Please give feedback about proposed 'adult' tags (mature, nudity, etc)

[sothis]

With anime, it was easy to not have to worry about these sorts of tags. Anything with nudity or non-hentai sexual content was flagged ecchi, and that was that.

However, manga presents a unique challenge in that a wider variety of sexual content (and a higher frequency) can occur.

Here at Anime-Planet we have to consider our younger visitors as well, so I think it's time we come up with a better set of age 'warning' tags.

Here's tags I've seen elsewhere or I think might be useful:

Adult
Mature
Smut (mangaupdates uses all three of adult, mature, smut and i'm not sure what distinguishes them)
Sexual Content
Explicit Sexual Content
Nudity (explicit nudity?)

I have a feeling adult and mature are less about sexual content, and more about the age audience. IE, a manga about a woman who was raped isnt for the kiddies, and thus might have a mature tag.

But how to distinguish adult and mature? Meaning a definition. Are both needed?

What's the level of cut off for listing manga? (IE, 'hentai' level or not)

Do we really need two tags for sexual content, if any, or should ti just be 'sexual content'? If the latter, what defines sexual content? If a manga or anime has a single implied scene, versus something like Futari Ecchi which is borderline hentai, should they really have the same tag, scaring people away?

Same with nudity. Plenty of anime have, say, a single nude scene (or cleverly covered nude scene) in a bathhouse sequence, but maybe no other nudity for the rest of the anime. Seems like in that case, 'nudity' would only be put for anime/manga where it's rampant (li ke Kekko Kamen). But then, it won't follow suit with other tags, which might confuse people. Or, people who watch the before mention ed bathhouse anime might think 'what? this has nudity! it deserves the tag'

Some people have expressed that we should put up even hentaiish manga because the lines are too complicated to draw in the sand. But then, that breaks suit with anime, where we dont list hentai. I don't know what to do.

Basically I'd like for everyone to discuss how to distinguish age appropriate tags... should we us eany of the above? If so, please say how you'd define each one, and when you'd use it.

Thank you in advance

[Drahken]

As I said in IRC when you brought it up weeks ago, I think there should be 3 or 4 tags, something like; graphic sex, sexual content, nudity, brief nudity.
graphic sex: This would be used for series that either contain a lot of sex, or have very explicit sexual scenes (even if it's just 1 scene per volume).
sexual content: This would be for ones that have just a few, non-explicit, sexual scenes, and/or ones which talk a lot about sex and/or have a lot of sexual humor, but don't actually show any sex.
nudity: This would be for ones which contain a lot of nudity, but not sex.
brief nudity: This would be for ones that have one or two nude scenes, scenes which indicate nuidty but don't actually show anything, etc. Alternatively, this tag could be omitted & anything which doesn't have enough nudity for the "nudity" tag could simply be left without a tag.

[cassiesheepgirl]

Hmm, it's quite tricky. My personal thought would be having like three levels:
Graphic/explicit sex, sexual content and mild sexual content. Graphic for when there is a fair amount of sex (though would this then be bordering on hentai?), mild for if there are only one or two sex scenes (there should probably still be a warning if sex is depicted - just to be on the safe side) and sexual content for anything in between, where there is some but it's not excessive. Then have nudity for anything that has some nudity in it but no sex, to be honest if there is sex then there's a pretty high if not certain chance of there being nudity.

Adult as a tag could be good, but it could be a little too general since it doesn't necessarily describe much. It could indicate sex, or high violence levels, maybe even drugs. It could also simply just mean adult themes where nothing is really shown but maybe just discussed.

I don't think you'd need mature as well as adult really, pick one or the other - or even none.

Smut is a weird one... I'm not necessarily sure if I'd use this one, purely because I'm not really certain where you'd use it for something that isn't hentai.

My mind is slowly falling further and further into the gutter so I think I should stop for now...

[AnarchicQ]

Explicit Sexual content:
It is what it is. Let's use...Sakuran as an example. She's a Oiren (basically a Geisha who has sex) and there are graphically sexual scenes, including oral.

Mature:
Now in Deep Love, the girl was raped but they don't show it (He's between her legs and blocking any view of her chest.) and there is some under the shirt groping but nothing explicit. They say "You'll have to let them cum on you" or "I want to cum in you" but they show nothing.

Confidential Confessions deals with prostitution, self harm, rape and things so I would put that as mature too.

