia is [[spoiler:an artificial demon created by the villain Arius]].
** Agnus from ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry4'' has tanned skin and lives on an island that has something of a European influence. His voice actor in the English release is T.J. Storm who is of Latino and African-American heritage.
* ''VideoGame/DontStarve'':
** Features a few, especially since ethnicities aren't confirmed. Warly was one of the first dark-skinned characters in the monochrome cast, but still has a washed out appearance in-game with quotes that pepper in French. After being added to Don't Starve Together in promotional material he is seen with both his hair and skin noticeably darker. He is generally speculated to be black or mixed-race due to that and his facial features.
** Wheeler is a more straight example, having the same in-game skintone as Warly but without the notable facial features. Her hair is dark brown and wavy, but her quotes don't indicate anything further. It's speculated her design may have been partially inspired by ''WesternAnimation/CarmenSandiego'' due to the similarities, who is also Ambiguously Brown.
** Wanda is another example; she has darker skin and hair than the previous two but still no indication. It's speculated she could be South or West Asian.
* In ''Franchise/DragonAge'' we have Fenris and Dorian, who are both from Tevinter and both have medium skintones but otherwise no racial features definitively from one race. Complicated from the fact that Tevinter is a fantasy counterpart culture... based on the Roman Empire, which was ethnically diverse, and by that Fenris is shown to have family that's white as a sheet (although Fenris is an Elf so who knows). This causes a lot of contention in the fandom, to say the very least of it.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Duolingo}}'', Oscar has a medium skin tone of an unconfirmed race.
* ''Earthlock:'' Olia Alagbato is darker-skinned than the other human characters, and the -gb- in her name is often found in West African names (e.g. the politician Laurent Gbagbo). On the other hand, she's a very light brown, and her hair is bright red.
* ''VideoGame/FallenLondon'':
** Most people from the Elder Continent are dark-skinned, but the Elder Continent not being a clear FantasyCounterpartCulture of any single country and the Prebysterate deliberately obfuscating details about their origins leave their ethnicity ambiguous.
** An [[ArtEvolution art update]] made a few characters' in-game portraits [[RaceLift noticeably darker-skinned than before]]. The Artist's Model went from pale-skinned to tan or brown-skinned and the Bishop of St. Fiacre's lost all his hair and went from mostly white-looking to being just as dark-skinned as most Elder Continent people. The Bishop of St. Fiacre's case is further complicated by [[spoiler:him secretly being a [[HumanoidAbomination Snuffer]] [[FaceStealer wearing the face of a dead human]] and hence possibly having no true ethnicity]].
* Citra Talugmai/Montenegro, the JunglePrincess from ''VideoGame/FarCry3'', is apparently the sister of [[RuthlessModernPirates Vaas Montenegro]], a [[LatinoIsBrown brown-skinned Latin American]]. On the other hand, their complexions are different, as are their accents, so possibly they're NotBloodSiblings, or they ''are'' siblings, but she engrossed herself with the Rakyat culture more than her brother, who ingratiated himself with [[AmoralAfrikaner Hoyt Volker]] and the Privateers. [[DeepSouth Hurk]] briefly describes Citra as a "Malaysian (he'd) [[AmazonChaser Like to Fuck]]", but Hurk's [[TheDitz not all that intelligent]], so he might have been just generalizing based on the location of the Rook Islands. For what it's worth, Citra's voice actress, Faye Kingslee, is Australian, with mixed Chinese and Irish parentage, and she grew up in Malaysia.
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' has Firion and Minwu, mostly in artwork, as their in-game sprites gave them the same skin tone as the rest of the cast. The [=PSP=] remake also adds in Deumion.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'''s General Leo is quite clearly a dark-skinned blond in his character portrait and concept art, though his combat and overworld sprites don't show it (likely due to a limited palette; the iOS adaptation darkens his skin there, too.) Like Barret in FFVII, Leo is the only dark-skinned character in the entire world, and his racial origins are not commented on (some of the concept art gives him exaggerated African features, almost to the point of caricature; but his in-game character portrait is ambiguous.)
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' has Rude, who has light brown skin and is presumed to be a black man, although the designers intended him to be resembling a person of South American heritage.
* Since almost all the peoples of ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' games are {{Fantasy Counterpart Culture}}s, this trope is mostly avoided. By learning what their home culture is based on, you can figure out anybody's race. The only known exception to date is Sheba, who is a foundling of unknown origin (widely speculated to be [[{{Precursors}} Anemos]]) raised in an Egypt-counterpart (so it might just be a tan).
* ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'':
** Venom and Potemkin. Venom is [[AllThereInTheManual British]], but fans have theorized that he's of Egyptian descent, probably judging from the imagery involved in his character design and attacks. It's also worth noting that in the first game, [[UnfortunateImplications Potemkin was a slave]].
** ''Guilty Gear Xrd SIGN'' gives us Ramlethal Valentine, who has light brown skin and white hair and eyelashes. Considering she isn't even human to begin with, it's clear that her appearance is merely a stylistic choice and corresponds to no actual ethnicity.
* Kay from ''VideoGame/Haven2020'' has noticeably darker skin than the other characters, and a friend of his [[BureaucraticallyArrangedMarriage mate]] (who can only be seen in [[https://youtu.be/tbOKzPMv7Mk?t=195 the demo]]) appears to be a dark-skinned blond.
* Orchid from ''VideoGame/KillerInstinct''. She's always had a brown skin tone compared to her [[LateArrivalSpoiler brother Jago]]; conflicting information about ''Killer Instinct's'' story either has her as Tibetan or Middle Eastern. Note that her skin tone in ''Killer Instinct 2'' is the same as the Chinese Kim Wu.
* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'':
** Xemnas/Xehanort/"Ansem" ([[spoiler:actually Xehanort's Heartless]]), all three being [[ItsALongStory permutations of the same man]], who is [[WhiteHairBlackHeart White Haired And Black Hearted]] with orange/brown/it varies eyes and dark skin. Xehanort himself is a result of [[spoiler:Terra's body being stolen by the original Xehanort]] in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep''. Both the original Xehanort and Terra had brown skin (although Xehanort's was darker), and besides the fact that Terra was constantly tempted by darkness, he was a good guy at heart, negating the UnfortunateImplications of having the two dark skinned characters be associated with evil. In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'' they explain that the dark-skinned blond effect is a result of traveling between worlds without adequate protection.
** Probably more coincidence than intentional, but the two main monsters of the games, the Nobodies and the Heartless, are white and black, respectively. Xehanort's Heartless is noticeably darker than Xemnas.
* ''[[VideoGame/TrailsSeries The Legend of Heroes - Trails]]'':
** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky Trails in the Sky]]'': Scherazard is significantly darker skinned than the grand majority of characters in the series. While this mostly goes unstated, Renne does point it out and implies Scherazard may come from an ambiguous 'south' of Zemuria.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsFromZeroAndTrailsToAzure Trails from Zero]]'': Abbas has noticeably darker skin than most everyone he shares a scene with, but any kind of ethnicity is never remotely hinted at.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel Trails of Cold Steel]]'': When [[CatGirl Celine]] is in human form, her skin is noticeably tan, despite her creator Rose being rather fair in her own human form.
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** First-time players of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker The Wind Waker]]'' often started out believing that Tetra must be a Gerudo with pointy ears, due to her being dark-skinned and a female pirate like their ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]'' incarnation. However she lacks the Arab flavor Gerudos are usually associated with and is a blonde instead of a redhead. It's confirmed latter in the game that she's Hylian. She's the only character with Hylian ancestry in the game with dark skin like that, not even the other members of her crew or her own mother come close to match her tan. It might just be a tan...if she didn't seem to [[spoiler:get a lighter skin tone when she is revealed to be Zelda]], though the intent could have been to imply [[spoiler:her natural tone is the one she has as Zelda and that she's tanned as Tetra]]. Likewise, Sheik's skin tone in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' is somewhat tanned while Zelda is white, white, white. The answer may lie in some scrapped concept art for the game, as Tetra also had the distinct red eyes of a Sheikah, so her darker skin tone is probably a CallBack to Sheik.
** Similarly, Din the Oracle from the ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleOfAges Oracle of Ages]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheMinishCap The Minish Cap]]'' is a dark-skinned redhead. Because of her association with Din the Goddess, and by extension Ganondorf, you might assume she's Gerudo also but she lacks the longer nose, yellow eyes and round ears common to the race. Add to the fact that in ''The Minish Cap'' she's sisters with Nayru and Farore who both look like Hylians, as she does too despite her skin tone.
** Telma is obviously black however she bares a heavy resemblance to the Gerudo race. The problem is that most Gerudo have fled by ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'', though they come back in [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaFourSwordsAdventures the next]] [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild two games]] in the timeline. So, does Telma have Gerudo in her blood or is she just a Gerudo-looking Hylian?
** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', the Old Man who guides you in the opening area has a distinct greyish-brown skintone. Combined with his enigmatic nature, this resulted in some early fan speculation that he was secretly an incarnation of Ganondorf. Gets weirder when it turns out [[spoiler:he's actually King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule, the father of the pale Zelda. Presumably, his wife was ''very'' light-skinned.]] This game at least establishes to an extent not seen in previous games that dark-skinned Hylians are about as common as light-skinned ones.
* Electro in ''VideoGame/MarvelContestOfChampions'' has a noticeably darker skintone compared to the other white characters in the game, but is nowhere near as dark as other explicitly black characters like [[Characters/MarvelComicsStorm Storm]] or Characters/LukeCage. Presumably this is a reference to how Electro is a white guy in the comics but was played by Creator/JamieFoxx in ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan2'' and is splitting the difference.
* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', the vast majority of human characters are either white or ambiguously brown. There are some exceptions, such as African-descended Jacob, Japanese Kasumi, and Hispanic James and Steve. Specialist Traynor is implied to be Indian due to some comments made in the Citadel DLC.. Everyone else's background is debatable. ExpandedUniverse material states that InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace, as globalization in the 21st and 22nd centuries broke down social barriers between races.
* Blast Man of ''VideoGame/MegaMan11'' has a darker skin tone compared to the other humanoid Robot Masters.
* Naomi Hunter from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' is ambiguously brown even to herself. She claimed she had Japanese ancestry but that was proven to be a lie by Master Miller. The truth is she's an orphan who has no idea who her parents are or what her original name might have been, only that she was adopted by mercenary, Frank Jaeger.
-->'''Naomi Hunter:''' Rhodesia was owned by England until 1965 and there were lots of Indian laborers around. That's probably where I got my skin color from, but I'm not even sure about that...
* ''Franchise/MortalKombat'':
** [[Characters/MortalKombatII Jade]] and [[Characters/MortalKombat4 Tanya]] (to a lesser extent) fall under this speculation. Both characters live in Edenia, and Edenia itself is FantasyCounterpartCulture mishmash of Asian and Middle Eastern cultures which furthers the debate on just what the characters are supposed to be counterparts to in the real word. If it helps, the Mortal Kombat Mobile game included Jade and Tanya alongside Jax and Jacqui for their [[https://twitter.com/MKMobileGame/status/1628493352445399043 Celebrating Black History Month]] tweet.
*** In the games, Jade has had a brown skin tone but in ''Film/MortalKombatAnnihilation'', she was portrayed by a Russian woman. Now speculation ranges from black, to Latina, to Filipino, the whole gamut. In ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11'', her facial model is model/actor [[https://www.selectmodel.com/miami/model/alexis-gaube-3 Alexis Gaube]], who is African-American and White-European.
*** Tanya has been brown-skinned for all the games (almost averted in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'') but she is generally speculated to be black. In ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'' her attire and hair seem Egyptian inspired.
** There is also the widely overlooked example of [[Characters/MortalKombatDeception Darrius]]. He's Seidan like Hotaru (who is clearly Caucasian) and Dairou (who looks more Eurasian, if not straight-up Japanese), yet is ''obviously'' Black. It's possible that Edenia, Seido, and the other realms independent of Earthrealm don't even have ethnic differentiation, though.
** There's also Ambiguously ''fair-skinned'' characters as well. Kitana went from being appearing as a Caucasian with RavenHairIvorySkin to unambiguously Asian in ''Mortal Kombat 11'', while her mother Sindel looks a lot more Caucasian.
* [=CyberConnect2=] and Croire, two dark-skinned blondes, were for a long time the only humanoid characters in the ''VideoGame/{{Neptunia}}'' series with a skin color other than "[[{{Mukokuseki}} generically pale]]". ''VideoGame/HyperdevotionNoireGoddessBlackHeart'' introduced Moru who, while not as dark-skinned as [=CC2=], still has noticeably darker skin than her peers. Then again, considering she's both a CatGirl and the AnthropomorphicPersonification of ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'', it's equally possible that it's either short fur or a tan.
* ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'':
** [=McCree=], who is from New Mexico and has dark skin, brown hair and rather vague facial features. Fandom doesn't seem to know whether he's Latino, Native American, mixed race or just a tan white guy, and he could be any of these. Pretty odd given that most of the cast are either explicitly part of a given race and ethnicity or they are given very strong hints that unambiguously place them in a race and ethnicity.
** Reaper is another ambiguous character; while commonly believed to be Hispanic (his names is Gabriel Reyes, he has a common Hispanic skintone, he's from LA where that's half the racial population and he has Latin-American themed alternate skins) some fans believe his appearance looks more African-American or mixed race. In any case this only applies to the Blackwatch skin and flashbacks, since he now has bleached white skin and an unseen-but-horribly-altered face due to whatever transformation turned him into Reaper.
** Roadhog's real name is Mako (a Māori name meaning shark) and some hints support he might be a Māori from New Zealand, from one recolor skin called "kiwi", using idioms from NZ in one of his quotes and the lead writer Michael Chu suggesting Roadhog had a pet, it would have a kunekune pet (a domesticated pig from NZ). His islander skins, while not accurate to one Polynesian culture, might support this theory.
* Both Alex and her brother Michael from ''VideoGame/{{Oxenfree}}'' have tan skin, and from the flashbacks we see, naturally brown hair.
