In our previous blog post, we concluded that the TV Tropes data about live-action films alone is not sufficient to understand what constitutes the kaiju genre, a tokusatsu (jap. 特撮, “special effects”) subgenre in Japan, on this fan-curated database. This observation is based on the list of supposedly genre-defining tropes of kaiju works on TV Tropes. In comparison to the list of core tropes extracted from the dataset of live-action kaiju films, we observed significant differences with the list of tropes provided by TV Tropes. Additionally, we concluded that individual tropes provided in the dataset are not sufficient to develop a core understanding of the kaiju genre in the fan community. Thus, we will first examine the transmediality of the kaiju genre on TV Tropes by examining tropes attributed to other media works, such as TV series, games, anime, and manga. In the next step, we will explore and compare potential clusters of kaiju tropes between different media to examine similarities and differences between them.
All Kaiju Works Data
The dataset of all kaiju works listed on the subpage “Kaiju Works” on TV Tropes comprises 318 distinct kaiju works with 20,854 overall attributed tropes, that is the sum of all attributions, and 7,114 attributed unique tropes, that is the number of different tropes. This dataset includes works from manga, anime, live-action films, fan works, and games, among others. It is therefore important to acknowledge that the dataset of live-action films previously analyzed is a subset of the dataset of all kaiju works. In table 1, we compared both datasets. Additionally, the dataset of all kaiju works includes works usually categorized into other tokusatsu subgenres, such as henshin hero (jap., 変身ヒーロー, “transformation hero”), kyodai hero (巨大ヒーロー, “gigantic hero”), and mecha (メカ, short form for “mechanism” or “mechanical” and indicating the presence of large robots/vehicles), as well as works featuring depictions of or themes related to dinosaurs and other creatures that are not usually associated with or defined as kaiju in a narrow sense, such as creatures from Scandinavian mythology. This indicates an interesting collective understanding of kaiju and will be explored later. As we determined with the live-action kaiju films, this dataset represents only our specific focus on analyzing the relationship between tropes and the kaiju genre at the time of securing the data set from TV Tropes for analysis and is subject to change in the future due to the ever-evolving nature of the data source.
| Live-Action Kaiju Works | All Kaiju Works | |
| works | 128 | 318 |
| Overall trope count | 7,732 | 20,854 |
| Unique trope count | 3,134 | 7,114 |
| Core trope count (>10% occurrence) | 41 | 31 |
| Number 1 trope | “Kaiju” | “Kaiju” |
Table 1: Dataset comparison.
In table 2, we looked into the distribution of tropes by media categorized on TV Tropes. This distribution shows that in the fan community kaiju works are dominated by live-action films (39.94%), live-action TV series (18.24%) and Video Games (9.43%). This distribution reflects the media usually associated with the kaiju genre, with live-action films not only contributing significantly to the number of works but also to the number of tropes (see figure 1). In contrast to the works, we see differences in the distribution of the attributed tropes. Here, live-action films and live-action TV series as well as anime and manga are major indicators of how the genre is viewed in the fan community. The data set also reveals that works of “Anime & Manga” and (Western) “Animation Films” are significantly tagged with tropes (Anime & Manga: 13.54%; Films – Animation: 7.57%) compared to the share of works (Anime & Manga: 7.55%; Films – Animation: 3.46%) included. This is further affirmed when we compare the overall trope count in relation to the number of works: Anime & Manga has 117.62 tropes per work and Films – Animation has 143.54 tropes per work. This indicates that more meticulous attention has been given to animated media compared to live-action films, live-action tv-series, and video games.
A similar observation can be made by comparing the unique trope count per work, where each trope is only counted once per media category: Anime & Manga has 85.62 unique tropes per work and Films – Animation has 116.45 unique tropes per work. Additionally, Western Animation (88.75 unique tropes per work) replaces here Anime & Manga for the second most attributions. The high number of unique tropes per work might not only be an indicator for a more meticulous attention for animated media, but also an indicator for a broader interpretative engagement and different expectations and knowledge when it comes to animated works.
