Tag Alias: spice_and_wolf -> ookami_to_koushinryou

Soljashy said:
0xCCBA696, as a programmer, I truly appreciate your want for consistency. I've read your arguments before, and I tend to agree with you.

I thought it was necessary for someone to play the devil's advocate here, though, seeing that official English titles provided with the Japanese names do not have those three problems you mentioned about localized titles (and you know, every rule has its exceptions).

By the way, on the topic of educating the userbase, I'd like to mention my longing for more kanji in the wiki sections. Even if the wiki for a character tag is empty, as long as the kanji for their name is there, I can find all I need to know...

Every rule may have its exceptions, but I would expect those exceptions to be very well justified. There's nothing wrong with the title "ookami to koushinryou", as far as I can see.

And I totally agree with you about the wiki. I try to add 漢字 whenever I edit character or series pages.

Fencedude said:
Oh god, I'm SO sorry that my spelling isn't perfect after having been up for 22 hours. Jackass.

I still see no indication that you are attempting to respond to any point I or anyone else argued. Please try to include more content and less name-calling in your posts in the future.

0xCCBA696 said:
I still see no indication that you are attempting to respond to any point I or anyone else argued. Please try to include more content and less name-calling in your posts in the future.

I did respond to one of your points. I pointed out that you were using Wikipedia as a reference against using spice_and_wolf despite having it pointed out to you by several other posters that that title is used in both the show itself and on the official website.

Also, Japanese Wikipedia is just as useful a source as English Wikipedia, which is to say "not much"

Edit: and nice, accusing me of throwing insults when you completely avoided my initial point by nitpicking spelling. GJ!

The title being in the show and on the website in a very minor capacity is not, in my mind, sufficient to overrule the fact that nobody officially calls it "spice and wolf", which I supported by referring to the Japanese Wikipedia article as an example of a high-visibility Japanese article that supposedly covers everything relevant about the series and yet which makes no mention of that title (in contrast to other Japanese Wikipedia articles, such as the one on Evangelion, which do mention some English titles). That was the point of my post. I am delighted to be repeating it just for you.

Pointing out misspellings is not an insult. Calling someone a jackass is. I didn't avoid your point, since it was identical to the points I was addressing in my previous post which you were attempting to respond to.

Of COURSE they don't call it "spice and wolf", THEY SPEAK FUCKING JAPANESE.

The point is that no one (and really no one) in the english-language anime fandom (you know, us) calls it "Ookami to Koushinryou". I literally had never seen the Japanese title written out in romanji until this thread was made. It was always referred to by the (official) English translation, by everyone, even the most weeaboo of weeaboos on the most weeaboo sites in the weeaboosphere.

Mindlessly aliasing every title to its most literal romanji transliteration brings nothing useful to the table, what do we gain by replacing a title that everyone knows with a version that very few people have ever seen?

0xCCBA696 said:
The title being in the show and on the website in a very minor capacity is not, in my mind, sufficient to overrule the fact that nobody officially calls it "spice and wolf"

I don't consider it a "very minor capacity" when it's in the official logo, as shown on the site.

For future reference and further review:
http://www.spicy-wolf.com/top.html

@Fencedude: Calm down. Lost tempers do not help.

Fencedude said:
Of COURSE they don't call it "spice and wolf", THEY SPEAK FUCKING JAPANESE.

The point is that no one (and really no one) in the english-language anime fandom (you know, us) calls it "Ookami to Koushinryou". I literally had never seen the Japanese title written out in romanji until this thread was made. It was always referred to by the (official) English translation, by everyone, even the most weeaboo of weeaboos on the most weeaboo sites in the weeaboosphere.

Mindlessly aliasing every title to its most literal romanji transliteration brings nothing useful to the table, what do we gain by replacing a title that everyone knows with a version that very few people have ever seen?

Yes, they speak "FUCKING JAPANESE", just as the series is also in "FUCKING JAPANESE", in case you didn't notice. Aliasing an English title to the original Japanese title is not mindless - I gave quite a long rationale for it a few posts up, in case you didn't notice that either. And take this as a "spelling nitpick" if you like, but someone who doesn't know how to spell "romaji" probably doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to choosing between Japanese and English titles of series.

I'll grant you that the title is not well known among users of danbooru, especially you (for whatever that's worth), but even if you personally have nothing to gain from it, the system gains consistency when there are fewer exceptions to a rule. The only disadvantage to you and others of your ilk, if you'll pardon the expression, will be seeing the words "ookami to koushinryou" in the tag list instead of "spice and wolf". Searching, tag adding, everything else will be unaffected.

By the way, anidb lists the series as "Ookami to Koushinryou", and that's a rather prominent site in the English-speaking anime fandom (you know, us).

0xCCBA696 said:
(before people started screaming "WEEABOO" at each other)

...yeah.

sgcdonmai said:
I don't consider it a "very minor capacity" when it's in the official logo, as shown on the site.

For future reference and further review:
http://www.spicy-wolf.com/top.html

As I mentioned, dote up a cat is currently aliased to nekokawaigari, despite the fact that the title screen of that game (if I recall correctly) had the words "dote up a cat" prominently displayed. That's a rather unimportant series, though, but note also code geass hangyaku no lelouch r2, which, if we go by "English words on title screen / logo = official English title", should be aliased to code geass lelouch of the rebellion r2 or something (note that this is not even a particularly accurate translation of 「反逆のルルーシュ」, "hangyaku no lelouch").