* Zana from ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'' in her original appearance, had fairly dark skin and a Russian-sounding accent. Her physical traits, including her bright red hair, makes her origin impossible to pinpoint. [[UnexplainedAccent No other character in the game has the same accent as her]], and while there are dark-skinned people in the setting, they are Karui (the FantasyCounterpartCulture of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ori_people Māori people]]) and Zana doesn't use any of their culture or vocabulary, not to mention no one else has her hair color. The fact she's a master who deals with uncharted realms, this might be the intent. In the ''Atlas of Worlds'' expansion, which retconned Zana's original lore, she lost the accent, and explanation for her skin color could possibly be narrowed down to her [[DeathByChildbirth missing mother]]. A model update 3 years later changed her to having light skin.
* Zen, one of the [[OriginalGeneration new characters]] introduced in ''VideoGame/PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth'', is this, having light brown skin, green eyes, and somewhat curly dark brown hair. [[spoiler:A late game reveal shows that he's actually an aspect of Chronos, the Greek god of time, and TheGrimReaper, so his looks can be chalked up to not being human. There are also a number of artistic portrayals of Chronos having dark skin, so his looks carry some RealLife connections as well.]]
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
** Iris from ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' and ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2''. She has a darker skin tone than a majority of the other characters, though still lighter than the canonically black Lenora (more so in the [[Anime/PokemonTheSeries anime]]).
** The WalkingShirtlessScene that is Marlon from ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2'' has dark skin from head to stomach, but has light skin from waist to toe. This combined with him being a swimmer implies he's heavily tanned.
** Phoebe, who has a darker skin tone than the rest of the Hoenn Gym Leaders and Elite Four, from ''VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire''. She dresses in tropical-inspired attire. Hoenn itself is based on the southern Kyushu region, which includes the subtropical Ryukyu Islands, but the later games ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' introduce a Hawaii-based region so she might have relatives there.
** The player can choose to be this in ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' however your mom is still white, implying you're biracial. The player can also choose to be this in ''Sun and Moon'', though the fact you're from Kanto implies you have some Japanese ancestry in you.
** Olympia, the Gym Leader of Anistar City, also qualifies.
** [[spoiler:Emma]] in a post-game arc of ''X'' and ''Y''. The mind jumps to her just being a [[ButNotTooBlack light-skinned black person]], but then you realize that the game is set in (effectively) France, and that she could just as likely be of Southern European descent or something similar, and it just becomes a mystery. She does seem to be darker than Shauna, who has an Arabic name and brown skin.
** Dahlia from Sinnoh is implied to be latina, as she's named after a flower from Mexico and Central America. ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'' drives it in further by making her speak GratuitousSpanish.
** The protagonist of ''VideoGame/PokemonColosseum'' is a dark-skinned blond from an Arizona based region. It's impossible to tell if that is his natural skin tone or if it is a tan.
** In ''VideoGame/PokemonGo'' Blanche, the team leader of Teams Mystic is reminiscent of a dark-skinned blond, featuring a skintone that's inbetween Spark and Candela.
** The mother in ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' always has light brown skin, no matter what skin tone you use for the protagonist (whose canon/default skin tone is light). She is lighter toned than most of the native Alola characters but is still darker than most Kanto characters, which is the region where the protagonist's family lived until recently. It could be a tan but it's impossible to tell.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' continues the tradition with Nessa (Rurina in Japan) the water type gym leader. She has dark skin, about as dark as Alolans, but she lives in the England inspired Galar region and has bright blue eyes. Guesses on her ethnicities have ranged from African to Greek (Nessa is a common Greek name) to Indian (which is the largest non-European minority in the UK) to Okinawan.
* Chell of ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' has a tanned skin tone, dark hair and blue-gray eyes, and given that she never speaks, no concrete word on her ethnicity is ever given. The person she was modeled after, Alesia Glidewell, is of Brazilian and Japanese descent. In ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'' she's gotten lighter ([[ProgressivelyPrettier and noticeably younger]]) for some reason.
* Sheva Alomar in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'', modeled after South African-born Michelle van der Water, looks somewhere between fair-skinned black and Indian ethnicity, has an Indian-sounding name, and a [[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent quasi-British/Australian accent]], although [[FakeBrit voiced by American]] actress Karen Dyer.
* ''VideoGame/{{Rosenkreuzstilette}}'' features its resident dark-skinned, voluptuous TimeMaster Sichte Meister, the active commander of RKS. Her portraits show her as tan-skinned, but her sprites show her as brown-skinned instead.
* Much like it has (very nearly) PurelyAestheticGender, ''VideoGame/TheSims'' series features Ambiguously Brown characters, although it also features Ambiguously White characters because there are no real-world ethnicities; everyone is Simlish. If you ''want'' to set up a character as from a real place, it's as simple as naming them right, but NPC names often do have mismatches between first and last name or between name and appearance. ''VideoGame/TheSims3'' however shows a FantasyCounterpartCulture to Egypt and China, with the sims of the region looking the way they might in the real world. Some of the premade characters are implied by their names and biographies to be a certain ethnicity, but there are just as many who are not and fit this trope.
* Beatrix [=LeBeau=] in ''VideoGame/SlimeRancher'' has vividly technicolor pastel-green hair but fairly dark skin. Though very little about her past is actually known, a couple of e-mails mention her and her friend Casey travelling to Africa so it's possible that, with a name like [=LeBeau=], she's from a French-African country like Senegal or DR Congo.
* The SCV driver from ''Franchise/StarCraft''. It doesn't help that [[http://classic.battle.net/images/battle/scc/terran/pix/SCV1.jpg the picture's damn tiny]], but he is kind of dark-ish looking. However, the campaign-only "Civilian" unit, who is completely white, and the SCV have StopPokingMe lines which imply they're the same person, who gets drafted into the military as a worker.
* ''VideoGame/StoryOfSeasons'':
