Manga Characters should just be in the Comics Characters category

[The_Impress]

Like I know certain people want to feel special about reading that but the fact of the matter is... they're still comics, the medium doesn't change because you come from a specific country, alot of people do associate exclusively western media to the Comic Books category current, but that's not what matters, really.

The actual equivalent of the manga distinction for western characters would be, either European Comics or American Comics. (Which FYI I'm not particularly for having anyways), or even the more generalized Western Comics, but Comic Book themselves relevantly, should only connotate the MEDIUM, not the place of origin. Keep in mind this thread ISN'T about deleting the manga tag in the slightest.

Application if this passes should be fairly easy, just have a bot go through the Manga Characters Category and add the Comic Book Characters as well.

Not doing it for Anime files right now since there is application complexities to them.

 

[Emirp sumitpo]

Impress deciding to be spicy today huh?

I think this is fine

 

[The_Impress]

It's gonna be hella ******* sad if this ends up being a spicy take lol

 

[Confluctor]

Watch this gets rejected lmao

But ultimately, I don't really mind the change.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, manga has a different cultural approach to storytelling than comic books do, and the audiences do definitely not automatically overlap, so for the sake of our visitors getting a better overview to more easily find what they are looking for, I would much rather keep our current wiki organisation, rather than merge the Manga, Manhwa, and Manhua verse categories into Comic Books, Anime into Cartoons, TV Shows into Movies, and Visual Novels and Light Novels into Books, for example.

Also, we already keep most of them as sub-categories, so they are easy to find by clicking on the greater definitions anyway.

As such, I very strongly disagree with this suggestion, and will not accept it. My apologies.

 

[Agnaa]

Not doing it for Anime files right now since there is application complexities to them.

wdym by this?

And don't forget about light novels.

Also, should movies really be separated from TV shows? The difference is just the release method and duration.

Also, should visual novels really be separated from video games? Many visual novels have gaming related elements.

Also, that's not the only regional comic distinction, there's also Manwha that get separated out.

Also, should internet stuff really be considered its own thing? Webcomics are there but they often get physical releases, there's webnovels there which also often get physical releases, why the distinction? Animated web series and animated live action series occasionally get picked up by traditional publishers for later seasons. Hell, looking at the category there's a lot of just ordinary videogames there, like TF2.

Also, is combining by medium really helpful when most of the reason we have for this sort of separation is due to trends in the tropes, audiences, and types of stories told? Browsing experience is kind of made worse by combining these things with different communities.

Speaking of that, the "media" gallery on the front page would be much less useful if this goes through, due to the crossover between the tags making them less distinct.

 

[Antvasima]

I agree with Agnaa. We would barely have any distinctive medium categories left if this goes through, which would very negatively impact the convenience of our currently more easily overviewed wiki organisation.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

It doesn't look like Zark actually plans on "Merging them" outright. Only that she thinks Manga verses should get Comic Books added as a category in addition to Manga. All manga is a comic, but not all comics are manga.

But either way, I still do agree with Antvasima that I prefer to keep them separate and feel like when people search comics when they're specifically looking for Western Comics and there happens to be a lot of Manga characters on that list.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Might as well give all of them the book category...
There is being technically correct and being correct from a practical standpoint. The distinction has long since established itself in culture and business. In people's minds those terms refer to different things, so it makes more sense to list them separately.

It's much the same reason I would list peanuts as a nut in any situation that isn't a botanical one.

 

[AKM sama]

Agree with Agnaa, Ant and DT. The distinction in categories is fine as it is.

 

[Amelia_Lonelyheart]

If the "cultural background" is so important, then we should split American and British comics as different categories too. The British comic industry is far more similar to the Japanese industry. Comics released are typically in shorter 'chapters' compiled in a few anthology books that aren't related, only to eventually be released in collected volumes, and until recently, were notably in black and white.

Yeah, these similarities are superficial and reductive, but so are any reasonings for them not being comics. Hell, why don't we go even further with this flawed logic, why not consider Japanese films different than American films, or Japanese novels different than American novels? They have different "cultural backgrounds" too.

Hell, I don't even think the differences are that grand. They're both industries that are basically ruled over by a handful of publishers in which a few genre reign supreme. The genre are different but the same can be said for American and French or Italian comic too, but they're not being split. The methods of storytelling are really not that different, they're both typically serialized or released as limited, mini, or one-shot series. If you read comics outside of Marvel and DC or other superhero series, the differences between the two really start to fall apart. You could probably release Archie or Little Lulu in Japan with only slight altercations and they could probably fit right in.

