Resolving the Dragon Ball Xeno issue

Before I begin, I just want to credit @egin_kogan for his excellent contributions to the Dragon Ball tag for the past while for inspiring the topic, especially in cornering the Dragon Ball Online/Dragon Ball Xenoverse/Dragon Ball Heroes fanart that hasn't seen as much representation on Danbooru yet. But in the process, his copyright tagging highlights an issue that we should figure out a solution to, as difficult as it might be.

Now, a bit of context - Dragon Ball Online was a game that introduced a bunch of new side-material lore stuff, including characters (whether properly introduced or in concept form), and then when that game got shitcanned, this stuff got repurposed for Dragon Ball Xenoverse and Dragon Ball Heroes at basically around the same time, and then the material from Xenoverse was also reused in Heroes as well. So, for instance, Towa appeared in Online originally, and then reappeared in Xenoverse and Heroes, while Chronoa appeared first in Xenoverse, before reappearing in Heroes.

The question then becomes, when either of them have their normal basic designs, and there is no context for what game is being referenced (not even in tags used at the source), what are their copyrights? In some instances, egin's solution has been "all of the above", as seen in examples such as post #7787869 for Towa and post #7908791 for Chronoa. But that doesn't seem appropriate. Given their reappearances beyond their original contexts, we can't just tag them with the copyright they debuted with (it's why we don't tag Vegeta with Dragon Ball Z ad nauseam, only if the image references stuff related to Z too, as appearance-wise he's basically identical in Super). But we can't just tag them with Dragon Ball alone, because they aren't part of the core franchise, they are in their own corner of it.

So the solution seems to be that we should make a parent tag for Online, Xenoverse and Heroes in the end, right? But what would we even call that? To my understanding, the franchise nor the fanbase have a common term lumping them together, aided by the fact that while they have shared elements, all of them use them in their own ways, like parallel universes. Something like dragon_ball_games would be too broad, catching stuff like FighterZ in it, while also tossing out stuff such as the manga and anime adaptations Heroes has received. Using the common terminology Heroes developed for the unique versions of existing characters these games have, Xeno (after Xenoverse), but dragon_ball_xeno feels too ambiguous next to Xenoverse's tag.

I'm out of ideas personally, so I'm tossing it out to the public here to get more heads involved.

Damian0358 said:

Before I begin, I just want to credit @egin_kogan for his excellent contributions to the Dragon Ball tag for the past while for inspiring the topic, especially in cornering the Dragon Ball Online/Dragon Ball Xenoverse/Dragon Ball Heroes fanart that hasn't seen as much representation on Danbooru yet. But in the process, his copyright tagging highlights an issue that we should figure out a solution to, as difficult as it might be.

Now, a bit of context - Dragon Ball Online was a game that introduced a bunch of new side-material lore stuff, including characters (whether properly introduced or in concept form), and then when that game got shitcanned, this stuff got repurposed for Dragon Ball Xenoverse and Dragon Ball Heroes at basically around the same time, and then the material from Xenoverse was also reused in Heroes as well. So, for instance, Towa appeared in Online originally, and then reappeared in Xenoverse and Heroes, while Chronoa appeared first in Xenoverse, before reappearing in Heroes.

The question then becomes, when either of them have their normal basic designs, and there is no context for what game is being referenced (not even in tags used at the source), what are their copyrights? In some instances, egin's solution has been "all of the above", as seen in examples such as post #7787869 for Towa and post #7908791 for Chronoa. But that doesn't seem appropriate. Given their reappearances beyond their original contexts, we can't just tag them with the copyright they debuted with (it's why we don't tag Vegeta with Dragon Ball Z ad nauseam, only if the image references stuff related to Z too, as appearance-wise he's basically identical in Super). But we can't just tag them with Dragon Ball alone, because they aren't part of the core franchise, they are in their own corner of it.

