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Genre shift is usually a sudden or gradual change in genre of some fiction. It can be a movie, book, tv-show or even anime. Creators use it for various reasons, usually they want to shock the audience by the surprising change in plot, that will keep them even more invested. It’s also a way of promoting your work as something different. Let’s take a look at some of the popular works, which owe their popularity especially to a very well done genre shift.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica
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Madoka Magica starts as most of cliché and stereotypical anime do. Although the first scene is not in the lighter tone and it involves heavy foreshadowing of further incidents, we as an
audience don’t get any information out of it. After that, we are presented with a basic
beginning of a story: main character goes to her school, some transfer student
suddenly joins her class and thus everything around them changes. In the first episode our main
heroine and her friend are offered a contract that lets them become magical
girls. Sounds cute and innocent, but our expectations of a comforting story are shortly reverted, when one of the characters brutally dies in front of our eyes.
From this point, the series becomes a brilliant psychological thriller that I highly
recommend everyone to watch. Genre shift in this case was done exceptionally good,
although I suspect a few people dropped it after the beginning which could
be too repelling for some.
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The prestige starts as a movie about two rivaling magicians played by Hugh
Jackman and Christian Bale. They both want to perform a better trick than the
other one, and by constantly one upping each other they are forced to perform
dangerous and impossible feats. Sometime into the movie we’re suddenly met with
a character of Nicola Tesla, who is ordered by one of the magicians to make a
machine that will help them defeat their rival. I don’t want to say what are
the capabilities of before mentioned machine, but basically The Prestige, from
mystery-thriller becomes a science-fiction movie. It sounds like a bad
combination of genres, but in this case it made this piece of media a
masterpiece, as it brought a lot of potential to magic tricks.
Steins;Gate
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Another anime that involves the topic of genre shift is Steins;Gate. It’s much more common to
find an animated series that involves this topic, than for example a movie or a
book. The story starts light-hearted, but same as Madoka Magica it becomes a
psychological thriller later on. This kind of genre shift is the most popular
one, as it shocks the audience which feels very connected to our characters,
but after the shift, they have to worry about them possibly dying. This series also involves
time-traveling and reliving same day for hundreds of times. If you are a fun of
such a classic like Groundhog Day, I strongly recommend this one.
In conclusion, I described my three favorite series which involve shifting
genres. I tried to give a brief descriptions and not spoiling any big events
that come later on.
Questions:
1. Did you watch any of the mentioned works? If so, did you find the genre shift enjoyable?
2. Do you have any other recommendations that involve the topic of shifting genres?
3. Can you think of a combination of genres not mentioned in the article, that would make a shift from one to another enjoyable for the audience?
Sources:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreShift
Comments
I watched a movie called space match. There was a combination of genres. It was a mixture of a real movie and cartoons. The production combines computer animation technique with the play of real actors. The film features characters from Crazy Melodies and basketball player Michael Jordan. I also know that in this technique a pink panther was also shot, only the proportions were the opposite, because only the pink panther was drawn. In these films I liked this addition. But I don't like to see series shot in one technique and then continued in another.
2. Do you have any other recommendations that involve the topic of shifting genres?
I don't have any. I think what we saw at the beginning plays a role here. For example, if I saw a cartoon first, I wouldn't like to change the concept to real actors or computer created actors afterwards. I recently experienced this. The last episode of The BlacList was partly finished with a cartoon film. I didn't like it.
3. Can you think of a combination of genres not mentioned in the article, that would make a shift from one to another enjoyable for the audience?
No . People have certain habits. If it would pay off for the producers, they would do it more often.
Yes, I did watch the prestige a long time ago, I think that the genre shift there was
very appropriate and the combination of sci-fi and thriller isn't tacky. I think that Nolan is a very good director.
2.
Maybe Paprika, also an anime, which starts as a mystery thriller and then
changes to something weird that cannot be described.
3.
I think that I enjoy some fusion of genres it's generally something refreshing and new in the world of cinema, where a lot of concepts have been already covered. I would like to see a mixutre of slow cinema with an action movie.
