Slice of life

Slice of lifeis a depiction of mundane experiences inartandentertainment.^[1]In theater, slice of life refers tonaturalism,while in literary parlance it is anarrativetechnique in which a seemingly arbitrary sequence of events in a character's life is presented, often lacking plot development,conflict,andexposition,as well as often having an open ending.

Film and theater

In theatrical parlance, the termslice of liferefers to anaturalisticrepresentation ofreal life,sometimes used as an adjective, as in "aplaywith 'slice of life' dialogues ". The term originated between 1890 and 1895 as acalquefrom theFrench phrasetranche de vie,credited to theFrench playwrightJean Jullien (1854–1919).^[2]

Jullien introduced the term not long after a staging of his playThe Serenade,as noted by Wayne S. Turney in hisessay"Notes on Naturalism in the Theatre":

The Serenadewas introduced by theThéâtre Librein 1887. It is a prime example ofrosserie,that is, plays dealing with corrupt,morally bankruptcharacters who seem to be respectable, "smiling, smiling, damned villains..." Jullien gave us the famous apothegm defining naturalism in hisThe Living Theatre(1892): "A play is a slice of life put onstage with art." He goes on to say that "...our purpose is not to create laughter, but thought." He felt that the story of a play does not end with the curtain, which is "only an arbitrary interruption of the action which leaves the spectator free to speculate about what goes on beyond your expectation..."^[3]

During the 1950s, the phrase was commonly used in critical reviews of live television dramas, notablyteleplaysbyJP Miller,Paddy Chayefsky^[4]andReginald Rose.^[5]At that time, it was sometimes usedsynonymouslywith the term "kitchen sink realism",adopted from British films and theatre.

In 2017, screenwriter and scholarEric R. Williamsidentified slice-of-life films as one of eleven super-genres in hisscreenwriters' taxonomy,claiming that all feature-length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres. The other ten super-genres are:action,crime,fantasy,horror,romance,science fiction,sports,thriller,warandwestern.^[6]Williams identifies the following films as some examples of films in the slice-of-life super-genre:The Station Agent,Boyhood,Captain Fantastic,Fences,MoonlightandWaitress.^[7]According to his taxonomy, drama and comedy are identified as film "types", not super-genres.^[7]

Literature

In literary parlance, the term "slice of life" refers to astorytellingtechnique that presents a seemingly arbitrary sample of acharacter'slife, which often lacks a coherentplot,conflict, or ending.^[8]The story may have little plot progress and often has no exposition, conflict, ordénouement,but rather has an open ending. A work that focuses on a minute and faithful reproduction of some bit of reality, without selection, organization, or judgment, and where every small detail is presented with scientific fidelity, is an example of the "slice of life" novel.^[9]This is demonstrated in the case ofGuy de Maupassant's novelA Woman's Life,which told the story of a woman who transformed an unrequited love for her husband into apathologicalaffection towards her son.^[10]

In the United States, slice of life stories were given particular emphasis by theChicago schoolat the end of the 19th century, a period when the novel and social sciences became different systems of discourse.^[11]These produced literary texts by researcher-authors that were written to represent the subject's stories and sentiment-free social realism using the language of ordinary people.^[11]It formed part of the late 19th- and early 20th-century naturalism movement in literature, which was inspired by the adaptation of principles and methods of social sciences such as the Darwinian view of nature.^[12]The movement was an extension of realism, presenting the faithful representation of reality without moral judgment.^[12]Some authors, particularly playwrights, used it by focusing on the "underbelly of life" to exposesocial illsand repressive social codes with the aim of shocking the audience and motivating them towardssocial reform.^[13]

Anime and manga

Slice of life anime and manga are narratives, which [take] place in a recognisable, everyday setting, such as a suburbanhigh school,and which [focus] on human relationships that are often romantic in nature. "^[14]The genre favors "the creation of emotional ties with the characters."^[15]The popularity of slice of life anime started to increase in the mid-1980s.^[14]Masayuki Nishida writes that slice of life anime and manga can still involve elements of fantasy or a fantastical world: "Fantasy is sometimes used as a means to express the 'reality' of human beings under certain possible conditions."^[16]Robin E. Brenner's 2007 bookUnderstanding Manga and Animeholds that inanimeandmanga,"slice of life" is a genre that is more akin tomelodramathandrama,bordering on absurd due to the large numbers of dramatic and comedic events in very short spans. The author compares it to teen dramas such asDawson's CreekorThe O.C.This genre claims a large section of the Japanese manga market and usually focuses on school andinterpersonal relationships.^[17]

