As specified by the subject's wiki page, kemono is the Japanese word for "beast", basically used in the same context as the English speakers' "furry". Supposedly, the tag is meant for "Japanese style art" or even works from Japanese artists themselves. Is it necessary for a tag with such a loose connotation? Perhaps it could be aliased to something more appropriate to discern that the tag is for Japanese artist? But then, would we need a "western" tag as well?

To be more specific, Kemono means "Animal-like creatures with human-like intelligence" so it isn't really an equal term for furry, just very often. Some of my not furry stuff on Pixiv got tagged with Kemono by other members over the past months.

The distinction the tag is meant for is mostly on how cuter and less realistic the characters are compared to western furry drawings, pretty much like anime/cartoons

post #812380 vs post #679952

I don't really think there needs to be a tag for distinguishing the two art styles

Neitsuke said:
To be more specific, Kemono means "Animal-like creatures with human-like intelligence" so it isn't really an equal term for furry, just very often. Some of my not furry stuff on Pixiv got tagged with Kemono by other members over the past months.

The distinction the tag is meant for is mostly on how cuter and less realistic the characters are compared to western furry drawings, pretty much like anime/cartoons

post #812380 vs post #679952

I don't really think there needs to be a tag for distinguishing the two art styles

Not trying to be a dick but any kind of human traits, even only going as far as sentience and the ability to speak makes an animal anthropomorphic, such as the characters on the Lion King. When people say "furry" they don't mean feral animals unless they are ignorant regarding the fanbase. Same goes for Kemono which does literally translate to "beast" but is used for anthropomorphic creatures. When talking about feral creature the term is bestiality or interspecies (though that can still be used in regards to anthropomorhs) which in Japanese would be "jūkan".

Related: forum #145600

The main problem with the kemono tag is that it's more often than not used for any art done by a Japanese artist, regardless of the actual style. So this means that pictures done in kemono style but made in the West aren't tagged as such, and art made in Japan done in non-kemono style gets tagged as kemono.

The second problem is that it's a very common tag that's searched for, so you can't straight-up invalidate it.

My suggestion is similar to what I suggested the last time. A more clear-cut redirection of "kemono" is something that is needed. I was thinking about something like "east_asian" but then you have the problem of potentially causing an east-west split, so that's not ideal.

I have no idea why you brought the feral matter into this because I didn't say anything about them, beside that kemono can include it and many other things other than strictly furry characters. To make it easier to understand, kemono is basically any character that has an organic/animal-like/lifelike body with a human intelligence living in it, referring to be able of thinking, reacting and talking like a human, at least in some form, but it's usually always the case.

So

post #757523 post #782264 post #778454 post #499078 post #755576
And this cute little thing and this one too

Are all considered as kemono. That's my only point I was trying to state here : Kemono isn't an equivalent to Furry, as strictly only being anthro characters based on living animals. Strictly furry characters just happen to be kemono as a sort of sub-division because it fits the criteria

^
There's enough of a difference in the style for the tag to be relevant.

Neitsuke said:
I have no idea why you brought the feral matter into this because I didn't say anything about them, beside that kemono can include it and many other things other than strictly furry characters. To make it easier to understand, kemono is basically any character that has an organic/animal-like/lifelike body with a human intelligence living in it, referring to be able of thinking, reacting and talking like a human, at least in some form, but it's usually always the case.

So

post #757523 post #782264 post #778454 post #499078 post #755576
And this cute little thing and this one too

Are all considered as kemono. That's my only point I was trying to state here : Kemono isn't an equivalent to Furry, as strictly only being anthro characters based on living animals. Strictly furry characters just happen to be kemono as a sort of sub-division because it fits the criteria

What I was getting at is that "Furry" is used in the same vein in regards to anthropomorphic characters as "Beast" in Japan. Sure, there have been sub categories created such as scalie, but in the general sense, it's still considered "furry" art and I quote, "Anthropomorphic creatures that are also considered to be furry (even with the lack of pelt or fur) include (but are not limited to): dragons and lizards (also known as scalies and herps, respectively), Cetaceans (dolphins and Orcas), birds and gryphons (also known as featheries or avians), and taurs (centaurs being the prime example)." Even now, machines have joined in with characters such as those from FNaF and even "living aircraft".