2.Paprika is actually such a good recommendation regarding this topic. I'm glad you mentioned it.
3.This sounds like it could work out. Slower paced scenes that put our guard down, and then sudden hit with heavy action, I like that.
2. Fair enough. this type of writing isn't for everyone. I must agree, sometimes it feels like a failed concept as seen with your example.
3. Yeah, I expect this answer with most of the people.
Unfortunately, I haven't watched them yet, but I like genre shift, I watched some movies of this type before.
2. Do you have any other recommendations that involve the topic of shifting genres?
Yes, such as Get Out or A Fall from Grace(2020), they both have unexpected shift in the second half of the movie, which is difficult to describe.
3. Can you think of a combination of genres not mentioned in the article, that would make a shift from one to another enjoyable for the audience?
I have no idea, it is a bit hard to think about this question, because I consider myself as not someone could be able to be a movie director, I prefer to enjoy such genre shift made by other directors.
2. Yes my favorite one is Shutter Island. It seems like it is detective move, there are some actions and trully believe to the story but then it is suddenly turns that actually this is a sad story of poor man who lost everything. I think there are a lots of movies when genres change to another one. One of the example it is Fight Club
3. It is hard to imagine, but I think maybe from drama or romantic movie to horror one, like Get Out
2. If I get how it's supposed to work then Psycho is probably a must be on the list. Shift from a money heist into horror. And since you mentioned so many anime then Yu Yu Hakusho should be really nice example. It starts as a supernatural/detective manga, but later goes more into fighting focused genre. One of better thing's I've read, but unfortunately for its author, his work was overshadowed by 'father of all shounen' Dragon Ball. Which also had a genre shift. But it was probably more visible in manga than in anime, due to lack of separation between normal series and Z, where we went from comedy/adventure into once again battle driven series. To end my list of recommendations I'll mention Berserk, which was for me Opus Magnum of manga (even though I didn't even finish it, nor continue to read... but damn those hiatuses were worse than HiatusXHiatus). It has few shifts between different arcs. Kicks off as gore/grim fantasy, then we have a bit of medieval fantasy and later even fairy tale. But core always stays dark fantasy so little spoiler - even if we see some happy characters or situation, we shall expect harsh and brutal events ahead.
3. It varies for every person, so probably every possible shift will find audience for it :p. Viktor proposition of mixing slow paced movies with action sounds nice. I think we could apply such description to Hateful Eight or maybe Gentlemen, which I both liked a lot.
I did happen to see one of them, and it was Steins;Gate. It was quite a time ago but I still remember the plot and that I enjoyed the show. The time I've been watching the show I didn't have a thought about what kind of genre it is. But thanks to you I've learned something today. Thank you for your effort.
2. Do you have any other recommendations that involve the topic of shifting genres?
I think that Hunter x Hunter can be a great example, where the show started lighthearted with a pinch of adventure. But later on, suddenly it changed to some kind of bloodshed with survivalism till death. monkaW
3. Can you think of a combination of genres, that would make a shift from one to another enjoyable for the audience?
I think that combo starting with comedy - tbh any kind, which progresses to some kind of drama where main characters are starting to simply die could be entertaining. I think of a movie, not an anime because in anime there is, for instance, the show you've mentioned - Puella Magi Madoka Magica, I don't think that is a comedy, it is rather a dark fantasy.
2. I don’t have any recommendation in this topic, and honestly, I have never heard about this form actually.
3. Maybe some of the popular romantic movies could be better as a drama or a comedy.
2. I think that in the recently famous “Parasite” movie, the genre shift is also present. It starts as something close to the comedy, later to become a thriller. The are different opinions about this movie, and there are a lot of controversies, because despite being non-English it was awarded in the category of “the best film”, but despite this it is worth watching to have your own opinion.
3. Nothing really comes to my mind. I think that switching from any genre to science fiction makes the best impression, like in the “Prestige”.
1. Yes, I've watched "Puella Magi Madoka Magica" before (although I think I also need to check out "Steins; Gate" now) and I'm a big fan of it. I was really into the genre shift of that show as it completely caught me off guard and it completely changed my expectations for any "magical girls" shows after I finished watching it. Also Kyubey deserves the worst possible fate.
