Genre Discussion [DONE/DENIED]

Elberet · Post by **Elberet** » Fri Sep 19, 2003 11:26 pm

<sarcasm> We need a new genre called "Everything" or "Something". After all, that's what many animes seem to fit into best, considering the huge list of Genres they represent... </sarcasm>

As an example, Fushigi Yuugi is an Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Magic and Romance anime. Based on that, what kind of anime should I expect? Wizards wandering through a desert, wasting hordes of baddies and delivering punchlines faster then fireballs while their arch-enemy comes flying on a dragon and falls in love with one of their group?

I have to admit that I don't know Fushigi Yuugi, and the description above is not even intended to be even remotely close to that particular anime. However, with the anime categorized into so many partially overlapping and partially exclusive genres, the sum of them is, simply put, useless. For me as a potential viewer, it's impossible to take that list as an indicator as to what I have to expect from Fushigi Yuugi.

That said, I also have to admit that I have no idea how that situation could be improved. Genre Voting could be one option, an importance rating per genre could be another. The only thing I'm sure of is that something needs to be done about this, and quick. So...

Comments, anyone?

Iceman[grrrr] · Post by **Iceman[grrrr]** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 1:36 am

[quote="ElberetAs an example, Fushigi Yuugi is an Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Magic and Romance anime. Based on that, what kind of anime should I expect? Wizards wandering through a desert, wasting hordes of baddies and delivering punchlines faster then fireballs while their arch-enemy comes flying on a dragon and falls in love with one of their group?[/quote]

Wow you're so close really!!
I guess multiple genres ARE indeed usefull!

Elberet · Post by **Elberet** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 2:39 am

Action combined with Adventure is in most cases unneccesary. Adventure includes a good deal of action by itself, while the Action genre has totally different implications on character types and development then Adventure.

Magic and Fantasy are a bad selection as well. In a fantasy world, magic is to be expected. In a non-fantasy world, magic is a rare thing to encounter, so if there is magic around, it pulls the anime into a special genre.

I hope you get what I mean, 'cause I sure don't. It's almost 5 in the morning here, so I'm off to bed and will give this some more thought tomorrow - but I'm pretty sure that I still won't find such a genre-mix as this useful.

zaufany · Post by **zaufany** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 3:16 pm

I agree with Elbert.
If something is Adventure, it isn't Action. If something is Fantasy, it isn't Magic. If something is Hentai, it isn't Ecchi.
We should do the list of excluding genres first. (Or list of unnecessary.) Then we start making creqs.

Elberet · Post by **Elberet** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 11:11 pm

That's quite a Sysiphus task, zaufany.

Inexperienced users (aka newbies) will continue to add animes with a useless list of genres. Even worse, since every registered user can add a genre to an anime even if they didn't create the anime themselves, it's bound to happen again and again...

zaufany · Post by **zaufany** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 11:38 pm

Most users are very lazy. They won't do anything. (However, the adding genres should be a creq in my opinion.)
Lets get the description for every genre and make list of excluding pairs first. We should develop existing system instead of looking for something new.

Elberet · Post by **Elberet** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 11:44 pm

Exclusions can't be forced tho. There's always an exception.

If editing the categories becomes a creq, it's not necessary anymore either. The mods will just have to be extra careful which categories the anime is being put into.

zaufany wrote:We should develop existing system instead of looking for something new.

If you improve it far enough, doesn't it become something new in the end?

Merlin · Post by **Merlin** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 6:30 pm

In my opinion there are too many genres. For example if an anime has the genres "demons", "vampires" or "magic" it will most likely be "fantasy", too. So those three could be removed. Reading the short description of the amine will give enough information about the story, where it takes place, if there are demons, sorcerers or whatever.
If there are mechas in a fanatsy world, the genre "fantasy" and a mention of the mechas in the description would be enough. The same goes for magicians in a science fiction.
Another example: Is there any anime that has only "school" as genre? I do not think so. It will most likely be a comedy, drama, love story, ... , which only takes place at school.

wahaha · Post by **wahaha** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 7:23 pm

"Genre: Canada"

I agree that the whole genre-thing could be boiled down to the usual Action/SciFi/Fantasy/...-list, but since the current "genres" give searchable(!) hints on whether some anime might fit one's preferences, using genres like "Mecha" and "School" (or "Cars","Magic","Vampires"...) can help the users quickly finding (or avoiding) a certain anime, without first having to read any description.

I'd prefer either re-organizing the genres (while distinguishing classic genres and "sub-genre plot-elements"[tm]) or at least making the descriptions searchable

Elberet · Post by **Elberet** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 9:18 pm

Merlin wrote:In my opinion there are too many genres. For example if an anime has the genres "demons", "vampires" or "magic" it will most likely be "fantasy", too. So those three could be removed.

No way! Take Hellsing. It's got vampires, demons and magic. But it's anything but fantasy - or you have an IMO kinda weird definition of the Fantasy genre.

Merlin wrote:Reading the short description of the amine will give enough information about the story, where it takes place, if there are demons, sorcerers or whatever.