Nudity:
There's nudity in Franken Fran but it's not explicit (surgeries, deformities, ect.) as is MPD Psycho.

Note that all these manga however, are graphically violent or gory. I don't know what you want to do about that.

[Wolfco]

You definitely want to use terminology similar to other places; so, users will have a decent pre-definition of the tags implications. I tend to agree that you should use tags in a sort of degree methodology. Following along with previous users, I'd go with the following:

Explicit Content - For explicit graphic depictions and terminology regardless of how much content actually appears i.e. you can see everything and it is a blatant inclusion.

Mature - For content that is inappropriate for children and for content that REALLY bothers certain people. If someone really has a distaste for NCS, they are not going to be pleased reading a manga that unexpectedly contains such scenes regardless of how glossed over they may be. And, I suppose it would help people find stories that feed their kinks as well.

Nudity - For content which is general non-offensive, but which might not be appropriate for or desired by everyone i.e. occasional non-graphic sex scenes or noticeably frequent nudity. This is that degree above ecchi that doesn't bother many people, but is something they might want to know about in advance.

I don't think you should break with your existing guidelines and include things that are clearly hentai. That isn't what anime-planet is about. I would say you can decide on a case by case basis. If you know the submitter enough to know they are telling the truth about the content, then OK. If you think it is hentai and don't know the user, then reject it. The submitter can always come back with proof it isn't really hentai.

[Gundevil]

I think it's a great idea to add them and I'd like the categories to be more specific:

Language
Strong Language
Nudity
Partial Nudity (buttocks)
Sexuality
Adult Themes
Suggestive Themes
Drugs and Alcohol
Violence
Strong Violence

[tatakai]

I read everyones thoughts and found it pretty interesting how everyone wanted to divide it up. However I think people are overthinking it a bit by wanting to separate it into
Language Strong Language Nudity Partial Nudity (buttocks) Sexuality
Adult Themes Suggestive Themes Drugs and Alcohol Violence Strong Violence

And as to the definition of MATURE, ADULT, SMUT, and ECCHI I will try to explain the difference.

ECCHI Ecchi is in almost all manga or anime and alot of times people don't know the difference between it and the other categories. Typically ecchi is just pantyshots and fanservice with no nudity or if it has nudity it would be showing silhouettes or a breast with no nipples.
Kanokon would be an example. However the last episodes of kanokon have the fox's nipples clearly visible, but due to the fact that they are misformed (they are shaped like hearts) I would label this show ecchi. Also Ecchi may include conversations that refers to sex without being explicit. An example would be " they seem really close since the field trip I wonder how close they are?" "giggle."

MATURE Mature doesn't neccesarily mean that it has to include sex or nudity. The mature rating is best used when describing a manga or anime that has themes that should not be shown to unprepared viewers. I would say that BLACK LAGOON is an example of a mature manga/anime. It doesn't have nudity but has a few references as to whether the main character (Rock) has slept with anyone during the timeline of the show. It also has alot of violence/blood/ people dying. The Mature rating doesn't necesarrily mean kids ( and by that I mean young teenagers) shouldn't read/watch. It just requires knowledge of Birds/bees, drugs, and death are. Alcohol doesn't need to be put in any category, it can be considered food when rating something. Even 5 year olds know what alcohol is and that some people are funny/drunks.

Violence I don't think violence needs a category of its own. Violence without blood is often found in manga and anime and can be described as action or combat. When people actually die and you see their bodies(and by that I don't mean you see their feet and not the rest of the body) and blood is everywhere that is when you might want to tack on a mature rating.
However that would require that it happens frequently and not just an isolated 30 sec blip. When blood is involved it doesn't always need a mature rating. It needs a decent amount of blood to be termed mature. An example would be the (real life) movie THE PATRIOT, where a guy has his head blown off by a cannonball and you see it fly through the air. Example If I video taped myself punching a guy in the nose and he got a bloody nose, that would not be mature just cuz there is blood. If I video taped me repeatedly taking a crowbar to someone's face that would be mature.

Language Language isn't often an issue in manga/anime as they use baka/idiot more than you f***ing Ba***rd. Usually whenever they have extreme language involved it is a anime/manga that is mature themed.

SMUT Smut is easy to explain. Borderline Hentai. Sex, Boobs, BOObs,Boobs, and Sex. That is smut. The only difference I've noticed between Smut and Hentai is that Smut revolves around a story and has lots of sex in it. Hentai revolves around sex, and has an attempt at a story in it.