** [[https://fogu.com/hm7/img/marriage/denny_portrait.jpg Denny]], from ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonIslandOfHappiness''. Is he black, or just tan from fishing so much? Who knows.
** ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon64'' and its related games also have [[http://www.rpgfan.com/pics/harvestmoon-fomt/art-016.jpg Kai]], who practically ''defines'' this trope. He's a dark skinned man who works at a vineyard in ''64'' and always wears a bandanna (or hat in ''VideoGame/StoryOfSeasonsFriendsOfMineralTown''). In ''Back To Nature'' and ''Friends Of Mineral Town'' he only appears in summer seasons so his skintone might be a tan, though it doesn't fade if he marries Popuri or the female protagonist in ''More Friends Of Mineral Town'' so it's probably not.
** [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/hmwikia/images/b/ba/Treesheila.png/revision/latest/top-crop/width/360/height/360?cb=20080731025936 Selena]] from ''[[VideoGame/HarvestMoonTreeOfTranquility Tree of Tranquility]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/HarvestMoonAnimalParade Animal Parade]]''. She's a belly dancer, her artwork is darker then the other characters but her model isn't much darker then anyone else in the game, and her Japanese name (Sheila) isn't much help. Her child with Luke in the latter game also has a darker skin tone then the other children. Although visiting her home island and meeting her parents Samson and Sue, it is heavily hinted that she's Pacific Islander in descent, often speculated to be closely related to the Okinawan people.
** Shea from ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonIslandOfHappiness'' counts. His backstory is unknown besides the fact he was RaisedByNatives.
** Several characters are heavily ambiguous and have unnatural hair colors. Nadi, Amir, and Sanjay come to mind.
* ''Franchise/StreetFighter'':
** The Dictator's true ethnic background is completely unknown. He has always been depicted as darker-skinned than most of the "white" fighters and simultaneously lighter-skinned than most of the "black" fighters. The Dictator was initially believed to be Asian as in his debut game, he was fought in Thailand and had Asian facial features. In the later games, however, the Dictator is fought in different countries and has indeterminate facial features, including white monochromatic eyes. He frequently changes bodies, and both of his names, "Vega" and "M. Bison", are not Asian-sounding. Thus, pinning down an ethnicity for the Dictator is very difficult, if not impossible. Overlaps with MysteriousPast, as not even his country of origin is known.
** Dudley is English in nationality, but his ethnic background is hard to determine. He is dark-skinned, but his facial features resemble those of a stereotypical white Englishman.
** Q from ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII: Third Strike'' is covered from head to toe in a stereotypical detective trenchcoat and an iron mask, and has very little visible skin, with only his neck showing, and sometimes his legs during some of his more powerful kick attacks. What little can be seen appears to be dark in-game, and his ending implies that he might be David, the CIA agent in charge of investigating Q, who is very much dark-skinned. However, most official art depicts him as having light skin, and one piece even shows a tuft of blond hair at the nape of his neck.
** [[VideoGame/StreetFighterIV C. Viper]] is darker-skinned than the other female fighters in the series; she is speculated to be either Latina or a mixed ethnicity.
* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
** During the ''UsefulNotes/Nintendo64'' era, Princess Daisy had darker skin than other human characters (possibly to distinguish her more from Princess Peach) as she's from a country with Middle-Eastern and Asian influences according to ''Super Mario Land''. She was like this even as Peach's ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosMelee'' PaletteSwap costume and in her trophy from the same game. She was given her light skin-tone starting with ''VideoGame/MarioParty4'' in 2002 (though, in turn, she received a slightly altered attire and a haircut). However, some post-2020 media has given Daisy a tanner complexion and brunette hair (while still keeping her blue eyes) but it's unknown if this design is supposed to be her official design moving forward.
** There is also a non-human example with Morton Koopa Jr. of the Koopalings, who has inexplicable brownish skin, unlike the yellowish skin that Bowser and the other Koopas have. Made even weirder by the fact that his head is of a literal white color.
* Raven from ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'' has darker skin than the other party members, not to mention, many other people on Terca Lumeris. It's never really established why though. Considering Yaeger's skin turned darker after [[spoiler: He supercharged his blastia heart]], it may be a result of that and not an indication of race.
* ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'':
** Christie Monteiro has a pretty divided fanbase on what ethnicity she actually is. Serves as TruthInTelevision, as she hails from Brazil, home to a myriad of ethnic blends and mixes, or pardos. She could very well be mulatto (Black + White), cafuzo (Black + Indian), Caboclo (Indian + White), Jucara (Black + Indian + White), Ainoco (Japanese + White), among possibly many others.
** There's also Jinpachi Mishima. He's Japanese, but his skin tone is noticeably darker than all of his descendants -- in his debut appearance, it was almost as dark as Marduk's (his human form, that is; when you fight him as the final boss, it's [[DemonicPossession more of a reddish-purple or fiery orange]], depending on which version of the game you're playing). He could be of mixed ancestry, as he's the only Mishima whose parents remain unidentified, or it could just be a tan. Presumably, Heihachi's mother was especially pale.
* For most of the ''VideoGame/{{Uncharted}}'' series, Chloe stood out as the seemingly only non-white major character.The official response was that she was mixed race without specifying what those races were. She’s Australian and has a British last name even though she’s mixed race, further adding to the confusion. Finally in ''[[VideoGame/UnchartedTheLostLegacy Lost Legacy]]'', it was confirmed that her dad was Indian and her mother a white Australian woman and she just uses her [[NomDeMom mother’s last name]].
* ''VideoGame/UncommonTime'' has only one dark-skinned character, Teagan. To make things even weirder, she seems to come from the same area as the protagonist, who has light tan skin. It's never explained why she's different than the other characters.
* ''VideoGame/{{Unpacking}}'': [[spoiler:The protagonist's girlfriend/wife is shown as having darker skin in the final photograph. The exact shade is difficult to make out due to the setting sun, but she's a much warmer colour than the protagonist.]]
* ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'': Clementine's race is hard to distinguish visually. She has light olive skin, wavy brown hair, a narrow nose, thin lips, and almond-shaped eyes that are light brown. Her race is never discussed at any point in the game, but it's prompted a lot of debate among fans. Judging by their picture, both her parents are black, though her mother Diana has light skin. Diana was originally going to be Clem's stepmother, but this was changed in the final game. Clementine's appearance is based on Derek Sakai's daughter, who is Asian. The developers have stated that Clem is definitely African-American, though they have not stated that this is all she necessarily is.
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'' takes place in a world where everyone is artificially created, yet they have different skin colors. [[spoiler: It’s because they’re the souls of people who previously lived in [[VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1 Bionis and Mechonis]] and [[VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 Alrest]].]] [[TheSmartGuy Taion]] has darker skin compared to the rest of the main cast, but since it’s unknown what ''anyone’s'' ethnicity is, it’s hard to tell what race he is specifically.
* While ''VideoGame/YggdraUnion''[='=]s cast tends to have easy-to-identify "[[FantasyCounterpartCulture ethnicity]]", Ortega is a notable offender; it's hard to tell whether he's supposed to be black or Hispanic. For the English version, he is cast as an unflatteringly stereotypical Mexican, complete with a whiny voice that doesn't fit his BoisterousBruiser personality and appearance.
[[/folder]]