Back to the topic at hand, assuming the style is different enough to warrant its own, supposedly popular, tag shouldn't it be one that makes more sense such as previous tags were handled? Tags like Kemonomimi? Going further, should tags be added for western styles as well?

Furry, to its "purest" definition, is, well, was, basically any existing animal we know of that has fur, morphed with human biology and body structure. Over time it became more broad to include feral animals, and many other animals that don't have fur, and even non existing ones such as dragons because they can be related to existing scalies that actually exist.

For kemono, think of animes or cartoons, then think of cute sidekicks. They don't have to be animal related at all. Their only requirements are to have a face and be able to think and speak, and not be a human, of course.
That's about it.

Other examples, this time I carefully took obviously not furry characters

post #445958 post #714352 post #676906
These are all considered Kemono.

If you lay out the terms on a quickly made up scheme it would look something like this

Kemono
| - Furry
|| - Anthro
|| - Feral ("Broaded" definition)
|| - ...
|| - Too lazy to think of any example
| - ...
| - Everything else you can think of

Us, westerners, when we use the term Kemono, it is really about the art style rather than the content, as I said before. The style is simply simplified and less realistic, with less details and conedeeks everywhere most of the time compared to the non-kemono art that we would usually come up with.

The kemono is so broad that it is why I don't think there should be a tag for this. If you really want a tag to distinguish the art style instead, then maybe kemono_(art_style) would be fine and usable

"Ko-san"said:

Back to the topic at hand, assuming the style is different enough to warrant its own, supposedly popular, tag shouldn't it be one that makes more sense such as previous tags were handled? Tags like Kemonomimi? Going further, should tags be added for western styles as well?

It doesn't have it's own tag due to "popularity". Think of it in the same regard as anime vs "western animation". Anime solely falls under japanese animated works, due to both it's place of origin, and it's distinctive style, while just about everything else falls under "western animation".

The same sort of rule applies to art, but for "western furries" they're just known as furries, your day to day, by the numbers "anthro's" etc, they're the norm, and "default" if you will. So in that regard no tag is needed for that. Kemono, however, is the style variant to the standard "furry", and thus has a tag to differentiate it.

Neitsuke said:
post #445958 post #714352 post #676906
These are all considered Kemono.

First one is Inanimate, second one is robot (Maybe living_machine instead), third one is Food_creature.

Which are all still under the kemono "fandom".

Also, the kemono fandom is distinct from the literal definition of Beast to some extend.

Beast
Kemono (Note that the Furry term is a sub category, I didn't even know it would actually be shown here)

I may not be 100% right for characters that are based on non living objects, but as far as I know, they also can be treated as kemono. As most of people told me, the kemono fandom is basically a synonym for "Creatures (That have a face, are able to think and speak)" and not only inclusively the literal Beast definition.

At the end I may be wrong on some details, since I'm stating my own observations and what people taught me what a kemono is in general (Mostly on WildCritters) but I know for certain that Furry and Kemono aren't synonyms at all

Neitsuke said:
Which are all still under the kemono "fandom".

Yes, that's wh--wait, these things didn't have Kemono on them to start with? Omochao by design is supposed to be a Kemono character (Heck, the Chao species itself), and the other two definitely fit

Well I'm confuse now. I thought you were pointing out that my three examples weren't Kemono, but now you seem to state that they in fact are

Neitsuke said:
Well I'm confuse now. I thought you were pointing out that my three examples weren't Kemono, but now you seem to state that they in fact are

They are anthro. Pure and simple. When you think of "kemono" as an art style instead of a tag meaning "anthropomorphic creatures" you get crossed. Just as japan having "animation" and "western animation" we are segregating "animation" and "japanese animation". Tagging it with what Japanese people use for "furry" is causing confusion. Kemono literally translates to beast. It is used in Japan for anthropomorphic characters. Furry literally means "covered with fur". It is used by western groups for anthropomorphic characters. Including, but not limited to, scalies, living machines, living food, avians, and aqua life. Going further, Pixiv has Kemono synonymous with "furry" and both share the description below.