Ultimately, the desire to split them entirely stems from a strange western tradition to put Japanese media on a pedestal completely unique from western influences or traditions, which is not the case. Ozamu Tezuka, the man often attributed with the birth of the manga industry, was heavily influenced by Scrooge McDuck comics and Superman. Several other anime and manga creators have similarly been influenced by western media as much as their own media.

 

[Antvasima]

Again, this is mostly due to more easily overviewed organisation due to the preferences of our visitors. Cramming all pages into very few medium categories would be very inconvenient for them, and separating them into too many genres that are not generally publicly recognised, such as the distinction between British and North American comic books (that also tend to have extreme overlaps between their writers and artists) would not be practical either. As such, I think that we have a mostly balanced approach between the two extremes currently.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Society doesn't really view regular books or movies as different mediums just because they came from Japan; where as Anime and Manga also have different packaging and different reading format in Manga's case. I don't want to say a comic being made of a different type of paper is the reason, but manga being read backwards instead of forwards is something people notice very differently. And it was Japan that pretty much introduced how unique story telling via comics and animation were given that other countries originally intended comics and cartoons to have mostly very loose canons and have most of the gags take priority over the existence of dynamic and round characters. With most exceptions actually being Anime/Manga inspired cartoons/comics such as Avatar the Last Airbender. That's like the perfect example of a series that would have fit in as an Anime if it was released in Japan.

I personally wouldn't mind separating American style Comics from British style Comics if there are more details, though "Comics" also doesn't just extent to USA and UK. A Comic written in Russia, France, Italy, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, China, Bulgaria, India, Australia, or Korea would all still fall into Comics category. Japan is just widely considered that unique combined with also being extremely prominent in doing its own thing where as the styles of how every other country contrast if many are like very obscured compared to how extremely well known Japan's distinction is.

DontTalkDT also makes a good point, we should might as well add the Books category for everything; Comics, Manga, Light Novels, ect. Visual Novels are also still released as video games general speaking so I'd affiliate that more as video games than I do books; as that's literally just a specific genre of video games. It's especially the Ace Attorney series and Zero Escape series were a VN is seen as games as there's like a bunch of puzzles the player has to solve and is not just following long walls of text.

 

[The_Impress]

Well, manga has a different cultural approach to storytelling than comic books do

European comics have a different cultural approach to storytelling than comic books do and manga does

Indian comics have a different cultural approach to storytelling than comic books do and manga does

African comics have a different cultural approach to storytelling than comic books do and manga does.

Means nothing, especially noting globalization through which I can begin invalidating certain Japan publsihed comics as manga and list western published comics as them, we're going this route.

, and the audiences do definitely not automatically overlap

See above, none of their audiences overlap

, so for the sake of our visitors getting a better overview to more easily find what they are looking for, I would much rather keep our current wiki organisation, rather than merge the Manga, Manhwa, and Manhua verse categories into Comic Books, Anime into Cartoons, TV Shows into Movies, and Visual Novels and Light Novels into Books, for example.

I never asked for their deletion, read OP

Not doing it for Anime files right now since there is application complexities to them.

wdym by this?

Certain overlapping between OVAs, TV series, movies and shorts being listed as "Anime" all the same.

And don't forget about light novels.

Also, should movies really be separated from TV shows? The difference is just the release method and duration.

Also, should visual novels really be separated from video games? Many visual novels have gaming related elements.

Also, that's not the only regional comic distinction, there's also Manwha that get separated out.

Also, should internet stuff really be considered its own thing? Webcomics are there but they often get physical releases, there's webnovels there which also often get physical releases, why the distinction? Animated web series and animated live action series occasionally get picked up by traditional publishers for later seasons. Hell, looking at the category there's a lot of just ordinary videogames there, like TF2.

Also, is combining by medium really helpful when most of the reason we have for this sort of separation is due to trends in the tropes, audiences, and types of stories told? Browsing experience is kind of made worse by combining these things with different communities.

Speaking of that, the "media" gallery on the front page would be much less useful if this goes through, due to the crossover between the tags making them less distinct.

These are all points I am fine with compositing as well, ye, but they're not the topic of OP. So derailment.

But either way, I still do agree with Antvasima that I prefer to keep them separate and feel like when people search comics when

Just make a western comics category. Easiest fix in the world.

Might as well give all of them the book category...

Books the category are a medium in this context, so no.

