Can we get a new Genre to reflect modern story line trends?

Isekai = Reincarnated/Transmigrated/Summoned to a different world/reality/Dimension/Time

This genre has become so common in recent years that I think it would be worth being able to either include or exclude.

Reasoning:
--There are examples of this genre in various countries of origin (Manga/Manhua/Manhwa) as well as in diverse genre (Shounen, Seinen, Shoujo, Josei, Yaoi, Shounen Ai).

--It has gotten so common that a lot of people are not even tagging it directly and at most only tagging a variant like (Reincarnated as Person with Death Fate) and not a general Reincarnation tag as well. There is a lot of overlap in the variant tags but no way to exclude ones you already checked or do an 'or' tag search.

--Also New material doesn't use the older genres as much anymore so there are a lot of newer titles with only 2 or 3 genres which makes it hard to search
-----Example Advanced Search for only these 3 tags (Romance, Fantasy, Shoujo) you get
---all time (657)
---since 2020 (inclusive) (404)
---past 5 years (2017 inclusive) (503)

Other Genres worth considering (Which appear across various genres)
Most Common

• Modern (or Modern Ambience setting)
  ---- Could be used for things based in modern times with no additions like office romcoms)
  ---- also could be paired with tags like Fantasy for modern ambience titles like [url=https://www.mangaupdates.com/series/39mavly/b-grade-guide]B-Grade Guide[/m] or titles that fit into the genre I suggested at the bottom
  ---- or supernatural titles
• Office Life
  ---found in standard modern settings and with supernatural/fantasy elements

Fewer but a distinct Catagory

• Regression/Time Rewind/Time loop/Time Travel (I am not sure if there is a common term for this concept but I consider it distinct from Isekai since there are a significant number of these that are not isekai like the below genre suggestion)

More specific genres, but useful due to quantity

• Something for the Korean trend of Towers/Dungeon/Awakening in often in a Modern type world (could be done with a modern, fantasy combo if a modern option was available)
  ---ex: Seoul Station Necromancer

Edits: Retracted Suggestions --- Hidden in spoilers since later comments reference them.

Some Cultural ambience options

• European/Western Ambience - common
• Asian/Eastern Ambience - common
• Middle Eastern Ambience - less common
• Africa Ambience -rare I can only think of [url=https://www.mangaupdates.com/series/x83vuqw/sora-wa-akai-kawa-no-hotori]Red River[/url] and a few other egyption shoujo titles off the top of my head

That's not a bad idea, to change isekai from content to a genre. It is a genre, since it's an overall concept that contains a lot of varied content within it. If there's a vote, count mine in for isekai becoming a genre.

I disagree with turning the other content tags into genres. Those are all content, not genres, as they are individual elements that do not encompass other content in recognizable ways like action, adventure or isekai do.

Also, just to make a note: Egypt is not African in the "ambiance" sense. Geographically, yes, Egypt is African. But culturally, architecturally and aesthetically, no. It's actually its own aesthetic, if you think about it. It helped spawn the art deco era of the 1920s and the one that came just before that.

Edit: I originally feared the "ambience" of (ancient) Egypt being described under "African ambience" was due to a misconception born from a recent "documentary" that's now being sued by the country of Egypt (their official historical culture department) for intentionally trying to rewrite their history in people's minds with lies. The next two paragraphs are the result of trying to set some of that record straight (even though, in hindsight, it was totally unnecessary).

There's a difference between the (historical) Afrocentrism defined in the 1920s, which was about recognizing where humans as a species came from, and the modern day (political) version/definition which is about claiming stuff as having an African origin when it was clearly developed/came about after people moved away from that particular cultural influence of Africa as humanity's roots.

The modern day (political) Afrocentrism is often the same as claiming ancient monks were the origin of rock and roll guitar solos because the drum set in the background has cymbals.

I'm a jack of all trades but master of none. Too many jars and not enough hands.

Just to give my two cents I agree that isekai should be its own thing. The rest, debatable at best.

