Clean-up on aisle:: Anime Character Types

Agreed.

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Not really that would remove 90% of the page as well as things like Tsundere.

Again majority of the examples on a page or exclusive (hardly anything outside Most Common Superpower is exclusive anymore.) used in excess like they are god damn everywhere like Genki Girl Tsundere etc.

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

Removing a large portion of the page is basically what I'm looking for here, as the point is to ensure that the page only lists tropes that are nearly-exclusively used by Japanese media, or for tropes that were originally derived from Japanese culture.

If a trope has extensive use in non-Japanese media and originated somewhere else in the world, it belongs on Stock Characters, our all purpose listing of character types in use by multiple cultures.

edited 15th Jul '11 3:05:29 PM by Meeble

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Removing 90% of the page is the goal of this exercise. We don't want this to be, list every trope ever used in this genre, but instead, list tropes that are primarily only in this genre.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

That's not what is needed here though people will just make more anime exclusive tropes to fit the removed examples or make them artificially medium specific (Anime Inlaws) we have enough problems right now with the segregation of tropes we don't need more. If they are everywhere in the group the index covers (IE Tsundere) they should be listed.

Whenever I go to that page I want to see all the common character types in anime usually because I am looking for something.

edited 15th Jul '11 3:21:05 PM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

I don't see why having only things exclusive from Japan ins important. I understand this index is 'characters types that are common in Japan'.

Also, sometimes Japan has a somewhat unique take on most of these tropes, but which is not enough to warrant a new trope. We could very well use this for 'character types influenced by Japan culture' instead.

I doubt people will be driven to make unnecessary tropes just because an index was trimmed. If they do, those can be resolved in TRS.

Besides, if Tsundere remains its own article distinct from whatever the Non-Japanese media examples get called (as Fast Eddie has suggested will be the case), it will be perfectly fine for Tsundere to be used in this index.

edit @Heatth: It's unnecessary to list non-culturally specific tropes on the Japanese Character Types index, as those tropes already will have a home on Stock Characters. In much the same way that Stock British Characters doesn't list every trope that shows up in British media.

edited 15th Jul '11 3:21:55 PM by Meeble

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the unique take (like Tsundere.) is a big thing... With the thing going on right now we might as well split every slightly unique take on a trope for anime.

not really a lot of the page have English names but egregious usage in Japanese works (but not universally used as a stock character (ie it's not used in every genre and every medium.) in non Japanese works like Kick Chick) it should be on this index.

edited 15th Jul '11 3:35:50 PM by Raso

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It's universally used as a stock character in Western works of the same genre that it's used in Japanese works. Mostly fighting games and action works. It's a fighting genre trope. Not an anime trope.

edited 15th Jul '11 3:36:01 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

I count like 7 non japanese videogames on the page out of 50+ that are western made. And the entire page Japanese examples out number the western examples like 10 to 1. With only like 4 film examples and 1 comic example. Hardly seems universal, the majority seems Japanese.

That's my point if a majority of the examples are japanese, the japanese egregiously use said trope (to the oh not this again point) or there is a unique take on said trope then it should be on the index.

edited 15th Jul '11 3:48:41 PM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

I disagree, that criteria is far too loose to be at all meaningful.

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It doesn't matter, it shows up in every single Western fighting style game. If there are fewer Western fighting games, well, that's because the big names established themselves years ago and it's a tough market to break into.

It's a fighting genre trope. Not an anime trope.

edited 15th Jul '11 3:52:14 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

they are made in japan so... And the 10 to 1 was counting all works made in japan. (anime and non fighting game actually outnumber the fighters.)

This was the Anime related character type page till the proposed rename to be all Japanese works so it's going to get bigger with new tropes as well as the chopping blocks handed out.

How is it that? If say over 75% of the examples came from japan or say overused like big enough to have it's own subpage or variations important enough to put it in the trope writeup it's this. (ok that might be a little broad but something like that.)

edited 15th Jul '11 4:05:16 PM by Raso

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I think it's important to differentiate between an Anime trope, and a Japanese Media trope, mostly as part of my push to eliminate the idea that mediums have their own trope.

I'd rather change this to Stock Japanese Characters, but the way english works, that would be rapidly confused with Stock Characters:Japanese as opposed to Stock Characters:Japanese Media. Then again, Stock Japanese Media Characters would make it clearer. Does Stock British Characters get misuse that way? On the gripping hand, I think the plan was to make an Anime X horde for the tropes that originate in Japan.