There is being technically correct and being correct from a practical standpoint. The distinction has long since established itself in culture

Which culture distinguishes between comic books net and japanese comic books? None do, none that are relevant in any fraction of a sense anyways.

and business.

No, comic book publishers also usually tend to publish mangas

It's much the same reason I would list peanuts as a nut in any situation that isn't a botanical one.

Irrelevant correlation.

All of these points are reliant on meme-misunderstanding of the OP, irrelevant parallels and overemphasizing minority opinions, hell minority misunderstandings. It's genuinely so silly.

 

[Antvasima]

So you only want to add the "Comic Book Characters" category to the pages that currently already have the "Manga Characters" category, not mess up our front page's organisation, that I showed in a screencapture above, for example? My apologies for triggering a series of misunderstandings in that case.

I also personally do not mind if we create more sub-categories for the "Comic Books" verse category than just Manga, Manhua, and Manhwa, via "American Comic Books", "European Comic Books", "Indian Comic Books", and "African Comic Books", or whatever their local titles are, but it would take quite a lot of work to apply.

 

[Agnaa]

Certain overlapping between OVAs, TV series, movies and shorts being listed as "Anime" all the same.

Oh, I figured you'd just merge it with cartoons. Does that mean you'd want to add cartoons into OVAs/TV series/Movies/Shorts as well?

These are all points I am fine with compositing as well, ye, but they're not the topic of OP. So derailment.

Pointing out that your logic clearly and easily applies to a dozen other things as well is not derailment.

If you say "I want to delete Saitama because his name starts with 's'", me pointing out "So would you want to delete Superman too?" is not derailment, and I'd expect everyone in the thread to develop an opinion that consistently applies to everything relevant.

So you only want to add the "Comic Book Characters" category to the pages that currently already have the "Manga Characters" category, not mess up our front page's organisation, that I showed in a screencapture above, for example? My apologies for triggering a series of misunderstandings in that case.

If it's applied in that way, it wouldn't mess up the front page's organisation, since the front page links to verses not character pages.

 

[Antvasima]

If it's applied in that way, it wouldn't mess up the front page's organisation, since the front page links to verses not character pages.

Yes, I am aware of this.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Which culture distinguishes between comic books net and japanese comic books? None do, none that are relevant in any fraction of a sense anyways.

Virtually all. In stores it has long since established itself. Yen Press is for example specifically a manga publisher and referred to such by itself and, for instance, wikipedia.
Virtually nobody with any familiarity in the medium would in an everyday conversation refer to a manga as a comic or to an anime as a cartoon anymore. The terms are technically correct, but the distinction is very much established.

 

[Antvasima]

I agree with DontTalk's last post above.

 

[The_Impress]

Virtually all. In stores it has long since established itself. Yen Press is for example specifically a manga publisher and referred to such by itself and, for instance, wikipedia.

That's like saying superhero comics is a medium when companies like Chapterhouse solely produce superhero media, and FYI Yen Press does publish regular ass comics because they made the ******* Twilight comics and W.I.T.C.H., are those manga now, DT?

One publisher primarily being into localisation of foreign titles due to specific resources needed don't get a separate medium, this is utterly nonsensical understanding of the industry.

Virtually nobody with any familiarity in the medium would in an everyday conversation refer to a manga as a comic or to an anime as a cartoon anymore

Who? This is genuinely terrible logic, nobody equates haha funny Mickey Mouse comics to Watchmen either if we follow this, we don't split that, hell people act like any comics from the Big Two are functionally distinct from all the other publishers, yet we don't have a "Third-Party Comics" category.

. The terms are technically correct, but the distinction is very much established.

Irrelevant distinction not asked to be addressed. I can make these kinds of distinctions between everything.

So you only want to add the "Comic Book Characters" category to the pages that currently already have the "Manga Characters" category, not mess up our front page's organisation, that I showed in a screencapture above, for example? My apologies for triggering a series of misunderstandings in that case.

Yes

I also personally do not mind if we create more sub-categories for the "Comic Books" verse category than just Manga, Manhua, and Manhwa, via "American Comic Books", "European Comic Books", "Indian Comic Books", and "African Comic Books", or whatever their local titles are, but it would quite take a lot of work to apply.

I can work on that and organise an effort towards it.

 

[Antvasima]

Yes

Okay. I do not particularly mind in that case.

Perhaps, @Damage3245 or @Elizhaa would be willing to add the "Comic Books Characters" category to all characters with the "Manga Characters" category via a mass-editing script then?

However, they should definitely NOT replace or remove the "Manga Characters" category. It is still important to keep for organisation purposes.