-Sincerely, six angry cats in a trench coat

@ LazyReviewer - I was referring to cultural influences that originated on continental Africa. Not racial/political. I am aware of the "documentary" you referenced and I agree it is trying to rewrite history.

@MelonnBreadd - Isekai was the main one I wanted to propose, the others are extra suggestions based on the most common tag I use for myself (The difficulty is that Baka doesn't have an ability to exclude tags, just genres)

I agree that if Martial Arts can be it's own genre, then Isekai should as well. It's a district style of story that often follows the same motions, more or less. It's popular and I'd love to be able to filter it out without needing to use the various tags associated with it as you mentioned.

I don't think I agree with the others because they're way too subjective and/or the tags actually work for the level of variability in these stories. I don't think the ambiance ones really matter, nor do they capture any of those accurately. Accuracy matters a lot when you say it has an "ambiance" -- these are pretty superficial depictions of other places through the lens of predominately East Asian authors who have done varying amounts of research (I've seen some really nice ones with a lot of care put into the setting though). In addition, wouldn't every story be Asian ambiance if it's set in modern Japan or Korea...which is the vast majority of manga and manhwa? In the context of manga and manhwa, I think when you think Asian ambiance, you're thinking of a historical, which is already a tag. The other ones are too rare in the grand scheme to even be bothered with and when they are relevant the tags would be enough here. If this is important to people, they should tag it more consistently (I wish people would tag more consistently in general! ): So many great manga you just stumble on and they have no tags at all). Usually, it's pretty easy to figure out if it's a foreign setting.

Just repeating myself, but for stuff like Modern, you run into the risk of making searches more clunky because a lot of manga is modern. Office Life isn't a good genre tag because what's the line? The MC working in an office/being a salary man/OL, the setting being predominately in an office, how much before it's just a slice of life, which includes just working a lot sometimes but it's not the point of the story?

Also, not sure what the confusion was LazyReviewer...Egypt is in Africa and OP's point was obvious. I get that's a hot button thing, but it's not rewriting history to correctly say an African country is in Africa - it wouldn't be right to place it under Middle East either because 1) Egypt is geographically not in the Middle East, and 2) the Egypt represented most often is Ancient Egypt and that's very much not the Middle East when it comes to culture or even language. It doesn't even resemble modern Egypt. In my opinion, if I agreed with the Ambience thing at all, placing Ancient Egypt as it's own category, in my opinion, makes more sense since that seems to be the Egypt people go to in manga & mahwa (and it's not accurately depicted there, so...yeah, my apologies for assuming, but your comment just came off as bad faith or wanting to complain about things unrelated to the topic. Apologies if that's not your outward intention and if it's just an issue that bothered you and you wanted to use this as a moment to comment on it, but it just didn't make sense.)

http://i.imgur.com/LxhWm.jpg (will reformat this some day…)

I'm not against the idea of Isekai being added as a genre, but I'm also skeptical about how well it would go over on the whole, considering that there seems to be very little agreement on what does and does not count. For that reason, I think that being able to vote for or against the label (as we can with Isekai as a tag) works well in this case.

On the other hand, I'm very strongly against some of the other genre concepts, especially the ones based on "ambience" of different cultures. Suffice it to say that it's just kind of a practice of "othering" that would be at best stereotyping, at worst flat-out offensive to some users.

The ones about time period are honestly too subjective, in my opinion. Manga written in the 80's depicted what were at that time contemporary settings, events etc are to readers now representative of a period that is not contemporary. (To be fair, in my studies as a literature grad student I'm also generally against the term "historical fiction" because the vast majority of stories depict a time in a real or imagined history, so the same thing might make the works of, say, Natsume Souseki 'historical fiction' bc they reflect Meiji Japan--my point being that I'm more opinionated than the general user on this matter). I think tags and the voting system work best on this front as well.

I also don't think many manga/manwha/manhua should qualify for the historical genre. There are a few that are set in specific times but most are more of cultural element mashups of stereotypes. That is actually one of the main reasons I suggested an alternative to be the 'ambience' type genres, (I got the 'ambience' term from tags that are currently in use, it is not the term I use) It also would give granularity. I see your point about it becoming a problem with "othering" that was not my intention. I will remove those suggestions.