Fight smart, not fair.

Stock Japanese Media Characters would work. I don't think I've ever seen any misuse of Stock British Characters.

Scanning the current index page, one thing that I think might be helpful to split the Japanese cultural concepts from stock characters specific to otaku subculture works like anime/manga/visual novels/etc. It strikes be as being notable that something like Yamato Nadeshiko or Salaryman or Miko is something you would realistically expect to encounter in more mainstream Japanese works like J-dramas, whereas seeing a Pettanko or a Magical Girl or a Char Clone narrows it down to a few specific subsets of Japanese media.

The difficulty here is actually figuring out which of those categories goes. I personally have a moderate amount of exposure to anime/manga/Japanese videogames, but pretty much none to J-dramas and the like, so I can't say with confidence which category something like Meganekko fits in. It'd probably a fair amount of research to sort everything accurately for such a split to be viable.

Also, as someone who was born in China and have some exposure to Chinese soap operas and cartoons I'd like to ask that people please please please please please don't attempt to generalize any list of anime or Japanese things into "Eastern media" unless you actually have exposure to media from a wide variety of east Asian countries. That's uninformed at best and a bit offensive at worst. Especially when you're dealing with a list that has stuff like "Miko" and "Samurai" on it.

Okay then. If it's not something we normally have to worry about, I think Stock Japanese Characters is okay. BTW, do we have a Stock American Characters? Or would that be Stock Hollywood Characters? Bah, somebody'll sort it out in YKTTW.

Fight smart, not fair.

Yeah I think Stock Japanese Characters would be fine. I do intend to curate the page long term, so I don't think it will get out of control with that title.

We can put both on the alt titles crowner, though, and see what gets the most support.

Once we've gone through the special effort to clear up the page, we could possibly soft-split the page between "General Japanese Culture" and "Anime" character types. I'll make a note to bring that idea up once the culling is done.

And point noted on the Eastern media portion.

edited 15th Jul '11 9:13:51 PM by Meeble

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Hm, if you want to see what tropes are popular among a specific medium, we could talk to Eddie about an automagical index that collects data from the related to page. Just have it count up the related to wiks from the medium and set a lower limit to appear, say 333.

Fight smart, not fair.

So is everyone in agreement with a rename up to this point?

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edit: never mind, I thought this was another discussion!

edited 16th Jul '11 5:11:13 PM by Xtifr

Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.

I think that this is something that's worth actively discouraging. The reason for it is obvious (currently, we have a lot of people here who are familiar with anime, manga, and videogames, and not so many familiar with the rest of Japanese culture except through the lens of anime.) But T Vtropes is supposed to be general to all media — we should actively avoid naming things in a way that biases them towards whatever our current userbase reflects.

The fact that much of our userbase only views Japan through the lens of anime (and such) is a reason for us to actively avoid reflecting that bias.

(I strongly disagree with the assertion that we use Hollywood for American media — we use it as a shorthand for film and media as a whole, which is a universal way to use it and commonly understood by anyone who hears the term. 'Hollywood Healing' appears in Japanese media just like American media. Using anime to refer to all of Japanese culture is bizarre and unintuitive, and reflects only the severely curtailed view of Japan that many of our contributors have. That reflection is something to be avoided at all costs — it's the kind of provincialism that our tropes should identify and explain, not exhibit.)

edited 16th Jul '11 5:27:06 PM by Aquillion

I kind of agree with you. I do think we need some catch-all term for tropes that are more common in Japanese works, because cultures and their tropes are after all different. But I'm worried that it'll exacerbate the tendency some people have to act as if Japanese culture is nothing but animé, manga and some videogames.

edited 17th Jul '11 1:22:41 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird

That does partially come down to demographics. We may be supposed to be about all media, but the fact is that what gets Trope Overdosed here is what's popular with tropers (except in a few cases where it's works with massive Hatedoms). And it seems that the majority of tropers prefer anime, manga, and Japanese video games to any other forms of Japanese media. I don't like this any more then you do, but that's the system we have to deal with.

I am coming to think that "Anime X" tropes are a bad idea, though. As you say, we don't have to tip the scales any more then they already are.

I noticed there's a blank crowner attached here somehow. I'm going to go ahead and edit it in hopes that I'm not stepping on someone else's toes.

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