!!Examples:

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* In ''Manga/AliceInBorderland'', several characters such as Takeru Danma/Boshiya, Aguni Morizono, Ginji Kyuma and Hikari Kuina look like people from Caribbean islands or southern parts of Africa rather than a Japanese-Japanese person.
* In the original Japanese version of ''Anime/BakuganBattleBrawlers'', the character Julie Hayward is Australian with implications that she's Aboriginal. The [[DubNameChange dub changes her name]] to Julie Makimoto, implying Japanese descent while removing the specific notion that she's from Australia.
* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'':
** Casca has medium brown skin, straight black hair, and a face type that's pretty unclear about her origins. For years fans have been arguing with each other over whether she's supposed to be black, Arab, East Indian, Southern European, mixed, or just about any other real-life brown race you can think of. ''Berserk'' does have races in the story who resemble black Africans and South Asians, but Casca looks ambiguous enough that she can't be indisputably categorized with either. It's entirely possible that Creator/KentaroMiura just wanted to give her a unique appearance without having a particular intention about her race, since he hasn't commented on the issue. Making matters even more muddled, the ''Golden Age'' film trilogy and ''Anime/Berserk2016'' depict Casca's skin as a [[ButNotTooBlack much lighter shade of tan]] than in the manga, while making her hair dark brown or reddish-brown instead of black.
** Pippin is ambiguously brown skinned like Casca but unlike her, Pippin has prominent lips suggesting he is of a different ethnicity and none of the adaptations change his skin tone. Corkus has notable darker skin in the 97 anime, but like Casca is whitened up in the movies.
* Edrear from ''Manga/{{Bizenghast}}'' is depicted as having notably darker skin than his siblings in the manga, but it's not stated what their heritage is. They're all give the same light skintone in official art.
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' is set in Japan and individual ethnicities are mostly[[note]]The main exception is Yasutora "Chad" Sado, who is explicitly part-Mexican.[[/note]] not discussed in the story. The following characters stand out as being of ambiguous heritage:
** Yoruichi Shihōin (pictured above), and to a lesser extent her brother Yushiro, is a quintessential example, if the historical flame wars that came over what their ethnicity is are anything to go by.[[note]]As mentioned in the image caption, one of them was a large edit war in Website/{{Wikipedia}}.[[/note]] One of the anime outros implies that they're black and Yoruichi's ability to transform into a black cat raises an additional question. At least as can be surmised from their names, they are Japanese.
** In the anime, Mila-Rose is made very dark-skinned, as is her superior, Tier Harribel. In the manga, Mila-Rose is paler and Tier Harribel seems to be a [[GyaruGirl ganguro]]. Of course, given that arrancars are humanoid amalgamations of souls, it may be debatable if they even technically ''have'' a race.
** Jackie Tristan is dark-skinned with an OddNameOut in a series filled with Japanese characters. Ethnicity isn't very important for most characters in the story, so hers is never discussed.
* Marie Itami from ''Anime/BNABrandNewAnimal'' has darker skin than most of the other characters and dreadlock-esque hair, but a Japanese surname.
* Kojiro Hyuga/Mark Lenders from ''Manga/CaptainTsubasa''. Spanish fans use to joke saying that Lenders was the first/only Japanese [[UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} Gypsy]].
* ''Anime/CodeGeass'':
** [[TheBaroness Villetta Nu]] is from the Britannian Empire, but since it geographically covers not only the USA but all of Central and South America as well, it could account for the wide variety of skin tones among its members.
** [[BitCharacter Dorothea Ernst]], the [[FourIsDeath Knight of Four]], is slightly darker than Villetta and has green eyes. [[spoiler:She is also [[MauveShirt killed off by Suzaku]] [[WeHardlyKnewYe after only a few meer seconds of screen time]].]]
** Dalque in ''[[Manga/CodeGeassNightmareOfNunnally Nightmare of Nunnally]]'' is from one of the numbered areas, but it's never revealed which one.
* In ''Anime/DeathParade'', Castra has dark brown skin and Ginti is noticeably darker than the rest of the cast as well. Neither are human like the others (they deal with the afterlife) and so like them they don't seem to have a particular race.
* ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'' has Kabru, Kiki and Kaka. All the people in Kabru's village had the same dark skintone, but we're never actually told where the village was. The series hasn't revealed anything about Kiki and Kaka's past before they were adopted.
* ''Anime/DeltoraQuest'':
** Jasmine is described in the having sunbrown skin in the books and the anime surprisingly matches it (especially [[https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTUhnyGfd5WzrpFq4p91wbwt8XLicyBUOsehgA7CT_IKM454XWZlA compared]] to the other characters). The exact reason why Jasmine's skin is like this is debatable, most likely is because she has lived outdoors for most of life or possibly she inherited her pigment from her father as well as her [[AdaptationDyeJob green]] hair which was not in the books.
** Doom the RebelLeader is described as tan skinned in the books and he's even darker in the anime, easily more brown than every other character. Doom also has green hair [[StrongFamilyResemblance like]] Jasmine [[spoiler: two of the three obvious visual clues that Doom and Jasmine are actually related]].
* Tom Tanaka from ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'' not only has noticeably darker skin than most characters but also has [[ImprobableHairstyle dreadlocks]], and this combined with his first name raise the possibility that he has some non-Japanese ancestry. That, or he's just really tanned and has odd style habits.
* In ''Anime/EurekaSeven'', we have Matthieu, Hilda and Gidget. Their skin colors are actually slightly different shades.
** ''Anime/EurekaSevenAO'' gives us Elena Peoples. AllThereInTheManual says she's from America [[spoiler: but there are hints that this isn't the case]].
* Anime ([[RecursiveAdaptation and anime-based game]]) only Lucy Liberty of ''VideoGame/FZero [[AnimeOfTheGame Falcon Densetsu/GP Legend]]'' is this. She shares roughly the same skin color that Kate Alen has (who is black in the core games) in the series, but her hair color is a fairly pinkish shade of red.
* Raoh and Kaioh in the Toei adaptations of ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'' become this, in a case of AdaptationDyeJob gone [[ExaggeratedTrope Up to Eleven]] (in the original manga and all non-Toei adaptations, both of them are white with silver hair).
* Rose and most people in her town are this way in the ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003'' anime. In the [[Manga/FullmetalAlchemist manga]] and ''Brotherhood'', the town is a mountain town full of light-skinned people; however, [[RaceLift in the 2003 anime]], it's a desert town. They're darker than most other characters, but this is never commented upon by anyone. The [[spoiler:skirmish involving them]] is comparable to the [[spoiler:Ishvalan Massacre]]. In ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemistTheConquerorOfShamballa'', Rose's counterpart Noah is Roma, as are [[spoiler:Lust and Scar's counterparts]]. It's implied that the people of Rose's town are related to or possibly descended from Ishvalans.

