AniDB

This post is not intended to overlap with egg's descriptions of genres but rather to have a wider look at the issues. I've done this largely because the usually proactive mods have been reluctant to tackle this rather tricky issue lately - which combined with a general confusion has left a lot of condradictory data kicking around.

The aim of genres is to:
1) Quickly give an impression of what something contains
2) Identify a group of things as having similarities
In order to do this it is important to add genres only when they are an overriding component, not just a minor feature. Otherwise it is difficult to distinguish from a long list of pseudo-genres what is actually relevant.

I have split the genres into different categories below, to give an idea of what goes with what, and which ones should be exclusive.

'True' genres
Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Ecchi, Hentai, Horror, Romance
This category gives the overall impression of the show. It should be used particularly carefully, as *most* animes will have elements of many of these, but are only heavily grounded in one or two. Particularly try to avoid 'Action, Adventure, Comedy' as a catch-all for shounen anime.
Ecchi and Hentai are in this section as they tend to not just be features of anime, but instead dictate the overall feel. Only one of them should be used for any anime, but deciding which one is likely to start flame wars.

Settings
Fantasy, Historical, School, SciFi, Space
This category gives an idea of where the anime takes place. They should only be used if the *entire* anime has that setting, rather than just the odd episode or flashback. In all but execptional circumstances, Fantasy, Historical and Sci-Fi should be mutually exclusive, keep the definitions strict.

Subjects
Cars, Demons, Detective, Magic, Martial Arts, Mecha, Music, Samurai, Sports, Super Power, Vampires
This category is things you would expect to find as *main components* in an anime - you expect to see them regularly every episode. In general, if you have any doubts about adding it, don't. The Magic -> Super Power -> Martial Arts line can be confusing, add two at most. I'd like a 'Military' genre here, as I feel it would help define certain animes better.

Themes
Dementia, Mystery, Parody, Shoujo Ai, Shounen Ai, Yaoi, Yuri
Except for Parody, which you hope to be obvious, this can be a rather murky category. Generally don't add except when sure.

Target audience
Shoujo, Shounen, Kids
In all but the rarest of cases, this is a pick-one category. The intended viewer will be *either* small children (please rename 'Kids' to something less ambiguous), or young males, or young females. There is a good case for adding equivalents for older viewers.

Origin
Two special cases where the genre refers not to the content of the anime, but the making of it. Idealy should be removed in favour of other indicators.
Game - Largely used at the moment to indicate animation based on, or closely interrelated with retail computer software. I recommend either deletion, or removal of the few animes where 'Game' refers to content not origin (eg Hikaru no Go) and addition to software based animes - including the mountain of h-game cash-ins. In the latter case a change of name would be needed.
Ghibli - Currently used to indicate the breath of Miyasaki. If the studio system is updated, this is a candiate for removal, but until then it's just about the best way to find good anime. Need a little trimming though.

I hope to update later with examples of what I think is and isn't in each genre and why.

Rar

I like it. Nice write up.

For game, I say it should either be used as an Origin OR a Subject, not both as it is now. Obviously you prefer Origin, but I like subject better. When I was writing the definitions the bulk of the sources I used were based on using it as a subject, I put in the origin because looking at the titles I realized that there were already a number in there that were based on the origin.

I never really understood the distinction between Detective and Mystery, that is an interesting was of breaking it up. Although I would say Mystery is more of a 'True' genre instead of just a Theme.

On the Target Audience it would be nice to have some sort of rating system, and using genres I guess is one way to do it... Ecchi, Hentai, Yaoi and Yuri sort of give you some ideas about the upper side of ratings...

oooh god !
I already see it coming... a complete revision of genres for animes in AniDB... this is going to be a looot of DB Change requests

I would:
- move ecchi into Subjects or Themes
(not like Hentai, ecchi rather never is the main theme, only nice addition)
- i'd like Military also, but i would like more Police genre, there is much more police-animes then war-animes (or maybe it is only from my cop-addicted view)
- to avoid Ecchi-hentai flame wars, maybe add Adult or Sex genre for titles, which balances on area between those two

nwa wrote:I already see it coming... a complete revision of genres for animes in AniDB... this is going to be a looot of DB Change requests

If something like that would ever happen, I'd make three suggestions to make it all easier:

- Implement a new feauture that allows genres to be edited as a single list.

- Allow users to submit change requests for genres through the normal API, but instead of submitting one change request for every change (genre removed, genre added), handle it with a single change request to update the genre list (see above).

- Wipe all genres from all animes. Whoever ends up having most genre-related change requests granted once at least 99% of the animes in the DB have been updated, receives a present. Of course, this is just a lie to get people to work for nothing.

Elias wrote:- to avoid Ecchi-hentai flame wars, maybe add Adult or Sex genre for titles, which balances on area between those two

Yes, definately.

Egg, I was mostly refering to how Game is currently being used - which is for tie-ins (Power Stone, Shenmue The Movie... etcetc) and franchises (Digimon and Yi-gi-oh). HnG is one of the few titles that *isn't*. Personally, untill will see 50 odd non-violent competiton type animes, I think HnG can sit in Sport (I know! I know! Don't shout at me), and Game can be removed. Personally the idea of a 'Product' category or something that has all the franchise stuff... and H-game things in one would amuse me. But I'm sure KgNE fans will shout at me for that as well.

As for H (hentai) vs. well... H (ecchi), I think people should get a little less worked up about it. Sure, you don't want your favourite romantic thing with a little explicit sex at the end in the same bunch as all those demons... but over here Hentai has just come to mean anything you need to be 'adult' to watch. If that means Ebichu is hentai, fair enough... anything with that many まんこ jokes deserves to have the 'not for under 18s' access warning.

Rar

I'd agree with almost everything in the first post (especially the addition of seinen (older equivalent of shounen) and military genres) except for the classfication of science fiction as a setting, where it is clearly a genre and is compatible with any of the actual settings, although it has yet to be fully utilised in anime.