All Kinds of Genre

So Irina wrote a very enjoyable post about Genre in anime. And since I woke up and can’t get back to sleep and have a headache, I’ll write a response because, why not? 😀

Irina makes some good points (= things I agree with), such as that we shouldn’t react in anger when people classify an anime differently. I don’t really disagree with anything they wrote, or at least not strongly enough to blog about it before the sun is up. Since they mention being ‘curious’ about Genre, and curiosity is what I’m about after all, I figured I’d throw in my two Lincolns’ worth.

In all honesty, these kinds of arguments aren’t limited to anime fans. As a grad student, I was interested in epic literature, which raises the question: What constitutes the genre of epic? Some scholars argued that epic could only include works from the Indo-European tradition, which would exclude things like the Japanese Tale of the Heike. Others limited epic to works in the Greco-Roman tradition, which excludes Indian works like the Mahabharata. I can see why you might want to exclude a work or two from the list, but I never understood why some insisted on limiting epic to a single work! One academic argued that the only true epic was the Illiad, another that there was only the Odyssey, another that only the Aeneid counted. One claimed that the Divine Comedy could in no way be considered an epic, while another argued it was the ultimate epic!

I can see why Chuang-Tzu threw up his hands and said we should stop arguing about names. After all, genre names, like all names, are arbitrary.

But can we? Genre just means “genus” (one is French, one Latin), and genus is half of any definition (the other half being “species”). Any time you define something, you start with one or more general (yes, same root word as genre) categories, then one or more specific (same root as species) characteristics that set whatever it is apart from the rest of the category. In other words, you describe what something is like, and then how it differs from those other things to which you likened it.

Mecha anime: A type of anime (genus/genre) featuring giant robots (species).

In short, genre is necessary for definitions.

And definitions are necessary for communication. Heck, they’re necessary for thinking! So arbitrary as they may be, definitions, genres, and words themselves are necessary for us homo sapiens. 😉

And because words are arbitrary, we can assign different meanings to the same word. How else could we cope linguistically with potentially infinite possible experiences with only a finite set of words? We have to be able to recycle old words in new contexts. This isn’t bad, it’s necessary. It just means we need to be aware of how we and others are defining the terms we throw about.

And genre is important when it comes to narratives. It sets up our expectations. Of course, we also expect those expectations to be thwarted at least some of the time (or the anime would get boring fast), so it’s a given that any decent work is going to push or break the rules of its own genre.

Yes, a (decent) work cannot belong to a genre without defying the features we associate with that genre, without transforming what that genre is.

Which implies that genre is something dynamic. It’s always in conversation with itself. What makes a work great is how it contributes something new to the collection of expectations set forth by its predecessors in the same genre. What makes it great is how it makes the old genre into something new.

It’s like any conversation. You can’t hold one if you don’t add something new to what has already been said.

So be aware of the limits and flexibility of words in general, and genres in particular, and you’ll be fine. Then we can get on with discussing the things that really matter.

Like why Sports anime stink. 😜