Furry
"Furry" is a term used to describe both the art depicting and the fandom of anthropomorphic characters.

Origin of Term
The word Furry first came into use in this context in the 1980's, when groups of people who had met and shared interests on Cons and other similar venues started to coalesce over this particular subject.
The term became common after the advent of the Internet, allowing large groups of Furries to communicate with each other.

Notes
In Japan, the art is referred to as "Kemono"(ケモノ), but this term is slowely being phased out by the English "furry".

No idea why you keep saying that my examples are anthro while some of them are clearly not : A ball with no feet isn't something I would call anthro. Even that being anthro alone doesn't even have anything to do with the furry fandom at all (A jewel, robot and a cake aren't something I would call furry, anthro or not) so I don't know why it's brought up all the time.
It's even more hilarious when the article for the Kemono tag on Pixiv has that
post #88044
Which clearly shows a feral here.
(Note that the 3rd one is what I would call a furry character per se, while everything else is furry but in fandom terms)
(1 to 3 are anthro while 4 is bipedal but not anthro per se because the proportions are not human like, while 5 has nothing anthro whatsoevere)

I won't repeat myself yet again about what is a kemono or not because I did that twice already and I don't think that would change anything

Neitsuke said:
No idea why you keep saying that my examples are anthro while some of them are clearly not : A ball with no feet isn't something I would call anthro. Even that being anthro alone doesn't even have anything to do with the furry fandom at all (A jewel, robot and a cake aren't something I would call furry, anthro or not) so I don't know why it's brought up all the time.
It's even more hilarious when the article for the Kemono tag on Pixiv has that
post #88044
Which clearly shows a feral here.
(Note that the 3rd one is what I would call a furry character per se, while everything else is furry but in fandom terms)
(1 to 3 are anthro while 4 is bipedal but not anthro per se because the proportions are not human like, while 5 has nothing anthro whatsoevere)

I won't repeat myself yet again about what is a kemono or not because I did that twice already and I don't think that would change anything

That's the problem. ALL of these examples are anthro. From just having ears and a tail (which would probably be closer to zoomorphism, applying animal traits to other things) to just having a human face and intelligence. Saying ONLY the first three are anthropomorphic is wrong. It's fine for tagging on this site as it helps with pic searching but to be anthropomorphic, any number of human traits can be present. The earliest example I can think of without being religious or from a forgotten civilization is Aesop's Fables in which the characters are considered anthropomorphic but are otherwise wild animals with human intelligence.

a toaster with human face and human-like legs is an anthro. an amoeba with human face is an anthro. an used condom with human intelligence is an anthro. a plane with somewhat humanoid body, arms, legs and human eyes is anthro. every non-human thing that is changed to be more human like by adding human-like traits (human intelligence, ability to speak, human-like facial features, human like body etc) is an anthro.

The "inu" in shiba inu just means "dog", even though it has a more specific meaning here.

"Doujin(shi)" Pretty much refers to indie comics, but the word has come to refer to Japanese or Japanese-influenced comics usually sold at Comiket (or related markets).

parasprite said:
The "inu" in shiba inu just means "dog", even though it has a more specific meaning here.

"Doujin(shi)" Pretty much refers to indie comics, but the word has come to refer to Japanese or Japanese-influenced comics usually sold at Comiket (or related markets).

And anime is used to refer to Japanese animation when it's just short for animation, Hentai is used to refer to cartoon porn when it just means pervert or weird in Japan (they use ero anime) and so on. I've ever seen Kemono used the way it is here elsewhere, though. I'm certain there's a better tag to describe "cute anthros".

Wait waiwaiwaiwaaaaaait. So you guys use the term anthro(po) for its current meaning, and not as a shortening for anthropomorphic. Well, that would be a very first for me, considering I thought that was used to make reference of a body having the same proportion to a human.