So the solution seems to be that we should make a parent tag for Online, Xenoverse and Heroes in the end, right? But what would we even call that? To my understanding, the franchise nor the fanbase have a common term lumping them together, aided by the fact that while they have shared elements, all of them use them in their own ways, like parallel universes. Something like dragon_ball_games would be too broad, catching stuff like FighterZ in it, while also tossing out stuff such as the manga and anime adaptations Heroes has received. Using the common terminology Heroes developed for the unique versions of existing characters these games have, Xeno (after Xenoverse), but dragon_ball_xeno feels too ambiguous next to Xenoverse's tag.

I'm out of ideas personally, so I'm tossing it out to the public here to get more heads involved.

The Chronoa posts (of her concept design) should def be tagged as Xenoverse, idk if we should make Xeno or Heroes imply Online tho cause the only thing that connects Heroes in "Xeno" characters (Xeno Trunks, Pan, ect), as for Towa and Mira, I think those 2 are the only ones I can see having Online, Xeno and Heroes in their posts

TheGamingRodent said:

The Chronoa posts (of her concept design) should def be tagged as Xenoverse, idk if we should make Xeno or Heroes imply Online tho cause the only thing that connects Heroes in "Xeno" characters (Xeno Trunks, Pan, ect), as for Towa and Mira, I think those 2 are the only ones I can see having Online, Xeno and Heroes in their posts

Wanted to add this; but if Sparking Zero is just gonna be characters from *every* Dragon Ball series; I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow imported game exclusives into their game as DLC later (ie Towa, Mira, Chronoa, Bonyu and Android 21) cause they are popular

TheGamingRodent said:

The Chronoa posts (of her concept design) should def be tagged as Xenoverse

That's obviously fine, that concept design is unique to Xenoverse, so it should get the tag.

idk if we should make Xeno or Heroes imply Online tho cause the only thing that connects Heroes in "Xeno" characters (Xeno Trunks, Pan, ect), as for Towa and Mira, I think those 2 are the only ones I can see having Online, Xeno and Heroes in their posts

Fu first appeared in a Dragon Ball Online guidebook, depicting him as a baby, but he didn't have the opportunity to appear before the game got canned. It's why posts like post #7741633 are fine, having both appropriate tags (Online for Baby Fu, and Xenoverse for being art associated with the first game more). There's also other characters that got carried over from Online to Heroes, such as those of the Red Pants Army, ala General Bon. But I don't think it's appropriate to imply either to Online, because despite how impactful that game ultimately was for the franchise, it's basically a footnote in its history in comparison to Xenoverse and Heroes.

Damian0358 said:

That's obviously fine, that concept design is unique to Xenoverse, so it should get the tag.

Fu first appeared in a Dragon Ball Online guidebook, depicting him as a baby, but he didn't have the opportunity to appear before the game got canned. It's why posts like post #7741633 are fine, having both appropriate tags (Online for Baby Fu, and Xenoverse for being art associated with the first game more). There's also other characters that got carried over from Online to Heroes, such as those of the Red Pants Army, ala General Bon. But I don't think it's appropriate to imply either to Online, because despite how impactful that game ultimately was for the franchise, it's basically a footnote in its history in comparison to Xenoverse and Heroes.

True, also for the video game tags; maybe we can make a "Dragon_Ball_(game_franchise)" tag as a parent tag or something, cause like I said Sparking Zero may add game exclusives to their game as DLC later

TheGamingRodent said:

If Sparking Zero is just gonna be characters from *every* Dragon Ball series; I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow imported game exclusives into their game as DLC later (ie Towa, Mira, Chronoa, Bonyu and Android 21) cause they are popular; maybe we can make a "Dragon_Ball_(game_franchise)" tag as a parent tag or something

This feels like it's missing the point. Characters such as Bonyu, Android 21, and Majin Ozotto have as much in common with each other as they do Towa and Mira, not that much at all. It's like suggesting a parent tag for all the non-canon ONE PIECE movies, it seems needless, and the fact that Sparking Zero could feature them doesn't change that point.

