Should Chinese "Anime" be removed from MAL?

TinyTabun said:
I don't think they should be removed, but some clarification as to why certain shows make it in and others don't would be nice.

romagia said:
let me introduce you to anime db forum

guidelines: https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=141101 , this should explain why most anime are / are not in database
recent denials: https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=140439&show=350

posts of historical importance:
neo yokio denial: https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1668815&show=50#msg52578762
rwby denial, and explanation for chinese/korean anime: https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=635001&show=80#msg24064451

TinyTabun said:


This makes sense to me. Does this mean no future Chinese/Korean anime will be added to MAL?

romagia said:
no
similar to what pullman said, "As for Korean and Chinese animation, there were already some series in the database at the time of writing the guidelines. Since we decided to keep manhwa and manhua in the manga database, keeping Korean and Chinese animation as well allowed the database guidelines to be matched with each other."

Otako6789 said:
yes, because anime is only japanese

Platypus7 said:
The fact that so many people argue about where to draw the line between western anime and cartoons means that how we use the word 'anime' at the moment isn't clear. The definition saying it refers to only Japanese animation is outdated, or soon to be, because less and less people are using it to mean that.

Timz0r said:
Never encountered "Chinese anime" before, but if you go far in history, China IS kinda Japan and visa versa, hence why weebs mock anime is just being "Chinese cartoons". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Can you give us examples of these "Chinese cartoons" you speak off? I'm interessed for entertainment purposes.

Jumpdivine said:
I personally don't think it's fair to refuse to upload Western animation on the site, but include Chinese animation. It's a bit odd to me. Asian superiority complex?

Tennouji said:
It's kinda stupid to imply Chinese "anime so much and I don't know why should they remove. They're still anime and MAL only accepts eastern anime so we don't have only Japanese and Chinese anime but also Korean anime. If not eastern, then they only accept anime entries within those three regions that I mentioned. You should ask MAL why they don't accept western animation instead of it seems you're whining that Chinese(And you might want to include Korean as well) anime should be removed here.

>So for the sake of this thread we will only associate "Anime" with Japan.

No.

Only_Brad said:


Chinese anime are anime made in China
Chinese cartoon are anime made in Japan

Pullman said:



except it does, I clearly explained already how this situation came to be and why it is unreasonable to want to change it at this point.

ForestBalrog said:


I read your post, but I would rather have a cohesive site. Just because somebody put in the work before they laid out clear guidelines doesn't mean the site shouldn't be made more cohesive. I think they should just have Japanese anime and manga personally. Sure I read manwha, but I don't think it should be on here because it's not the same thing. I get that taking care of a site is a lot of work as I've had my own personal site since 2005, but it just seems lazy to make rules and then be like, "well, we added some Chinese and Korean stuff, so whatever, we'll just make an exception because someone did it before but no Western stuff still". Idk sounds lazy and like bs to me and they obviously aren't going to do anything about it but I can still call bs. Honestly I'm still pissed off for the practically 6 months of MAL having features down so your post trying to make people feel sorry for them does nothing but make me more irritated.

Pullman said:

I mean sure, you can want it to be more cohesive, but that doesn't mean the way it currently is doesn't make sense, like you said. It's not like anything that goes against your personal wishes or preferences 'makes no sense'. That's all I'm saying.

And I see literally zero upside of having people undo all the work and remove the korean and chinese anime from the DB. Just so your 'cohesion' OCD gets satisfied? Seriously, what is the upside of removing stuff that is already there? Like, a practical upside, not just something abstract like 'being cohesive'?

I just really don't get what people get out of removing these titles. Some people like me enjoy having them there and the rest barely even knows they exist and can just choose to ignore them. Removing them changes nothing about the functionability of the site for the latter, it only makes it worse for the people who do watch chinese and korean animation.

So to me it just seems like some selfish 'I want everything to be like I say it should be!!' that would change nothing of the usability of the site for the people who demand the removal of chinese/korean shows while taking away some options and features for people like me. All that for the abstract principle of cohesion, which is nice to have in theory, but not worth actively reducing what the site already offers just to acquire it in retrospect.

I don't know how exactly the site was managed in its early days either, but it definitely didn't plan on becoming this big and relevant. I think early on it just was a small private site and then when it became bigger the need for guidelines and rules arose and at that point people had already included some chinese or korean works so they figured why not include them as well in the guidelines, since it also makes some sense culturally and historically. I don't think that's lazy at all, on the contrary they decided to take on more work in those additional titles.

If you would rather have a purist japanese site, that's your right, but that's nothing more than your personal wish and there are many reasons why doing so at this point would be unreasonable and counterproductive. That's all I was saying. I don't like it when people voice their personal preferences by saying the other options 'make no sense' like you did, because it clearly does make sense in its own way and changing to your model has no practical benefit at all at this point so if anything, that doesn't make sense.

hazecloud said:

Chinese user said tencent company is bad so I try to avoid it.

jarring said:


I understand and kind of agree to a certain extent.
but i think it brings up stuff like Astro boy and other kodomo that have western influences such as disney.

so if Astro boy and kodomo that mimmicks disney is allowed, shouldn't Disney also be allowed?

