Ehh...

i’m pretty sure he has dreadlocks, but i can definitely see how it can look like straight hair. and ur right, he barely has any african phenotypes.

The author can say they’re dreadlocks but those are not dreadlocks. You can literally see the strands of his hair. They don’t even remotely resemble dreadlocks. You can see the individual strands they are not clumped together nor is the texture coarse or kinky. He’s drawn with entirely euro centric features in mind. And that isn’t to say black Africans do not have straight hair or straight noses, almond eyes, etc ( African people of the continent display every phenotype imaginable), it’s rather the Author isn’t actually committing to drawing Luca in a way that actually seems authentic but rather maintains the style of the continuous beautification of ethnicities foreign to Japanese culture. This maybe because I’m a black African myself currently living in the US, but this seems so standard to me as it even happens in my own western media’s representation of Black bodies I’ve become accustomed to these hit and miss attempts or the general lack of care entirely.

I have dreadlocks myself and the fact that the author thinks locs are something so extraordinary where you have to dry it differently than any other hair don’t sit right with me. She trying too hard. I feel like she trying to pass it as locs but she doesn’t want to commit to drawing it bc she’s biased. She wanted to base this story off this fascination of Africa but want to shove European features on Luca. As a black person, it’s cringy to say Luca is of African descent when I see ZERO African phenotype on him. But at the end of the day, cute story.

Exactly!!!! Took the words right out my mouth!

Haha I got you fam. x)