@lollylopmr and @flowinmyboat
The word ambience, according to Merriam Webster, means: a feeling or mood associated with a particular place, person, or thing.

I took that to mean atmosphere, aesthetics, architecture, and the other things that directly make that style specific to Ancient Egypt (which should have its own content tag because of how recognizable the mythology and visual elements are).

Thus, I mistakenly took lollylopmr's categorizing it under African "ambience", which I would relate to African tribes from the same period or earlier, or those that stayed relatively similar for much longer throughout history—which are much different in the architecture, culture, technology, and other ambience markers—as a rehash of information from some current hotbutton issues.

My goal was to inform, first and foremost. With that said, my diction was accusatory, and that's something I should have noticed and changed before it was posted.

I apologize for that, and will adjust my initial statement to one that actually matches my intended sentiment.

I firmly believe ancient Egyptian "ambience" should be it's own thing, as I see its culture, architecture, technology, and other visual and cultural markers had developed into its own very distinct thing that was very different from everything around it.

Just to make sure we're on the same level, I'm still talking about the ambiance/style, not the extended (more distant) historic roots which look and feel very different in that regard.

However, I would like to correct something that was incorrectly stated about me:

I never said Egypt was not in Africa, I said it was in Africa. My point, ultimately, was just because it's physically located in Africa, doesn't mean its ambience is the same as the rest of the continent when you hear about "ambience" (which is generally thought of as more tribal).

I hope that's cleared everything up.

I'm a jack of all trades but master of none. Too many jars and not enough hands.

@LazyReviewer
Don't worry about it. I was sick when I started this thread so my wording was a bit off anyways. As I mentioned in a previous reply, I only used "ambience" due to the popular tag "European Ambience" which has ~2,500 uses on MU. The ambience ideas other than European and Asian were to be inclusive.

**Please note that I didn't just randomly suggest genres. **
Listed below are some the Top MU category tag usage numbers
*the (#) is the top MU Category tags based on usage after removing all the intimacy/relationship/romance/school tags

-(5)- 21st Century - ~5,100 <--What I suggested as Modern since it would also allow for the modern style fantasy that is common now. (exs: B-Grade Guide where it was never "Earth" as we know it, Seoul Station's Necromancer where reality has diverged at a set point in time to introduce fantasy elements)
-(12)- European Ambience - ~2,500
The various Asian Ambience tags combined ~1,600

Isekai - At least ~2,500 titles even using only 2 of the tags that would be considered Isekai -
---I estimate that the real number is somewhere between 3,000-5,000

+tag "Isekai" ~1,800
+tag "Transported to another world" - 1181 (but you get 666 when you remove the ones directly tagged Isekai)

Top tags that I don't consider Genres
-(1)- Full Color - ~9000 <- this might be worth having some way to sort but it is not a genre
-(2)- Webtoon - ~8000
-(3)- Collection of Stories - ~7,700
-(4)- Based on a Novel - ~7,500
-(6)- Web Comic - ~5,000
-(7)- Harlequin - ~3,300 <- this is a distinct sub genre of romance.
-(9)- Adapted to Anime - ~2,900
-(10)- 4-koma/Yonkoma - ~2,500

Top tag that is a specific event and not a genre
-(11)- Death Family Member/s - ~2,500

Top tag that is under supernatural/fantasy depending on the story
-(8)- Magic - ~3,200

Fewer but a distinct Catagory

• Regression/Time Rewind/Time loop/Time Travel (I am not sure if there is a common term for this concept but I consider it distinct from Isekai since there are a significant number of these that are not isekai like the below genre suggestion)

It's "Time Manipulation" but nobody are using this as parent, but only if its power/magic. Anyway, those tags are often wrongly added. Most funny for me is when there was some time when i saw "Time Travel" in dozens isekais xD ("Isekai" literally mean "other world", not the same).

