What is Slice of Life?

Information

MAL's definition for Slice of Life:
Slice of Life stories are focused on a seemingly random and mundane period of the main characters' lives. The absence of a central plot to carry the story towards a charted destination means Slice of Life stories frequently lack overarching conflict and resolution. While life is not without conflict and Slice of Life neither, here conflict appears and dissipates seemingly at will, without a specific narrative to enforce it.

Slow story pacing or episodic storytelling does not equal Slice of Life. Drama/Romance stories can be slow and soft while maintaining a central plot of human/relationship struggle. Comedy stories may lack progress and have mundane settings, but they have narratives focused on eliciting laughter rather than amusing moments happening naturally. Thus, Slice of Life is incompatible with Comedy, Drama, and Romance by definition.

This definition is controversial. With it stating that Drama, Romance, and Comedy are incompatible with Slice of Life and being a very strict definition of Slice of Life, many have called for changes of it. However, nothing has changed since March 2022.
Therefore, this club has two objectives:
1. Create a definition for Slice of Life that the vast majority of people agree with. This definition shouldn't be too specific or too broad.
2. Decide whether specific anime are Slice of Life or not. This could help develop a better definition.

Definition Nomination Thread: https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=2071358
Main Thread: https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=2071362


Please don't send any hate to the MAL team. This club's purpose is to define the Slice of Life genre and to have fun doing so.

Note from founder: As I start this club, I have no idea how long this would take to reach a good definition. I've made threads on AD that deal with the topic, but I think a club is a more permanent place for people to express their ideas and hopefully come to a consensus. - fluffycow17 (Jan 21, 2023)

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Club Discussion

It has been a while. (The future of this club) fluffycow17 - May 31, 2023	2 replies	by removed-user »» May 31, 2023 5:53 PM
Poll: Anime Planet's definition fluffycow17 - Jan 31, 2023	3 replies	by removed-user »» Feb 13, 2023 8:38 AM
Sticky: Main Discussion Thread fluffycow17 - Feb 6, 2023	2 replies	by fluffycow17 »» Feb 13, 2023 8:33 AM
Sticky: Defintion Nominations fluffycow17 - Jan 20, 2023	3 replies	by Maenads »» Jan 31, 2023 6:15 PM
Poll: Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon fluffycow17 - Jan 30, 2023	1 replies	by Zemmm »» Jan 30, 2023 10:30 AM

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Club Comments

WatchTillTandava | Feb 5, 2023 1:01 AM

@fluffycow17

Oh yes, I see and understand now. I definitely disagree with it to the max. Vehemently so! SoL is one of my top favorite genres (probably second only after Thriller), so I consider it a real downgrade to features on the site to have it just systematically and widely purged from the descriptions on the individual archival webpages in the database for so many anime overnight like that. It's why I'm very glad I manually typed out all the genres listed for every anime in my PTW/Watching/Completed/On Hold/Dropped lists some time ago.

SakuraCheri | Feb 4, 2023 2:16 PM

i'm actually so mad about some of the labeling, and i keep getting reminded >:L

fluffycow17 | Feb 4, 2023 10:18 AM

@WatchTillTandava I invited you because you said you disagreed with the SoL purge on MAL, and I thought that you might be interested this club too.

WatchTillTandava | Feb 4, 2023 9:23 AM

At first I thought my invite was random, then I started to wonder if I'm associated with SoL series on the forum or something like that, and next thought that maybe we've frequented some of the same thread topics about SoL on the AD board/sub-forum or the series sub-forums.

Zemmm | Jan 23, 2023 9:56 AM

ah ok :)

fluffycow17 | Jan 23, 2023 7:44 AM

@xthewarwithinx Thanks for joining!
@Zemmm Don't worry. There isn't a minimum number of anime watched to join/

Zemmm | Jan 22, 2023 9:01 PM

Hey, I don't know if I've watched enough anime to be in this club, but I love lucky star (tsukasa was on the cover so...) so yeah hello people :D

xthewarwithinx | Jan 22, 2023 7:41 PM

I hope that I may join this club. I love slice of life and so hopefully I can give you some insight.

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Club Stats

Members: 55

Pictures: 0

Category: Anime

Created: Jan 20, 2023

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fluffycow17 (President)

CyberPolice (Secretary)

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