While this categorization into different media can be a first insight into which media plays an important role for understanding the fan community’s perspective on a genre and its tropes, the categorization at hand seems arbitrary and signifies problems of non-systemized approaches to kaiju works, which reflects a general problem when using folksonomies. For example, we find the category “Anime & Manga,” encompassing Japanese animation and comic books, while Western categories, such as “Western Animation” and “Comic Books” are categorized separately. Additionally, when it comes to video games or literature, a cultural distinction has not been made. Furthermore, “Fan Works,” which can encompass several media genres, that is films, literature, comics, etc., is here being considered a media genre itself, which is in line with research on fan fiction and its genres (see Goldmann 2022) but still leaves open the question whether this categorization is useful in a bottom-up data analysis.
| all kaiju works | Films – Live-Action | Live-Action TV | Video Games | Anime & Manga | Fan Works | Comic Books | Literature | Films – Animation | Western Animation | Others[1] | |
| works | 318 | 127 | 58 | 30 | 24 | 15 | 15 | 11 | 11 | 8 | 19 |
| works (%) | 39,94% | 18,24% | 9,43% | 7,55% | 4,72% | 4,72% | 3,46% | 3,46% | 2,52% | 5,97% | |
| overall trope count | 20854 | 7723 | 3132 | 1383 | 2823 | 1336 | 648 | 736 | 1579 | 837 | 657 |
| overall trope count per work | 65.57 | 60.81 | 54.00 | 46.10 | 117.62 | 89.06 | 43.20 | 66.90 | 143.54 | 104.62 | 34.57 |
| overall trope (%) | 37,03% | 15,02% | 6,63% | 13,54% | 6,41% | 3,11% | 3,53% | 7,57% | 4,01% | 3,15% | |
| unique trope count | 7114 | 3419 | 1773 | 1005 | 2055 | 1066 | 555 | 606 | 1281 | 710 | 560 |
| unique trope count per work | 22.37 | 26.92 | 30.56 | 33.60 | 85.62 | 71.06 | 37.00 | 55.09 | 116.45 | 88.75 | 29.47 |
Table 2: Overview media, works, and tropes.
[1] Other kaiju works include categories (number of works) of Tabletop Games (5), Web Comics (4), Web Videos (3), Pinball (2), Arts (1), Podcasts (1), Professional Wrestling (1), Rides (1), Web Animation (1).
Figure 1: Overall trope count distribution by media.
As shown in table 3, where all core tropes of all kaiju works are ordered in descending order of occurrence, the overall occurrence of tropes is low in comparison to the number of works analyzed. For example, the most frequent trope “Kaiju,” is attributed to only around one-third (35.5%) of all kaiju works, while the distribution follows a Zipfian pattern (Figure 2). These observations overlap with our analysis of live-action works. While the most frequent trope is again “Kaiju” and has been relatively attributed to approximately the same amount as in the live-action dataset (32.8%), the Zipfian distribution of all the tropes is steeper, indicating a more compact amount of core tropes.
Table 3: Core trope comparison.
Figure 2: Zipfian distribution of all occurring tropes in all Kaiju works. Due to the large data set, the x-axis cannot display all trope names.
To prepare the data for the analysis and further comparisons, we reduced the overall number of tropes (20,854) by applying the same 10% occurrence threshold used in the previous tiny use case (see table 3) for comparability. This results in 31 core tropes for all kaiju works compared to the 41 live-action works core tropes and confirms our previous observation of a more compact attribution of tropes. On the other hand, the sparseness of tropes overall may be the result of the vast number of tropes the TV Tropes community provides. In fan communities, each member brings in their own perspectives, different knowledge, and analytical skills, as well as knowledge about the possible tropes given on the website, thus leading to highly diverse analyses of films and therefore varying attributions of tropes. This difference in knowledge is further perpetuated not only because of the vast number of tropes, but also the close proximity of tropes in regard to content. For example, the trope ‘ShoutOut’ (34.6% of all kaiju tropes), an intentional reference to another work and called “intertextuality” in research, has several sub-tropes (16 on TV Tropes[1]) such as ‘ActorAllusion’ (6.3%), ‘Expy’ (14.8%), or ‘CityShoutOut’ (0.6%). It is also the super-trope to ‘StockShoutOuts,’ which again is the super-trope to 95 more tropes. As the ‘ShoutOut’-example and the rest of the data set shows, no differentiation has been made between super- and sub-tropes in the attribution of tropes. This suggests that in the TV Tropes community this differentiation and hierarchization plays a minor role in attributing tropes.
[1] TV Tropes (2025): https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShoutOut (accessed: April 7, 2025).
