[hyl]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

No, the magical world is not the only point of the premise. A show that has just one person whisked into a magical world is fundamentally different than a show that has multiple people whisked into a magical world. The reason being that the lone individual has a much harder situation to cope with: They have nobody with them who shares their current situation, and so they have to make due on their own devices. Furthermore, the lone individual does not enjoy that same connection to "the real world" as the person who has the company of other people from Earth with him or her.

It's as different as an individual sport (like golf and tennis) is from a team sport (like hockey and football). The context is completely different. The narrative will hence have a completely different feel.

No idea why you are actually nitpicking and overanalyzing on such trivial details , seeing that by your way of interpretation even the Wizard of Oz doesn't even fit to your own discription because Dorethy was also accompanied by her dog Toto.
Which means she had atleast an emotional comfort from her own world accompanying her.

Also if we are going to be so specific, then every premise can pretty unique depending on how much element you want to see it narrowed down to.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

A few points:

1) InuYasha and Sengoku Otome is, in actuality, rooted in time travel.

Personally i don't call any of these "sengoku" animes with genderbend characters historically correct. Especially in Sengoku Otome in which there is not even a single male in the world.
It's more a magical version of an alternate world that has resemblances to the japanese history.

Inuyasha's settings is kind of debatable. Eventhough it might be the past, that itself is not that significant seeing that there is no such things as time paradoxes or other things related to time travel through the wormhole theory.
Especially what Kagome knows and brings back in the past.
Instead it focuses on a magical world instead of the actual past. I hope you are not implying that Inuyasha was about time traveling? Because for me it was more about the monsters and the hunt for magical jewel shards.
It's not even relevant whatever happened between Inuyasha's time and the present time for Kagome when it comes to all the supernatural in that serie.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

2) Tsubasa Chronicles doesn't have just one magical world. It's much more like the TV show Sliders.

I am aware it's not one magical world, but it's stil has the the basic premise of being lost in a foreign world while trying to get back home. Now you are complaining that it has more worlds, while you can simply see all of these worlds as different settings.It's not like that the group traveled to every location of each world, but rather a small portion of it.
Like The wizard of the OZ has many locations in it's own world like the Emerald City or Winkie Country.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

3) Rayearth involves three girls who support each other through every step of the way.

Personally it doesn't seem that relevant to me, but let's give it your way and scrap this one.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

4) Fuushi Yuugi involves two girls (and that fact is very important to the show, in multiple ways).

Unless you count the first chapter in which at the end the both of them returned to the real world, Miaka went to the world alone and Yui came later.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

So that leaves us with Dog Days, which is about a boy instead of a girl, but I'll concede that the gender difference isn't necessarily significant.

So, the premise behind Spirited Away is not at all a tired one. In actual fact, it's one of the rarer premises around.

Fine, more examples.

Escaflowne for a sole female protagnist
Garzey's Wing, Monster Rancher and maybe Zero no Tsukaima seeing that you did accept male protagnonists because of dog days.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

So you think that the premise behind Spirited Away is overused in anime?

So how many times does a premise have to be used before you think it's overused?

Depends on the audience. Some people don't care about another Nth weak male main character in a harem settings, while some get annoyed by it after a 3rd one.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Specifications themselves are part of the narrative concept insofar as those specifications are important.

Yet you can get too specific. Like how many stories are about an orphan ninja boy with sealed demonic fox powers inside of him, while trying to achieve his dream.
Aside from Naruto, good luck finding more animes with the exact same premises.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Look, here's what I think most of us mean by "narrative idea" or "concept":

If a friend asked you "What is anime XYZ about?", and you had to answer that in two sentences or less, your answer (as long as it's a decently accurate one), would sum up the concept behind the show.

I'm not sure how I can make it any simpler or clearer than that.

Still way too vague because it's for starters pretty subjective what some animes are about (those with themes which leaves to the viewers interpretation like evangelion) and some stories are too complex to fit accurately in just 2 lines.
It also depends on how far you are in the story. Like relentlessflame has posted somewhere in this thread, a premise based on the first few episodes is different than from looking at it as a whole after it has been finished.