Needs Help: Japanese School Club

There's nothing specifically wrong with Japanese School Club as a page in itself but it seems rather pointless for it to be so narrow. Why not just "School Club(s)"? I know there's School Clubs Are Serious Business but that's another trope.

Basically I don't understand why it's Japanese specific.

Do you have any examples of school clubs in other nations? And are there any noticeable differences? School clubs are nearly unknown here in Denmark (except from ocasional theatre groups), so I am a bit curious.

English is an international language, but it doesn't mean that everyone speak it on a daily basis.

They're quite plentiful in the United States, although I think there's some legitimate cultural differences.

If anything, the problem with this trope is that it sounds (and partially reads) like a Useful Note on those differences.

edited 2nd Oct '12 2:18:56 PM by nrjxll

In America, is is not uncommon for schools to have an Art club, a Computer club, a Chess club, a Glee club, Bible study, a Yearbook staff, a school newspaper, Debate team, Theater/Stage crew, Band/Orchestra, student congress, and branches of DECA, Amnesty International, National Honor's Society, and more. My former high school had something on the order of 20+ such after-school clubs. However, I grew up in the suburbs, and American schools run the gamut of super-elite to dirt-poor, so obviously YMMV.

I don't think such things are actually important in American schools though. And apart from stuff like band how much does this come up in America media? I honestly don't know.

The way I see it, there's a couple questions here:

• Should this really be Useful Notes? Should we have Useful Notes on the topic even if not using this page for them specifically?
• Are Japanese school clubs distinct enough - both in real life culture and in how they're treated in fiction - to deserve a page of their own? If so, is there a missing School Club supertrope?

For the record, I know almost nothing about the subject at hand. The page certainly sounds distinct, but that's been known to be exaggerated in the past.

edited 2nd Oct '12 8:16:43 PM by nrjxll

I see no reason for this to be Japan-specific.

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

Seconding Dannebrog Spy; Japanese clubs seem nothing like the ones where I come from (Ireland; they're mostly sports teams and run completely by the school), though maybe the US is closer.

edited 3rd Oct '12 8:35:18 AM by Prime32

If Japanese Clubs are different from those here in Canada, the article makes no effort to explain it. We have clubs here. Run by students. They also get room or facilities from the school.

I am not saying there's no cultural difference, but if there is, the article's not telling.

edited 3rd Oct '12 8:37:00 AM by CobraPrime

I often see anime depicting schools with rooms or large buildings exclusively for clubs; is this commonplace in Japan or is it just an example of Elaborate University High/Absurdly Powerful Student Council?

edited 3rd Oct '12 8:45:50 AM by Prime32

I think the difference is that people actually care and they show up in the plot. Now, I don't think that means the trope needs to necessarily be about Japanese school clubs, but it's possible that said type of club simply shows up with greater frequency in Japanese stuff.

Exactly. Showing club activities is very prominent in a lot of anime and manga, and I assume in Japanese live-action shows too, but they hardly ever show up as really prominent in American shows, at least that I'm aware of.

Is how people relate to the club important to the trope, or is the trope about the club itself?

Though if you pick American examples, sports clubs are probably the most significant, though they are perhaps often more school teams than clubs. I'm not personally too familiar with it, though, since we don't really have clubs in Sweden (sports clubs aren't usually tied to schools, but to the professional league teams). The closest here is probably the extra subjects you can sometimes pick.

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Smallville, Buffy, Freaks & Geeks and The Simpsons have all had episodes about school club stuff, especially Smallville which revolved around the student newspaper in its early years. I can't think of any US shows dealing with school as a major subject that didn't have such an episode, in fact.

edited 4th Oct '12 12:07:36 PM by AceOfSevens

For the record, American school sports tend to be sports teams, not "clubs" as such, though I admit I'm not quite sure what the difference would be.

Isn't Glee an American show focused on a school club? (Granted, I've never watched it.)

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

That might be no more than a difference in terminology.

Virtually every Japanese school story will, at some point, depicts school clubs at some points. And said clubs will be very varied in nature. There will be sport clubs for the msot common sports, but there will also be 'cultural clubs' for the a whole range of random thing. Music, cooking, theater, computer, shogi...

In the American high school I've seem*

, not only clubs were not as present, but it were almost always centered around sports. There is always an American Football team and, sometimes, a Baseball Team as well, as well as cheerleaders around them. But that is it.

Also, the way I understand, Japanese school incentive is students to be part of clubs. Hell, apparently it is somewhat common being mandatory to be a club member.

Finally, when watching American school shows, there sport teams never seemed weird to me. The cheerleaders were, natrually, but only them. All the rest seemed very natural. However, I found Japanese clubs to be a very foreign in concept. It caused me weirdness. So, yeah, I think a page clarifying the issue to be useful overall.

If "clarifying the issue" is the info Japanese School Club really needs to provide, then it should be turned into a useful notes page, not a trope page. And that should not mean simply moving the description and examples into a new namespace and changing some wicks.

In that case, we would need to create a "School Club" trope to replace it.

Sure. I feel Japanese School Club to be broad to be used as a trope anyway. There are tropes using the dynamic of a school club, however, there shouldn't be a page for "insert here work in which school clubs appear".

So, I propose spiting the page. One page, probably with the current name, describing the concept and showing its difference and similarities to other extra class school activities from around the world. Then we can make specific tropes, if needed.

On the top of my head, I can think on:

• "School Club Story"*
  or "Extra Class School Story" or similar, to be more generic
  , handling stories focused on the dynamics of a club*
  or school team, choir, whatever
  .
• "Wacky Implausible School Club", for when a work uses an absurd club and plays it for laughts*
  Ouran Host Club and Mahou Sensei Negima use this. There are probably more examples as well
  .

edited 6th Oct '12 7:54:32 PM by Heatth

Those sound like good ideas. They should be written up.

Those subdivisions make sense (the WISC should get a link to Weird Trade Union), but it doesn't seem to me that the current page would remain a trope. I support moving it to a Useful Notes page; we can probably combine it with club systems internationally, as well.

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

Yeah, I agree. I intended to propose to transform it in a Useful Note in my previous post as well*

. End up forgetting, though. ^^; Even the way it is written now, it doesn't seem like a trope. Most of examples are just "club X appear in this work", without any meaningful elaboration.

edited 6th Oct '12 7:57:16 PM by Heatth

If we need useful notes about how Japanese School Clubs are different from American ones, we also need an American School Club trope or something similar for audiences who aren't from that culture. While it may not come up as often as in Japanese shows, clubs do come up quite a bit in fiction about American schools.