Needs Help (titles crowner 6/2/14): Medieval Japan

Well, this doesn't seem to get any more votes. Calling in favour of working on clearing the distinctions between the tropes.

edited 28th Aug '13 8:08:32 AM by lu127

Do we rename Medieval Japan?

Need a new crowner for that, I think.

Yeah. Medieval Japan would conflict with Feudal Japan and does not indicate that it's the Western portrayal.

The difference between Medieval Japan and Jidaigeki hasn't been really explained yet, even though the recently concluded crowner presumes it. Simply saying that one occurs only in Western media and the other is a genre of Japanese media draws a distinction I think is hardly tropeworthy.

Unless I'm mistaken, the first is a portrayal, the second is a subgenre of Period Piece.

edited 28th Aug '13 6:44:10 PM by StarSword

Jidaigeki is a genre of Japanese media. A drama made in Japan would use different tropes and structure than a non-Japanese work.

I hardly consider the difference between Anime and Western Animation to be tropeworthy, especially with the cross-pollenization of ideas, but it's an established tradition on this site that Occidental and Oriental tropes are kept separate.

Yet people do not care if a Medieval European Fantasy is made by non-Europeans.

That's probably a bad analogy as I don't know of a genre of medieval European dramas.

edited 28th Aug '13 7:06:23 PM by MikuruFan

Medieval Japan is a western portrayal of Japanese history, Jidaigeki is a Japanese genre.

I would support renaming Medieval Japan.

But as far as Jidaigeki goes:

If we use the word to mean anything other than a Japanese Period Drama set in the Edo period of Japan or earlier, we would be misleading our readers by using it in a different way than the rest of the world uses the term.

This is no different than making a distinction between The Western as a broader category and the Spaghetti Western as a specific category of The Western as defined by the fact that the Spaghetti Western is made by Italians and normally has a somewhat different set of conventions that previous traditional Westerns.

Please remember folks, that our job is to be descriptive, not proscriptive. Just because some folks don't see the difference between Anime and Bugs Bunny cartoons, and just because some folks don't see the difference between Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Seven Samurai, doesn't mean that the culture as a whole and the storytelling industry in particular doesn't make these distinctions and use different terms to describe these things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jidaigeki

Jidaigeki (時代劇?) is a genre of film, television, and theatre in Japan. Literally "period dramas", they are most often set during the Edo period of Japanese history, from 1603 to 1868. Some, however, are set much earlier—Portrait of Hell, for example, is set during the late Heian period—and the early Meiji era is also a popular setting. Jidaigeki show the lives of the samurai, farmers, craftsmen, and merchants of their time. Jidaigeki films are sometimes referred to as chambara movies, a word meaning "sword fight", though chambara is more accurately a sub-genre of jidageki. Jidaigeki rely on an established set of dramatic conventions including the use of makeup, language, catchphrases, and plotlines.

EDIT PS: I made some preliminary changes to the description of Jidaigeki. Are these satisfactory, or does anyone have any suggestions for more changes?

Also, I think that not only do we need a new name for the trope described by Medieval Japan, but that the term Medieval Japan should be a redirect to Feudal Japan, because the latter term is more commonly used.

Feudal Japan should, instead of being a redirect to Jidaigeki, be turned into either a disambiguation, or a history Useful Notes page like the Meiji Restoration page.

edited 29th Aug '13 6:27:12 AM by Catbert

I did think of making Feudal Japan a UsefulNotes/ page. Some of the content on Jidaigeki can be moved over.

edited 29th Aug '13 4:04:33 PM by MikuruFan

That would be a good idea for YKTTW.

"A drama made in Japan would use different tropes and structure than a non-Japanese work."

There likely are a good number Western works that have Shown Their Work and use similar tropes to Japanese-made ones, and there have been been Japanese-made works riffing on Western portrayals of ancient Japan.

I repeat that it's not enough to say things like this.

But that's exactly what we say when we split Anime and Western Animation. Despite the cross-pollenization, the West and East are still different cultures.

Decision is already made to retain current trope distinctions. No point arguing again.

Next step: We need to make a single prop crowner for renaming Medieval Japan.

I believe the examples should be moved over and misuse removed, then discuss renaming Medieval Japan because we may come out with something unexpected.

Bump after a month. I feel that the current descriptions only need a little retouching to work according to the crowner - anyone agree?

I feel like we're stuck because of the issue of renaming Medieval Japan.

We got a request to hook a single prop crowner, but before that happens - have the descriptions been tweaked per the decision in the previous crowner?

Upon rereading the descriptions, yes, they fit the crowner mandate.

Cool. The single prop crowner's hooked; I'll adjust the thread title shortly.

Votes bump!

The rename is at 5-0 yea/nay so far.

Another votes bump; 9-0 now.

This crowner's been around for months and is close enough to the 15 vote margin to call for the rename.