2. I need to recommend my favourite anime show of all times "Hunter x Hunter" in that regard. It starts as a "happy-go-lucky" adventure with our main character Gon being an innocent and wholesome child, willing to follow his Father's footsteps. But everything changes over time, especially when the "Chimera Ants" story arc comes in and we watch how Gon slowly becomes everything he always hated in his enemies. Not mentioning seeing a heart breaking story of the Meruem who - funnily - is the main "bad guy" in that arc. I cried like a little baby after watching the ending to that.
3. I really love when comedies turn grim or if they can mix both of these worlds together. The perfect example for that is an absolutely astounding movie called "Jojo Rabbit". It's both hilarious and horrifying as it tells a story of a young boy in the "Hitlerjugend" who's best imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler himself. He lives a happy life as a Nazi but everything changes once he finds out that there is a Jewish girl living in the attic of his house… This movie is very good at poking fun and showing how extremely stupid the entire regime was, but is also very good at reminding you that yeah, all of these things were real and those awful people existed.
Yes, I watched Madoka 3 times and The Prestige even more, I really love this two series and I think they are masterpices. From Steins; Gate I watched only 1-2 episodes, because it wasn't interesting enough for me. In Madoka the genre shift is more apparent, probably because of graphic style of animation, but it is still unexpectedly matching. In The Prestige it wasn't so obvious due to great amount of mysteries in this movie. In conclusion, yes, I found the genre shift enjoyable.
2. Do you have any other recommendations that involve the topic of shifting genres?
Maybe Mononoke? (not Princes Mononoke, just Mononoke) It seems to be a horror-fantasy story, but it also includes psychological parts.
3. Can you think of a combination of genres not mentioned in the article, that would make a shift from one to another enjoyable for the audience?
Well, probably something with drama or romance? There is a lot of series with these genres, for examples korean drama tv series (historical drama, sci-fi drama, fantasy drama, commedy drama and much more), so it seems to be popular and interesting for people.
I think I saw some of the mentioned works but it was some time ago and I don't remember too much about them and to be honest I probably didn't even notice that there was genre shift but yes I find the enjoyable
2. Do you have any other recommendations that involve the topic of shifting genres?
I don’t have any other recommendations that involve the topic of shifting genres… sorry.
3. Can you think of a combination of genres not mentioned in the article, that would make a shift from one to another enjoyable for the audience?
I would probably like the combination of horror and comedy with transition from horror to comedy but not the other way around that would piss me off why? because I prefer happy ending.
2.Shutter Island was always on my list of plan-to-watch movies. I might check it soon if it involves the topic of genres switching.
3. You are the second person to recommend Get Out, never heard of it, but I'll save the name for sure.
2. Perfect example my friend, HunterxHunter would certainly make this list if it was larger than just 3 entries.
3. Yeah, I would really like to watch this kind of movie. Sadly, movie directors don't seem much interested in this topic, and it's Anime that uses it much often.
2. I completely agree with that one. I never expected it to be more than a light-hearted fighting show for kids, but my expectations were completely subverted. I'm glad my friends really pushed me to watch it, as it''s truly a masterpiece.
3. I actually watched it very recently, but it didn't even cross my mind when I was making a presentation. You are absolutely right though, things that happen later certainly don't think like a comedy that we got at the beginning.
I agree with what you said about The Prestige, the mysteries covered the possible genre shift very well.
2. Great recommendation, I'm amazed how all of you guys find the topic of genre switch in the shows I watched, but I missed it.
3. Seems like a light shift compared to what other people said, but I like it, certainly would appeal to most of the audience.
2. I saw Psycho on some lists while reading about this topic, but due to it being very old, I didn't put it on the list. Yu Yu Hakusho is from the same author of HunterXHunter that a lot of people mention in this thread, so I suppose he really like the genre shift. I agree, Berserk is an amazing piece of art, I don't get why masterpieces are often left unfinished, maybe it's just too much for the authors.
And about Steins;Gate... I plan to try again in the future.