Needs to be split or redefined.: Petting Zoo People

As it stands, Petting-Zoo People sounds like it's describing humans with animal features, like the typical Cat Girl. Kemonomimi ("beast ears") is even a redirect. The trope image itself is also an example.

However, given its other redirect, Humanoid Animals, it seems to attract a number of examples that are, in fact simply Funny Animal characters. Seriously, do these◊ or these◊ look all that humanoid to you?

edited 20th Oct '10 5:50:37 PM by TheGunheart

Yes, they do look humanoid to me. They are bipeds. They have human proportions. They're wearing clothes. They're obviously anthropomorphic. They looks humanoid.

Humanoid != human-like.

In any case, the key point of the trope is the character looking just like a regular human, but with ears, tails, or other little features added. If they're closer to animals that walk on two legs than humans with animal ears, they're not examples of this trope.

I think that the problem is that there's very much a sliding scale of these things and there's no clear cut line of where that boundary between the two tropes is. How human is human enough? There isn't really any real dividing point.

The first picture you posted clearly has Non-Mammal Mammaries and humanoid proportions. It just has a couple of animal characteristics, face, hands, and feet. It is basically for all intents and purposes, human. The second one is harder to figure out because of the horrible art quality and the fact that you can't see their bodies so I can't class it, but the first one is obviously this trope.

edited 20th Oct '10 6:36:43 PM by shimaspawn

It just has a couple of animal characteristics, face, hands, and feet. It is basically for all intents and purposes, human.

Err... I don't know about you, but humans typically aren't grey-skinned (or grey-furred. Pretty hard to figure out with Funny Animals).

And having the skull-shape of an animal is a pretty major thing.

edited 20th Oct '10 7:11:00 PM by Servbot

Looking around more, I'm seeing more inconsistencies with this page than I thought there were. For example, the Cat Girl page says..

"For less common Kemonomimi, see Petting-Zoo People. Possibly related is the "air intake"◊ hair formation found on long-haired characters, which might resemble cat ears..."

So Petting-Zoo People is about humans with animal ears? But then the following paragraph says..

"Compare this to Petting-Zoo People, where you'll find the literal anthropomorphic cat people, rather than characters that are essentially human but with fangs and claws that this trope is about. Some people might consider some of the examples posted here to really belong in the former, or vice versa."

So Petting-Zoo People does not include humans with animal ears, but only furry animal people? There are clearly two conflicting ideas of the meaning of this trope, and they're occurring within one paragraph of each other.

I agree we need a split. There's a big difference between Funny Animals, Kemonomimi and Humanoid Animals - right now, though, we have the latter two lumped together.

Kemonomimi are 10%, as the article describes, but Humanoid Animals are more like 20-50% - they have human physiques, but animal fur, tails and heads (at the very least, their heads look distinctly more animal than human).

edited 20th Oct '10 7:27:31 PM by Ryusui

So what we really have is three tropes. One for animal looking animals that act like people. One for people with ears and tails but are otherwise people. And one for the in between things which are currently being thrown wherever and are mentioned in bits and pieces by both trope definitions.

I'd sooner lump the third category with Funny Animal, myself. The difference is a lot less complicated than that between an animal with a human physique and a human with cat ears.

There's a lot of in between there though. And a lot of things that are almost in every way human, but for a few stay features like colour. Those aren't animal bodies. At what point to you draw the distinction? What about a lizard woman who looks like a human woman just with scales and a tail. Where would she fall in this classification system? I wouldn't call her a Funny Animal. She's not an animal. But she's too inhuman for just the ears and tail trope.

I think this calls for a new page: Sliding Scale Of Human Animal Hybrids! ..Or something.

I have a trope in the YKTTW called Humanoid Furry (Kemono) and it's supposed to be in between Funny Animal and Petting-Zoo People (Kemonomimi). Humanoid Furry (Kemono) is supposed to be a Funny Animal drawing style that features an animal head on a humanoid body.

shimaspawn, I'd consider a lizard woman who looks like a human woman just with scales and a tail to be a Lizard Folk that is somewhere in between a Humanoid Furry (Kemono) and Petting-Zoo People (Kemonomimi), but closer to Petting-Zoo People, in other words, of the 15% variety.

edited 21st Oct '10 12:04:36 AM by EdnaWalker

I also think that part of the trope is how they're treated by other characters. Are these characters treated as humans? Or are they treated like pets that happen to be a bit smarter? Scooby Doo and Meowth who are probably the clearest examples of Funny Animals are not treated the quite the same as the human characters.

Are these narrative tropes or visual-art-style tropes? Yes?

I'd say visual/art style. Getting into how they're treated by other characters will just make it stickier.

And how they're treated could vary by characters within a story. More serious settings often involve racism against them.

edited 20th Oct '10 9:30:00 PM by Clarste

And what do you do with works where all the characters are anthropomorphized animals?

Well, there's definitely a difference between creatures that are animals and look like animals, and animals with human physical characteristics. I don't think they should be lumped together.

@shimaspawn: Scooby-Doo is a Speech-Impaired Animal; Meowth is a Talking Animal.

The Talking Animal article even has a paragraph explaining how it's different from Funny Animal.

edited 20th Oct '10 10:03:31 PM by MetaFour

Mewoth is listed on both pages though.

I agree that there needs to be a split between Humanoid Animal and Petting-Zoo People too, Ryusui and Happy Mask Man.

Here is how I see the Humanoid Animal/Petting-Zoo People split. I think there should be three separate tropes just like you two do.

• A normal Funny Animal has all the mannerisms of a human character and could be replaced with a human and the plot would be nearly identical, but still have at least something of the actual animal's build.

• A Humanoid Furry (Kemono) is a type of Funny Animal whose design is basically an animal's head, tail (if the species has one), skin, fur, feather, or scale coloring and pattern, and even feet stuck on a fur covered (feathered in the case of birds and scaly in the case of reptiles) human body. Humanoid Furries are 20-50% as opposed to a Petting Zoo Person's 19% or less.

• A Petting Zoo Person (Kemonomimi) is a person with animal characteristics, often of the 10% variety: the ears and tail of their matching animal. Additional features, such as abilities, claws, horns and instincts, may apply.

edited 20th Oct '10 11:27:30 PM by EdnaWalker

I think that the tropes in question are not erroneous because they are not specific enough; I think they are erroneous because they are too specific.

How about lumping overlapping tropes instead of further splitting them?

(That is, I think all the ideas here should be pretty well-covered by Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism, Funny Animals, and Petting-Zoo People. Any necessary fixes can be made by editing those articles. Strongly against adding another similar trope. Please read the Lumper Vs Splitter article before commenting on this philosophy.)

edit: also, Leaper, the dictionary disagrees with you... humanoid means human-like precisely... "having human characteristics or form; resembling human beings"... "-oid" means "like"...

edited 20th Oct '10 11:48:05 PM by rodneyAnonymous

"I'd sooner lump the third category with Funny Animal, myself. The difference is a lot less complicated than that between an animal with a human physique and a human with cat ears. "

Yes. Strongly agree. If Petting-Zoo People means Firefox-tan, then that article should not contain references to humanoid animals, because that is significantly different. Proposed changes:

1) all anthropomorphized animals, from Scooby-Doo to Freya Crescent◊, Title: "Funny Animal", with "Furry" and "Humanoid Animals" as redirects

2) humans with animal ears and maybe tails, Title: "Petting Zoo People", with "Kemonomimi" as a redirect

(no change to Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism)

edited 21st Oct '10 4:52:50 PM by rodneyAnonymous