TAGGING SYSTEM AND OBSERVATIONS
In which I explain the structure of my posts and how I tag different themes.
OBS: I include variants and translations of titles in original posts, but the general tag is always the first.
****IMPORTANT WARNING****
This blog posts and reblogs panels/art from manga that have 1) dynamics that are/will become romantic/sexual between people under 18 and over 18; 2) age gaps in general that could make people uncomfortable; 3) incest, all kinds; 4) unhealthy and/or toxic relationships, some may have elements of dub-con/non-con in typical manga fashion; 5) exophilia and interspecies. There is (almost) nothing in the straight up Hentai genre, but some titles do come close. Proceed with caution and at your own risk.
OMS LIST
Initially, I thought I would be making review posts more frequently, but they do take a lot of work. One interesting aspect I planned to always put on them, that I think it’s worth mentioning as an introduction to this blog, is a section where I discuss ‘what is unconventional about this manga?’ Of course, the concept of ‘unconventional’ has a lot of wiggle room, but I made this blog to fit within my tastes that, as I grew up, I slowly realized encompassed a lot of outside-the-norm dynamics and – specifically for this blog – romance between characters. Basically, I plan to include pairings that stray from the F/M format of two thin able-bodied heterosexual cisgender humans with roughly the same age (or of a small or inconsequential age gap), where the guy is taller (or same height), traditionally masculine in appearance and personality (or dominant, broadly speaking) and the girl is shorter (or same height), traditionally feminine in appearance and personality (or submissive, broadly speaking). I might open exceptions if the romance itself is particularly unconventional or if there are extremely out of the norm aspects about any of the characters that don’t include age, appearance, personality and how they interact with each other.
As stated in the description, I am interested in main character pairings (due to personal taste, this is a blog mostly focused on F/M and F/F, but M/M will appear occasionally) with female characters that are either queer, dominant, masculine and/or taller (than a male character) and male characters that are either queer, submissive, feminine and/or shorter (than a female character). I am also interested in genderbender, crossdressing, age gaps, fat characters, incest, interspecies (and particularly, exophilia), characters with unusual looks in general, etc. Some bonus tags may appear like male characters with long hair, characters with glasses, disabled characters, teacher-student dynamics, polyamory, etc. All tags will be listed further in this post.
1)
*OMS LISTING POSTS*
When I slowed down on reviews, I started making oms listing posts where people can see titles properly tagged according to the themes that fit my blog. For these posts, there will be tags specifically for tracking within the listing, starting with an “l” (lowercase L). i.e. instead of interspecies, it will be l: interspecies.
The format is as follows:
*2 covers (pictures)*
MANGA TITLE ( +TITLE IN JAPANESE / KOREAN / CHINESE / ETC. )
Alternative title (usually in english) / Author(s)
Status (Complete/Ongoing), number of chapters / volumes
Category (F/M, F/F, M/M, etc.); relevant tags by MAL, AL, MU + my custom tags
SUMMARY of the story
MAL score (with link to page) AL mean score (with link to page) MU average (with link to page)
PERSONAL SCORE
2)
*THE TAGGING*
the name of the manga (without hyphens) will always come first, usually in the romanized japanese because this is how i grew up reading these titles. for korean and chinese titles, however, there will usually be tags both for the translated english title and romanization.
oms listing mypost → every original post will have this tag myedit → my manga panel edits myreview → rare breed. lol. a specific title will have the tag (name of the manga) review mycommentary → random talk. i might also do that in the tags of a post, though messages → people talking to me
[obs¹]
f → female character (or female-aligned) m → male character (or male-aligned) nb → non-binary character unkn → character of unknown gender
tags:
f x m f x f m x m f x nb m x nb nb x nb f x unkn m x unkn nb x unkn unkn x unkn
[obs²]
ag → age gap, shortened to avoid tumblr censoring yf → younger female character of → older female character ym → younger male character om → older male character ynb → younger non-binary character onb → older non-binary character yunkn → younger character of unknown gender ounkn → older character of unknown gender
tags:
ag → the younger the characters are, the more likely it is that small age gaps matter (for teenagers for example a 3-4 year difference is significant, while for adults, i would not tag that difference as ‘ag’ because it doesn’t matter anymore. if the age gap creates “tension” or a certain consideration, it will be added). sometimes, the aesthetic of an age gap may not reflect actual ages. usually, all aspects will be included. faux ag → visible age gap only in appearance (supernatural elements at play).
ag: yf x om ag: yf x of ag: yf x onb ag: yf x ounkn ag: ym x of ag: ym x om ag: ym x onb ag: ym x ounkn ag: ynb x of ag: ynb x om ag: ynb x onb ag: ynb x ounkn ag: yunkn x of ag: yunkn x om ag: yunkn x onb ag: yunkn x ounkn younger f older f younger m older m younger nb older nb younger unkn older unkn
cest → incest. shortened to avoid tumblr censoring. faux cest → faux/pseudo incest: recent step-family relations, parental guardians (guardians who explicitly step into a familial role), members of the family who have never known each other as family before and are not related by blood, etc.
taller f x shorter m tf x sm axe → the female character is no longer taller than the male character by the end of the work.