If Sparking Zero had a story mode which utilized the elements seen in Online/Xenoverse/Heroes, and incorporates the other game-exclusive characters as actual important characters and not just incidental villains/allies, then the discussion would be different, but as it stands, we'd probably treat Sparking Zero the same way we do Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle, as a tag that is only about stuff that's specifically related to that game (official art on the one end, things referencing original stuff from the series in the middle, and stuff related to the game's community on the other end). The Sparking series does not have a vast cast that's wholly unique to itself like the Online/Xenoverse/Heroes set of games do, which is what causes the tagging predicament I described in the first place.

Damian0358 said:

That's obviously fine, that concept design is unique to Xenoverse, so it should get the tag.

Fu first appeared in a Dragon Ball Online guidebook, depicting him as a baby, but he didn't have the opportunity to appear before the game got canned. It's why posts like post #7741633 are fine, having both appropriate tags (Online for Baby Fu, and Xenoverse for being art associated with the first game more). There's also other characters that got carried over from Online to Heroes, such as those of the Red Pants Army, ala General Bon. But I don't think it's appropriate to imply either to Online, because despite how impactful that game ultimately was for the franchise, it's basically a footnote in its history in comparison to Xenoverse and Heroes.

This is honestly a good note. I was really confused whether or not to add the Online tag for characters such as Bon when they also appear in Heroes ahaha. I thought about just only implying Online when the art itself is connected to it (ex. mikidai7 draws a lot of DB Online-centric art and worked on a lot of official art for it. There's mutterings that he cocreated Towa alongside Toriyama Akira but that info can be shaky.) But yeah. I was kind of winging things when I started adding stuff for it all here.
Hence I never add Online in the tags when presenting anything of an older Fu. I just tag the game the design being used came from as an implication. If thats not what im supposed to do I hope someone lets me know

egin_kogan said:

Hence I never add Online in the tags when presenting anything of an older Fu. I just tag the game the design being used came from as an implication. If thats not what im supposed to do I hope someone lets me know

Tagging the appropriate copyright depending on the design is exactly what you should be doing, so it should only be baby!Fu's design from Online that should get the Online tag (assuming, of course, we haven't seen that design for baby!Fu since...). But I'm sure you would agree that having a parent tag would resolve the issue of what to tag adult Fu with, rather than just tagging both Xenoverse and Heroes ala post #7884366, when you have his base design but otherwise nothing indicating it's based on one game or the other. Or to resolve the very thing you mentioned with Bon.

But as I noted in the OP, what that parent tag should be called is the difficult part in all this.

Damian0358 said:

Tagging the appropriate copyright depending on the design is exactly what you should be doing, so it should only be baby!Fu's design from Online that should get the Online tag (assuming, of course, we haven't seen that design for baby!Fu since...). But I'm sure you would agree that having a parent tag would resolve the issue of what to tag adult Fu with, rather than just tagging both Xenoverse and Heroes ala post #7884366, when you have his base design but otherwise nothing indicating it's based on one game or the other. Or to resolve the very thing you mentioned with Bon.

But as I noted in the OP, what that parent tag should be called is the difficult part in all this.

Oh yeah, absolutely. It's hard to determine what to call the parent tag, especially knowing all the games have different continuities. I know "Xeno" gets used as a catch-all for the characters sometimes but I don't think it would be the greatest fit (already mentioned anyway i believe). I don't know of any other fan labels in the scene that refer to them outside of just factions particular to certain games.

dragon_ball_heroverse

AngryZapdos said:

dragon_ball_heroverse

I get what you're aiming for here, combining the names for Xenoverse and Heroes... but it just feels like a name conjured up by a fan for their own personal Dragon Ball project. It's why Dragon Ball Multiverse, another potential name, is off the cards because of the long-running webcomic by Salagir.

I just realized Dragon Ball Heroes' arcade game run ends either this month or next month with the anime and manga following soon after so, if those characters end up ported elsewhere like how Dragon Ball Online's did, it's about to get even messier....