Hey, do you have a discord? I'd like to speak about sekaikan.
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First of all, although it's clear that our Canon page is based on the definition of canon that is mostly used on fictional work, when we start talking about Japanese products, the situation changes a lot. Other than some use of Canon/Orthodox to talk about a work that has a main creator (Like a manga series) that puts that creator as super important (Like the Saint Seiya series for ND and other Kurumada works), that really isn't used that much, unless the fanbase around that work really wants to ask about canon, that ends up just being due to the western fanbase or the Japanese fanbase being influenced by those standards.
Can I request a elaboration on this word "Orthodox" in regards to canon?The problem with a lot of Japanese franchises (I say this because they are the ones that I work with the most, but is valid to basically any franchise that works in the way that I'll talk about) is that the use of "canon" itself (Or at least the equivalent to that word that has its religious roots) "Seitō" (正統/Orthodox) isn't really common. Instead the words "Sekaikan" (Worldview), "Setei" (Settings) or at best "Kōshiki" (Official/Formula) that although can be used in basically the same way that we think of canon, it's also very common to describe the larger cosmology/rules of the franchise that can be the same even if two works aren't in the same "canon/continuity/universe".
The main purpose of this forum is to discuss how to properly index the statistics of characters from a wide variety of different fictional franchises.
Each doctrine has their own view of canon, like consdering both the old and new testaments as canon, or just the old one for example. The meaning of "canon" here is to show which book are considered valid to discuss the doctrine, the ones that not exactly "happened" (As the nature of all the biblical stories itself being literal is also a topic of discussion), but at least they are the ones that really represent the "word of god".
The concept of canon with fictional works is based on that. We have multiple works that takes place in the same "world" made by different people that sometimes contradict each other, therefore the concept of fictional canon was created by fans themselves to try to put order on this and standards such as saying that the source material, or what is written by the original author, is the only canon with spin-offs being the non-canon.
Since this was a concept created by fans themselves, not every creator uses that, although sometimes they do.
In relation to some "Japanese" products, we have more problems. First the word "Seitō" (正統/Orthodox), that is the word to use for correct/legitimate statements or use of a certain doctrine, that of course includes the "Orthodox rullings" of Religions for example. And since that is basically the root of the wor "canon", the word "Seitō" is used in Japanese texts to describe something that follows the "legimate rules" or that is a "legitimate work", that is basically our concept of cannon most of the times. And of course, there's a lot of focus on the work of the original author being the "legitimate" and that is reflected with sequel/prequel series, sometimes made by the author or not, to have the "Seitō" description in order to say "this is the true story that continues/predated the story that you like".
So, "Seitō" is simply the word that has its roots in basically the same as "canon" and is used in similar context, therefore I said that is the closest word in Japanese that has the same meaning as "canon", alread considering that "canon" itself is a multilayered word that has different uses in different works.
But the problem is that there are a lot of work that aren't created under the "there's a main author who do the work" standard and we have franchises that not only are very decentralized, but there's nearly never an attempt to really explain what is the "Seitō" of the series, at best sometimes this happens when the fans themselves ask a lot.
At best the concepts that are really used when creating a franchise are "Sekaikan" (世界観/Worldview) and "Settei" (設定/Settings). Those concepts also have their roots, but they are used for works that you could say that is similar to the "Bibles" for fictonal works. This includes the overall lore of the series, its rules, the history of the characters and so on. Having this "Sekaikan" and "Settei" as the basis, you can see various works that are stated to be in the same "Sekaikan", but that have some differences in the story. So we have here a new problem.
The very origin of the use of canon for the fans was to know for sure what is "true" for a series that has a lot of derivative works that seems to have the same basis, but tends to have some contradictory elements. So sometimes those different works that share worldviews are asked by fans how they are related, and the reason tends to change depending on the context.
There'll be some works that are completely unrelated, although they share that same Sekaikan, there are works that explain different Sekaikan as different universes and there are also cases where the differences in the story are meaningless and you should only pay attention that the Sekaikan is the same and it's simply that one work can show that Sekaikan in a way and another medium will have a different way to show it.
And finally there are works that have even different opinions on the staff of what the Sekaikan even is or how the multiple works fit. There are staff members that might think they are unrelated, there are others that think they are different universes, there are others that can think that they are all the same. Those are all possibilities that some franchises really go very deep into that.
I used Digimon as an example in that thread because it's exactly how it works. It never used the word Seitō in relation to works being valid or not, but it really uses "Sekaikan" and "Settei" to describe the various works and there's a lot of different ways of how those things fit together, sometimes even using metafiction as an answer.
In the end it all depends on the franchise on itself and there'll be a lot of case by case