Forum - View topicGenre determination
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Of all sub-entries in ANN Encyclopedia, "Genre" is the most subjective one and can hardly be verified. Recently, ANN has received numerous anonymous error reports on Genre. Most of them are focused on shounen genre, stating that "this manga was serialized on Shounen Jump / Sunday, so it should be shounen" or "this anime was adapted from an ecchi game which contains lots of fan service for male, so it should be shounen."
In the Genre submission page, it states - Shounen : emphasis on action and fighting, primarily aimed at boys Maybe we should add an "AND" instead of comma. In my opinion, either part alone is not enough to be "shounen." Examples: Berserk for the first part and Boys Be for the second part of that sentence. However, IMHO the best definition came from Tottemo! Luckyman (manga and TV series not yet in ANN Encyclopedia), that a typical shounen manga / anime contains three key elements (triumvirate): victory (勝利), friendship (友情), and endeavor / struggle (努力). The protagonist is usually wimpy in the beginning, but through his effort of himself and his friends (master / coach in particular), he finally beats his opponent (and in most cases, wins the heart of his girl). This (tired) formula can be applied to non-combative "fightings," such as sports and other competitions of arts and techniques (cooking is another favorite subject). Since "shounen" is difficult to define (it's not like everying non-shoujo is shounen), I'd like to suggest either 1) add more definition to the "shounen" genre to reduce the unnecessary categorizing, or 2) replace "shounen"' with "action," "martial arts," etc. However, this is my personal opinion, so please join the discussion and express your point of view. Thanks in advance. |
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist
 Posts: 3791 Location: Montreal |
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Ok, so the word "shounen" is a little ambiguous, but it seems to me that those two example above were simply not paying attention to the submission guidelines:
Doesn't that make it clear enough that by "shounen" we mean action/fighting/racing/adrenalin-pumpin kind of anime?
Heh, that's a very good definition indeed. Much better and more specific than the current one.
But originally "shounen" was meant as a specific subcategory of the too-generic "action". I guess that didn't quite work out. |
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist
Posts: 3791 Location: Montreal |
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I guess maybe it's time to share a bit of refactoring I've been thinking about lately. One of the most commonly asked features is the ability to search by genres. I've always put it off on the basis that the current genres suck and I didn't want to entrench them even further than they already are.
So the idea would be to split the current genres into 3 different types of information: DEMOGRAPHIC - 1 of: kodomo - meant for kids these titles often have simple storylines that tend to convey a moral "lesson of the day" shounen - meant for boys often focused on action and competition shoujo - meant for girls often focused on romance and character relationships seinen - meant for young men, including older teens covers roughly the same themes as shounen but with a more mature/realistic/gritty approach josei - meant for young women, including older teens covers roughly the same themes as shoujo but with a more mature/realistic/gritty approach minna - meant for everyone can be enjoyed by young and old, male and female. for example, almost all Ghibli titles fall in this category. hentai - meant for perverts while material in this category technically falls under "seinen" or "josei", we believe that extreme pornographic depictions, including rape and other such forms of sexual aberrations, deserve their own category GENRE - 1 to 3 of: action OR adventure comedy drama fantasy OR supernatural OR magical horror OR thriller mystery romance sci-fi psychological OR slice-of-life THEMES - free input; for example: mecha, magical-girl, police, samurai, war, sport, film-noir, war, martial arts, gunfights, superpowers, quest, parody, satire, crime, shounen-ai, shoujo-ai, android, etc... ...waiting for comments |
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Here's one: You say "One of..." for the demographic genre. Does that mean you'd "lock" the entry to prevent double-genre entries? If so, I suggest you expand that spectrum of choices - you've left out the possibilities that: - the target demographic may be seinen + josei (= young adults in general), - or specifically for older adults (hey, are you really going to argue that the only for-adults-only type of anime is the hentai genre?) - abunai |
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist
Posts: 3791 Location: Montreal |
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My reasoning is that even if something is usually suitable for more than one age group, it was originally *targeted* at a specific group. But if you can give me a few good examples of anime that were targeted at young adults or older adults in general...
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abunai
Old Regular
Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Umm.. okaaayyy.... I'm not sure how good these examples are going to be, but off the top of my head: Seinen+josei = Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou. The balance tips slightly in favour of josei, I know, but it's nearly equally balanced. Older adults, non-hentai: Sazae-san, and maybe Dame Oyaji I might suggest that Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou belongs in the older adults category, too. After all, the average age of YKK readers and viewers is about 15-20 years greater than the average age of anime/manga fans in general. And YKK was serialised in Afternoon - but... I don't know what demographic they were specifically targeted at. I suspect josei+seinen might cover it, too. - abunai |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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IMHO this is a great idea. Currently, AGE RATING sub-category is not being used in a correct way. An anime / manga might have no gore / sex / violence / swearing at all, thus may receive an "All Ages" or "Older Children" ratings, yet the targeted audience might be adults (e.g. manga by Akira Oze - BTW, why don't we have any of his works?!). It's much better to separate DEMOGRAPHIC from AGE RATING, which is pretty a fixed, objective fact. DEMOGRAPHIC, on the other hand, is more subjective and blurred. I'd also like to suggest a more precise AGE RATING, such as G, PG, PG-13, R (movies); 13+, 16+, 18+ (DVDs). Same anime / manga may receive different ratings in different countries, too.
Ahh, good point. Movies like Perfect Blue should be a thriller, not a horror one.
Hmm, IMHO Kare Kano is neither seinen nor josei. It's a pretty standard shoujo manga  anime.
Afternoon is a representative seinen manga magazine. However, IMO seinen vs. josei are not as gender-specific as shounen vs. shoujo. I feel that when the story is more about realistic world of adults, the higher the possibility it would be enjoyed by readers / audiences of both sex. |
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