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I mean are they on-topic, off-topic or what?

This meta question seems to suggest Avatar: The Last Airbender (A:TLA), The Legend of Korra (TLoK), RWBY, etc. are off-topic on this site.

However, I notice that A:TLA is discussed in the following questions:

Btw, several episodes of TLoK and A:TLA were animated by Japanese, Japanese-collaborating and South Korean companies according to these links:

Is that relevant?

Note: My question is not asking whether A:TLA, TLoK or RWBY are considered "anime". Obviously, they are American television shows. However, they are drawn anime style and thus may be of interest to people who watch anime.

Edit: A tweeted question is closed as duplicate. Interesting...

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  • Okay fine. I will expand acronyms in the future. Sorry for any confusion I caused or would have caused. Thanks @JNat
    – BCLC
    May 24, 2015 at 14:40
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    You don't need to expand them every time, but the first time you mention a series it's simpler to write it in full. Subsequent mentions of the series can be abbreviated. I had to google those :P (doesn't mean everyone else who came here did too, but that way we just avoid an unnecessary search)
    – JNat StaffMod
    May 24, 2015 at 14:42
  • @JNat Indeed. Thanks.
    – BCLC
    May 24, 2015 at 15:01
  • Thanks @nhahtdh !
    – BCLC
    May 24, 2015 at 15:04
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    I agree we're not very clear on this. I'm fine allowing things which are also anime-styled (since we allow questions about doujinshi and fan art which may not be made by Japanese people), but we need a set policy.
    – Cattua
    May 24, 2015 at 15:43
  • @キルア Thanks...ki-ru-a?
    – BCLC
    May 24, 2015 at 15:45
  • See also: meta.anime.stackexchange.com/questions/830/is-rwby-on-topic
    – senshin
    May 24, 2015 at 18:00
  • @senshin So the current policy is "Let's see" ? meta.anime.stackexchange.com/a/840/4484
    – BCLC
    May 24, 2015 at 18:48
  • I think my question a few days ago falls under the same umbrella - meta.anime.stackexchange.com/questions/2373/…
    – Toshinou Kyouko
    May 25, 2015 at 7:20
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    @ToshinouKyouko This question is sufficiently different, IMO. Avatar/RWBY/etc are a qualitatively different type of "non-anime thing" than Touhou/Miku/etc.
    – senshin
    May 27, 2015 at 21:08
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    @senshin that question was about 'peripheral anime topics' rather than just those particular series - personally I'd slot these under that heading too - I don't think they're as separate as you make out
    – Toshinou Kyouko
    May 27, 2015 at 22:07
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    I don't think it's weird for something like Avatar to appear on this website. They really tried to give it an eastern influence (even all the text that appears is Japanese). But there are already tons of Avatar questions over at the Science Fiction & Fantasy SE. To have them appear in both places just feels redundant.
    – Coded Monkey
    Aug 13, 2015 at 14:03
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    @CodedMonkey You mean Chinese ?
    – BCLC
    Aug 15, 2015 at 5:26

1 Answer 1

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Our policy has been to allow questions on these topics, as per both answers at Should we expand our scope?, which partially overrides Are questions about animations or comics inspired by Japanese culture or styles considered on-topic?.

Essentially, what that says there (in more words) is that the scope of this site is not exclusively "Anime and Manga", but rather, that our full scope is more like "Anime, manga, etc.". We can't ever hope to fully specify what the "etc." includes precisely, and so it's subject to some discussion and may change over time. But in effect, the goal of this is to include other media and works which are closely tied to or inspired by anime and manga. There's little benefit to being overly strict in our actual scope here; kicking out otherwise good questions simply because the work isn't technically an anime or manga (though it's clearly "close enough" for most practical purposes) does nothing to help the site.

All of the works you cited reasonably fit into our scope as I see it. Determining whether an anime-style cartoon is sufficiently anime-inspired isn't so easy, but in practice the total number of cases we'll need to consider is small enough that we can just handle each one individually on meta whenever there's any serious debate.

On the other hand, while series like Avatar and RWBY are on-topic here, I don't consider them part of our core expertise, and I think most other users would agree with that. On-topic simply means the question won't be closed for being off-topic, but it doesn't mean we're always going to be the best place to get an answer for your question. You still have a good chance at getting a good answer, but it's much less than if your question was about a mainstream anime or manga series. While you can ask such questions here, you might want to consider whether a different SE site, such as Science Fiction and Fantasy or Movies and TV, would be a better venue.

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