Danbooru

Alias bishi -> bishounen

Posted under Tags

blindVigil said:

Bishi was created and populated a few days ago by a single user, it's just shortform for bishounen

Hi, I'm the single user and would like to weigh in on this. Bishi is NOT shortform for bishounen. It's an umbrella term for all of the bishis: bishota, bishounen, and biseinen. Bishounen, as it is currently defined, excludes bishota and biseinen. It also states to tag biseinen as mature_male and while biseinen can be mature males, the definition for mature_male states that the English equivalent for it is a dilf. So I created the pet tag for my posts to use when I wanted to look at the pretty guys and not the masculine ones without excluding the ones who don't look like they're still teens.

If builders think my pet tag should be aliased to bishounen, then I believe its wiki needs to be changed to recognize the usage of bishounen as an umbrella term. If not, let me create a biseinen tag. And if that is still unacceptable, then the wiki for mature_male should be changed to reflect any male who looks older than a teenager regardless of whether they look old enough to be a father.

Ostensibly speaking, wouldn't an umbrella term actually be bidan (美男)? Bishounen, bidanshi, biseinen and bichuunen all technically fall under bidan (also wait bishota is a thing?? I'd have thought that bishounen falls under that too, given the 'shota' range falls under early shounen).

In regards to how mature male is defined, that's primarily due to the origins of that tag and its female counterpart, originating as MILF/DILF tags effectively. The clause mentioned in bishounen about biseinen being tagged as mature male wasn't added until March 2021 by Benit149, a fairly recent addition that arguably doesn't reflect reality, so a biseinen tag would absolutely be something that someone could make (albeit having to detail what distinguishes it in the wiki, perhaps even more so than how bishounen explains itself).

Damian0358 said:

Ostensibly speaking, wouldn't an umbrella term actually be bidan (美男)? Bishounen, bidanshi, biseinen and bichuunen all technically fall under bidan (also wait bishota is a thing?? I'd have thought that bishounen falls under that too, given the 'shota' range falls under early shounen).

In regards to how mature male is defined, that's primarily due to the origins of that tag and its female counterpart, originating as MILF/DILF tags effectively. The clause mentioned in bishounen about biseinen being tagged as mature male wasn't added until March 2021 by Benit149, a fairly recent addition that arguably doesn't reflect reality, so a biseinen tag would absolutely be something that someone could make (albeit having to detail what distinguishes it in the wiki, perhaps even more so than how bishounen explains itself).

Truth be told, I was going to use bidanshi but I could only find a single article (in English anyway) that used it, so I wasn't sure how common its usage is. And yes, apparently bishota is a thing. It's not one of my things though and it sounded rather niche so I have no idea if there's even a user base for it on Db. Plus, like you said, the lower end of the bishonen range overlaps with the age range for shota.

I'm honestly surprised that milf and dilf were even allowed as tags given how subjective they are. I wouldn't mind spearheading a biseinen tag provided that a builder-level user gives me feedback on the wiki. This is a much broader concept than the last one I wrote so I want to make sure that it's clear from the get-go. There are enough problems already with vague and empty wikis.

Whisky_and_Roses said:

I'm honestly surprised that milf and dilf were even allowed as tags given how subjective they are.

Well that's exactly why we don't have those tags. Early danbooru was a lot looser with tags, and milf was just being added to any post with a mature female regardless of actual mother status, so it made sense to repurpose the tag into something more objective with a broader application as the site's tag culture became more strict to avoid becoming like sites like Ehentai and Pixiv.

Whisky_and_Roses said:

Truth be told, I was going to use bidanshi but I could only find a single article (in English anyway) that used it, so I wasn't sure how common its usage is.

I imagine you're talking about this article, and if we believe what it says about it being a term that only "recently... started gaining insane levels of popularity [circa 2016]" that would certainly explain why. Checking Wikipedia's article on bishounen, it remarks that "In the original Japanese, however, bishōnen applies only to boys under 18. For those older, the word bidanshi (美男子, literally "handsome man") is used. In the place of bishōnen, some fans prefer to use the slightly more sexually neutral bijin (美人) or the Anglicized slang term "bishie" (also spelled "bishi"), but these terms remain less common. The term binanshi was popular in the 1980s," so there's arguably room for a bidanshi tag, but it does seem to be more nuanced compared to bidan/bijin/etc. Would require more research.