0xCCBA696 said:
And take this as a "spelling nitpick" if you like, but someone who doesn't know how to spell "romaji" probably doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to choosing between Japanese and English titles of series.

You know what?

BITE ME

I use "romaji" 99% of the time, so of course one time I slip up and stick that stupid "n" that for some reason gets attatched half the time people use it (I don't know why) would be now. And of course that means my opinion isn't to be trusted, despite the fact that I have demonstrated over and over again on this site that I do, in fact, know what the fuck I'm talking about.

As for your other examples, well no shit. We have/had something of a policy of ALIASING TO THE JAPANESE TITLE. What we are discussing here is whether or not that policy is, in fact, something that should be done across the board or if it should be done on a case by case basis.

(now we wait to see what minor grammar/spelling/whatever issue he finds with this post, points it out, declares it renders everything I said invalid, and proceeds to act like he is the only one with a valid opinion)

...you know what? Nevermind my previous opinion. I'm now in favor of this thread being locked and warnings issued.

I agree with sgcdonmai here. On this entire issue, I am conflicted, and agree with both 0xCCBA696 and Fencedude on different aspects of the issue.

The tagging system *should* be consistant because that's the only good way to provide uniformity and impartially settle disputes, on the other hand when a very commonly known and used title is obfuscated in favor of a technically correct but arcane one, that doesn't seem prudent either.

Much as I argued when the issue came up with video games, the primary benefit to using Japanese titles is because they are usually the ones first known when brought to the attention of the English speaking world (of which Danbooru belongs). If on the other hand the Japanese themselves provide a perfectly good English alternative title in an official manner that is almost universally accepted by English fansub communities, you have the same issue as with simultaneously released games.

I guess my final stance on the matter lies on Fencedude's side here (though I would like to distance myself from his arguments and behavior on this topic). Consistancy is important, but so is the definition of of the rule we are being consistant with. I think we could do better than say everything in Japanese period.

How long has the spice_and_wolf tag been up here? At least a year and some months, right (correct me if that's wrong)? If it's been around for that long, it seems strange and unnecessary to change it as the main tag all of a sudden, especially if most people seem comfortable with how it has been.

spice and wolf was the original tag, set by albert when he uploaded the first horo image.

How ironic, then, that the source URL of that very image indicates that its filename was "ookamito.jpg".

Well, whatever. It seems like my reasoning isn't persuading anyone, so I'll just drop it, I suppose. I'll admit my case isn't as strong as it would be / was in other aliases, since the title is a pretty literal translation and even somewhat official. I guess the consensus is that we want to decide these on a case by case basis. Fair enough, I suppose, though I'd still prefer a nice simple rule.

I don't know that it's a perfectly well defined rule, but it is nice and simple and mostly what we've been doing all along: "Go with whichever official form first gains traction in the English-speaking anime community".

For series and Japan-only games, it will almost always be the Japanese, for simultaneous releases and instances will official English alternatives, it will likely be the the English.

If we define the rule that way, it makes just about everything we've decided thus far consistent, including the previous rulings on Castlevania and Zelda, etc.

Things seem to have wound down but I'll still toss in a semi-official "Enough fighting please." And if forced to make a decision, I'm right at this moment deciding it'll be left as is, though I think both arguments are strong and valid, and I would be happy with either. I've leaned ever so slightly to Spice and Wolf with familiarity and number of posts being the dealbreaker.

I'd like to request that nobody take this as strong precedent for keeping a name English, however. It isn't. I'm treating it as an exception, not norm.

After much contemplation, my personal conclusion would be to favour consistency and follow the convention, thus aliasing the English title (no matter how official) to the original Japanese title.

However, I feel that this has highlighted a shortcoming in the way titles are kept in the database. Have you guys ever considered storing multiple language versions of tags? Obviously, it would not be necessary for all tags, but I can see it being useful for copyrights (and perhaps characters). This would require significant changes to the database, of course.

I've investigated things a bit, and the "Spice and Wolf" title was chosen for the anime (for the sake of overseas licensing), but was never associated with the original light novels, nor did it appear on them.

There is only one possible conclusion: every true fan who got into this series due to the original light novels knows it as "Ookami to Koushinryou", while the "Spice and Wolf" crowd are a bunch of wannabes who just happened to download a fansub of the cartoon. I see no reason to pander to them, so I support aliasing the title to "ookami to koushinryou".

LaC said:
...every true fan who got into this series due to the original light novels knows it as "Ookami to Koushinryou", while the "Spice and Wolf" crowd are a bunch of wannabes who just happened to download a fansub of the cartoon...

Actually, those are just a bunch of wannabes who happened to read online translations of the original novels. The true fans could only know it as 狼と香辛料.

LaC said:
There is only one possible conclusion

Or just maybe, English speakers like equivalent titles that they can understand. Eh, it's a case-by-case basis for me, so I guess that doesn't amount for much if the goal is consistency.

But your use of "true fan" makes me wonder if you're being sarcastic.

That was epic sarcasm, LaC.

Soljashy's was better.