Finally, Adult Adult is similar in content to Mature but is slightly different. Adult should not be viewed by children even if they are somewhat knowledgable or mature. An example would be if it actually showed sex straight up and showed everything ( including the man). The difference between Smut and Adult is adult isn't really a porno it just kinda happens during the story while smut it is everywhere.

Quick summary:
Ecchi is fanservice/bathhouse/swimsuit/boob siting but no nips.

MATURE Graphic violence, very explicit sexual conversations, not really any visible sex but maybe references or shadows.

*Note because Adult and Mature are so similar Adult is rarely used unless there is actual sex scenes that are plainly visible. As in I see everything.*

Adult Basically R rating. No kids.

Smut Basically it is a story with lots and lots of nudity and sex. Only thing separating it between hentai is that it is an actual story and not just sex with a makeshift storyline.

Sorry it was so long and I wonder if anyone actually read this far lol. Additionally If I was a little explicit I hope the nature of this topic excuses me.

[Sasukefanx12]

I think you really only need the mature rating not adult, simply cause adult is moderatly restricting, there are some adults that are very immature but then there are people who are not adults, that are very mature, so I think mature just works better. I agree with gundevil's tags except adult themes, because that could be an umbrella for many things and I especally like the Strong Language warning. Also I think there should be a Graphic sex and implied sex tag, because sometimes it leads you to beleive that characters have/had sex but it's not shown or just a harmless mind game. If you're going to put Hentai manga I honestly think u should do that for anime too just to keep it consistant, but keep them both either with or without hentai. Also if there's just one-three scenes with something not graphic, just slightly suggestive like said bathouse scene, in Absolute Boyfriend where a young girl is in the bath with her father and asks him about his "private parts" and the figure of a naked boy but shows only from the waist up, merely talking about the waist down or Naruto's sexy jutsu (fully naked girl but smoke acting as a censor, not even too much clevage is shown), stuff like that I think it just should b tagged suggestive themes or even minor suggestive themes. Hope this helped!

[sothis]

thanks everyone for all the helpful, well-explained opinions. :)

while on the plane i had thought about how to make 'mature' a little more specific, and i wonder about 'mature subject matter'. 'mature themes' would work as well, but regardless i think putting something after 'mature' would make it clear that it's the subject matter we're talking about, not necessarily an age stamp.

i don't necessarily think we should break down the tags as specifically as gundevil. that means someone would have to verify, for example, that there's very specific things; plus i think it'll confuse people.

but this is exactly why i'm not sure if everything HAS to be tagged. for example, only posting 'nudity' if there's a strong amount.

i mean, something like 'implied sex' will just turn off a lot of people - what if it's only one scene out of 26 episodes? we have no way of saying how much is in the anime or manga, there will just be a tag there. thats also why we only put up major tags period, so we dont overload people. so for example, black lagoon was brought up as an example of mature themes, because a few times the char implies who he's slept with. i'd disagree with adding the tag in this case. unless it's rampant, imo it shouldnt be put up, as it would be somewhat of a false impression of what the anime/manga is about.

think about movies we saw as a kid (even things like princess bride, or newer movies like shrek) - there's a lot of masked innuendo in there, but as kids we have no idea - not till later ;). even if there's an unmasked bit in there, we still tend to not understand. that doesnt mean, imo, they deserve a mature themes tag.

so i lilke the idea of 'mature themes' for THEMES of content (rape, etc)... but then we'd still need a sex-type tag to tag the actual ACTS of the themes. if rape is discussed at length throughout the anime but never shown, even slightly, then it probably would get mature themes but not a sex tag.

i'm still just stuck on if we should have a tag for minor sexual content; i think overtagging with such a tag will mean people avoid a lot of good stuff.

now, another question:
should we have other age-appropriate type tags? i dont want to move to a rating scale because it would be arbitrary. but right now we have 'family friendly' and potentially 'mature themes' - if we dont do adult, are there others we're missing? we could potentially put these on the tags homepage in a section, in case people want to find age-appropriate ones immediately.

[Drahken]

We really already have a lot of age related tags, they just aren't apparent to someone not at lease loosely familiar with japanese terms; shounen, shoujo, seinen (which isn't applied to a single anime on the site btw), etc. If we added more/english ones, it would just be doubling up on what's already there.