One subgenre of slice of life in anime and manga iskūki-kei(Không khí hệ,"air type" ),also callednichijō-kei(Nhật thường hệ,"everyday type" ).In this genre, "descriptions of deep personal relationships or fully fledged romantic relationships are deliberately eliminated from the story in order to tell a light, non-serious story that focuses on the everyday lives and conversations of thebishōjocharacters. "^[18]This relies on a "specificity of place," as well as a "peaceful, heartwarming sense of daily life".^[19]Thenichijō-keigenre developed fromyonkomamanga, and includes works likeAzumanga Daioh,K-On!,andHidamari Sketch.^[20]Takayoshi Yamamura argues that the rise in popularity of this subgenre in the mid-2000s enabled the increasing popularity ofmedia tourismto locations featured in anime.^[18]

Stevie Suan writes that slice of life anime such asAzumanga Daiohoften involve exaggerated versions of the "conventionalized expressions" of the medium, such as "white circles for eyes in times of trouble, shining, vibrant big eyes to depict overflowing emotion, sweat drops, animal teeth, and simplistic human rendering."^[21]

References

^Jewell, Elizabeth J.; Abate, Frank R., eds. (September 2001)."Slice of Life".The New Oxford American Dictionary(First ed.). Oxford University Press.ISBN 0-19-511227-X.
^"Slice of life".Random House Unabridged Dictionary.2006.
^Turney, Wayne S."Notes on Naturalism in the Theatre".wayneturney.20m.com.Archived fromthe originalon 2008-05-14.
^Gottfried, Martin.All His Jazz,Da Capo, 2003.
^"Dowler, Kevin." Reginald Rose ". Museum of Broadcast Communications".Archived fromthe originalon 2006-04-23.Retrieved2008-06-20.
^Williams, Eric R. (2017).The screenwriters taxonomy: a roadmap to collaborative storytelling.New York, NY: Routledge Studies in Media Theory and Practice.ISBN 978-1-315-10864-3.OCLC 993983488.P. 21
^^a ^bWilliams, Eric R. (2017).The screenwriters taxonomy: a roadmap to collaborative storytelling.New York, NY: Routledge Studies in Media Theory and Practice.ISBN 978-1-315-10864-3.OCLC 993983488.
^Stuart Eddy Baker (2002).Bernard Shaw's remarkable religion: a faith that fits the facts.University Press of Florida. pp. 83–84.ISBN 978-0-8130-2432-5.
^Walcutt, Charles (1966).American Literary Naturalism, a Divided Stream.St. Paul, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. p. 21.ISBN 978-0-8166-5885-5.
^Lehan, Richard (2005).Realism and Naturalism: The Novel in an Age of Transition.Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 193.ISBN 0-299-20870-2.
^^a ^bDenzin, Norman; Lincoln, Yvonna (2005).The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research.Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. pp.16.ISBN 0-7619-2757-3.
^^a ^bAugustyn, Adam (2010).American Literature from the 1850s to 1945.New York: Britannica Educational Publishing. p. 71.ISBN 978-1-61530-234-5.
^Downs, William; Wright, Lou Anne; Ramsey, Erik (2016).The Art of Theatre: Then and Now.Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. p. 372.ISBN 978-1-305-95470-0.
^^a ^bRivera Rusca, Renato (2016). "The Changing Role of Manga and Anime Magazines in the Japanese Animation Industry". In Pasfield-Neofitou, Sarah E.; Sell, Cathy (eds.).Manga vision: cultural and communicative perspectives.Clayton, Vic.: Monash University Publishing. pp. 61–62.hdl:20.500.12657/30562.ISBN 978-1-925377-07-1.OCLC 953459173.
^Hernández-rogelio, Manuel generenze;scot (December 2019)."Otaku Tourists Out of Japan: Fictionality, Shared Memories, and the Role of National Branding in the Japanese Pilgrimages of Anime Fans in the United Kingdom".The Journal of Popular Culture.52(6): 1524.doi:10.1111/jpcu.12871.ISSN 0022-3840.S2CID 213535272.
^Nishida, Masayuki (2016-06-06)."Locality in Japanese Animation: Transboundary Interactions between the Animation Tamayura and Takehara City in Hiroshima, Japan".JSN Journal.6(1): 29.ISSN 2586-937X.
^Brenner, Robin (2007).Understanding Manga and Anime.Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 112.ISBN 978-1-59158-332-5.
^^a ^bYamamura, Takayoshi (2015-01-02)."Contents tourism and local community response: Lucky star and collaborative anime-induced tourism in Washimiya".Japan Forum.27(1): 60–61.doi:10.1080/09555803.2014.962567.ISSN 0955-5803.S2CID 143690685.
^Clyde, Deirdre (2020-01-02)."Pilgrimage and prestige: American anime fans and their travels to Japan".Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change.18(1): 63.doi:10.1080/14766825.2020.1707464.ISSN 1476-6825.S2CID 213737486.
^Tanaka, Motoko (29 July 2014)."Trends of Fiction in 2000s Japanese Pop Culture".Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies.14(2).
^Suan, Stevie (2013).The anime paradox: patterns and practices through the lens of traditional Japanese theater.Leiden: Global Oriental. p. 252.ISBN 978-90-04-22215-1.OCLC 844939529.