Time Rewind - Only mind travel back in time, like in time loops, and mostly only once. Like rewinding video to beginning, but no scrolling forward xD
Time Travel - Your body must travel. And can not only to past but can also to future.
Time Loop - Repeating the same period of time (often from day to few years) many times. I always think about "endless eight" from Melancholy of haruhi suzume when i see this tag xD
Regression - I'm not sure about that one, but if this is really separate tag... based on common dictionary descriptions, i think its just your body/mind is changed to younger self? While "Time Rwind"' rewind worlds time, this rewind only one person time.

Isekai is a subgenre of fantasy by definition. It´s sometimes a sci-fi subgenre but that doesn´t change anything. Making it a leading genre of its own makes no sense at all and I case can´t be made that it is so unique to Japanese literature that an exception can be made. Alice in Wonderland, adapted to anime btw, is an isekai and accidental travel is one of the umbrella terms for all of this. If Isekai gets a pass then the equally popular time slip/travel is also needed and then...

Our 2.5 issues: Supernatural fiction is a subgenre of fantasy by definition and the divide on MU kinda leads to weird tagging at times. In my eyes the biggest issue genre box has. Martial arts is a subgenre of action so it´s debatable if it is needed but categories didn´t exist back then so that is how it came about. Mecha is kind of a curious case. Clearly a sci-fi subgenre, very occasionally fantasy and not invented in Japan but is such a hallmark of Japanese genre fiction that we might actually need it. Might. The rest are all good.

I always played around in my head with what is missing as a genre on MU after tagging and categorizing thousands of manga and "Military" came to mind. Not only is there a glut of such works in a traditional sense -how many Warring States and Romance of 3 Kingdoms works do we have again?- but it´s also peppered all over genre literature. Legend of Galactic Heroes, Full Metal Alchemist or Gundam (most protagonists have explicit military ranks) come to mind. It still works better as a category in my eyes and MU already has 1 to 3 genres too many and of course a glut of categories due to being an open system. I am an industry professional and literary database management is my job. I had to make one from scratch in university and document that for 2 semesters but could thankfully delegate most of the coding to my partner. The one library science course that was actually hard.
If I can´t convince myself with my military as a genre idea then why should I bother admins?

I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

Quote from residentgrigo

Isekai is a subgenre of fantasy by definition. It´s sometimes a sci-fi subgenre but that doesn´t change anything. Making it a leading genre of its own makes no sense at all and I case can´t be made that it is so unique to Japanese literature that an exception can be made. Alice in Wonderland, adapte ...

By that definition of genre and sub-genre, science fiction is a sub-genre of fantasy, and should not be considered a leading genre, as it's a fantasy about a plausible future.

What's important is what the genre encapsulates without losing itself in another leading genre.

Isekai consistently has a few core elements that separate it from normal fantasy in the same way science fiction separates itself from normal fantasy (the "same way" meaning there are core elements that create distinct separation):

1. A character ends up in a new world different from their original world.
2. Main focus is placed on what this new world is to the character and how it affects their lifestyle.
3. Another main Focus is placed on how the world reacts to the character from another world.

An isekai is about the differences between different worlds and the impact (both immediate and long-term) that has.

Not all travel to another world is accidental, nor does it have to be.

Your examples, at least the ones I recognize, don't hold up in the same way.

"Military" is a subgenre, but "War Story" would be a leading genre, because war stories are always about what effect the war has. Maybe there's acton in it, maybe there isn't, maybe the war ended 10 years ago—but the main focus isn't on the action, it's on the effects of the war.

A story like Fullmetal Alchemist may have a war, but it's about Ed and Al's journey to undo their past mistakes. Their story is not a war story, but does have heavy military influence.

Alice doesn't actually go to another world, that entire experience is in her head, and in the end she gets treatment for such manic episodes.

Inuyasha is not an isekai because Kagome travels backwards in time, not to another world. Naraku the demon was a real historical person and demon to Kagome's modern day setting even if demons were mostly forgotten by the time she was born. (I'm throwing this in there as an extra example).

Isekai has a much stronger case than military, because military is essentially a thematic element, whereas isekai determines specific content and a kind of storytelling.

I'm a jack of all trades but master of none. Too many jars and not enough hands.