Create Anime and Manga et al Metadata

[branchandroot]

So, Fanlore (which is in no way synonymous with the Fandom History fiasco, despite the efforts of the FH creator/troll) is looking for knowledgeable people to talk about that eternal question:

What do we call this stuff?

I find myself torn, really. I mean, a big part of me says "this should be simple, Categories are like tags, so you create as many Categories as there are Kinds Of Stuff and slap all that are applicable on any given wiki page".

Another part of me says "but that will make the Category structure really unwieldy and hard to navigate!"

One thing I'm sure of is that I do not think Anime should be merged into Cartoons, nor Manga into Comics. The latter are names for specifically Western art forms, and using them for non-Western forms would, in my eyes, be a nasty sort of erasure, given the cultural history involved.

Kind of like using Manga as the Category for something that's really manhwa. Given the cultural history involved.

And so I come back to "a Category for everything". Actually, I'm not at all sure that's a problem. I don't think it would be that unwieldy, in the end. And trying to limit the Categories implicitly assumes that the world is only as big as X number of categories. Which is just plain wrong.

So, what do you think? What Categories do we need?

Comments

[ticktocktober]

Are subcategories out of the question? Comics, manga, manwha all under 'Graphic Novels' or somesuch? Seems like a reasonable solution, unless the wiki isn't equipped to function that way.

[branchandroot]

That could work, yeah. It is possible to put categories under other categories. I like the idea of using Graphic Novels or similar. That's a functionally descriptive term that isn't too tightly wedded to a culturally specific art form.

[wombat1138]

"Sequential Art" is one phrase that sounds suitably generic, multiculturally covering everything from four-panel single strips to multi-decade complex narratives. Though it doesn't cover single-panel pieces... in some cases, such as Family Circle (blech), the sequentiality could handwaved as taking place in the reader's acquisition over time of the general narrative cloud collectively formed by all of the aleatoric one-shots. However, in stricter one-shot one-panels like the ones in newspaper editorial sections and the pages of the New Yorker...?

"Narrative Artwork"? *throws hands into air* (darn, now what do I catch them with?)

[branchandroot]

*laughs* There was already a little scrap about that between two European (I think) members, one pointing out that Sequential Art was a term invented by Will Eisner and popularized by Scott McCloud not many years ago, and is a very US and comics specific term.

I do kind of like Graphic Story as a descriptor. It emphasizes the difference between a graphic that's intended to go with words or convey a narrative, and one that isn't (which we might call Artwork or Visual Art I suppose).

[annotated_em]

I lean towards Categories For Everything, myself. If necessary, I think subsuming everything under Graphics and Animation--so that "comics" and "manga" and "manhwa" are weighted equally--would be an acceptable compromise.

But yeah, I strenuously resist the idea of just subsuming things under the heading of "comics" for some reason.

[branchandroot]

It's like... fandom imperialism.

[annotated_em]

Yeah, in a sense.

I suppose that, standing back and looking at it without thinking about the different fandom cultures, collapsing them all down like that might seem easiest, but I think that would be a hugely fraught decision and would just alienate the fans of non-western animation and graphic art even more than they already are. This is the kind of decision where I think unwieldy categories is a tradeoff for fandom goodwill. And let's face it, right now the OTW needs as much goodwill in anime/manga/manhwa fandoms as it can get.

[krait]

To me, who is mainly a dabbler in anime/manga fandoms, it's sort of... giving in to nonfen imperialism, accepting the judgment of those who don't understand us. Because while I'm aware of the various in-cultural distinctions in a broad sense (I know what manhwa is, and why one shouldn't call it manga), I'm not really involved enough for that to sting me (I have never even read a manwha; I've barely read a handful of manga).

But what geek hasn't heard, or dreaded hearing, "You're twenty-five years old and you're still reading comics?" Because to nonfen it's all "comics", synonymous with cheaply printed Superman special; never mind that those "comics" are in fact anime/manga, a completely different cultural object and may not be intended made for children at all...

Which is not to disparage comics fandom! Just that lumping them all together smacks of the "outsider" approach, wherein anything that is 1. mostly of interest to geeks, and 2. vaguely similar is dismissed with some general groupname, the way my uncle might say, "Oh, you guys are always going on about that Star Wars stuff!" when I'm discussing the Star Trek movie, or even a David Weber novel.

[branchandroot]

You know, that's a really good point. That whole "paint with one brush" thing does tend to be something outsiders do a lot. Witness all the early academic treatments of slash!

aww, thanks! :D

[krait]

The early academic treatments of slash -- good parallel! "Oh, they're all just a bunch of sexually frustrated women/girls afraid of their own sexuality", bah. It really highlights how it's often not just an Outsider Thing; it's also got undertones of superiority and dismissal: These things (enjoyed by Those People) don't require study; it's small and silly and one-dimensional enough that a glance is all that's required to analyse it correctly, and even if you're a off by a bit, it's not important enough that anyone will notice or care.

Part of why I love fandom (as a whole) so much that I will never leave, despite having changed fandoms several times, is because fandom seems to be this really awesome place where people go out of their way to be inclusive. Even if they're not into what you're into, they're willing to listen to what you have to say about it and cheer you on wherever there's some overlap, even if it's just that you both like doing fannish things, albeit about very different things". Maybe because it's something they don't get in mainstream culture, so we're aware of the lack and doing our best to remedy it where we can?

Geeks Unite for Nonunity! :D