Forum - View topicGenre / Theme label discussion.
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 24221 |
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1. I think just racing is fine.
2. I think it's worth adding automobiles as a descriptor since some people doing theme searches might use that word to get a list of show where cars are important. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10037 Location: Virginia |
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Isn't that anime about horse girls about racing? I haven't watched it but that is pretty much all horses are good for. Don't we also have some anime about space ship racing? I know Outlaw Star has an arc about that. You can race just about anything that can move.
I don't think you need to get into what type of auto racing is involved. That is the sort of thing you get out of an extended blurb and not part of descriptors. |
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11450 Location: Frisco, TX |
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I was going through and updating themes for some of the Fall '23 shows, then came across (The) Faraway Paladin and got to thinking "knighthood" is a pretty integral part of the show.
I initially added knighthood as a theme, but then thought I should change it to just "knights," since there are other shows that have various classes/professions such as assassins, bounty hunters, mercenaries, ninja, samurai, etc., and that I should save aristocracy and royalty as the lone societal descriptors. But then I got to thinking, if I categorize knights as a class/profession, what other ones would I open the door to including? Like, would I start including other medieval fantasy classes like archers, mages, priests, thieves, and warriors? And do I go down the rabbit hole and start including exorcists, onmyouji, beast tamers/trainers, swordsmen, or possibly other kinds of culture-centric classes or professions? |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24221 |
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Personally, if I were you Tony K., I would just stick with Knight as a descriptor because they are so prevalent in anime. I wouldn't bother with mage, thieves, priests because so many shows that feature adventurers have those classes so I don't think it becomes useful as a filtering tool.
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11450 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Good point. Whenever I use "medieval" as a theme, I just think of that as a general one-for-all kind of descriptor that includes most fantasy elements, social classes, and/or job professions that most people come to expect from the genre.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24221 |
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That totally makes sense to me.
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10037 Location: Virginia |
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Knights really existed and are an important part of history. Samurai are simply the Japanese equivalent. Neither should be used as a descriptor unless they are central to the story. Especially since both could be used in a non fantasy setting. The same could be used for all sorts of magic users, mages, wizards, sorcerers, priests, exorcists, onmyouji and such like. They could be used entirely separate from a medieval setting, example Negima. Likewise thieves are not just medieval, example Catseye.
That said, if any of the above are used in a typical medieval fantasy setting where classes of occupations are used none of those should be individually mentioned, simply describing the show as D&D adjacent should suffice. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24221 |
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I love how this thread brings out everybody's inner librarian.
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11450 Location: Frisco, TX |
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I decided to also add genres to the discussion, as I was watching the most recent episode of Wind Breaker and got to thinking about the psychological genre in conjunction with idealism as a theme.
This led to me wonder whether or not "battles of ideals" would suffice enough to warrant a psychological label. In the particular case of WB, you've got delinquents who are basically battling for supremacy based on their ideals. Through Episode 05: spoiler[ the Bofurin are fighting through a lens of justice, whereas the Shishtoren seem to be fighting solely for power and dominance. But it's their belief systems that appear to be getting the attention, and less so their fisticuffs]. But really, if you break down "psychological" to its core, any kind of story that makes you think or messes with your head can fall into that category. I guess I'm more so asking if idealism should equate to psychological a majority of the time, based on how deep the writing actually goes into the human psyche, of course. If it ends ups being the case where anything that talks about idealism or the human psyche can be psychological, I've got a whole lotta' updating to do! |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24221 |
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Hmmm, interesting question. I can only put forward what I think of when I hear "psychological" as a genre. Most of the time when you see the world psychological in a genre sense, it's followed by the word horror. I don't think I've ever heard of a "psychological sports" movie or a "psychological romcom." I could imagine a psychological thriller or a psychological mystery but to me psychological horror is the most common type. I think your "mess with your head" criterion is a good one. This is all a long winded way of saying that I don't think idealism as theme should be linked with psychological as a genre description. Yes, idealism is a mental construct and psychological deals with the mind but I don't think that is what was originally intended when people label a piece of content as psychological.
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10037 Location: Virginia |
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I would say that Idealism takes you away from the idea of psychology. Psychology asks you to think about how the human mind works, Idealism demand you stop thinking at all. I could see that both might be present, if you were for instance trying to reconcile Idealism with reality, but the two terms are really antithetical.
I wouldn't unless the psychological element is paramount to the show. If you can remove that element without changing the show, it shouldn't be a theme. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24221 |
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The big thing to keep in mind with respect to theme and genre identifiers is that the main way they are probably used at ANN is through the Encyclopedia search function where you can filter your search for shows using them. So you don't want an identifier to be too broad or somebody using that term is potentially going to get a whole bunch of shows that aren't really relevant to what they are looking for. I would bet that anybody using the identifier "psychological" as a filter is looking for mind-eff shows as opposed to shows that have a clash of ideas.
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11450 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Great points. Maybe I should approach idealism as more of a character/personality thing that's just on the cusp of the human psyche, rather than considering it a psychological aspect. And what people mostly think of as "psychological" should be saved for the kind of stuff that really hits the mind and/or soul on a more personal level. I would probably even use "idealism" sparingly, despite how many shounen series seem to be borderline idealist. Thanks for the feedback!
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11450 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Was perusing some discussion threads, then wondered if "philosophy" or "social commentary" would be applicable as themes. At first, I thought they might conflict with idealism. But then I also feel like they're all kind of in the same neighborhood: philosophy can breed idealism, then idealism might eventually equate to some kind of social commentary.
I feel social commentary might be able to stand on its own pretty easily. Although, I also used "contemplation" as a theme for titles such as Frieren and Naoki Urasawa's Monster and am wondering if philosophy would be a better general fit. Like, when you hear the word, "philosophy," does it elicit the idea of "deep thought," or does "contemplation" make you feel like the title is a "thinky" one? |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10037 Location: Virginia |
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I think that the two concepts are completely different. Social Commentary is specific and pragmatic. It says "this is the way things are, and there are problems" Philosophy is usually perceived as being airy, divorced from reality and frankly full of hot air. I wouldn't put the philosophy label on anything you actually want people to watch.
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