Is it fantasy or not?

[monkeyvan11]

I have a question turning around, for a long time, people usually called a work as "fantasy" if it has fairies, dragons, magicians, kingdoms, and all elements that have all the works of "fantasy" My question is: Can you call fantasy a work without these elements? That is to say, a work like Naruto (Where there is no magic but jutsus) or a work like dragon ball can be called "fantasy?

[GarnetDawn]

to me, fantasy is anything that stands out of our normality (with the exception of sci-fi, of course.)
To be honest, I only tagged my comic as Fantasy because It isn't purely horror, purely drama, purely comedy and even less of a pure romance story, so I picked Fantasy since it has magical themes etc. But I feel it's such a subjective term. I'd consider Naruto and DB fantasy though.

[Samuraiflame]

I've always seen that as Low Fantasy, so yeah. Still fantasy.

From Wikipedia: Low fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy fiction. In the study of fantasy literature, it has been defined as fiction where magical events intrude on an otherwise normal world. It thus contrasts with high fantasy stories, which take place in a fictional world with its own set of rules and physical laws.

Or if the world is really mundane and fantasy isn't the focus, you can just consider the work having supernatural/fantasy elements.

[joe_galindez]

For me, fantasy is any kind of speculative fiction that isn't science fiction.

[Rhombik]

I think fantasy is when you have improbable or impossible things that are generally supposed to be accepted as real inside the fictional world by the readers and the characters.

Of course, writers play fast and loose with this.

I've also heard that science fiction gets out on the technicality that everything could happen in future even if it clearly couldn't.

[LCT_m_a_d]

I think you can. Fantastical creatures are literally assets easily associated with fantasy because culturally they are used extensively. The average non writer can recognize if there is a dragon, its probably a fantasy. Popular trends with dragons are fantasy media. Similar to seeing testubes in a room and thinking, this is probably a science laboratory.

However, this is not the be-all end all. I personally consider the culturally depicted aliens as fantasy not scifi even through it's liberally accepted since there was a trend of media that changed the culture. Conspiracy theories, startrek, ridley scott alien etc...

I think assets are just assets. You can use them to connect to audience culture, but it really comes down to presentation and experience. I think a few deeper levels would include...

-Fantastical landscapes (architecture that could never reasonably sustain but just do),
-languages that aren't organized but somehow just work, ---events that could never fit into the cause/effect rhyme of reason.

Definitely underutilized core values I would like to see explored in mainstream fantasy trends. They do exist as grounbreaking or original but trends are always based on safe ideas that already work.

[darkone4587]

Honestly there are different levels of fantasy like the stuff with all the elves and the LotR style works are classified as High Fantasy, then you have Urban Fantasy which takes place in the modern day and Low Fantasy which is the Game of Thrones style works.
Honestly as a genre Fantasy is broad and takes a things under it's genres and subgenres, so don't stress how hard a work falls into the Fantasy genre.

[snopmark]

Google defines it as:

"A genre of imaginative fiction involving magic and adventure, especially in a setting other than the real world."

Naruto & Dragon Ball fit under "Action" genre.

However, if Naruto & Dragon Ball had been more about adventure or about exploring the settings of the world they're in...

Then Naruto could be considered Fantasy.

Dragon Ball could be considered Science Fiction.

[silverraven0]

If you want to know better about fantasy sub-genre, I suggest you read this: https://my.w.tt/UiNb/Ln8UXl5eQH
Its over wattpad, but it's a really useful handbook.
Hope this help.

[VikiKuli]

I think anything that involves things that you don't experience in real life could be fantasy. I mean, this can be superhero stories, the supernatural, even science fiction. I think that each of these genres have a level of fantasy in them, even if that is not there main focus. For example, my comic involves demons and fantasy, but it is just as much action, city-life, and drama(ish?).

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