Most of this page suggests that genre shifts usually happen as some kind of attempt to decieve the publishers/networks or the audience. Is the possibility of a *genuine* genre shift ever considered? As in, for a work that has been produced serially and was not fully planned in advance, that at some point a franchise may just end up changing tracks? Maybe the creator started experimenting with using aspects from some other genre in the work, liked the results, and just kept on going. Perhaps the creator felt that a story was stagnating and needed to try something different to keep it fresh. Any number of things can happen over the lifetime of a series.
I feel this happens a lot with webcomics. Here it would count as a Mid-Development Genre Shift if it weren't for the fact that most webcomics continue to develop over their production lifetime. I also think that might have been what happened to Lyrical Nanoha in the interval between Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha As (to say nothing of Strikers).
Pulp Fiction, quote:
"Part of the fun of Pulp," Tarantino said, "is that if you're hip to movies, you're watching the boxing movie Body and Soul and then suddenly the characters turn a corner and they're in the middle of Deliverance. And you're like, 'What? How did I get into Deliverance? I was in Body and Soul, what's going on here?'" (Body and Soul is a 1947 film noir about a boxer; Deliverance is the 1972 Burt Reynolds movie about a river trip that takes a disturbing turn into hillbilly rape.) Although some dismissed Tarantino's genre-shuffling as a cheap postmodern stunt, it was part of a deliberate strategy, along with the timeline jumps, to keep the audience off-balance.
Can we get a photo of Rosario Vampire to add under the Photo page/main page?
If you follow the development of the story in the supplementary History of the Lord of the Rings volumes, it soon becomes clear that this was actually Mid-Development Genre Shift, as Tolkien kept trying to go forward with the light and humorous tone and the plot kept getting away from him. He kept having to rewrite and revise, and each time he did, the tone shifted darker (although the early concept of "Trotter" (=Strider) as a Hobbit with wooden feet was pretty dark to start out with). Finally he gave up and started letting the characters and the story tell him what he was going to write.
Edited by Maven
I don't think Dragonball counts. It was always an action series and thus you can't really call it a genre shift. It shifted from being more fantasy- and comedy-oriented to being more sci-fi and serious, but that's more of a tone shift than a genre shift.
Bleach should be counted too? As we know the series started with Ichigo and Rukia hunting hollows but then when the Soul Society arc kicked off the series became more of a normal shounen?
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Description and Laconic are a mess.
, started by suedenim on Aug 16th 2011 at 11:31:48 PM
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