I think it should just be restricted to "asian animation"..
if MAL added everything with asian influences, it would be hard to draw a line of what's allowed and what's not.

It would be very biased and unfair, and there would be more problems that would rise than it would solve.

Pullman said:


I mean sure, you can want it to be more cohesive, but that doesn't mean the way it currently is doesn't make sense, like you said. It's not like anything that goes against your personal wishes or preferences 'makes no sense'. That's all I'm saying.

And I see literally zero upside of having people undo all the work and remove the korean and chinese anime from the DB. Just so your 'cohesion' OCD gets satisfied? Seriously, what is the upside of removing stuff that is already there? Like, a practical upside, not just something abstract like 'being cohesive'?

I just really don't get what people get out of removing these titles. Some people like me enjoy having them there and the rest barely even knows they exist and can just choose to ignore them. Removing them changes nothing about the functionability of the site for the latter, it only makes it worse for the people who do watch chinese and korean animation.

So to me it just seems like some selfish 'I want everything to be like I say it should be!!' that would change nothing of the usability of the site for the people who demand the removal of chinese/korean shows while taking away some options and features for people like me. All that for the abstract principle of cohesion, which is nice to have in theory, but not worth actively reducing what the site already offers just to acquire it in retrospect.

I don't know how exactly the site was managed in its early days either, but it definitely didn't plan on becoming this big and relevant. I think early on it just was a small private site and then when it became bigger the need for guidelines and rules arose and at that point people had already included some chinese or korean works so they figured why not include them as well in the guidelines, since it also makes some sense culturally and historically. I don't think that's lazy at all, on the contrary they decided to take on more work in those additional titles.

If you would rather have a purist japanese site, that's your right, but that's nothing more than your personal wish and there are many reasons why doing so at this point would be unreasonable and counterproductive. That's all I was saying. I don't like it when people voice their personal preferences by saying the other options 'make no sense' like you did, because it clearly does make sense in its own way and changing to your model has no practical benefit at all at this point so if anything, that doesn't make sense.

Pullman said:
I mean sure, you can want it to be more cohesive, but that doesn't mean the way it currently is doesn't make sense, like you said. It's not like anything that goes against your personal wishes or preferences 'makes no sense'. That's all I'm saying.

ForestBalrog said:

As a site, having certain types of "anime" and not others makes no sense, regardless of your explanation, and I don't find it unreasonable at all to want the site to be more organized. Just my opinion, we can agree to disagree.

-SP- said:

It just seems like they are nitpicking what they want, I think it should be have one or have none.

deg said:
purist mindset you got there lol, if m in charge of MAL i will let every animation be added to the database considering the literal definition of anime is just animation in the japanese dictionary anyway so stuff like Avatar and Disney animation movies are called anime in japan too, the only downside is the growth of the database because of that needs a lot of moderators too

-SP- said:

I actually agree with what ForestBalrog said, romagia linked some interesting threads which happen to backup the notion that mods are just being lazy. Well I don't exactly mean lazy since you brought up how much stuff they have to do, but the Chinese and Korean stuff just happened to be there before the guidelines were put in place. So would it not make sense to go back and fix what needs to be fixed so it matches the guidelines? Kineta the database mod said this
"For everyone who doesn't know, MAL has two major defining points of 'what' is anime:
1. Who created it.
2. Who they created it for.
The exact rule in the Anime DB Guidelines states that the Japanese staff needs to be involved in significant staff roles of the production. In other words, the animation cannot only be outsourced to Japan; Japanese staff must have some creative control over the final product."
With that being said the Chinese and Korean stuff don't have the " Japanese staff must have some creative control over the final product" part of it.

Lunilah said:
Personally i wish there would be more western things added to it like those you mentioned, purely because this website is a western dominated one.

At the same time i understand and support that MAL stays strict with Japanese animation though.

zombie_pegasus said:
I think they belong here, just like how manhwa belong here since they attract a similar fanbase, but they shouldn't be called anime. Just like how anime is the Japanese word for animation, donghua should be what MAL calls Chinese animations.

ForestBalrog said:


Exactly my point. So if we have those guidelines but the site doesn't follow them, why have guidelines at all?

Anyways, I'm done with this. I don't make forum posts because you get jerks like Pullman who troll forums and want to fight with people. I just saw the thread, thought it was interesting, and decided to put in my two cents. In return, I got told I was selfish for giving my opinion. Well, Pullman is the selfish one because he wants the site to be the way he wants it. I just can't believe reading back through this thread when I see Pullman saying to -SP- that he couldn't read or comprehend. What a completely rude person. Pullman's obviously the one who can't read because he doesn't seem to be comprehending the issue or what anyone is actually saying. His opinion is no more right than mine and it's no less valid either, but he doesn't have any right to sit there and treat other people poorly. No wonder he's no longer a mod, what a loser. Anyways, like I said, this turned into something completely ridiculous. I'm done, bye.