Also, in regards to the use of 'bishie'/'bishi', TVTropes remarks how the term basically lexically bypasses the issues that has arisen from bringing the term 'bishounen' to the English-speaking anime community, where it turned into any attractive male, when as noted, that isn't the case in the original Japanese.

I wouldn't mind spearheading a biseinen tag provided that a builder-level user gives me feedback on the wiki. This is a much broader concept than the last one I wrote so I want to make sure that it's clear from the get-go. There are enough problems already with vague and empty wikis.

Yeah, that would definitely be the main thing to deal with when creating the tag, especially since it is a far less commonly understood topic, and one I could see folks having issue with if not handled properly (akin to the issues bara is seeing). Arguably, the wider BL-adjacent tags need some restructuring to make their stylings more accessibly taggable through their wikis (as an aside, yaoi being the hardest one to handle, since we use the term in the English-speaking anime community sense of just gay men stuff, not in the actual Japanese usage of the term, and you'd have a lot of trouble changing that).

Updated

blindVigil said:

Early danbooru was a lot looser with tags, and milf was just being added to any post with a mature female regardless of actual mother status, so it made sense to repurpose the tag into something more objective with a broader application as the site's tag culture became more strict to avoid becoming like sites like Ehentai and Pixiv.

I genuinely had no idea that that's what db was like in the beginning. Holy cow. I joined the site because of it's strictness about the quality of the art it hosts and about the tags being objective and defined.

So currently bishounen also includes grown men that are attractive in a youthful or androgynous way, while mature male is for men that are attractive in a manly way, often very muscular.
I think bishounen should exclude clearly grown men and a separate tag for pretty grown men be created. I'm willing to help sorting/gardening if such a tag is created. I'd support an umbrella tag for pretty males of all ages.

Damian0358 said:

I imagine you're talking about this article[.]
(…)
Also, regarding the use of 'bishie'/'bishi', TVTropes remarks how the term basically lexically bypasses the issues that has arisen from bringing the term 'bishounen' to the English-speaking anime community

Yep, I read both of those. I’ll skip the backstory; but for the sake of context, suffice it to say, I’m learning as I go – about both danbooru and Japanese culture. The extent of my pet tag knowledge came from the help:glossary so I only did some brief research before creating the tag and settled on using one of the English-speaking versions simply because that’s what I was familiar with. I didn’t think that it would have any value to other users as is. I was planning to write a forum topic at some point to ask about creating a biseinen tag or something, but I wanted a filler in the meantime. (rookie mistake)

Yeah, that would definitely be the main thing to deal with when creating the tag, especially since it is a far less commonly understood topic, and one I could see folks having issue with if not handled properly (akin to the issues bara is seeing). Arguably, the wider BL-adjacent tags need some restructuring to make their stylings more accessibly taggable through their wikis[.]

The more I contribute to the male_focus tag, the more I’ve come to realize how much some of the male genres need to be reworked for them to be more accessible to future new users. I’m willing to help with that effort, too. However, we are straight-up lacking a tag for pretty men and I’d like to focus my efforts on that first.

Nameless_Contributor said:

I think bishounen should exclude clearly grown men and a separate tag for pretty grown men be created.

I completely agree that bishounen should be limited to teenage boys. This BUR can be chalked up to the fact that I made the beginner mistake of creating a pet tag because there was no way I was gonna tag uploads of pretty, younger men with mature_male as per the current version of the bishounen wiki.

Updated

I agree with the above 2 users as well. @90sAnimeFan was also kind of looking for something similar in topic #20079. I think a biseinen tag would be perfect for that sort of thing.

There are quite a few tags that describe the style male characters are drawn in, and biseinen is one we're missing. We also definitely could use more discussion about the other tags we have just like we did in topic #20992 about bara, to hopefully improve the old wikis and encourage gardening.

I'm sure fans of these styles would appreciate the site more if we had different tags for them, and it could potentially even encourage new uploaders to join us.

Well, after a month, this tag still had the same posts it had when the BUR was made.

I see no point in having two different tags called "bishounen" and "the shortened form of bishounen", especially since every source I could find said that "bishi" is just slang for bishounen. If even the turboautists at wikipedia don't distinguish between them, don't expect our users to be able to tell them apart or even care.

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