Occurrence Analysis
By comparing the core tropes of both lists, we immediately see that ‘Kaiju’ and ‘ShoutOut’ remain the most frequently attributed tropes (table 4). Both tropes appear at slightly higher shares (35.5% for ‘Kaiju’ and 34.6% for ‘ShoutOut’) relative to the works analyzed, suggesting that they play a significant role in defining the kaiju genre within the TV Tropes community. This data further indicates that, despite the inclusion of other media works, the trope ‘Kaiju’ does not align with how the kaiju genre is understood in the TV Tropes community due to its low attribution. This suggests that this disconnect between trope and genre is a characteristic across various media. Highly attributed tropes such as ‘Kaiju’ or ‘ShoutOut’ are not genre-defining tropes in themselves, but a network of co-occurring tropes might constitute patterns by which the kaiju genre is recognized for.
Table 4: Top five tropes comparison live-action films (left) and all kaiju works (right).
In our previous tiny use case on live-action films, the attribution of the trope ‘Kaiju’ was explained by the inclusion of the Ultra Series as part of live-action kaiju films, where 21 of 42 occurrences (50.00%) are due to this inclusion, thus indicating a divergence between the attribution of the trope ‘Kaiju’ and the genre kaiju in the TV Tropes community. A similar observation can be made regarding all kaiju works, where 46 of 113 occurrences (40.71%) of the ‘Kaiju’ trope are the result of including works of the Ultra Series. Additionally, from 318 kaiju works, 80 works (25.16%) belong to the Ultras Series, mostly in the form of live-action tv series and live-action films. Thus, the inclusion of other media, such as live-action TV series, anime, and manga, supports our assumption that, in the TV Tropes community, the Ultra Series is considered a significant part of the kaiju genre. This inclusion contrasts with other sources, such as Wikipedia, other fan-databases like WikiZilla, film databases like IMDb, and kaiju film genre researchers such as Jason Barr. The data analysis demonstrates how the ‘Kaiju’ trope is less used for actual kaiju works but more to identify appearances of kaiju in works other sources would not identify as such. Thus, it reveals a different understanding of the kaiju genre that is missing in other sources, research and analyses.
Comparison of Data Analysis and TV Tropes’ List
TV Tropes provides a page that lists
tropes that are considered kaiju tropes. Additionally, TV Tropes also provides
a page that lists works that are considered kaiju. Our data analysis is based
on the latter, however, in this section, we compare the list that is provided
on TV Tropes[1] and
the list that we derived from the page of kaiju works on TV Tropes. In our
previous tiny use case blog post, we compared the list of genre-related kaiju
tropes provided by TV Tropes with our list of core tropes derived from
live-action films. We discovered that only eleven tropes overlapped between
that list and our identified core tropes. We concluded that there are different
definitions of kaiju genre conventions simultaneously at work in the TV Tropes
community. By incorporating additional data on other media than live-action
films, our previous conclusion was affirmed. The expanded dataset does not show
an increased overlap between the TV Tropes list and our analyzed data of all
kaiju works. It rather drops from 11 to 9 overlapping tropes (see table 5).
Interestingly, these tropes range around the edge of our employed core trope
threshold (>10% occurrence), rather than around the top of core tropes (see
table 3). Only “Behemoth Battle,” a staple trope for monster- and kaiju films,
which describes battles between two gigantic beasts, stands out in particular,
indicating a loose agreement between the various perspectives on kaiju. For a
bottom-up data-analysis, the difference between given lists of genre-defining
tropes and the data we extracted complicates genre analysis with fan-curated
databases, as fan communities are heterogeneous and genre definitions, even
among one community, can vary. Thus, for a bottom-up genre analysis this
heterogeneity must be considered and the data sources specified.
[1] TV Tropes (2025): https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KaijuTropes (accessed: April 2, 2025).
Table 5: Overlapping tropes between provided tropes and derived core tropes.
Regarding the content of the core tropes, we observed that tropes related to gigantism and battles, such as ‘BigBad,’ BigDamnHeroes,’ CurbStompBattle,’ or ‘BehemothBattle,’ consistently rank high among the core tropes in both of our previous and our current analysis (see table 6). While generalization further reinforces the common understanding of kaiju as battling, giant monsters, our data analysis further shows how certain thematic tropes, in this example gigantism and battles, are quantitively concentrated and how single tropes are ranked in comparison to others. In table 6, we see that tropes denoting gigantism and battles are more spread out with an average rank of 6.5, while for all kaiju works the average rank is 5.5, while the average percentage share does not change much (live-action films: 23.05%, all kaiju works: 23.50%). While similarity in the relative share indicates a consistency in the presence of these tropes, the difference in rank suggests that these tropes have an increased importance for all kaiju works. When it comes to single tropes, we can observe that ‘CurbStompBattle’ has a considerable higher relevance for all kaiju works in comparison to live-action films. Instead of categorizing tropes by themes, such as gigantism and battles, our data analysis reveals how single tropes behave differently when other media is included in the analysis.