I can work on that and organise an effort towards it.

Okay, that is probably fine, but please try to find out the local most official titles for each of the most prominent geographic types of comic books. (However, we cannot sub-divide them to irrelevant and ridiculous extremes.) It seems inappropriate to just call them "[Continent Name Here] Comic Books" unless it is absolutely necessary.

 

[Damage3245]

I don't see the issue with making "Manga" a distinct category from "Comicbooks" any more than making "Anime" separate from "Cartoons". If you get into the nitty-gritty specifics, then sure, maybe they're not that different, but when it comes to online discourse for them then there is a huge amount of difference it is worth keeping them separate.

would be willing to add the "Comic Books Characters" category to all characters with the "Manga Characters" category via a mass-editing script then?

That strikes me as being very redundant.

 

[The_Impress]

I think European and American Comics are the typical names for them tho, it isn't really a strictly geographical split really,

 

[Antvasima]

I don't see the issue with making "Manga" a distinct category from "Comicbooks" any more than making "Anime" separate from "Cartoons". If you get into the nitty-gritty specifics, then sure, maybe they're not that different, but when it comes to online discourse for them then there is a huge amount of difference it is worth keeping them separate.

That strikes me as being very redundant.

We will not merge or remove any categories here as far as I am aware. That was apparently a misunderstanding on my part that spread to other members who read my post. My apologies about that.

I think European and American Comics are the typical names for them tho, it isn't really a strictly geographical split really,

I think that there is some local French name for European comic books, but am not sure.

Should we split North American Comics and South American Comics as well? They have quite different cultures.

 

[AKM sama]

Perhaps, @Damage3245 or @Elizhaa would be willing to add the "Comic Books Characters" category to all characters with the "Manga Characters" category via a mass-editing script then?

Even though they all are comic books, the terms "manga" and "comic book" mean different things for virtually all of the debating world. Literally nobody cares about being technically correct, the distinction is there in the community we adhere to and I'd prefer to keep it that way. This seems like a really pointless and redundant change and I disagree with putting any effort into it. There are other things where effort can be directed to rather than complicating simple distinctions. It also becomes a slippery slope for all the other categories that can be mixed like Agnaa pointed out above, which will become a mess rather than a simplification.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. Never mind then.

 

[The_Impress]

Even though they all are comic books, the terms "manga" and "comic book" mean different things for virtually all of the debating world. Literally nobody cares about being technically correct, the distinction is there in the community we adhere to and I'd prefer to keep it that way. This seems like a really pointless and redundant change and I disagree with putting any effort into it. There are other things where effort can be directed to rather than complicating simple distinctions. It also becomes a slippery slope for all the other categories that can be mixed like Agnaa pointed out above, which will become a mess rather than a simplification.

Y'know, how about you source "literally everyone" that thinks mangas are not comic books, and comic books can only exclusively refer to western comic books.

This is just an unnecessarily extended "no its not", you didn't add a fraction of a point.

 

[Antvasima]

Don't be disrespectful to DontTalk and AKM, Impress. I know that we are all largely under stress IRL from the world going to hell, but that is not the fault of anybody here.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I still agree with what the others said like DontTalkDT and Damage, but I still don't mind adding more regional names to various comic verses similar to what Antvasima proposed.

Also, Cartoon also usually means its own thing in which it mostly refers to shorts; I know a lot of people who don't consider Pixar movies "Cartoons" but simply "Animated movie" or Avatar and Ben 10 to be "Animated series" but not cartoons. As Cartoon seems to mostly apply to Tom and Jerry and Looney Toons based on what various animated movie critics such as Animat say. Technically "Animation" is the more generalized term for Cartoons and Anime or any medium that consist of animation of any style. Or even "Anime" not technically being a Japanese word, but just a word derived from "Animation" but with a Japanese style pronunciation that Japan has simply accepted as an official name.

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

Bump.

 

[Kachon123]

It's been almost a year.

 

[Agnaa]

Reading back through what staff members said, it seems like this was generally opposed.

 

[Lynieryz]

And then there's also the fact that apparently in Japan the term "manga" is used for any comic and not just comics of Japanese origin.

 

[KLOL506]

So... why is this old-ass thread still open?

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

Reading back through what staff members said, it seems like this was generally opposed.

And then there's also the fact that apparently in Japan the term "manga" is used for any comic and not just comics of Japanese origin.

So... why is this old-ass thread still open?

Should we close this thread, then?

 

[Agnaa]

ig so.