Slice of Life: what would be your definition and the year of first parution ?

[YaKai]

Hi everyone !

Out of curiosity, I have made some researches about SoL because I wanted to know more about this kind of manga/anime, as I know more about seinen/shonen than anything else 🤣
I found several definitions about SoL and I don't agree my friend's point of view about it so I wanted to ask you !
Also, I think it is a recent kind, in comparision of shonen/shojo/seinen/josei, but maybe I am mistaken 🤒 So if you have knowledge about it, or some article, I will be very glad 😙
Thanks in advance 😇

 

[Sticcersy]

For me, it is simply said as "The Flow of Everyday Life".

They are chapters of a single book. Typically light-hearted, it is a piece of fictional/non-fictional history. To me, SoL is about interaction. It's not about achieving one ultimate goal, but moving through life.

Here's an example, a Western one. Ratatouille! Spoilers, for anyone who hasn't watched it and probably wants to watch it anyway.

Spoiler

Ratatouille follows a rat, Remy, who wants to cook. Now the thing about Remy is that he gets to cook a soup and ultimately makes it his living as he uses Linguini in a symbiotic relationship. But the movie keeps going on, it's about Remy going through the thievery arc with his ratizens, but then he fixes it with Linguini and it's all good now, is it? No! They still have to impress the harshest critic in Paris, Anton. And they did it by creating a nostalgic dish for him.

The thing about Ratatouille is that it's not just one thing they're trying to achieve, and there's multiple obstacles blocking them from that path, but it's one goal after the other that they keep facing and overcoming. It is a story about an interaction between a rat that knows how to cook, and a guy who doesn't know how to.

Extending from this, SoL could be about anything, anywhere and anytime.It could be about a single rock on the ground and what the flows of time had done to it, to a soldier defending his city from neverending attacks. It could be about "What strange events had happened near this arch?" or "What was life like in the Meiji Era?"

What differentiates this from all the other genres is the goal that the character has. The goal of a character to become the best, or to defeat the demon king. In my opinion, that is not a series that has SoL as its' genre. Come to think of it, SoL could be said as the filler episodes in anime.

Also, Shounen/Shoujo/Seinen/Josei is more of a demographics genre, meaning that it's meant to pander to these people, not to what people's preferences are, from a mangaka's view that is.

 

[sbzkag]

@YaKai

I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but in general, SoL just means anything in a manga meant to depict an aspect of life as accurately as it can in the context of the story. With that being the broader and much simpler definition, it does have certain characteristics that separate it from others, such as:

1. greater focus on character(s) and their relationships whether intra or inter
2. generally open-ended, but this is more because the plot is focused on the mundane albeit elevated
3. greater focus on the actual and the immediate so it tends to really reflect an actual aspect of life so they generally make sense in real life

I view SoL as more of a style rather than an actual motif as they tend to meld things together with other genres. It bears a lot of resemblance to Realism in literature, but I'd argue that the main difference between them is that SoL is neither limited by class nor need to be objective in their portrayal. Because of this, SoL would be a broader genre that gives itself more room to experiment on portrayal compared to Realism.

I'm not sure what you meant when you compared this to shonen/shojo/seinen/josei since these were meant to indicate the target audience of the manga, like how when you visit a bookstore you'll find a section that says Teen Novels which isn't an actual genre imo. It's just that there's a general motif for these literatures: their characters' age which lets the reader put themselves in the shoes of the main character. You know, for immersion's sake.

Now, that said, I must admit that I am by no means an expert on manga nor do I have a body of literature describing and defining SoL to point you to, so take my reply with a grain of salt.

 

[kasajizo]

Slicing someone's daily life to pieces ig

 

[dudewithmagic]

I think SoL has been pretty much defined in this thread so I'll add my own interpretation instead. I'm not an expert but I've been reading manga for about a year.

To me a SoL is typically made through the stakes. A good SoL manga will never raise the stakes any higher than you could imagine yourself in, being able to relate is key. Since you can imagine yourself in the scenario even foreign environments like fantasy settings become more real to you. The rules of the genre are just templates, if you present huge issues as comically small you can still count as SoL. In https://mangadex.org/title/36123/isekai-de-tochi-o-katte-noujou-o-tsukurou he treats the demon lord like a neighbor. Since you can relate to having calm conversations with neighbors the scale doesn't matter (or in this case is comical). Conflict also typically doesn't scale or build on itself rather changes focus on location, character or instance.

You may admire Goku for his guts but you couldn't relate to his planet destroying issues despite the fact you both live on earth.

Also just being facetious but SoL is a genre where shonen/shojo/seinen/josei are target demographics, you could setup a SoL for any of them (most typical example is for male high schoolers).

 

[YaKai]

I thank you all for your answers !

By "comparing" SoL to shonen/seinen/shojo/josei, I meant the fact that in those target audience, your find the same "codes", you can easily identify a shonen by the fact that the protagonist will go on an adventure and achieving goals, for example. In seinen, you see our society in a more phylosophical and realistic point of view, that makes you think about it..

But I couldn't identify the "codes" of the SoL, as I wasn't able to realise that some anime I have seen were SoL, like for example Anohana, or Toradora, I was super chocked when I discovered it, as their stories are complete different, by all means.

And, as I am studying Japanse anime/manga industries and the policy of the Cool Japan for my thesis, I wanted to have a global point of view of SoL, not just articles found on the internet. So thank you for your help 😘