Table 6: The changes in rank of tropes indicating gigantism from live-action films to all kaiju works.
Circularity of Genre Categories
Furthermore, we observed that the
top 10 tropes and the top 15 tropes are quite consistent, with only some outliers,
such as “StockFootage,” i.e., frequently reused shots or series of shots in
works.[1]
This consistent attribution of top core tropes may indicate a broader consensus
of the kaiju genre across several media in the fan community, as this
consistency of recurring tropes could signify a “system of expectation” (Neale
2012: 179) that is fundamental for the kaiju genre. Therefore, the data
signifies what is being seen but also denotes the viewers’ general expectations
of kaiju films. This is what Werner Faulstich calls the “circularity of genre”
(“Zirkularität des Genrebegriffs,” 2013: 30): the need of criteria to
categorize a film as belonging to a certain genre and the extraction of these
criteria from films. Our data analysis cannot nullify this circularity to come
to conclusive criteria that define the kaiju genre or how it is understood in the
TV Tropes fan community, but it can help determine which criteria, here tropes,
are spotted by the fans from which a horizon of genre expectation can be drawn
and used for future consideration. The fluidity of the data can be a mirror to
the fluidity of the genre. It has the potential to make visible themes and
conventions that may be overlooked or put aside in top-down analyses.
[1] TV Tropes 2025, Link: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooDumbToLive (accessed April 2, 2025).
Media-Specific Tropes
Inconsistencies, on the other hand, for example the significant difference in rank of “StockFootage” may be attributed to the types of media included in the dataset. For example, early Godzilla films regularly made use of stock footage. Since live-action films can easily incorporate stock footage, other media, such as manga, literature, and games, are less likely or even unable to use it due to their different usage or absence of visual material. Thus, in this context, “StockFootage” can be characterized as a media-specific trope—a trope found predominantly in live-action kaiju films.
Franchise-Specific Tropes
In the all kaiju works dataset, we can observe another major jump in rank. The trope “HenshinHero,” a superhero subtrope describing characters drawing their superpower from a transformation, remains prevalent but has declined from 16.4% to 12.9%. This decline can be attributed to the inclusion of other works, which focus on kaiju characters rather than the Super Sentai series or Ultraman series, two franchises of the henshin hero subgenre. However, the Ultraman franchise continues to play a big role for the kaiju genre according to the TV-Tropes community data. Due to the emphasis on the visuality of and screen time used for the transformation (henshin) process through items, theatrical gestures, and announcements, it is more likely to be found in visual media, such as films and tv series. The dataset shows that from the 41 (12.9%) works “HenshinHero” is attributed to only 4 works that are not part of the Ultraman franchise and are not live-action tv series or live-action films. Only Ultraman: Rising is an animation film. This may show that “HenshinHero” is predominantly tied to the media of live-action tv series and live-action films through the Ultraman franchise on TV Tropes. This stands in contrast to its transmediality: “While the franchise is primarily based in television, it is multimedia and spans across motion pictures, comic books, video games, live shows, and of course toys.” (Kim 2017) Therefore, while according to the drop in the data “HenshinHero” appears to be a media-specific trope, like “StockFootage,” it is more likely a franchise-specific trope in this case. Based on this analysis, we can conclude that there are different types of tropes. Here, our data analysis revealed media-specific tropes, i.e., tropes that can only be attributed to works based on their acoustic and visual material, and franchise-specific tropes, i.e., tropes that emerge and are strongly linked to a specific franchise.