External links

"Film View; Mining the Eloquence of Ordinary People" by Vincent Canby.The New York Times,December 3, 1989

[1] Jewell, Elizabeth J.; Abate, Frank R., eds. (September 2001)."Slice of Life".The New Oxford American Dictionary(First ed.). Oxford University Press.ISBN 0-19-511227-X.

[2] "Slice of life".Random House Unabridged Dictionary.2006.

[3] Turney, Wayne S."Notes on Naturalism in the Theatre".wayneturney.20m.com.Archived fromthe originalon 2008-05-14.

[4] Gottfried, Martin.All His Jazz,Da Capo, 2003.

[5] "Dowler, Kevin." Reginald Rose ". Museum of Broadcast Communications".Archived fromthe originalon 2006-04-23.Retrieved2008-06-20.

[6] Williams, Eric R. (2017).The screenwriters taxonomy: a roadmap to collaborative storytelling.New York, NY: Routledge Studies in Media Theory and Practice.ISBN 978-1-315-10864-3.OCLC 993983488.P. 21

[:5-7] Williams, Eric R. (2017).The screenwriters taxonomy: a roadmap to collaborative storytelling.New York, NY: Routledge Studies in Media Theory and Practice.ISBN 978-1-315-10864-3.OCLC 993983488.

[8] Stuart Eddy Baker (2002).Bernard Shaw's remarkable religion: a faith that fits the facts.University Press of Florida. pp. 83–84.ISBN 978-0-8130-2432-5.

[9] Walcutt, Charles (1966).American Literary Naturalism, a Divided Stream.St. Paul, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. p. 21.ISBN 978-0-8166-5885-5.

[10] Lehan, Richard (2005).Realism and Naturalism: The Novel in an Age of Transition.Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 193.ISBN 0-299-20870-2.

[:0-11] Denzin, Norman; Lincoln, Yvonna (2005).The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research.Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. pp.16.ISBN 0-7619-2757-3.

[:1-12] Augustyn, Adam (2010).American Literature from the 1850s to 1945.New York: Britannica Educational Publishing. p. 71.ISBN 978-1-61530-234-5.

[13] Downs, William; Wright, Lou Anne; Ramsey, Erik (2016).The Art of Theatre: Then and Now.Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. p. 372.ISBN 978-1-305-95470-0.

[:3-14] Rivera Rusca, Renato (2016). "The Changing Role of Manga and Anime Magazines in the Japanese Animation Industry". In Pasfield-Neofitou, Sarah E.; Sell, Cathy (eds.).Manga vision: cultural and communicative perspectives.Clayton, Vic.: Monash University Publishing. pp. 61–62.hdl:20.500.12657/30562.ISBN 978-1-925377-07-1.OCLC 953459173.

[15] Hernández-rogelio, Manuel generenze;scot (December 2019)."Otaku Tourists Out of Japan: Fictionality, Shared Memories, and the Role of National Branding in the Japanese Pilgrimages of Anime Fans in the United Kingdom".The Journal of Popular Culture.52(6): 1524.doi:10.1111/jpcu.12871.ISSN 0022-3840.S2CID 213535272.

[16] Nishida, Masayuki (2016-06-06)."Locality in Japanese Animation: Transboundary Interactions between the Animation Tamayura and Takehara City in Hiroshima, Japan".JSN Journal.6(1): 29.ISSN 2586-937X.

[:2-17] Brenner, Robin (2007).Understanding Manga and Anime.Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 112.ISBN 978-1-59158-332-5.

[:4-18] Yamamura, Takayoshi (2015-01-02)."Contents tourism and local community response: Lucky star and collaborative anime-induced tourism in Washimiya".Japan Forum.27(1): 60–61.doi:10.1080/09555803.2014.962567.ISSN 0955-5803.S2CID 143690685.

[19] Clyde, Deirdre (2020-01-02)."Pilgrimage and prestige: American anime fans and their travels to Japan".Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change.18(1): 63.doi:10.1080/14766825.2020.1707464.ISSN 1476-6825.S2CID 213737486.

[20] Tanaka, Motoko (29 July 2014)."Trends of Fiction in 2000s Japanese Pop Culture".Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies.14(2).

[21] Suan, Stevie (2013).The anime paradox: patterns and practices through the lens of traditional Japanese theater.Leiden: Global Oriental. p. 252.ISBN 978-90-04-22215-1.OCLC 844939529.

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