* A few characters in ''Anime/HaibaneRenmei'' are Ambiguously White. Kuu and Hikari are [[PhenotypeStereotype blue-eyed blondes]] in a cast predominantly made up of dark-eyed brunettes. However, their names are still Japanese and nothing is noted in-series about their designs. The characters all name themselves, which explains their names, and they all have LaserGuidedAmnesia about their pasts. It's implied that the characters live in purgatory, which makes everything more ambiguous. Kuramori and Hyouko have dark hair and blue eyes as well, which might imply the characters are just {{Mukokuseki}} or might imply otherwise.
* Almost all the characters in ''Anime/HareGuu'' have dark skin. In fact lighter skin characters are a little rare in the series. {{Justified|Trope}} as it takes in a jungle, likely somewhere in south Asia. Oddly enough [[spoiler:Weda came from "the city"]], where Hareacute goes later and more or less everybody is white-ish. She still has the exact same appearance of the other inhabitants of the jungle. So... [[spoiler:that was some lucky choice for a place to be banished.]]
* Psy from ''Manga/{{Heroman}}'' seems to fit the BlackAndNerdy trope, has puffy hair, and lives in America but it's hard to tell. He might be Mexican, mixed, or African-American.
* Kenta Nakamura from ''Manga/InitialD'' is fairly dark-skinned in the manga, anime, and video games. Nobody finds anything unusual about this, and his ethnicity isn't addressed even once. It's later revealed during ''Fourth Stage'' that [[SubvertedTrope he just likes to tan his skin regularly]].
* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'':
** ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency Battle Tendency]]'': The Pillar Men are apparently Mesoamerican in origin, though their race appears to predate history and has traveled all over the globe during their quest for the Red Stone.
** ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean Stone Ocean]]'': Enrico Pucci looks black, but it's actually an important plot point that he's ''not''. His parents are both white as snow, as are his younger sister Perla and [[spoiler: twin brother Domenico/Weather Report]]. Given that he's of Italian descent, he may be Sicilian and his dark skin a product of recessive genes.
* ''Anime/KillLaKill'' gives us [[CombatSadomasochist Ira Gamagori]] and [[MisanthropeSupreme Rei Hououmaru]]. The former is a dark-skinned blond who was confirmed by WordOfGod to be Half-American as his father was an American soldier. For the latter, the OVA reveals that Rei originated from [[spoiler: an African country that was torn apart by war]].
* Aomine Daiki of ''Manga/KurokosBasketball''. He's dark enough it can't just be [[HandWave explained away]] with him exercising outside a lot. Especially when he combines it with blue hair. Momoi even calls him a ganguro once.
* In ''Manga/LaughingUnderTheClouds'', the Iga ninja have inexplicably darker skin that everyone else, even though it's set during the UsefulNotes/MeijiRestoration.
* Kaolla Su from ''Manga/LoveHina''. Her origins aren't revealed until towards the final chapters ([[spoiler:she's from a fictional country on the International Date Line]]), but her appearance was actually relevant to a subplot involving Keitaro assuming she was from India (which she denied).
* Goemon Ishikawa and Inspector Zenigata of ''Franchise/LupinIII'' went back and forth on this one in the early years.
** [[Characters/LupinIII Goemon]] was portrayed with tan skin early on for the original manga series and the pilot, had pale skin for the first TV series, and then went tan again for the first ''Lupin'' movie, ''Anime/TheMysteryOfMamo'', which was based on the original manga art. The second TV series returned to the pale tone, and he has kept it ever since. The argument would be because Goemon's nationality (Japanese) is the only one known of the gang and so it makes him stand out more ethnically. ''Except''...
** [[Characters/LupinIII Zenigata]] is also Japanese and was pale for the pilot, but got noticeably tan in the first TV series, the opposite of Goemon. He also has a slightly ruddy complexion in ''Anime/TheCastleOfCagliostro'', but since then, has also evened out to paler tones.
* Endemic in ''Anime/MichikoAndHatchin'', which is to be expected, considering the series takes place in a fictional version of South America. Atsuko Jackson is explicitly half-black and half-Japanese but we never know for sure what Michiko's racial makeup is. Both women appear to be Afro-Latina (for those to whom this isn't immediately obvious, there is an episode in which Michiko wears her hair natural), Michiko being more likely to be considered "Zambo"—as opposed to Atsuko's "Jambo"—and the racial demographics of the show are surprisingly accurately represented. Characters in the series tend to have a mish-mash of Portuguese (sometimes Spanish) and Japanese names, which is most likely a nod to the fact that Brazil has the largest Japanese population in the world barring Japan.
* Johann Trinity in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00''. Further complicated by the fact he's brown with dark hair, his brother is white with blue hair, and his sister is white and freckly with [[EvilRedhead red hair]]. Probably explained by the fact that they're {{artificial human}}s.
* In ''Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam'', Titans' [[TheDragon second-in-command]] [[GeneralRipper Bask Om]] is a light tan that seems to get darker depending upon the lighting.
* In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamZZ'', [[TheBrute Rakan Dahkaran]] is darker skinned then the rest of the cast, and depending on the episode and the lighting ranges from tanned to almost black in skin colouration. When combined with his facial features he looks almost, but not quite Arabic.
* Mirko from ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' is native to Japan but has noticeably dark skin. Her attack names tend to involve GratuitousSpanish, implying she's at least partially of [[LatinoIsBrown Latin American descent]].
* Used deliberately in'' Anime/NadiaTheSecretOfBlueWater'' to underscore Nadia's mysterious origins. Nadia's brown skin, straight hair, green eyes, and [[{{Mukokuseki}} "stateless" anime heroine looks]] all stand in marked contrast to the rest of the Nautilus' multinational crew, who all have recognizably European, African, Indian or Asian features. The fact that Nadia herself has no idea of her true heritage is a major plot point. ([[spoiler:She's actually Atlantean.]])
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': [[http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Kidomaru Kidomaru]]. On [[http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/bestselling-comics-2007/634-1.jp the cover for Volume 24]], his skin is even darker than it is in the anime (despite it being almost completely white in the regular pages, but that's a frequent occurrence in manga). Later, several characters from the Cloud Village are shown to be ''unambiguously'' black.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'' has a few characters like this, though if you look at the original designs the "darkness" of some of the characters seem to come from the designers of the anime taking liberties.
** In the main cast, there's Usopp, who also has creamy brown skin, kinky black hair and drawn lips (which most characters lack), and Creator/EiichiroOda said that if the Straw Hats were from the real world he would be from Africa, so he is most likely intended to. The Spanish dub of ''One Piece'' had Usopp talking in a heavy Arabic accent, plus he was renamed as Usuf. However, Usopp's mother Banchina was very pale, and had an Italian name, whereas his father has similar features including drawn lips. Also, while he now has blond dreadlocks, he was shown when Shanks first recruited him to have curly black hair, so it's likely he dyed/bleached it. This might point to Usopp being biracial.
** There's also Robin, whose skin looks slightly darker than most of the other Straw Hats but looks slightly tanned at most. However, [[WordOfGod Oda stated in the SBS]] that if the Straw Hats lived in the real world, Robin would be from ''Russia''. As of the TimeSkip, there isn't any Ambiguously Brown anymore. Her tanned skin is ''gone''.
** Zoro has [[https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcSD3qROJSkWek8Gi32EeOqB_izZJS8UcXh0tQ&usqp=CAU noticeable tanned skin]] in the anime and keeps this skin tone right up til the timeskip. Since Zoro's nationality would be Japanese in real life, it's likely just a heavy tan like Robin.
** Before his death, Brook fit this trope, and even as a skeleton he still has an awesome afro.
** Kuzan aka Aokiji is also distinctly brown and has pronounced lips like Usopp and in Funimation dub has a low voice like a Jazz singer. But since Kuzan is based off a famous Japanese actor, it's likely just an animator's decision.
* [[http://oreimo.wikia.com/wiki/Ria_Hagry Ria Hagry]] in ''LightNovel/{{Oreimo}}'' has noticeably darker skin than most of the Japanese cast and is referred to only as "American", leaving her exact ethnicity uncertain.
* ''Anime/PanzerWorldGalient'': Redd Winduu was brown-skinned, but it is hard to tell what his race is supposed to be.
* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'':
** In the [[Anime/PokemonTheOriginalSeries original anime series]] Brock varies in color from light brown to dark brown. There's been a gag a few times where he dances in a sombrero and maracas, but most fans consider him Asian.
** Ash always had a skin tone was always slightly darker than other characters, though he's undeniably Japanese. Starting in Hoenn he's just barely lighter than Brock and has stayed that way since.
** Skyla is given a darker skin tone in the anime, however it's ambiguous if it's a tan or not.
** As in the games, there is Iris. Fans usually consider her either black or Native American, but there isn't much to go on besides her being darker than Ash.
** In ''Anime/PokemonJourneysTheSeries'', Goh's skin color is a rather dark tan, but he has blue eyes. He shares his skin tone with the rest of his family, similar to Brock and his family. In the English dub, he is voiced by Zeno Robinson, who is Black. Averted in the original Japanese version, as both Goh and Brock/Takeshi were never intended to be anything but fully Japanese with dark skin.
** WordOfGod is that Tracey was designed to replace the more Asian-looking Brock. Despite this, Tracey has a Japanese name in the Japanese version and nothing in-series suggests he's a different ethnicity from any other Kanto character (who are most likely all Japanese bar Lt. Surge).
* Fakir in ''Anime/PrincessTutu'' has tan skin and dark green (almost black!) hair, in a town that appears to be set in Germany. {{Fanon}} states he has some Middle-Eastern blood in him (because of his name and appearances), but the creator tends to dodge the subject when a question is asked about it.
