Merge "Shoujo Ai" tag with "Yuri" :planned:

[P0ck]

Thank you. It got hard to keep arguing in good faith and not just explode in exasperation, but this paid off in spades.

 

[crazybars]

@Plykiya

Wait a second, did you just say the Mods proposed a Sexual content rating for each manga?


What do you mean? Do you mean like a Numerical rating, or like a set of new Sexual content tags ranging from intensity etc?


You know what, I just deleted an wall of text. Please disregard my giant Wall of text if anyone actually read that one.

*edited: 12/9/19

 

[yassaimossai]

Some call it 'Yuri subtext', others call it 'yuribait', but like it or not it's a widespread genre in anime and manga nowadays, and there is currently no criteria that allows one to search for it on this website.

Seems like it would just reintroduce the problem with arbitrarily assigned tags. It's pretty much impossible to give a strict definition of what quantifies as "subtext", because it often comes down to your point of view. Many people would argue that series like Nanoha, Madoka and Saki have actual romance, even if there's no on-screen scissoring. On the end of the spectrum you have pure CGDCTs that have all female casts, but no actual romance and no chance of ever developing one. These can't even be tagged as "subtext", because that would require at least some romantic implications.

Having a "subtext" tag would just mean that a) some series will again be tagged inconsistently and b) people will start arguing about what is subtext and what isn't.

 

[Swain123]

@Teasday
@Plykiya

Please keep a borderline tag for yuri content. The idea that a new reader would read a bunch of shoujo ai, but will miss out because of only "gay" tags kinda hurts my heart. Getting rid of poetic, symbolic, or flowery feeling tags really only hurts readers. It doesn't have to be shoujo ai, but something obvious like girl's love is no good. I skipped over this thread because I thought you were on the readers side, and I'm sure lots of other people did too. It's only a vocal minority that want everything to be black and white.

As long as individuals are tagging, readers will lose easy access to borderline works. There's often not a lot of " evidence" for yuri or girl's love, when a work gets tagged as shoujo ai. I've seen arguments in threads against shoujo ai tags, but they were for works that would never even be called yuri. I've also seen the arguments that shoujo ai doesn't mean anything to japan. Fine, but at least suggest something that fills the same niche. At least we all know what shoujo ai means, something like girl's love absolutely doesn't mean the same thing. It's pretty easy to find manga that would fall through the cracks if the website made the change. Just search for shoujo ai and exclude yuri.

https://mangadex.org/search?tag_mode_exc=any&tag_mode_inc=all&tags=-38%2C28&s=7#listing

We find stuff like this:
https://mangadex.org/title/9177/shinozaki-san-ki-wo-ota-shika-ni
this would never get a gay tag, but is way shoujo ai.

Even stuff like
https://mangadex.org/title/15514/kobayashi-san-chi-no-maid-dragon

kobayashi would get a girl's love tag, but it was missing evidence for a yuri tag until way late in the manga.

And finally stuff like this:
https://mangadex.org/title/15976/shimanami-tasogare
The highest rated gay manga without black and white gay tags.
There's a comment on this manga:

Probably one of the best things this manga does is portraying the sheer terror of being outed during teenage years in a environment that can put anyone in the chopping block without hesitation for not being "normal". The other cases were also interesting but this one is a first for me in manga form. A pity it lasted for so little time, this is a great work in every aspect.

We could get rid of the flowery tags and tag this as yuri and yaoi, but readers that should see stuff like this will never see it or avoid it. Maybe you can argue that shouldn't be your job, but keeping it like it is already does that job. The way the tags are now are pro-readers.

 

[ilcane87]

Seems like it would just reintroduce the problem with arbitrarily assigned tags. It's pretty much impossible to give a strict definition of what quantifies as "subtext", because it often comes down to your point of view. Many people would argue that series like Nanoha, Madoka and Saki have actual romance, even if there's no on-screen scissoring. On the end of the spectrum you have pure CGDCTs that have all female casts, but no actual romance and no chance of ever developing one. These can't even be tagged as "subtext", because that would require at least some romantic implications.

Having a "subtext" tag would just mean that a) some series will again be tagged inconsistently and b) people will start arguing about what is subtext and what isn't.

Uh, but that problem will still exist, people will always arbitrarily choose what to classify as 'actual' Girls Love, and disregard the rest; you said it yourself, series like Saki and Nanoha will create debate about whether they should get that one tag that exists or not.
By adding a second tag for 'lesser degrees' of girls love, the series that don't make it to the first degree will at least get a label that makes them searchable, so even people who disagree with their evaluation can at least still search for them somehow, and therefore won't feel as bad about it.

 

[yassaimossai]

https://mangadex.org/title/9177/shinozaki-san-ki-wo-ota-shika-ni
this would never get a gay tag

It literally ends with a confession scene and a kiss.

kobayashi might get a girl's love tag, but it's missing evidence for a yuri tag.

