I've been thinking a lot about the slice-of-life genre - particularly as a Western author writing in it and primarily marketing to a Western audience.

If you're not familiar with the slice-of-life genre, that might be confusing as a consideration, so let's start with the basics.

Slice-of-life is a genre popularized heavily in East Asia, particularly in Japan (I haven't done the research to say for certain if it originated there, but it's definitely very popular). As a genre, it focuses on the mundane (so to speak) and day-to-day lives of the protagonist/s, often employing an ensemble cast.

It's kind of a weird genre, because it breaks a lot of the very basic "rules" of story writing - there is typically no central plot. There is often very little character development. In many animes, it follows what's been referred to as the "Sazae format" (based on the anime Sazae-san), where the characters don't age even as time appears to pass, giving it a sort of timeless feeling.

Different subgenres have their own considerations, of course - coming of age slice-of-life is obviously going to have a heavy focus on character development, and romantic comedy slice-of-life often does have the characters age and while it may not have character development, certainly has relationship development. Fantasy slice-of-life, which has come to recent popularity thanks to That Time I Was Reincarnated as a Slime, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, and the Western novel Legends and Lattes often do have a central plot and character development - though these are still character-driven stories vs plot driven stories.

If you're not familiar with character driven vs plot driven, the tl;dr version: character driven stories have the characters' motivations, relationships, and/or development take the main stage while the plot is secondary or more of a vehicle for achieving those goals, while plot driven stories have the plot take the main stage while the characters and their motivations are more of a vehicle for achieving its end goals. Neither is "better" than the other, they're just different formats that require understanding what makes each appealing to write well.

Slice-of-life is, no matter the subgenre, a character-driven genre - since the Plot is often non-existent in a traditional sense. So its a genre that relies heavily on writing appealing characters - and yes, "appealing" itself is a broad descriptor, but that's because there are a lot of ways to make characters appealing. Are they charismatic, so you just like reading about them and their charm? Are they plucky, so you want to root for them? Are they kind of a jerk, so you like watching them get some karmic retribution? Are they clever, so you like watching how they solve problems? Is every problem a nail and they're a hammer, so you like watching how they solve problems? The possibilities really are endless on making "appealing" characters.

But what am I actually trying to get at with all this?

Mostly, marketing a genre to an audience unfamiliar with it is hard. Managing audience expectations before they even start reading your work is crucial to getting it to the readers who will appreciate it the most - as any long term reader knows, reading preferences are very subjective. Take any series considered wildly popular and you'll find people who didn't like it - nothing appeals to everyone, and that's fine.

I initially publish Demon King's Gardener as a web serial novel with weekly updates - but even there, the slice-of-life genre is very popular and fairly well-known for its popularity even by people who don't read it themselves. When I started collecting it into novella volumes, I knew I was going to have more of a struggle, because my audience was no longer going to have a strong frame of reference for what kind of story it is - which means many readers coming in with expectations that don't match the genre.

That doesn't mean anyone has to like it, of course - but if you don't like reading (traditional Western) fantasy and you pick up Lord of the Rings or a Redwall Series book to try and hate them, you're probably not going to blame the book for being in a genre you already know you don't enjoy. (Hopefully.) They're not bad book because you don't enjoy them, but that doesn't mean you have to like them either.

But back on topic, how do you find an audience for a genre that's still really new to the market you're in? Sure, slice-of-life is popular in anime and anime is far more popular in the West today than it was in the past, and "cozy fantasy" is starting to gain appeal, but there's still not a huge mainstream frame of reference for slice-of-life in the West...

... or is there?

Is there a Western genre of storytelling that focuses on the mundane, day-to-day lives of the characters without a central plot? Where there is typically very little if any character development, and relies primarily on the appeal of its cast, which is typically an ensemble? Where time seems to pass but the characters don't really appear to age?

Stories about, perhaps... nothing?

If you didn't catch that reference, I'm talking about sitcoms - particularly Seinfeld and post-Seinfeld format sitcoms. Yes, they meet all the criteria of the slice-of-life genre! And a good deal of slice-of-life stories are comedy driven, relying on discrete bits that build on each other the same way sitcoms operate.

Now, sitcoms are primarily seen as a television genre - but they are a strong frame of reference for audience expectations that most general Western audiences are going to know what to expect going in, even if they don't personally watch many (or any) sitcoms. You don't walk into a sitcom expecting a central plot, though there may be a story arc or two in there (Friends, for example, having multi-episode and multi-season story arcs though the primary focus is still on the titular "friends"). You might have a central character (or three), but you're also likely going to have a significant supporting and recurring cast to go with them.

Tl;dr: sitcoms are comedy slice-of-life, Demon King's Gardener is a fantasy sitcom.

I hope that helps any future readers decide if the series is right for them, and helps anyone confused by the genre have a better frame of reference.

Bonus Round:

Fantasy slice-of-life is interesting because it also plays with what one would consider "mundane" - if you live in a fantasy world with fantastic monsters and magic and both of those things are common, then monster attacks and spells are both "mundane". If you're a psychic, then having psychic powers is, for the protagonist, "mundane". It can be fun to play around with, though it can make something more of a fantasy with slice-of-life elements than a slice-of-life in a fantasy setting, depending on the story.

Other series/books mentioned in this post:




Other slice-of-life series I enjoy (though most I have watched rather than read):