I have been thinking a bit recently about how we tag Ave Mujica. Ultimately I think what we're doing is still probably the best way to go, but I'm definitely not completely satisfied with it. It's also only been discussed in Discord so far, so it would be good to have something in writing on the forum as well.
Quick lore dump for those who don't know the show:
Show
The first three seasons of BanG Dream! are simply seasons 1, 2, and 3. Essentially the same main cast appears throughout all three seasons. After seasons 3, came BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!!. MyGo features a different cast of characters, and the cast of the main show don't come into the plot at all, aside from brief background cameos. BanG Dream! Ave Mujica features the same main cast and plot as MyGo. In essence, the two seasons together form a distinct, separate sub-franchise within BanG Dream, which you can very easily watch and enjoy without knowing anything about the original show.
MyGo and Ave Mujica focus on two bands, (called, respectively, MyGo!!!!! and Ave Mujica). The plot basically revolves around the emotional aftermath of the break-up of an earlier band, Crychic (comprised of Tomori, Soyo, Taki, Sakiko, and Mutsumi), which we only see through flashbacks. The five girls form a band, they all become friends, it's the best thing that's ever happened to all of them, then they break up and they're all super traumatized. Tomori, Soyo, and Taki go on to form a new band (MyGo!!!!!!) with Anon and Raana, while Sakiko and Mutsumi form Ave Mujica with Uika, Umiri, and Nyamu. There's lots of complex emotions and tears and drama. In MyGo, we see that band's side of the story, but there's many unanswered questions. In Ave Mujica, we'll get to see the other side of the story.
The basic problem is that it seems not quite right for MyGo to get a copyright tag, and for Ave Mujica to be lumped in under it without its own tag. There's clearly one overarching story between the two seasons. One season is from one band's perspective, one season is from the other's. They are two sides of the same coin, and it feels imbalanced to have MyGo get the copytag and Ave Mujica get nothing, purely because MyGo came first. It's not really fair. The official site does call Ave Mujica a "sequel," but it has completely different marketing, different official accounts, different IRL events, it literally has a different title, etc.
Pretty much every other site uses two different copyright tags. Twitter and Pixiv both use a separate MyGo tag and a Ave Mujica Tag. AO3 had a main Bang Dream tag and a MyGo tag, and was originally lumping everything under MyGo, but now has a separate Ave Mujica tag. There's very clearly fans who are super into Ave Mujica and less into MyGo, and vice versa (this is, after all, a show about music, and the two bands have completely different musical styles). There's lots of artists who almost exclusively draw one of the bands, and not the other.
I think it would be ideal to have two separate copyright tags. The problem with that idea is that it raises some rather difficult tagging questions. An image of the five members of Ave Mujica, in their distinctive Ave Mujica outfits: okay, well, that sounds like a good candidate to be tagged as Ave Mujica. Anything specifically referencing the latter season, sure. Obviously, a post of the five MyGo girls is tagged MyGo. But what exactly is the criteria for everything in the middle?
Do we tag Ave Mujica on anything featuring any of the Ave Mujica characters, and MyGo likewise? What do we do with the many Umiri x Taki posts (one girl from each band), like post #8511122? Tag them with 2 copyrights? Doesn't feel great, especially as we'd have to go back and add the new copyright tag to hundreds of posts, when the majority are from before the Ave Mujica anime was even announced. What about posts which feature only Ave Mujica characters, but are clear references to specific scenes from MyGo (post #7370056)? What do we tag no_humans posts like post #7560692?
I don't think these difficulties are insurmountable, but there's going to be some counterintuitive results, and there's going to be a ton of posts with two copyright tags, which is less than ideal.
We could do something like bang_dream!_it's_mygo!!!!!/ave_mujica. But that's kinda ugly.
The final alternative is to just nuke BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!!. That would be the easiest and most consistent option, but it would completely deprive users of the ability to see just posts from the separate and distinct little MyGoverse, so I would be strongly against it (the alternative being an impractical 10-term ~Anon ~Soyo ~Taki... search). It absolutely makes sense to have some easy way to just see MyGo/Ave Mujica posts and nothing else.
So what do we do? I don't know. I suppose the status quo (1 copyright tag) is probably the least bad solution. I'm open to suggestions.
With respect to the second BUR, I think it's premature/pointless to alias the titles of unreleased manga that will show up in autocomplete anyway.