No, it doesn't. Licking someone's shirt or blushing every time your "master" says something nice to you aren't platonic things, even if 90% of the manga is played for comedy.

By adding a second tag for 'lesser degrees' of girls love, the series that don't make it to the first degree will at least get a label that makes them searchable, so even people who disagree with their evaluation can at least still search for them somehow, and therefore won't feel as bad about it.

Series that don't make it to the "first degree" are series that have no romantic undertones at all (= comedy CGDCTs and similar works) and shouldn't be tagged with anything in the first place, in my opinion. If you're interested in them, you can still find them with comedy+4koma or other tag combinations.

 

[P0ck]

That's just weird. If you can tolerate flowery yuri, you're not going to be very opposed to any kind of yuri.

 

[Swain123]

@yassaimossai

It literally ends with a confession scene and a kiss

Played for laughs. Plenty of taggers wouldn't call it yuri.

No, it doesn't. Licking someone's shirt or blushing every time your "master" says something nice to you aren't platonic things, even if 90% of the manga is played for comedy

When does master even call herself gay or share feelings like that. She's into maid outfits, but even by chapter 36 her feelings have more to do with admiration than lust.

My point is that these things already aren't tagged yuri, and works like them would suffer the same fate. It would take more moderation and even more subjective decisions to tag them as yuri. That said I'd rather edit them out of my post, than fight about it. I'm not going to go through every manga to find perfect examples.

 

[Nevri]

@yassaimossai

I can see @ilcane87 point. There's plenty of works that you can interpret as having some gay subtext, but it's not obvious enough to confidently tag it as yuri, but for some it might be enough to enjoy reading it and look for it. But I also agree that it's unclear whatever or not it would be worth the inevitable discussion and arguments over whatever given works is subtexty enough. There's no need to rush it though. Let's keep that suggestion in mind and see how current change is going to work out for now.

@Plykiya I'm sad tag isn't going to be named yuri anymore, but I'm willing take it as a good compromise. Thank you for hearing us out! Overhaul of sexual content tags is great idea as well. I wanted to suggest it too, but since the whole discussion was about lowering the amount of tags I wanted to keep it simple and not overcomplicate everything again.

 

[GoggledAnon]

Gay admiration is still gay, Swain. (and if Tohru isn't gay enough for you, Saikawa definitely is)
If there's a series that you feel should have a gay tag but currently doesn't or vice versa, you can just use the Report function, provided you give a reasonable explanation of why.

Although I much prefer the term "yuri" overall, i feel Girls' Love is a good middle ground between the two terms, since it was the phrase shoujo-ai was derived from in the first place and is still a term that is used as an equivalent to yuri in Japan. Naturally, there'll be confusion over the rename/merge, but that'll likely go the same for all the changes the devs have planned for the site, and they'll likely do their best to explain what these changes are and how they work for the better once they're implemented.

As for subtext tags, much like what Plykiya said regarding filtering out the het, that's a story for another topic on another day.

 

[igenetycs]

@Swain123

Please keep a borderline tag for yuri content. The idea that a new reader would read a bunch of shoujo ai, but will miss out because of only "gay" tags kinda hurts my heart. Getting rid of poetic, symbolic, or flowery feeling tags really only hurts readers. It doesn't have to be shoujo ai, but something obvious like girl's love is no good. I skipped over this thread because I thought you were on the readers side, and I'm sure lots of other people did too. It's only a vocal minority that want everything to be black and white.

You can't just say that your side is the side of "the readers." Everyone in this thread is a reader. If you have proof that "the readers" are on your side, or that people who want the tags merged are a "vocal minority," please feel free to provide it.

kobayashi would get a girl's love tag, but it was missing evidence for a yuri tag until way late in the manga.

That's because Yuri is currently defined as explicit sexual content. Kobayashi is absolutely yuri going by modern definitions, and as you said yourself, it will absolutely be considered Girls' Love.

https://mangadex.org/title/15976/shimanami-tasogare

This series literally contains a lesbian married couple. In what universe would it not be tagged as Girls' Love?

You seem to be misunderstanding what's happening here. They are not making Girls' Love mean "explicit lesbian sexual relationships," the way they currently define yuri. Anything currently tagged as Yuri or Shoujo Ai will be tagged as Girls' Love when the time comes.

The way the tags are now are pro-readers

As a reader, I wholeheartedly disagree. The way the tags are now are inconveniencing readers.

 

[Swain123]

I'm sorry, boys love is a tag that already needs concrete evidence, why wouldn't girls love work the same way. In a perfect world everything is tagged correctly, but its never going to happen. Borderline tags that are hard to define like shoujo ai at least attempt to fill the gap.

@igenetycs
The way you want it will censor works, putting borderline works into the pile only hurts readers that haven't learn their preferences. That limits the growth of lgbt genres, and thus hurts every other reader. Less readers mean less works get translated and untagged borderline works get lower ratings.

