Talk:Slice of life

reword top
Top of Slice of life article says "For anime usage, see Slice of life story", but "Slice of life story" article has lots of NON-anime (Seinfeld, Of Mice and Men, James Joyce's Dubliners, etc). Change that "anime" to "fictional works"? --EarthFurst (talk) 21:45, 16 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Japon porno  sxs fil@mi 46.114.1.163 (talk) 19:39, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that Slice of life story be merged into Slice of life. I think that the content in the "Slice of life story" article can easily be explained in the context of "Slice of life" as it's just a more focused section of that topic, and the "Slice of life" article is of a reasonable size in which the merging of "Slice of life story" will not cause any problems as far as article size or undue weight is concerned. In fact, I think it will help the "Slice of life" article become a better article and will help expand it into a more standard size. Please offer your Support or Oppose opinion below, and be sure to include your reasoning for your opinion as this is a discussion, not a vote. Thank you for your participation. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 23:25, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Support as nom. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 23:25, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose I feel that there is a significant difference between the cinematic and theatrical meaning of Slice of life and the format of a slice of life story. They are really two different things and there are more than enough sources out there to improve both of them to fairly hgih-quality articles. Silver  seren C 01:28, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Not merge for several reasons. A comparison reveals that, apart from the mention of the French phrase, the two pages are totally different. "Slice of life" has fully referenced research with correct categories. "Slice of life story", as noted, has numerous issues, a request for attention by an expert, no explanation of the anime usage, an original research tag from years ago and many citation notices. The discussion page notes more than a few contradictions, with several remarks indicating subjective interpretations or errors. As I previously noted, there's a reason that Beat Generation and beatnik have separate pages even though the two topics have an obvious intrinsic connection; if merged, the distinctions would be instantly blurred. What makes "beatnik" stand apart would then become allied with "Beat Generation" in such a way as to generate confusion. Such an alliance was the original problem with the "beatnik" page before it was given extensive revisions. I believe a similar confusion could result here from a merger. Any suggestion for a simple "clean-up" after such a merger will be inadequate, as the original problems of "slice of life story" will not go away. They might even increase. Pepso2 (talk) 16:56, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Support There is a lot of overlap, at the very least. I think one is just the sub-category of the other.  --Havermayer (talk) 06:03, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Articles merged
I have decided to go ahead with the merger, discarding all unreferenced material except the claim of seasonality in anime slice-of-life. I have added a reference for the literary use of the term as a narrative technique. --IsaacAA (talk) 14:33, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Misuse of the term in labeling Japanese media
I don't think I will ever feel arsed enough to write an article on this topic, so I don't have a citation to go against the one citation the article has so far pointing to the meaning of SoL in Japanese media, and it seems pretty deeply ingrained in Wikipedia, being used as a genre/category for anime, but still, here goes; a critique of the usage of the term:

The term SoL seems horribly misused while categorizing anime/manga. It obviously has nothing to do with the original literary meaning, but let's leave even that aside. It seems most often a show is categorized as SoL when it's a mix of something cute and a comedy. (The cute aspect, or rather "heartwarming" when in more concentrated form, would probably best be termed "iyashikei": http://chrome.dasaku.net/?p=501) But such a show could really be laying anywhere on the scale from pure iyashikei to pure comedy. Examples on the iyashikei side would be shows in the previously provided link like Café Alpha and Aria, as well as (in my opinion) Yama no Susume, Hidamari Sketch, Non Non Biyori, and Barakamon, though these partly sweep towards comedy already. The majority of iyashikei shows incorporate a good deal of comedy so as not to become boring, like K-On, Ichigo Mashimaro, Mitsudomoe, Kiniro Mosaic, Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka?, A Channel, and Nichijou and Azumanga Daioh; in fact I've seen the last two called pure comedies despite their in part fairly heartwarming nature. Others can be prone to be labeled SoL when they're mostly or purely comedies, like Kitakubu Katsudō Kiroku, Nichibros, Joshiraku, Yuru Yuri, Kill Me Baby, and maybe even Milky Holmes.

It doesn't help that most anime fans would probably label for example Hyouka as a SoL, perhaps many of them Uchouten Kazoku as well, and some even Mushishi to a certain degree. Good recent examples of shows that are mostly drama/romance but are nevertheless also called SoL would be Nagi no Asukara and Glasslip. All these shows have iyashikei elements, and mostly no overarching plot, though they're not as lighthearted as all the previous examples, and notoriously don't do the "all girls main cast" thing, which should probably *not* be a criterion for determining the genre of a show.

So we use "SoL" for an awful lot of shows, which could be anything from a pure slapstick comedy that just happens to have an all-girls cast, to an atmospheric and heartwarming story with near to no actual comedy aspects, and a bunch of other stuff that brushes off the latter category and might just have a lot of drama. One never knows how much comedy, how much "chill out atmosphere", and how much drama to expect when hearing of a "SoL" series.

Now then I look at Wikipedia articles of various shows, it seems the term SoL is used mostly in overlap with what I would call iyashikei. At least anything with comedy aspects is clearly labeled as comedy aside from SoL, and non-comedy iyashikei shows like Café Alpha and Aria do have SoL listed under their genres, so at least Wikipedia is making a good logical categorization without conflating it with comedy, albeit using the wrong term. Still, the "Slice of Life" links on each of those pages lead one to this page which first explains the original and unrelated literary meaning(s) of the term, and then has some short and weakly cited remark on its usage in Japanese media, not even making it clear that it's primarily supposed to mean iyashikei, drawing a parallel to "teen melodrama" instead.