Omygod imagine the possibilities, an anthropomorphic feral, mind blown

But even with this new knowledge of wisdom, my point where kemono is basically a creature with human-like intelligence and behavior (Or basically, an anthro) isn't the same as furry still stands. An anthro can be pretty much anything you can think of, while a furry has the additional requirement to be animal like. So while anything furry is a kemono, not anything kemono can be a furry, as I was trying to say on the last posts

So, is the order basically just
<Chibi----Kemono----Anthro----Humanoid>?

Neitsuke said:
Wait waiwaiwaiwaaaaaait. So you guys use the term anthro(po) for its current meaning, and not as a shortening for anthropomorphic. Well, that would be a very first for me, considering I thought that was used to make reference of a body having the same proportion to a human.

Omygod imagine the possibilities, an anthropomorphic feral, mind blown

But even with this new knowledge of wisdom, my point where kemono is basically a creature with human-like intelligence and behavior (Or basically, an anthro) isn't the same as furry still stands. An anthro can be pretty much anything you can think of, while a furry has the additional requirement to be animal like. So while anything furry is a kemono, not anything kemono can be a furry, as I was trying to say on the last posts

Pretty sure Living Planes and Food items aren't animals but are still considered "furry".

To its roots, the furry fandom was about animals with human traits (Or the opposite, really) but it diverged over time to include, well, pretty much anything now, but still to its source something furry has to be animal related in some ways and not forget that before the term gets bleached even more. While I don't consider plants, insects and other inanimate objects as furry, they're widely accepted in the fandom now, but that doesn't mean we should loosely change the terminology of what the furry fandom initially was : The idea of merging the animal traits and human physiology and the aspect of thinking together.

Furrin_Gok said:
<Chibi----Kemono----Anthro----Humanoid>? [/quote] Chibi is an art style so it can be anywhere on this scale, same for humanoid, a body style, which basically means anthropomorphic. Now that I think about it, it reminds me of "that one topic I made about an issue with the not_furry tag":https://e621.net/forum/show/179072 where one of my arguments was that the character is a Kemono without any kind of distinct animal traits. Turns out that being a kemono alone and being somewhat animal/creature-like while not being human isn't enough to be considered furry

Neitsuke said:
To its roots, the furry fandom was about animals with human traits (Or the opposite, really) but it diverged over time to include, well, pretty much anything now, but still to its source something furry has to be animal related in some ways and not forget that before the term gets bleached even more. While I don't consider plants, insects and other inanimate objects as furry, they're widely accepted in the fandom now, but that doesn't mean we should loosely change the terminology of what the furry fandom initially was : The idea of merging the animal traits and human physiology and the aspect of thinking together.

Chibi is an art style so it can be anywhere on this scale, same for humanoid, a body style, which basically means anthropomorphic.

Now that I think about it, it reminds me of that one topic I made about an issue with the not_furry tag where one of my arguments was that the character is a Kemono without any kind of distinct animal traits. Turns out that being a kemono alone and being somewhat animal/creature-like while not being human isn't enough to be considered furry

While the early furry fandom (aka, the "Funny Animal" fans) did initially begin with the purpose of celebrating animal anthro characters, such as Mickey and Bugs, I think it's a step too far to say that the idea was "merging animal traits and human physiology for the aspect of thinking together," rather, it was in appreciation for the characters these people grew up with which, at the time, had begun to be phased out and viewed as "for children". This then branched out to people making their own characters and stories and art, as fandoms do, leading up to the highly diverse furry fandom that exists today, from those that stick with the original goal and merely enjoy the characters ("funny animals") to those that create, to those that play, to those that fap and those that "identify" as a fictional character over their physical presence. As for anthropomorphism itself, it began as a tool to help people better relate to ideas and beliefs, whether that be giving gods the visage of humans or personifying animals with human foibles. And I quote-
"And there is another charm about him, namely, that he puts animals in a pleasing light and makes them interesting to mankind. For after being brought up from childhood with these stories, and after being as it were nursed by them from babyhood, we acquire certain opinions of the several animals and think of some of them as royal animals, of others as silly, of others as witty, and others as innocent."
— Apollonius of Tyana on Aesop's Fables