On a calm December day, the masses were blessed with the gift of the first Kung Fu Panda 4 trailer. While most had not even known about the film’s existence, the gleeful surprise would be a chance to see our favorite characters once more: a lovable panda, a wise master, a cunning villain, but mostly a stern, ferocious, oddly attractive tiger voiced by Angelina Jolie.

This surprise at anime fandom’s diverse demographics is expected, given the decades of exclusion people of color have faced, the “nerdy white guy” archetype being the only image projected into pop culture. This preconceived model puzzles individuals asking where all these audiences of color “came from” - but according to FSU filmmaker Ryan Joiner; they were always there.