Genremixing
The trope “HumongousMecha,” i.e., gigantic autonomous or human-controlled robots with “arms and/or legs where other types of machinery would have wheels,”[1] has jumped to 15.7% of all kaiju works, almost disrupting the consistency of the top 15 core tropes. It thus appears to be highly relevant for kaiju works although it is typically associated with the mecha subgenre. It is relatively consistently attributed across the different media categories (see table 7). Its appearance in all kaiju core tropes can be attributed to the inclusion of video games and live-action TV series, such as the Ultraman franchise, while the most prominent examples, like Attack on Titan and Neon Genesis Evangelion, are single “Anime & Manga” works. Other prominent mecha-genre examples, such as the Macross franchise and the Gundam franchise, are missing in the kaiju dataset, since they do not feature kaiju or kaiju-like monsters. Thus, the tagging of mecha-related tropes in kaiju works suggests that the kaiju genre is not isolated but instead shares common features and tropes with the mecha and kyodai hero subgenres. This challenges our understanding of core tropes as signifiers for a genre and shifts our attention away from essential conventions of a genre to the boundaries of a genre, where it overlaps, collides, or mixes with other genres. As Mundhenke (2020) pointed out, genres are in constant movement and, in reference to Rick Altman, mix or hybridize. Genre-Hybridization describes the process of creating something constitutively new, while genre-mixing describes innovative variation by combination, while sticking to pre-given categories. The example of “HumongousMecha” as a distinct mecha trope appearing in the kaiju trope dataset is a possible sign of genre-mixing between these two subgenres realized in works such as Pacific Rim (live-action film), Ultraseven (live-action TV series), and Neon Genesis Evangelion (Anime), but without creating a new genre category.
[1] TV Tropes 2025, Link: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mecha (accessed April 2, 2025).
| Anime & Manga | Comic Books | Fan Works | Films – Live-Action | Literature | Live-Action TV | Tabletop Games | Video Games | Web Comics | Western Animation |
| 4 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 11 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 4 |
Table 7: Distribution of the “HumongousMecha” trope by media.
In the end, we have to be cautious about making definitive conclusions based on these data and inferences about the kaiju genre, because the dataset of all kaiju works, more so than just the live-action works, also includes works, themes, and characters usually not considered part of the kaiju genre in a narrow sense, such as dinosaurs, superheroes, kyodai heroes, mecha, and other tokusatsu genres.
Conclusion
In our last tiny use case, we concluded that the data derived from live-action films alone are not sufficient to infer genre-constituting tropes. Therefore, we expanded our data set by including data from all kaiju works to examine differences and similarities between the live-action kaiju films data and all kaiju works data. Our analysis highlights the complex role of tropes that constitute the kaiju genre. For example, while live-action films remain central to the genre’s perception, the data also shows that anime and Western animation receive more detailed trope attributions than other media, such as literature or video games, suggesting a higher engagement. However, the uneven categorization and varying attention reveals challenges for using fan-curated databases for systematic genre analyses.
We also found different types of tropes, such as media-specific and franchise-specific tropes, that reshape the list of core tropes. On the other hand, the presence of similar tropes across various media still suggests a shared thematical core of the genre, while at the same time, certain tropes usually associated with other genres indicate fluidity and hybridity between kaiju and other tokusatsu subgrenes, such as mecha and henshin hero. This core can be understood as a horizon of genre expectations that can be in turn used as a criterion to categorize a work (“circularity of genre”). For our next analysis, we will examine the shared thematical core that seems to be prevalent in the kaiju works data set.
Sources
- We analyzed data provided by TV Tropes (https://tvtropes.org/).
- We compared the data analyzed with information on WikiZilla (https://wikizilla.org/wiki/Main_Page), IMDb (https://www.imdb.com), and Wikipedia (https://www.wikipedia.org/).
- Barr, J. (2016). The Kaiju Film: A Critical Study of Cinema’s Biggest Monsters. MacFarland.
- Goldmann, J. E. (2022). Fan Fiction Genres: Gender, Sexuality, and Family in the Fandoms “Stark trek” and “Supernatural”. transcript.
- Faulstich, W. (2013): Grundkurs Filmanalyse. Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
- Kim, S. Y. (2017). Kamen Rider vs. Spider-Man and Batman. American Superheroes as Kaiju Villains. In C. D. G. Mustachio, & J. Barr (Eds.): Giant Creatures in Our World: Essays on Kaiju and American Popular Culture. McFarland & Company.
- Mundhenke, F. (2020). Hybride Genres. In: M. Stiglegger (Ed.): Handbuch Filmgenre. Geschichte – Ästhetik – Theorie. Springer VS.
- Neale, S. (2012). Questions of Genre. In B. Grant (Ed.), Film Genre Reader IV (pp. 178-202). University of Texas Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7560/742055-017.