The administrator at the Princess Tutu Livejournal Community lays down the law: Princess Tutu is not magical girl shoujo. This post is actually about anime, but I think the points apply pretty well to the manga (I haven’t read this one, although it’s in the house somewhere). Her criteria are: It has to be originally from Japan, the protagonist has to be a girl under 16, the girl has to have unusual supernatural powers (as opposed to the ordinary kind, I suppose), the story has to focus on those powers, and the intended audience has to be under 12. I’m not sure where Princess Tutu falls short, but a lively debate follows in the comments.
The conversation is interesting in itself, but what’s even more interesting (to me anyway) is the admin’s contention (in comments) that all anime can be classified by genre:
This isn’t a matter of “fairness,” this was originally conducted as a scholarly approach to a specific form of media. All media can in some way, shape, or form be categorized into a genre and thus a subgenre.
Magical girl (mahou shoujo) is a specific sub-genre in Japan, she says, and
It is not up to American fans to define what the Japanese-origined subgenre is.
I don’t think this has much of an effect on the average fan (and note that ANN calls Princess Tutu “magical girl” in their encyclopedia entry). This writer is an academic, and she’s being analytical.
But I’m not sure the genres are so clear-cut. Even the publishers often classify books as more than one genre. And while the Japanese market books in a certain way to Japanese readers, it doesn’t necessarily follow that these books must be marketed in the same way to non-Japanese readers. Yes, I believe genre, or at least the perception of genre, is influenced by marketing as well as the contents of a book.
Livejournal member pink lightning gives her take on the debate here.
(Via Telophase.)