 

[GoggledAnon]

How is "let's put all the yuri stuff in one category" censorship? Assuming that the ideal reader on this site should be at least 13-15 years (or at least someone who isn't offended by people swearing a lot), then it's likely that the lowest rating will still be in a relevant Teens/Young adults demographic. I dunno exactly what they're planning for the content tag rework, but something like Kase-san, which throughout its first series run has only one page with nipples and a tasteful softcore sex scene at the end, which is no worse than what you'd see in a TV show or movie, probably wouldn't need any additional content tags. It's only when the running theme is consistent smutty antics (eg. Sekai de Ichiban Oppai ga Suki) or full-on porn (eg. Tae-chan and Jimiko-san) where the content tags would come into play. And since users can freely customize which content tags they want to see, the only censorship is the one that the user choose for themselves.

 

[igenetycs]

@Swain123

I'm not following your line of reasoning at all here. Since when are the grey tags a form of censorship?

putting borderline works into the pile only hurts readers that haven't learn their preferences.

If they see a "Girls' Love" tag and immediately say "no, that's not for me," then they have already learned their preferences. The ones who are still open to discovering their tastes will try it.

The rest of the sentence is built on the faulty logic of the quoted line, so I have nothing further to add.

 

[Plykiya]

@crazybars refer to danbooru's ratings for an idea

@ilcane87 'subtext' is getting included in girl's love

it doesn't matter what level of gay shit it is, it's getting thrown in there and people will know it's "subtext" because there'll be no romance tag

speaking of which, girl's love is absolutely not a replacement for a romance tag and romance tags need to be added to a fuck ton of series because for some reason it's being left out when there's actual romance going on (had a series where two girls are literally getting married, saw no romance tag)

@nevri tag is being renamed girl's love because unlike with yuri there is no western definition known by a large group that makes it difficult to tag, like people who think yuri should only apply to sexual shit

girl's love and boy's love have less of a history

@Goggledanon absolutely right, gay admiration is getting thrown in there
doesn't matter if it's reciprocated, rejected, doesn't go anywhere, etc

one gay kiss between two people in one chapter (naruto) doesn't turn the series gay but subtle gay shit like in shinozaki-san definitely would get the girl's love tag since "love" can be present without the romance tag

ALL GAY ALL DAY
EVERYONE'S HOMO IN 2019

 

[Swain123]

the only censorship is the one that the user choose for themselves.

That's why I picked Our Dreams At Dusk. It's about a boy that doesn't want to be called gay, that rejects that "tag," but learns to accept it. If you didn't experience that then great, but I'm not going to argue that it isn't the default experience, especially on a worldwide site where I can filter for languages of countries that really can't handle that sort of thing.

Plykiya: lol I edited this instead of mine...

 

[igenetycs]

@Plykiya

Can you expand on this comment a little bit? The issue with making a blanket "subtext is getting included in girls' love" statement, is that subtext is up to the reader to assume. For example, some would say K-On! is subtext. Is that now a "Girls' Love" series?

I understand (and agree with) the idea of including anything that includes lesbian content, even if it's one-sided or unfulfilled. I think making the leap to include anything with "implied" Girls' Love would open an entirely new can of worms; that is, how do you define subtext?

 

[GoggledAnon]

@igenetycs I'm guessing there has to be at least some canonical basis (for example, Syaro crushing on Rize in GochiUsa would most likely count, as would some of the blatant crushing in recent Watamote chapters, come to think of it). I doubt it'll go as far as "two girls in spitting distance".

 

[deltarayedge]

I'd say there still needs to be some distinction for Iyashikei aka CGDCT. Though sadly the japanese publishers are pretty much the only reliable authority on the distinction between GL and some CGDCT that just lack males for convenience. Everyone else would just repeat the arguing. Anything is goggleable enough if you squint hard enough.

Really those subtext only lovers probably just want some sweet fluffy stuff but dislike r18 and/or homo in general and probably wouldn't think twice about self-inserting into a threesome or something. So maybe they just want "friendship", Iyashikei, normal story with light eye candy aka female only characters, or they want a self insert harem. Whatever they are interested in, it probably isn't yuri. None of them ever seem to be able to give a clear definition of where they draw the line on whatever subtext they call shojoai. Or it's just heavily down to individual taste.

That limits the growth of lgbt genres,

ridiculous, stop treating them as special snowflakes. there's no sports-lite, violence-lite, harem-lite, rape-lite, sex-lite, whatever-hardcore-lite. There's no stupid progression of "gateway drug aka whatever-lite" into whatever u may or may not consider full, and that may or may not be r18 based on each individual's arbitrary standards. why the hell does yaoi/yuri have this special treatment?

And yeah, blame the early scanlators and early "certain" "western" publishers for their idiocy marketing of yuri=adult and shoujo-ai = made up english term for non-adult that happens to have an awkward meaning in japanese. Or blame those lazy readers who can't be assed to research for 2 mins.

 

[Plykiya]

@igenetycs what goggled said