Needs Help: Stock Shoujo Bullying Tactics

This was brought up in an ATT of mine, but Stock Shoujo Bullying Tactics is Japanese-specific for no clear reason. A lot of the tactics like "ignoring the bullied person" and "beating them up" aren't Japanese-specific at all. The page even includes many non-Japanese examples.

Didn't notice that this thread was unlocked until now. I agree that this is Japan-specific for no reason, because schools and bullies aren't something only found in Japan. I think the name should be changed to Stock Bullying Tactics while the trope itself should have a more international focus.

Is there anything here that wouldn't be covered by The Bully and related tropes? A lot of the examples don't go into much detail, and most of the incidents cited are either so brief that they could be folded into an explanation of The Bully, or are already tropes with their own page.

Merging this with The Bully doesn't sound bad. The main issue is that this trope is specific to one country, despite otherwise covering an international concept.

Oh boy... this trope is really off base and doesn’t actually go into the actual unique bullying that shows up in shojo manga.

"Unique bullying that occurs in shojo manga" sounds like yet another of those, "But it's different in Japan!" things that we constantly get hit with. If there are culture-specific forms of bullying, they can be described in the Analysis subpage of the main trope.

"Beating them up" is not listed, and is more of a Stock Shōnen Bullying Tactic. The only tactics that are really Japan-specific is hiding someone's school shoes, unless there are other countries with purpose-made shoes for inside school, and possibly putting a flower on the desk.

Edited by rjd1922 on Jul 20th 2018 at 5:53:25 AM

Seems like there are a few options here:

1. Rename to Bullying Tactics (or similar), remove references to Japanese culture exclusivity.
2. Cut, move examples to The Bully or the plot tropes listed on the page as appropriate.
3. Re-write substantially to emphasize things that are actually Japanese culture-specific (which will involve adding a lot of new content and pruning of examples).

I am against 3, support 2, and would be ok with 1.

I agree with this.

Throwing in my hat for option 2.

I'm leaning more toward 2 at this point.

I vote for 2, as well. Bullying tactics could possibly be tropes in their own right if they're sufficiently common, but it doesn't seem like that's the case here.

I believe the key part of this trope is the second sentence: "They tend to be more relational bullying or anonymous intimidation than the physical bullying more common in shonen works". That being said, I'm still not sure this is tropeworthy.

I lean toward option 2 as well.

I'm leaning towards option 1. The Bully is a characterization trope and refers to a singular perpetrator. Bullying tactics is the specific actions done to the victim, and is often acted upon by everyone else in the victim's social circle, even though there might be a specific ringleader.

I'd go with 1 too. The Bully is about an actual bully, not what they do or how the bullied character is treated.

Well there is something to the passive bullying that Shojos do. They rarely actually do face to face bullying, it’s all done anonymously and many times it’s part of the plot to find out who did it if the story even tells you who did it in the end.

It might be worth pointing out that option 2 refers to tropes related to The Bully in addition to The Bully itself; that's why the "or the plot tropes listed on the page as appropriate" part is there.

Then maybe combine this page with the "related trope" that is most similar to this one (if there is any) instead of The Bully? I don't really like the idea of merging a plot trope with a character trope.

Option 2 in the post I referred to in my previous post said this would be cut, not merged. Examples would be moved to other tropes, if any apply, with The Bully being given as an example of another bullying-related trope.

Edit: Something like what's being proposed with option 2 happened with Badass Grandpa (minus being cut); examples for that trope are being moved to other tropes, like Old Master.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 28th 2018 at 10:04:11 AM

Clock is up; locking for inactivity/lack of consensus. No action is to be taken on the basis of this thread.