Western Animation vs. Films that happen to be Animated

If it were me, I'd split it to Animated Series and Animated Film.

Fight smart, not fair.

As for namespaces, I believe Film/ takes precedence over WesternAnimation/, but Anime/ takes precedence over Film/ if both apply.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

Should we move Japanese animated films from the Anime and Manga folder/subpage to the Animated Films folder/subpage?

Should we move them from Anime to Animated Films?

Edited by IukaSylvie on Mar 24th 2020 at 8:22:48 PM

If it's attached to an anime series, like say a Naruto movie, I'd keep it in Anime, where it can be put under a series heading, like so:

• Naruto:
  • In episode 8, yadda yadda yadda.
  • In [Insert Movie Here], blah blah blah.

If it's a standalone, I'd put it in Animated Films.

What if a Western animated film is attached to a Western animated series like, say, Steven Universe: The Movie to Steven Universe?

The same. The movie is part of the TV continuity, which is the main part of the franchise, so it makes sense to me to treat the movie as a giant episode.

Alternatively, I could see putting these sorts of movies under Animated Film if there is no entry for the series under Western Animation / Anime, and under the series entry if one exists, but that might be too complicated to be practical.

Whatever we go with, I do think it should be consistent for both anime and western animation.

ETA: Come to think of it, this would also involve movies for live-action series. The X-Files, Firefly, Veronica Mars, Downton Abbey, all examples of live-action series with movies.

Edited by Twiddler on Mar 25th 2020 at 12:53:34 PM

Also for any Comic Book Continuation to live-action television series. You're basically saying that ComicBook.Buffy The Vampire Slayer examples should be crosswicked in live-action television folders. Or perhaps in Films — Live-Action, since that's the original medium.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

The Buffy movie isn't in continuity with the series, though. And yeah, I have seen comic examples being discussed under an example header for the parent show. E.g. the Buffy example on No Bisexuals.

I don't profess to understand the nuances of the anime and manga category, but I do lean toward films like Ghibli's being put in the Film-Animated category instead. A Japanese animated film with a greater manga franchise behind it...I guess it depends if it's an adaptation or part of the same continuity. To compare, I wouldn't file SCOOB! under Western Animation with the various TV series in the Scooby-Doo franchise. There is admittedly an element of what people see it as first, though. I've always been aware of Spirited Away and I don't first think of it as an anime film, but just another film that is animated. The classification may be otherwise.

However, the fact that there is no Animated Film namespace and Western Animation is used as the namespace for short cartoons and series as well as animated films may be a reason the problem persists.

I do wholly disagree that sorting by animation medium is more useful than sorting it by cultural category, though. Stop-motion, CGI, or 2D aren't useful categories for finding a work.

Edited by 8BrickMario on Mar 27th 2020 at 9:31:38 AM

Namespace-wise, if I understand correctly, Western Animation includes every animated work produced in the Western world (that is, USA and Western Europe), regardless whether they're feature-length, short, or in series format.

I'm always confused by the distinction between Film - Animated, Western Animation, and anime films. I think I get the intent in general, but when I'm looking at examples I never know where something's going to be that has overlap and I know I've seen every combination.

I think one of the things that's always bothered me is that you have "Film - Live Action" and "Film - Animation" next to each other for obvious alphabetic reasons, but "Live Action TV" and "Western Animation" are rarely near each other. Do you know what I mean?

Perhaps a clearer format for the folders would be "Live Action - TV" and "Live Action - Film", then "Animation - Film" and "Animation - TV". Of course, those aren't the only categories (and TV itself is sort of becoming outdated as a category, so maybe Live Action - Series and Animation - Series), but it groups the medium together and examples for films based on tv shows will be less far from their home category.

Edited by Jokubas on Apr 2nd 2020 at 1:51:52 AM

Medium/Format are closely related (and colloquial use are synonyms).

• Medium~ materials that are used to create a work, a work that conveys information and ideas
• Format~ shape, proportions, size, length, etc of a medium

On a trope page, Film refers to the format of single-length video-medium works, and ranges from Short Film to feature-length. Works in those formats tend to share many of the same narrative conventions, due to time constraints. Half-hour series, whether live-action or animated, have very different pacing in comparison to the Film format.

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At this point, I'm seriously considering a campaign to move all animated feature-length films to a new namespace, such as FilmAnimated (based on the trope folders).

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

AnimatedFilm/ and LiveActionFilm/ sound better.

Also, the Series/ namespace is a misnomer to me because the term "series" doesn't just refer to a live-action TV series.

Even though I agree that Animated films need an AnimatedFilm/ namespace, I rather wait for what the admins have in mind when it comes to revamping the namespace system.

I mean, is it really worth migrating them again? People are already working on migrating the Disney animated films to WesternAnimation/. If we approve AnimatedFilm/ or FilmAnimated/, we are going to have to move the Disney/ and WesternAnimation/ wicks.

Edited by MacronNotes on Apr 2nd 2020 at 8:48:23 AM

Macron's notes

And some Anime/ wicks.