The problem is that most of the time, it does not. People tend to simply copy the description from AnimeNFO that describes the first two minutes of the anime: "Cutesy girl lives a peaceful life, friends get into problems, will she be able to help them?" That description could fit to anything: A comedy action anime, a fantasy adventure anime, a horror anime, ...

Merlin wrote:If there are mechas in a fanatsy world, the genre "fantasy" and a mention of the mechas in the description would be enough.

As I said, it seems that your definition of "Fantasy" is a little alternative.

For me, "Fantasy" means that the story takes place in a medieval-style low-tech world that is home to mythical beasts and all kinds of magic, spiritism and other forms of wonderworking.

Merlin wrote:The same goes for magicians in a science fiction.

That's more like Psi. But let's not be picky...

Merlin wrote:Another example: Is there any anime that has only "school" as genre? I do not think so. It will most likely be a comedy, drama, love story, ... , which only takes place at school.

Yep, Azumanga Daioh for example. However, that's no reason to get rid of the School genre. A comedy about six girls who do all kinds of wacky things together does not necessarily focus on their school life.

Merlin · Post by **Merlin** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 3:58 pm

Elberet wrote:
Merlin wrote:Reading the short description of the amine will give enough information about the story, where it takes place, if there are demons, sorcerers or whatever.
The problem is that most of the time, it does not. People tend to simply copy the description from AnimeNFO that describes the first two minutes of the anime: "Cutesy girl lives a peaceful life, friends get into problems, will she be able to help them?" That description could fit to anything: A comedy action anime, a fantasy adventure anime, a horror anime, ...

Compromise: Two lists? A genre list for rough classification and a subject catalog to give a better description of the anime.

Elberet wrote:
Merlin wrote:If there are mechas in a fanatsy world, the genre "fantasy" and a mention of the mechas in the description would be enough.
As I said, it seems that your definition of "Fantasy" is a little alternative. For me, "Fantasy" means that the story takes place in a medieval-style low-tech world that is home to mythical beasts and all kinds of magic, spiritism and other forms of wonderworking.

I thought of "Vision of Escaflowne", just watched a few episodes, but as far as I remember those mechas ran by magic. And the one who added this series also thought of it beeing more "fantasy" + "mecha" than "scifi" + "mecha"

Apart from that I meant to say that in my opinion every anime mainly belongs to one or more of the real genres. If there are some unusual elements, which one would not expect in this genre(s), I would prefer to read about it in the description rather than adding 100 semi-genres to provide for all contingencies.

Elberet · Post by **Elberet** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 6:42 pm

Merlin wrote:Apart from that I meant to say that in my opinion every anime mainly belongs to one or more of the real genres. If there are some unusual elements, which one would not expect in this genre(s), I would prefer to read about it in the description rather than adding 100 semi-genres to provide for all contingencies.

Agreed, but having separate genre lists for each anime would be overkill. The previously suggested genre importance ratings are IMO the best way to go.

Gambit · Post by **Gambit** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 7:48 pm

Elberet wrote:However, with the anime categorized into so many partially overlapping and partially exclusive genres, the sum of them is, simply put, useless. For me as a potential viewer, it's impossible to take that list as an indicator as to what I have to expect from Fushigi Yuugi.

Wouldn`t a good storydescription help you out a bit more, combined with the genres and perhaps even the reviews ?

But I agree on the % for a genre. I suppose only the owner would be able to set that % ?

Elberet · Post by **Elberet** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 8:06 pm

Gambit wrote:Wouldn`t a good storydescription [...]

Time for a reality check.

How many animes have a good description, and how many were copied from AnimeNFO or from the producer's website and are full of nothing but meaningless catch phrases?

Post by **nwa** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 7:42 am

Elberet wrote:As I said, it seems that your definition of "Fantasy" is a little alternative. For me, "Fantasy" means that the story takes place in a medieval-style low-tech world that is home to mythical beasts and all kinds of magic, spiritism and other forms of wonderworking.

2 words: Final Fantasy

ok, my opinion now, I agree that at least 2 genres should disappear and these are Ghibli and Dementia, I'm sure everyone can figure Ghibli out after looking at the studio and Dementia isn't really used...
the rest of the genres? I don't mind them, but IMO magic = fantasy (Hellsing has magic? more like super powers..although you could say then that super powers = magic); romance = love story...

action and adventure can be separated but there is hardly any animes that don't have Action as a genre, so maybe it's Action that really should be removed

About the % thingie now, I think only the one who has seen the anime and is an otaku who can accurately distinguish the genre % should be allowed to set them...some fanboy n00bs might give let's say..uh..Berserk 90% of action while it really is about 55%, there is also 20% of fantasy, 15% of adventure, 5% of historical(it is in the old medieval times after all) and 5% of demons...
that shows another problem, ppl see them all differently

AniDB

Genre Discussion [DONE/DENIED]

Genre Discussion [DONE/DENIED]

Re: New Genre needed

Re: New Genre needed

Re: New Genre needed