sub m → submissive (broadly speaking) male character dom f → dominant (broadly speaking) female character role rev → role reversal; shortened to avoid tumblr censoring. will be used when, broadly speaking, the traditional roles pertaining gender in a dynamic are reversed. it’s not required for the characters personalities themselves to stray from what you would expect from a woman or a man. sub m axe → the personality of the character and/or his tendencies change so much throughout the story that by the end he isn’t considered broadly submissive anymore. dom f axe → the personality of the character and/or her tendencies change so much throughout the story that by the end she isn’t considered broadly dominant anymore. role rev axe → by the end of the story, the characters no longer have a dynamic in a non-traditional way in regards to their gender
masc f → masculine female character (either appearance and/or personality/demeanor) or mix between fem and masc, emphasis on masc. fem m → feminine male character (either appearance and/or personality/demeanor) or mix between fem and masc, emphasis on fem. masc f axe → the female character stops being masculine at some point until the end of the story fem m axe → the male character stops being feminine at some point until the end of the story
genderbender → character defies societal expectations of gender by presenting strongly (albeit maybe not fully) as the opposite of the assigned gender at birth. includes transgender characters. androgyny also counts, as long as that is enforced by personal style and attitude/personality rather than simply a character's face. gb: ftm → character assigned female at birth bending their gender towards masculinity gb: mtf → character assigned male at birth bending their gender towards femininity gb axe → a character stops expressing their gender as the opposite of the assigned gender at birth cross dressing → character wears clothes traditionally or stereotypically associated with a different gender in order to look like that gender disguise gender → character conceals their assigned at birth gender from the main character and/or the majority of the characters. probably a plot point; very likely, it’s cross-dressing without innate desire to do so.
queer & ambqueer → one or both main characters are queer or ambiguously queer. this can include cross-dressers who state their assigned gender at birth, but not all of them (case by case basis). queer chr → one or both main characters are stated to be queer or there is overwhelming indication of it. lgbt → specifically for F/F & M/M couples or when at least one of the main characters is transgender, even if they are in a F/M relationship. although it’s completely possible to have an ambiguously (or clearly) bi character in a F/M relationship, for the sake of the tagging system, they will have to be out of this category. they will, however, be included in ‘queer character’ and ‘queer & ambqueer’. trans chr → subsection of the ‘queer character’ tag for when a main character is a transgender woman, man or non-binary person. trans m trans f nonbinary chr amb genderqueer → characters who cross gender presentation and/or roles out of their own desire (or have an internal arc about gender dysphoria or similar themes), but aren’t explicitly stated to be genderqueer will be considered ambiguously genderqueer. nonbinary axe → something that unfortunately happens often enough to warrant its own tag. a lot of times it’s when characters who were genderless in supernatural settings end up “choosing a gender”, are no longer “incomplete”, but rather “human”, or simply genderless / genderswap characters who firmly choose a single “side”.
interspecies → romance or ambiguously romantic/sexual relationship between characters of different species (including androids and robots) exophilia → one of the main characters does not look human. it could be that they are still human, but the tag still applies if there is enough contrast in appearance compared to a human person and typical “monstrous” themes to fit into the category (ex: experiments, zombies, under a spell, etc.) interspecies axe → by the end of the story, the two characters are the same species.
dark skin → i count for it every time the skin tone of a character is not the white base of the page, and that includes tanned characters, as long as they are permanently tanned or pretty close to it.
teacher student → although there are many types of imbalance of circumstances, this one is a classic.
fat or big frame → a main character is fat / chubby / has a wide frame. will be mostly from visual cues and can be an ambiguous status. obs: weight loss → character loses weight until they are thin and ends the story as a thin character.
atypical look f → female character whose looks are not usually seen in romance settings in manga atypical look m → male character whose looks are not usually seen in romance settings in manga
glasses f → female character who wears glasses glasses m → male character who wears glasses glasses nb → non-binary character who wears glasses glasses unkn → character of unknown gender who wears glasses
disabled chr → bit of a wildcard if it will be a tag considered on its own for a title to be a part of this blog or not. for example, it’s unlikely i will add a title in virtue of one of the characters being a pirate with an eyepatch. but if it’s a central aspect of the character, has plot or psychological importance etc, it can be added on its own (that is, even if no other main tag is present).
long hair m → i just find this way too rare for such a nice styling to give to a male character. long hair m axe → lmao. by the end of the story the male character has short hair.
semi canon → the characters had some kind of romantic/sexual/psychosexual entanglement, but they don't explicitly end up together (or it’s unclear, if coupled with ‘open end’). it differs from the ‘non canon’ tag due to the amount of focus and sexual/romantic discussion/subtext. non canon → the attraction or certain feelings might have been there, but the romantic hints do not get resolved and the characters don’t end up together. this tag will be very rare and mostly operate in the implicit capacity. implicit or ambiguous → it is not outright said/expressed the characters are romantically linked, but they have a lot of subtext, end up “together”, are life partners, each other’s number one priority in an intense way, etc. open end → even though the relationship ended or never came to be, the final moments of the story open a pathway for the characters to be together (usually, they meet again after time apart or they simply stand together to face the future, etc.), without clear indication of the fate of the relationship. side pairing → occasionally (but rarely) a couple of non-main characters will make a strong impression and will enter the listing of this blog. obs: cancelled → rip
polyamory → participants of an official poly relationship will be included in tagging in this order: f > m > nb > unkn. example: f x m x nb; m x m x unkn, etc. if there is a character who officially ends up with more than one love interest who are not themselves romantically entangled, the title will simply get more than one f x m / f x f / m x m / etc tag when applicable.
personal score: x → with x being a number from 1 to 10. i am a fairly simple person to please. if a story is set out to give readers something and it does give that something in a satisfying consistent manner, i usually give a rating as high as i would for the most out-of-the-box, existential, psychologically stimulating and thrilling narrative that gave me the same level of satisfaction. i usually guide myself using MAL terminology for the 1-10 grades, but i find masterpiece too strong of a word. if a work has no reasons to have any points retracted, i simply won’t, even if probably i wouldn’t call it a masterpiece.
[obs³] for reference: MAL score terminology
1: appalling | 2: horrible | 3: very bad | 4: bad | 5: average | 6: fine | 7: good | 8: very good | 9: great | 10: masterpiece