I would recommend Wikipedia to use the term iyashikei in place of SoL, and document the term SoL as a phenomenon of people applying a term to shows of a variety of genres, since it's unclear what it should mean as a genre. So far Wikipedia just uses SoL to mean iyashikei, which neither is fully conformant with the one given citation, nor reflects popular usage, nor makes sense as opposed to "iyashikei" which literally means "healing" and is thus a more adequate word to describe heartwarming atmospheric shows. If that terminological switch isn't possible, I would at least endorse clarifying the issue within this article, though that would probably boil down to admitting that Wikipedia chooses its own interpretation of the term "SoL" which would of course be unacceptable.

Maybe, if something on a talk page on Wikipedia can count as a source, given that I augment some of my above claims with citations, I can do part of the job myself, but it would be mostly pointless if we won't do a wholesale move from "Slice of Life" to "iyashikei", which requires cooperation. 2003:51:4A34:D592:213:E8FF:FEED:36FB (talk) 20:35, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comments. You are obviously very passionate about this topic, so it is good to see someone taking an interest. I recommend creating an account so it is easier to interact with you and so you can keep a watchlist of topics which interest you.


 * As for "slice of life", yes, there are an awful lot of them which also fall under comedy, drama, and several other genres, and that's perfectly fine. If there are specific articles you think shouldn't have that category, I recommend discussing them specifically on those talk pages and then leaving a pointer to the discussion(s) here so interested parties can participate. Categories can be hard to determine sometimes, and people can be over-zealous in adding them to articles (I know I've likely gone overboard a few times). We welcome your help on this. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WP Japan ! 01:23, 4 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I think the main issue here is not just that "slice of life" is put on too broad a range of Japanese anime/manga stories. It's also a term assigned by Western fans, rather than a genre as the Japanese would understand it. Looking at the list of Wikipedia entries in other languages, there seems to be no equivalent to "slice of life" in Japanese. One could argue that authors don't have the monopoly to define how to understand their work and that it is perfectly fine if Western audiences put their own genre name on Japanese works. But if it doesn't even apply to the same type of stories as in Europe and America, it makes no longer sense to me. --2A01:C23:6475:2E00:258B:631C:D3EE:6E33 (talk) 12:41, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, I think that the term is actually a conflation of the theatrical term and the literary term. What the literary basis is, is the "slice of life narrative technique" which is basically self-contained vignettes with a set cast of characters. This is the main thing that distinguishes slice of life anime from the higher-profile "plot" animes, whereas the iyashikei connection borrows more from the theatrical sense of "slice of life dialogue". So, vignettes = slice of life narrative, while drama = "slice of life dialogue". The two meanings are separate but may overlap. I moved the literary meaning above the anime one and pointed out it alludes to both meanings that are already cited, while pointing out that the cited meaning is in fact the view of one particular author. If there is a legitimate dispute or disonnance with the definition, then the front page should span the range of views, not act like there is consensus when there is not. 120.21.189.135 (talk) 10:26, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Currency?
Is this term still actively used? It seems to have fallen out of use around the early 1990s. Viriditas (talk) 09:24, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Literature
As examples of literature (fiction), both Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird are considered "slice of life" novels, as they are " Slice of life refers to a naturalistic representation of real life which has been cut out of a larger story." (http://www.goodreads.com/genres/slice-of-life) or "are made up of stories that may or may not have a plot, but show a portion of the main character’s everyday life. The books in this genre contain events that can happen in real life to real people. But, instead of encompassing the person’s entire life in the book (from a point to ultimate end), they show the matters of consequence of current time and events for the main character that affects their wellbeing in some way." (http://book-genres.com/slice-of-life-fiction-genre/). I will try to find some better corroboration of this before editing the page... EricGrunwald (talk) 16:01, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Attempt to use page for self-promotion
I just joined the wikipedia community and this is my first post under a "talk" heading. I apologize if this is not the correct place to point this out, but it appears that the articles refers to a "French playlight, Jean Jullien (1854-1919)". The terms "French" and "Playwright" are linked to other wikipedia articles, but "Jean Jullien" is not linked. The sentence has a reference that I do not have the means to verify. A Google search of Jean Jullien yields a wikipedia article about a 33 Year old graphic designer. At the risk of offending Mr. Jullien, I would like to draw attention to the notion that perhaps this article (and the article on Jean Jullien) do not meet the standards of Notability. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Db0s (talk • contribs) 07:03, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

... You'll find that if you google the playwright in question there are citations, but they're in French. The similarity in name to the graphic designer is purely coincidental, not any sort of self-promotion. Anyway I'm not sure how that suggests that the Slice of Life article itself as a whole isn't notable. The term is part of literary and film history, and thus is it appropriate to have an article explaining it. 120.21.189.135 (talk) 10:24, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Robin Brenner definition of slice of life on anime/manga is highly questionable.
Robin Brenner definition of slice of life makes no sense,not every slice of life is set on a school and/or have comedy,Jiro Taniguchi's works for example are more akin tp the literary example of slice of life,not mention the amount of wrong information on the book like she tagging Nana as Josei instead of shoujo,or pretty much classifying seinen as Genre,instead of demographic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2804:14C:85A3:48E1:BCA7:317C:B71:9B51 (talk) 17:03, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Misuse or misunderstanding of Kitchen Sink Realism
Can someone cite an example of the phrase kitchen sink realism being used as a perjorative?