Last time I brought this trope here, general consensus before the thread died was that this is a legitimate cultural trope, it simply needed a better explanation than it did, and more focus to how it's a Japanese cultural trope.

So I went and cleaned the description up myself. Should be fine now.

The problem, however, is the name. The name outright doesn't work for this trope after becoming Japan-focused.

Back when this was still in YKTTW, the initial working title was "Always Class A", but then someone pointed out that our friends in the UK would think the name was referring to drugs.

(And, while I'm here, I must say that the drop down list with no option to input my own reason for why I'm bringing this up is quite annoying.)

• 1. Is this trope simply 'Subject101's class is in this room, or any room number that is X01? Any number? Thus, this trope possible definition's are numerous, and should be defined.
• 2. I don't like saying that a trope is Japanese, Spanish, etc, when examples are diverse in other medium. It will be an Amine trope if this happens, which it shouldn't.
• 3. There are many definitions that I think this trope could be, and the trope as is isn't one of them. Totally different name, if description is left alone.
• 4. Sounds like a subtrope of Lazy Artist as is.
• 5. Needs More Examples

Where to start? Should I post my long list of possible definitions of the trope name?

edited 11th May '12 9:19:34 PM by spacemarine50

This trope only applies to Japanese works because of how the school system works in Japan.

We're changing the name to match the description, not the other way around.

edited 11th May '12 9:51:56 PM by burnpsy

In other words, make it an anime trope. My support is here. If any examples of this trope appear in other medium, it's not an anime trope.

Oh wait, what are the equivalents in other countries, like USA? Well, redo the trope and make it not just Japanese.

If you actually looked at the examples, all of 'em so far are Japanese. It's already on Anime Tropes, and general consensus on the previous thread was that this isn't a trope until being focused to Japan.

The closest equivalent in other countries would be having class take place in room 101 in a lot of works. Or, if your school labels classes in middle school by number (I was in classes 712 and 812 back then, the last one on the list, so I inverted this... I'm surprised I remember, since it was so long ago), then it would be having the class with everything important being class 701.

But this pattern just isn't there outside of Japan. Japan is an index, so it's completely legit to focus on Japan.

edited 11th May '12 11:51:40 PM by burnpsy

One question: If this trope is Japan-specific, shouldn't it get a Japanese name?

No. Japanese names are acceptable for tropes that are Japan-specific. Not in any way expected.

Even if it's acceptable, there's precedent for forcing a translation if the name's opaque enough to even people in the anime fandom, such as what happened with Ryokan (inn).

If there is no risk of misuse, we should go with plain English-only names. Is there a risk of misuse?

I don't think we can gauge misuse without even having any names on hand that actually fit the trope yet.

Until then, it would be impossible to tell.

(Sorry for the double-post, but the thread's been dead for days)

I can't seem to come up with a proper name for this without running head-first into opaque Japanese or the drugs confusion issue I mentioned in the OP.

Let me correct a misunderstanding: the concept with classes as described is exactly the same as you will find in many european nations - little wonder since it was here the japanese got the inspiration. Older students may be divided due to what subjects they prefer to study. But just as often they will be divided only because there are to many students for one teacher and classroom.

The naming conventions may vary from nation to nation. Here in Denmark we can divide firstyears in 1.A, 1.B, 1.C and so on depending on the number of students. Some schools however prefer 1.X, 1.Y and 1.Z instead but the princip stay the same.

But does the same patten make its way into European media with their media relating to schools?

Well, in my experience they will selten bother more than absolutely necessary with the fact that a given school have other classes than that the main character(s) happen to be in. When a character is in a class, it's more often than not simply the class.

But an example comes to mind, the novel 7.A by the danish author Bjarne Reuter (whose novels about school kids in Copenhagen around 1960 all danish school kids have to read and have made him the most borrowed still living author in the libraries). As the name suggest it is about the class 7.A (year 7, class A - danish school don't divide in ground and middle school). They go on a trip where severel mysterious things happen and from which they never return.

edited 17th May '12 5:14:16 AM by DannebrogSpy

OK, so this isn't solely a Japanese trope. Still seems to be a primarily Japanese phenomenon, however, until we get more examples.

Trying to push us along to what the point of this thread is, though, we need a workable name for this trope. Lazy Class Numbering? First Class By Default?

Avoid "lazy", it's judgmental. How about "The Story is in class 1A" or "We are in class 1A"?

I have to say this use of arbitrary numbers or letters is rather odd to me, having grown up at a European School. Our classes were referred to the numbered year followed by the language section (FB for Franco-Belgian, E for English, I for Italian, D for German). Courses were referred to by subject together with language, and if needed the number of weekly periods.

Do we need to expand this trope, so it's international, so we add examples from other nations?

I would say that we could make it international, if we can get more than 1 or 2 examples. Otherwise, I'd say to just add a note to the end of the description saying that this happens outside of Japan, but not nearly as often.

We could always use just plain "Class 1-A". Gets the point across.

By all means make this international. Swedish schools have the "class 1A" system too.

Since I'm not really used to TRS, IIRC this is about the point where we put in a crowner for technicalities' sake, correct?

Crowner hooked.

The crowner has had no new votes for over a day now. How long do we wait before calling it?

I realized: can this possibly be expanded to where a school labels their classrooms, using a system like this trope describes. What about that?

I'm thinking that would have to be a completely separate page, and labelled as trivia with no examples. Otherwise, you'd get people arguing that it's a People Sit on Chairs situation.

edited 22nd May '12 9:15:14 PM by burnpsy

Agree, a lot of schools, hospitals, hotels, prisons and so on have rooms with numbers simply to tell one from the other.

In the system with classes a given class have a default class room during a year. After that they may stay there or switch to another room. Some subjects will however be other places, like P.E. or music. Elective subjects may have students from more classes who may use one of otherwise the normal class room.

In other word: just because a given room have a given number doesn't mean it fit the use of said room.