SD Gundam reorganization

Posted under General

Looking at the Super Robot Wars Original Generation tag, I wondered whether or not it would make sense to make a tag for the original elements in the SD Gundam G-Generation, both characters and mecha (probably SD Gundam G-Generation Original), and suddenly grew concerned about the entire range of SD Gundam tags.

For those that don't know, SD Gundam is a subfranchise of Gundam which focuses on depicting the mechs in a chibi/deformed fashion. Part of the rise in chibi/deformed art was because of SD properties like SD Gundam, which immediately brings forward a question: if we have chibikemo, why don't we have chibi mecha? You probably see where this is going: SD Gundam is functionally a chibi mecha tag that's exclusive to Gundam, unified by that SD look whilst featuring a smattering of other stuff that's just lumped in because it bares the SD Gundam name (so we have SD Gundam G-Generation which only uses the SD look and doesn't go beyond that, we have SD Gundam Gaiden and SD Sengokuden which make the mobile suits sentient, etc).

Personally speaking, I think it would make sense to get rid of the SD Gundam tag and use it (and SRW) as a base to make a chibi mecha tag, or sd_mecha as it is actually called since searching 'chibi mecha' in Japanese only gives you Chibi Mechagodzilla (speaking of, do we need sd_kaiju/sd_tokusatsu too??), and have the individual SD Gundam tags just directly imply the Gundam series tag. For G-Generation in specific, it seems that there is no - in the title, and unlike Super Robot Wars, the individual game tags don't see much use, so we could probably collapse them all into G Generation and just have a sub-tag for the original characters and mecha.

BUR #41972 is pending approval.

rename sd_gundam_g-generation_f -> sd_gundam_g-generation
rename sd_gundam_g_generation:_monoeye_gundams -> sd_gundam_g-generation
rename sd_gundam_g-generation_ds -> sd_gundam_g-generation
rename sd_gundam_g-generation_wars -> sd_gundam_g-generation
rename sd_gundam_g-generation_cross_rays -> sd_gundam_g-generation
rename sd_gundam_g-generation_eternal -> sd_gundam_g-generation
rename sd_gundam_g-generation -> sd_gundam_g_generation
create implication sd_gundam_g_generation -> gundam
create implication sd_gundam_g_generation_original -> sd_gundam_g_generation

Collapsing the G Generation tags and correcting the - in the main tag before we can imply the G Generation Original tag, along with implying it to the Gundam tag.

Updated by Damian0358

I see no reason to get rid of the sd gundam franchise tag or unify it with other cross-franchise tags. We already have something for that, it's the search chibi mecha. If that search has too many false positives, we could also make a specific chibi mecha tag, but to me it makes no sense to get rid of SD Gundam altogether, when not all posts of it contains chibi, and not all posts of chibi mechas are SD Gundam.

See for example post #1357709: a non-chibified version of a design from sd gundam force.

nonamethanks said:

I see no reason to get rid of the sd gundam franchise tag or unify it with other cross-franchise tags. We already have something for that, it's the search chibi mecha. If that search has too many false positives, we could also make a specific chibi mecha tag, but to me it makes no sense to get rid of SD Gundam altogether, when not all posts of it contains chibi, and not all posts of chibi mechas are SD Gundam.

See for example post #1357709: a non-chibified version of a design from sd gundam force.

But there is no real SD Gundam franchise, it's just a bunch of various Gundam things which use the SD aesthetic. SD Gundam Gaiden is a series which parodies JRPGs and has the mecha as sentient knights. SD Gundam Force is set in a world where the Gundams exist as robots alongside humans in a Pokemon-esque fashion. SD Gundam G Generation is just same ol' Gundam, but it just uses the SD style for simplified depiction and gameplay reasons. There is nothing that ties these all together as a franchise except the chibi aesthetic. SD Gundam looks indistinguishable from Super Robot Wars art when the latter is depicted in the chibi/SD style, and that copyright has no way of searching for non-chibified designs like Gundam has for SD Gundam.

Damian0358 said:

There is nothing that ties these all together as a franchise except the chibi aesthetic.

"There's nothing that makes these posts similar aside from the fact that they all look similar". C'mon man.

In any case, post #1357709 and post #1445218 are unchibified versions of captain gundam, so a franchise-agnostic chibi mecha tag cannot be a replacement for sd gundam. It's not uncommon for SD gundam characters to get realistic fanart or even custom-made miniatures:

nonamethanks said:

"There's nothing that makes these posts similar aside from the fact that they all look similar". C'mon man.

In any case, post #1357709 and post #1445218 are unchibified versions of captain gundam, so a franchise-agnostic chibi mecha tag cannot be a replacement for sd gundam. It's not uncommon for SD gundam characters to get realistic fanart or even custom-made miniatures:

Yeah, and those can just be tagged with their respective copytags. You would have a point if we only had SD Gundam as a copytag, but we don't. Arguing that we should tag them just because they look the same is like arguing we should have a copytag for Fullmetal Alchemist and Gin no Saji, for Poptepipic and Honey Come Chatka!!, Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump, etc., due to the artstyles being the same.

SD Gundam, as it is, is mainly gundam mecha chibi. That's not a copyright, that's a style tag, and a specific style that, I will remind you, is not unique to Gundam since for as long as SD Gundam has existed. super_robot_wars mecha chibi looks exactly the same as SD Gundam, same with compati_hero mecha chibi.

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