Japanese exposure to Black people was through the lens of White Imperialist Westerners. When White Americans first went to Japan they did Black face shows for the local Japanese people. World War II era USA was so racist that White people were talking about "I'd rather have Hitler win than have a Negro in my store". Post WWII these were the kind of White people Japan were exposed to. Yet, at the same time, during WWII the Japanese propoganda was saying "look how bad the US treats Black people. When we win, we will treat them well" and actually had Black people for the bit. The Japanese were aware of their racism, they just didn't care.
Lots of manga/anime has been historically racist. Up until the mid to late 80s all of the manga artists in Japan drew Black characters in Black face. The oldest manga I can think of where Black characters weren't draw in Black face was Crying Freeman, and that came out in 1986. Prior to that characters like 008 from the Cyborg 009 were very common.
Black otaku girls get sad when I show them that Rumiko Takahashi, the woman who wrote Ranma 1/2 and Inuyasha draws Black people in Blackface. My favorite part about One Pound Gospel is that it shows her racism. Toriyama is another one who loves Black face.
Black Otakus have a tendency to stan for a lot of manga authors though because they are just so grateful to see a Black character, even if that Black character is treated as a joke(Bob in Tenjo Tenge). A couple of Black Otaku tried to argue to me that it's "ok" if a character is drawn in Blackface when the character isn't a stereotype, and not surprisingly "Black" from DB was cited as an example. No, it's not ok and there's no reason to support those artists in this day in age.
Originally the most likely manga/anime to have Black characters were sci-fi themed, and they were the least likely to use Blackface. Manga with realistic artstyles never used Black face. When the 90s hit anime/manga started to gain more international audiences, and Blackface characters became less frequent. Nowadays Blackface characters are rare. Cyborg 008 who was originally drawn in a Blackface style and also drawn that way in his 90s incarnation, was not drawn in Blackface for the 2015 Cyborg 009 vs Devilman.
Still...at the end of the day there is no reason to expect Japanese artists to draw Black people well or have any sensitivity to Black people. Sometimes you get a great manga like Blaster Knuckle, but It is always a good idea to support Black artists and their endeavors.
Not in the series, but Oda said if One Piece was in real life the characters would be:
- Luffy: Brazil
- Zoro: Japan
- Nami: Sweden
- Usopp: Africa
- Sanji: France
- Chopper: Canada
- Robin: Russia
- Franky: USA
- Brook: Austria
LOL at Luffy being Lyoto Machida and Brooks being an Austrian with a Bob Ross Afro jamming hard on that Soul music. That said, this is interesting. Where did Oda say this?