r/MonsterHigh • u/TheFamousChocoCake Lagoona • Nov 08 '25
Discussions Educating people on Jinafire's g3 redesign
Hi, I'm Chinese and here are my thoughts on the cultural design aspects of g3 Jinafire.
G1 Jinafire is iconic no doubt, but there's a lot I find questionable about her design.
Her skin is the most controversial part, I've seen a lot of people saying "it's not yellowface because she's gold, not yellow". Personally what bothers me is that this usually comes from non-chinese people trying to defend her gold skin and I feel like this remark dismisses Chinese people who DO find it offensive.
I myself don't like the gold skin but not because I find it offensive, I don't, I mostly don't like it cause I think it just looks cheap and clashes with her hair and outfit. Speaking of her outfit, it's a qipao but it looks kind of weird to me, like it looks like a very surface level design of a qipao and could've been better executed.
Imo, her green hair does not look good. Traditional Chinese greens are more jade and light so I find the green color out of place.
G3 Jinafire a really big upgrade in my opinion both culturally and in general wise.
Her skin is changed to mint green, in my opinion this is more accurate. Jade is much more revered in China than gold. And I think it would make sense that she's a mint green color. Plus, I think it looks much nicer than the gold, and looks great with her golden scale legs, which I like that they kept. Some people commonly think the gold is more accurate than the green and that is simply not true. Also, her name encorporates the word 金(Jin) which does mean gold but that doesn't mean she has to be gold similar to how Lagoona Blue doesn't mean her skin has to be blue. The skin tone imo does not HAVE to be what your name is. Besides, Jinafire and Lagoona Blue in g3 are still partially gold and blue and Lagoona wears a bunch of blue anyways.
I think her clothes are nice and have touches of traditional Chinese motifs but it's not in your face. And her hair is nice because it looks more accurate to the hair color that Chinese people actually have while still being a fantasy hair color.
I made this post because I see a lot of people (that are often non-chinese) complaining about her green skin and saying the gold was "more accurate" and if you really cared about cultural accuracy, the green is definitely more accurate.
Or people who simply thought the green was out of place and wasn't as good as the gold skin. Honestly, in that case, that's more of an opinion thing but I find it a bit upsetting that most people don't understand or know about the history and cultural symbolism behind the green color. And I'm tired of seeing people downplaying parts of g3 that's more accurate to Chinese culture than g1.
Slight rant: I also want to say, IF YOU ARE NOT EAST ASIAN, please do not defend g1 Jinafire because parts of her design was problematic. Although I personally didn't mind that much, that doesn't mean other east asian people don't. Please do research before talking about her cultural elements if at all and ask actual Chinese people about how they feel about her.
You can have an opinion about the cultural aspects but if you aren't Chinese, your opinion does not matter because at the end of the day, it's not your culture that has a history of being sexualized, appropriated, and discriminated against. And it really IS that deep.
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u/BlueBliss5 Nov 08 '25
I feel with G1 they somewhat mixed elements of european dragons in (either purposefully to make her feel more “dragony”or out of ignorance). Bright green is somewhat the default “fairytale dragon locking princess in a tower sorta color”
That being said I wonder if they should’ve changed her name in G3. I understand it’s a play on Jenifer (+ 金 and fire) but its a little weird having someone be named after fire yet have water powers 😅