The bulk update request #6149 is pending approval.

create alias kemono (120183) -> anthro (3329498) # duplicate of has blocking transitive relationships, cannot be applied through bur

Reason: From the kemono wiki page:

Japanese for "beast" or "animal" (獣, けもの), this tag is for a specific style of anthropomorphic art associated best with Japan, but may also be found in Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, and other Asian countries. Characters portrayed are usually very "anime" in style, though this can vary. Most notable features include large, human-like eyes and otherwise anime-like expressiveness

So, what is this tag for? If it's just anything from artists in Southeast Asia, then that's not particularly helpful; it's too broad since it lumps a bunch of different countries into one tag, and it's too specific since no other geographical area has a similar tag. If it's for a specific style, then again the tag is too broad, listing five different styles (chibi, box-shaped head, triangular head, humanlike face, round face) that could apply to the tag and still leaves room for more styles. Even then, a lot of the example images just look like regular furries that anyone from any area would draw, and not something that's specific to a certain region. In its current form, this tag is too broad to stay.

The bulk update request #6150 is pending approval.

remove alias osukemo (0) -> kemono (120183)
remove alias mesu_kemo (0) -> kemono (120183)
remove alias osu_kemo (0) -> kemono (120183)
remove alias mesukemo (0) -> kemono (120183)
remove alias osu-kemo (0) -> kemono (120183)
remove alias mesu-kemo (0) -> kemono (120183)
remove implication debukemo (2) -> kemono (120183)

Reason: the part 1 I forgot to post

Strictly in terms of character form, aliasing to anthro is wrong.

A forum search reveals a thread from several years ago expressing similar sentiments.
topic #11627

That said, there is certainly a stylistic element this tag includes that is A: not well articulated by the current wiki, B: is too broad to let a single tag contain all its contents. and C: applies even to characters outside of "anthro" morphology.
The current approach of saying that boxy heads, triangular heads, and round heads are all kemono is not practical, there are only so many shapes that heads will come in.

Yet there is still a kemono "essence" conveyed by images like post #69875 post #29623 post #679163 post #4485290 that is still probably worth trying to facilitate searches for.
Putting aside the strange e621 wiki for it, the consensus appears to be that "kemono", when contrasted with "furry", is trying to communicate a "moé" facial style with large vertical anime eyes and often (but not always!) small snouts that are comparable to human noses.
https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Kemono
https://dic.pixiv.net/a/ケモノ

We have tags like small head and big head which allow us to tag a lot of style/anatomy particulars (big heads are often a feature of "chibi", small heads aren't usually an artstyle thing but more commonly suggest that a certain character is very tall/large), I would rather see similar tags drafted or brought into the spotlight to stand for the features that kemono tries and fails to.

• is there a sensible tag name for these kinds of eyes that isn't just "anime eyes"?
• is there a sensible tag name for small snouts that still look like snouts?
• what about the extreme version where the "snout" is little more than a button in the middle of their face?

lafcadio said:
https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Kemono
https://dic.pixiv.net/a/ケモノ

The Kemono style is not just "Moe" though and it can come from a variety of anime styles.

動物キャラクターの総称で、未だ愛好者の間では定義・見解が統一されていない。

No matter much we try to create a specific, ironclad definition for the "kemono" term, it's so broadly used on other sites that it'll necessarily be misused by people bringing in their own preconceptions. I'd call the tag a sinking ship at this point: it's already been so widely used on anything and everything that I'd rather start anew. Those characteristics you mentioned would be better served to form new, more specific tags, rather than trying to cram everything under one tag.

Fair point about the term applying to non-anthro characters, though. I'm fine with changing the target to something else.

Related: https://e621.net/forum_topics/31455

strikerman said:
Those characteristics you mentioned would be better served to form new, more specific tags, rather than trying to cram everything under one tag.

This is what I was trying to suggest, yes.

Removing the ability to search specifically for kemono-style artwork benefits the site how?

kemonophonic said:
Removing the ability to search specifically for kemono-style artwork benefits the site how?

What is "kemono-style"?

The tag is useful for blacklisting the style some users don't like topic #21995 topic #21945 comment #5267994 blip #102761
They mention the tag barazoku but was because they didn't know the tag for the style they wanted to blacklist

https://e621.net/forum_posts/282764

Well, you singled out an uploader who uploads the TYPE of art I'm looking to blacklist. Lots of it actually. But he also uploads stuff that doesn't bother me at all..

If there were a way to blacklist posts uploaded by user? Perhaps?

Not that I want to blacklist

mapachito

users specifically, because that's just asinine.

https://e621.net/forum_posts/282769

If it's possible to narrow it down to a tag like that, it would be immensely helpful; I could then remove a number of my blacklisted words and clean my list.

if i want to search for art with east asian/anime-influenced art styles, how am i able to search for such content? this will destroy searchability that will blend in other styles that i wouldn't be interested: realistic, western (considerably default for this matter), 3D and many other art styles.
it's just the matter of the fact what kind of asian furry artists have established art style and essence what it's matters. this accompanies things like familiar artistic elements commonly found in usual anime.

other than that, if this is the whole debate about aliasing cub to young, kemono would do the following with aliasing into anime-style tag for the room for such content.

strikerman said:
No matter much we try to create a specific, ironclad definition for the "kemono" term, it's so broadly used on other sites that it'll necessarily be misused by people bringing in their own preconceptions.

outside the e6, artists have the freedom of tagging their stuff with bias and regardless of objectivity, just painting a realistic traditional art, they can be seen tagging #cool #cute #kemono, very subjective with their tagging. meanwhile e6 is very objective with tagging traits found in the image, assisted by whole twys 'religion'.

On Pixiv, isn't it actually equivalent to what we call humanoid, not anthro?

alphamule said:
On Pixiv, isn't it actually equivalent to what we call humanoid, not anthro?

No, that's kemonomimi (which on here is aliased to animal_humanoid). kemono is just the Japanese word for "animal", and the tag is essentially the invalid anime tag wearing a fake moustache.

Kemono is essentially just furries (anthros, ferals, scalies, etc) in an anime/manga-like style. The tag can be helpful to find such art, but I'm one of the first to talk about how we shouldn't be tagging art styles since it's too subjective. Case in point, there are many things in the kemono tag that I wouldn't consider to be anime/mange style, and many things not tagged kemono that I think should be (and plenty more things that maybe could be tagged kemono but I'm not sure). Anecdotally, when I first found and started getting into furry art, I also noticed a trend for newer furry art to have a more eastern/anime style influence to the western/toony style of older furry art, which makes the distinction more vague. I'll be the first to admit (painfully) that I can't see a way to objectively distinguish kemono art, it's always an "I'll know it when I see it" kind of thing that's based on intuition, which isn't how tagging is supposed to work.

Relatedly, while anime is invalidated, anime_style, manga, toony, and some others aren't. Manga is even in the Meta category, despite essentially being comic equivalent of anime (there's also doujinshi, in the Meta category, which is a subset of manga). See also topic #39027.

Art styles may be somewhat subjective, but I still find it worthwhile to attempt to tag them. It is arguably one of the most important ways of categorizing artwork. I would rather deal with ambiguity and mistags than simply get rid of our ability to categorize art by style. That said (and see topic #31455 again), the concept behind kemono might be better served by some kind of anime_(style) tag or similar.