* Since ''Manga/ThePromisedNeverland'' has quite the CastOfSnowflakes, the characters' skins can range from white to various shades of brown. While characters like Phil or Zack fall squarely into this trope, others like Sister Krone or Pepe are more unambiguously African black; the authors have admitted that it was intentional in the former's case, to make her look more distinct.
* Claire Forrest from ''Anime/RedGarden'' is definitely one. Her race is really unclear, mostly because both she and her brother have darker skin tones, while her father doesn't. Also, her brother incidentally has blonde cornrows. Most fans assume that she is potentially bi-racial, as she's had that color since she was a child. To add to the debate, in a later episode Claire seems to get noticeably more upset and hesitant when she sees a picture of [[spoiler:the white man they have to kill standing next to his black wife]] although the reason could have more to do with her parents' past relationship than their races.
* Akio and Anthy from ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena''. Some believe that they're from India due to the forehead marking, though the fact that they may be [[spoiler:ancient gods or something very similar]] makes things moot.
* ''Franchise/SailorMoon'':
** Sailor Pluto has significantly darker skin than her comrades, (it's lightened somewhat in TheNineties [[Anime/SailorMoon anime]]). Though her ethnicity remains vague, Creator/NaokoTakeuchi quite obviously took inspiration for one of Pluto's artbook portraits from British-born Afro-Caribbean model Creator/NaomiCampbell [[http://shojopower.com/body-image-in-sailor-moon-skin-tone-edition/ modeling Chanel couture]].
** Kunzite in the original anime has darker skin than the other generals and noticably darker skin than his manga counterpart.
** Haruka's friend Elza Gray from the first anime. Her name would suggest her being of African American descent.
** Sailor Lead Crow is fairly dark and obviously darker than the other Animamates. However, she is an alien so she wouldn't have an Earth race any way.
** Sailor Juno and Sailor Vesta are both darker than Sailor Ceres and Sailor Pallas in both animes. The girls are at least implied to be from the Amazon so it's actually the very pale Ceres and Pallas that seem like an inversion.
* ''Manga/SaintSeiya'' has a cast of characters hail of very different countries and ethnicities. Good luck trying to ascertain the race of some of them, though. A good example is Chrysaor Krishna: he is from UsefulNotes/SriLanka, he is brown-skinned and white-haired.
* In ''Anime/SamuraiChamploo''- technically, everyone is Japanese except for those explicitly designated as foreigners, but as part of the hip-hop style, there's a lot of darker skinned characters (often mooks) who often look black or Hispanic. In contrast, higher class characters have paler skin. Mugen looks Ambiguously Brown compared to the other main characters, which might be TruthInTelevision, since he's from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyu_Islands the Ryuku Islands]], and it's traditional to draw Okinawans darker, and there has for decades been contention about whether they are to be recognized as a racial minority or not, and in the time the show is set, the king of Ryukyu was still paying tribute to the emperors of Japan and China as a subject state.
* Master samurai Kambei and Gorobei from ''Anime/SamuraiSeven''. WordOfGod says that Kambei was originally intended to be deliberately distinctly African-looking in appearance but ended up being Southeast/Southwest Asian/Latin American. His original design was then used for Gorobei.
* Maria from ''Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei''. She's an illegal immigrant, but her country of origin was never specified. It's possibly intentional, since the series has another character who's also a generic foreigner (of [[PhenotypeStereotype a different variety]]). Considering her brown skin color, Hispanicized real first name, illegal immigrant status, war-torn past, lack of formal education, and stereotypically genki personality, along with the fact that she's still supposed to be from "Asia", it is most likely that she is actually ''[[UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} Filipina]]'', which would make sense considering the historical relationship and geographical proximity between the Philippines and Japan.
* Kenji Harima from ''Manga/SchoolRumble'' has significantly darker skin than most of his classmates. Lara, from Class 2-D gets away with it due to being explicitly stated to be Mexican, though somehow she has a Russian accent in the English dub.
* In ''Anime/SummerWars,'' Kazuma is quite dark-skinned compared to the rest of the cast, including his own pale-skinned parents. He's also something of a {{Hikikomori}}, so his skin likely isn't just tan, which adds to the confusion.
* The people that TalkingBird Dela works for in ''Anime/TamakoMarket''. They live on what looks like a tropical island and is a monarchy, but the food Choi prepares in episode nine looks suspiciously Vietnamese.
* In ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'', Lordgenome is noticeably more olive-toned than other human characters. His facial features and clothes suggest he's Middle Eastern, although this may just be the result of his NonstandardCharacterDesign, and when he was a child he looked ''[[StrongFamilyResemblance exactly]]'' like [[{{Moe}} his daughter Nia]]. There's also one recurring background member of Team Dai-Gurren (the wiki calls him "Old Coco") who is like this, although his skin tone is closer to a black person's than Lordgenome's is.
** Giha's [[UnfitForGreatness Village Chief]] (and also Kamina, [[ButNotTooWhite to a lesser degree]]) may also qualify as this, seeing as how he presumably grew up underground without sunlight, yet is suspiciously more tan-complected than the rest of the villagers.
* Tooru Mutsuki from ''Manga/TokyoGhoul :Re'' is brown-skinned, with a Japanese name and anime-typical features. An orphan, there is absolutely no information concerning his possible racial background leading to much theorizing.
* Pick a guy, any guy, from ''Manga/TokyoMewMew'' (except Keiichirou, any of the aliens, and [[spoiler:the Blue Knight/Deep Blue]]). They're all incredibly tanned. What's more, Ryou's mother was ''white''.
* A significant number of people in the ''Manga/{{Trigun}}'' manga, which (brownness and its ambiguity) makes sense given the setting, though Nightow switches to greyscale skintones for dramatic effect so often it's hard to tell what's significant.
* ''Anime/TurnAGundam'' is chock full of characters like this:
** The lead Loran has dark skin and curious platinum hair that's sometimes drawn fairly straight, sometimes looking more like dreads. He doesn't really look like anything, but expect lots of jokes about "Black History Month" every February on /m/, anyway (it helps that he spends most of the first episode [[WholeCostumeReference dressed up as]] [[Film/DrivingMissDaisy Hoke]]).
** Guin Rhineford is fairly dark-skinned, too, but judging by his facial features and hair, he's probably just a white guy with a really deep tan.
** [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Meshy/Meshie/Miashe/Mia-Shay Kune/Kyuun]] Is yet another dark-skinned blond, but her facial features are pretty "black"-looking (very prominent lips for an anime character, for one). Her hair and complexion, along with the fact that her very white, hick-ish father is a minor character suggests she's supposed to be a mulatto, though we never see her mom.
** The Moonrace is considerably whiter (a few Asians, too), but EvilChancellor Agrippa looks like he's supposed to be ButNotTooBlack. Justified for the Earth-based characters in that they're a result of millennia's worth of multiracial intermingling [[spoiler:following the Moonlight Butterfly apocalypse.]]
* Grand Master of Witches, Credelle, Miletis, Barunn, Tohma, Grande, and Sigma in ''Anime/TweenyWitches'' have noticeably darker skin than most characters. This is never commented on or explained.
* ''Anime/VariableGeo'': It's never said whether Jun's complexion is her natural skin color, or a really deep tan. None of the others seem to find anything unusual about her appearance, even though she looks like a foreigner; including having green eyes.
* ''[[Anime/MobileSuitVictoryGundam Victory Gundam]]'' has Shakti Kareen. This particular ''Gundam'' actually features a good number of dark-skinned characters, but Shakti is a bit odd considering her mother is extremely white, living in a society (Zanscare) of predominantly white-skinned people. No explanation for this is ever given (her father is never shown).
* In ''Manga/VirginLove'', Daigo's mother is Japanese and his father is American. Though his father's ethnicity is never specified, both he and Daigo are ambiguously brown.
%%* Dilandau is this in the manga version of ''Anime/TheVisionOfEscaflowne''. [[spoiler: Dilandau is also a female who stays female in the manga. In the anime Dilandau is a female who was kidnapped and turned into a male, and in the OVA, Dilandau is male from the start.]] In the anime version and the OVA, Dilandau is an albino.
* ''Words Worth'': Rita is the only dark skinned character shown to be in the Light Tribe [[spoiler: besides her mother, Sabrina]], and doubles as a dark-skinned blond.
* ''Franchise/YuGiOh'':
%%** Hiroto Honda/Tristan Taylor, Saruwatari/Kemo, and Ryota Kajiki/Mako Tsunami from [[Anime/YuGiOh the main series]].
** Yusei Fudo of ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'' is noticeably darker-skinned than everyone else, but not by much.
* Moonbay from ''Anime/ZoidsChaoticCentury'' is the only primary character with a much darker skin tone than everyone else.
[[/folder]]

