[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

The problem appears to be that you want people to just keep on coming up with random word combinations until we find something that you deem acceptable to define a genre that already has valid definitions...

No, it doesn't. That's the problem.

Many people use "Slice of Life" to define this genre, and some people object to that. My impression is that you agree with those who object to that.

Some people argue that "Drama" and/or "Coming of Age" should be the terms used for this genre, but there's issues with those ideas as well (especially once we get into your Melodrama/Drama genre separation suggestion, for very good reasons that totoum has already pointed out). Besides, most people don't think of "Coming of Age" as an actual genre, but simply as a narrative element (and there's a very good reason for that, which I alluded to you before).

because you, Triple_R, have decided that the existing definitions just aren't good enough.

I haven't decided that. The anime fandom in general has decided that. If the anime fandom were all cool with "Slice of Life", or if they were all cool with "Drama", we wouldn't have this no man's land situation with some shows.

And the anime fandom (and society in general, for that matter) has also decided that "melodrama" is a term that is used overwhelmingly as a narrative criticism. That's what I see every day on anime message boards throughout the internet, and on the anime blogosphere.

If a solid majority of people use a word a certain way, it doesn't matter much if the current Dictionary agrees with them or not. In time, the Dictionary definition will change to reflect the way the word is now most often used, not the other way around.

And speaking personally, I'm fine with "Melodrama" being used as a form of narrative criticism. The word works perfectly well that way.

There's nothing wrong with calling it a "coming-of-age drama"

There's plenty of problems with calling it a "coming of age drama" for reasons that I've already laid out repeatedly on this thread.

Now, I can see where this term might be useful for the study of cinema, so I can see where it might work as a film school term. But again, genre labeling is all about enabling people to find more shows that they're likely to enjoy, which is a bit of a different endeavor than educational analysis for its own sake.

And just based on the sorts of shows that I've seen the term "Slice of Life" applied to, I feel very confident that "Coming of Age Drama" will be similarly misused making it of dubious use as a genre label. The fact is that the main character of Accel World goes through as comprehensive a Coming of Age story as anybody in Tari Tari or Kokoro Connect does (and his coming of age story is more comprehensive than most of the characters in those two shows). Because of that, some people likely would apply "Coming of Age Drama" to Accel World. And to various Gundam shows. And to Gurren Lagann (even on this thread, Kirarakim has already indicated agreement with the idea that Gurren Lagann is a Coming of Age show). Eventually, "Coming of Age Drama" will become so broad that its usefulness as a genre label will be diminished.

It's simply not the best term to use here, imo.

But you've decided that people are likely to misuse it, so therefore it's not good enough. But that hasn't stopped them from apparently misusing every other valid term so far (drama, melodrama, slice-of-life), so how is creating a new term going to help?

But some terms tend to be properly used. Terms like "Comedy", "Romance", and "Sci-Fi". That's partly why I think that our approach to genre labeling should reflect what makes those genre labels work so effectively.

People will apparently just misuse those too and, rather than combating the wrong usage, your attitude is "it's a lost cause".

Words evolve over time, and some times there's a period where dictionary definitions simply haven't caught up yet. That doesn't mean that people are using the word wrong, it means that the word's definition is changing.

And actually, when it comes to melodrama, I'm pretty sure that the "narrative criticism" meaning of the term is part of the term's official definition now. I've also read definitions for "Melodrama" that don't indicate that it's a genre label.

Honestly, you're the very first person I've ever heard/read use "Melodrama" as a genre label.