Genre Mashup

"So settle in one more time for the action-romance-comedy-drama-kids movie for adults." —Honest Trailers for The Princess Bride

A mixture of seemingly disparate genres together. After all, if two genres are already awesome on their own, then combining them will result in something even more awesome, right? Well, maybe, if you get the balance between the genres just right. Otherwise, you risk having an Uncertain Audience or Audience-Alienating Premise: a Romantic Action Comedy flick could attract both Action fans and Romantic Comedy enthusiasts, but it's just as likely that the elements of one genre will turn away fans of the other.

For works which use multiple, disparate genres without actually mixing them together, see Genre Roulette. Compare to Recycled in Space where a new genre may be pasted onto an existing story. If a character is this instead of a story, see Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot. If a character from one genre ends up in the setting of another, see Genre Refugee. Compare and contrast with Genre Busting, where a work fits into no genres rather than multiple. See also X Meets Y and Hybrid Genre. May involve Anachronism Stew.

Examples of Genre Mashup include:

Anime and Manga

• Berserk is a Dark Fantasy series with Cosmic Horror Story undertones, but The Golden Age Arc — several volumes long flashback in the middle of the series — is a Low Fantasy that's very close to Historical Fantasy, while still having some small elements of Dark Fantasy, with the main character having escaped from Heroic Fantasy.

Comic Books

• Strangers in Paradise is a Slice of Life story, mixed lesbian romantic comedy, crime drama, and on occasion a Xena: Warrior Princess parody.

Multiple Media

• There are entire story genres that do this.
  • Superhero comics in general take place in a Science Fantasy Kitchen Sink. Aliens, robots, clones, Mad Scientists, wizards, vampires, ghosts, demons, and more are all valid character types in a superhero story, and since most superheroes masquerade as ordinary people, so are character types from a Slice of Life or Work Com story.
  • Two-Fisted Tales is based on pulp fiction, which ranged from Cosmic Horror stories to hard-boiled Film Noir to Proto-Superhero stories and epic action-adventure Jungle Operas, so stories of this nature are naturally often a mashup of all of these at once.