** Reina is another example. While her appearance and accent suggest that she's a light-skinned African-American, she spent much of her early life in Asia and we know [[MysteriousWoman next to nothing about her]]. Actress Ruth Negga is Irish and Ethiopian, but Reina's background is still a mystery except that [[spoiler: she's at least partially [[ComicBook/TheInhumans Inhuman]] like Skye]].

If most of the cast is various shades of brown in a future world, it may be InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace. For an even more extreme version, see AmazingTechnicolorPopulation

** ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean Stone Ocean]]'': Enrico Pucci looks black, but it's actually an important plot point that he's not. His parents are both white as snow. Given that he's of Italian descent, he may be Sicilian and his dark skin a product of recessive genes.

* ''ComicBook/MonkeyPrince'' has as semi-recurring characters the siblings Kaya and Rizalino Mayled. They have dark skin but their heritage is never explained or discussed. Kaya is a brunette while Rizalino is a DarkSkinnedBlonde, although his hair is probably dyed. "Kaya" is a common name in many cultures, while "Rizalino" is a Filipino name; meanwhile their surname is English and most commonly used in Anglophone countries. This suggests possibly mixed European and Filipino ancestry, but their facial features don't resemble other Asian characters in the series.

** [[Characters/MortalKombatII Jade]] and [[Characters/MortalKombat4 Tanya]] (to a lesser extent) fall under this speculation. Both characters live in Edenia, and Edenia itself is FantasyCounterpartCulture mishmash of Asian and Middle Eastern cultures which furthers the debate on just what the characters are supposed to be counterparts to in the real word.
*** In the games, Jade has had a brown skin tone but in ''Film/MortalKombatAnnihilation'', she was portrayed by a Russian woman. Now speculation ranges from black, to Latina, to Filipino, the whole gamut. In ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11'', it appears she's modeled after a black woman.

* In the last ''Literature/HarryPotter'' book, Harry has a reaction like this the first time he sees a picture of Dumbledore’s mother, Kendra. He notes that her facial features and straight black hair remind him of pictures he'd seen of Native Americans in Muggle school. However, Harry is an UnreliableNarrator and [[GlobalIgnorance not the most worldly of people]], including not even realizing there were wizards outside of the UK until the fourth book, which adds some ambiguity. Perhaps she was really Native American, though given her kids have red and blonde hair and blue eyes, she'd likely have been mixed race. Another way to look at it is that she was of another non-white (though again, probably mixed race) ethnicity and Harry just mistook her for Native American out of his own ignorance. Finally, perhaps Harry was just wrong and she was white (since he never actually describes her skin tone) with high cheekbones and dark hair. For what it's worth, the actor who was cast to play her in ''Film/FantasticBeastsTheCrimesOfGrindelwald'' (who didn't make it into the final cut) is mixed race.

** ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean Stone Ocean]]'': Enrico Pucci from looks black, but it's actually an important plot point that he's not. His parents are both white as snow. Given that he's of Italian descent, he may be Sicilian and his dark skin a product of recessive genes.

** ''Anime/EurekaSevenAO'' gives us Elena Peoples. AllThereInTheManual says she's from America [[spoiler: but there are hints that this isn't the case.]]

* ''Series/IronFist2017'': Bakuto has a Japanese-sounding name, but Ramon Rodriguez, who plays him, is a Puerto Rican. In one episode, he mentions that his childhood boogeyman was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_Man the Sack Man]], which implies Latino or Eastern/Southern European heritage. It's worth noting that in the comics, Bakuto ran a South American faction of the Hand.

* Andromeda from Greek Mythology is supposed to be Ethiopian in origin, but [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_(mythology)#Ethnicities_of_Andromeda Wikipedia's page]] has an entire section on what colour she may be exactly ("Ethiopian" to Greeks was a term for Black Africans generally, though depictions often don't reflect this).

*** Tanya has been brown-skinned for all the games (almost averted in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'') but she is generally speculated to be black. In ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'' her attire and hair seem Egyptian inspired, but see the RealLife folder for why that doesn't help.

** Iris from ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' and ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2''. She has a darker skin tone than a majority of the other characters, though still lighter than the canonically black Lenora (more so in the [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} anime]]).

* [[Characters/SupermanLexLuthor Lex Luthor]] in ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries''. He has the same skin colour as Superman, which is slightly darker than most of the other white characters -- but he has fuller lips, a more prominent brow, and a voice that to many sounded like it had African-American accent (his voice actor, Clancy Brown, is white). He was supposed to look like Creator/TellySavalas, a Greek-American actor. In ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', he is given a lighter skin tone to rectify the confusion, which led some viewers to think he'd been given a RaceLift.

* ''Series/TheBoys2019'': Victoria, a woman of color with olive skin, although her ethnicity is not stated, and her last name (Neuman) is German (in many cases used by Ashkenazi Jews). The actress is of Italian and Lebanese ancestry.

* Naevia from ''Series/SpartacusBloodAndSand''. The original actress Lesley Ann Brandt is Cape Coloured of Indian and European descent. When she exits the show she is replaced with Cynthia Addai Robinson, who is half Black (Ghanaian) and half White. Suffice to say, Naevia's ethnic background is completely unknown and was never specified or referenced.

* Tsubaki Collbrande in ''LightNovel/IsItWrongToTryToPickUpGirlsInADungeon'', the head of ''Hephaistos Familia'' is this. Her skin tone is pretty close to that of most [[OneGenderRace Amazons]] but is stated to be [[HalfHumanHybrid half-human / half dwarf]]. To make it even more confusing all dwarves shown have been fairly light skinned and her human heritage is specifically from the local FantasyCounterpartCulture of Japan.

* Bee from ''Webcomic/EnnuiGo'' is noticeably dark-skinned, but unlike Tanya (who is African-American) and Hashim and Xoltan (who are Egyptian), her ethnicity has yet to be revealed. {{Invoked|Trope}} in "[[https://ennuigo.thecomicseries.com/comics/1579 Reuse]]" after Bee says that her family is recycling their Christmas tree for Black History Month.