EN->JP names policy

T5J8F8 said:
you can't just search for, say, sora and expect the sora you're looking for.

This is generally true no matter which version you pick though--if a character has an ambiguous or common name, chances are there are more characters with that name.

As a counter-example for the "Japan first" thing, Winnie the Pooh shouldn't be tagged with the Japanese name Kuma no Pu.

I feel strongly that the original is just the most consistent and easy method, since there's always objectively one original name, no matter what. Then, if other versions of the name are also commonly used, they can be aliased towards it.

Original +1.

葉月 said:
Please define "west". Now please define what happens when there are multiple translations/versions around.

West == US. As I said before, pick the most popular name or, if there isn't one, use the original name. I can't think of any examples of this situation, but I'm mainly familiar with videogames where, if it's released in the US, then there is only one translation.

As I understand it, the entire point of tags is to both let people find what they're looking and to identify what's in a picture once they've found it. When searching for something it doesn't matter which way an alias points, but it does matter when someone is trying to figure out which characters are in a picture. I'd rather be a little subjective and inconsistent if it helps the non-hardcore, non-Japanese-speaking fans tell who they're looking at.

Anyway, are we keeping the Pokemon/Castlevania aliases or not? Some mods seem to want complete consistency and some don't seem to mind exceptions for these.

Go with whatever the original is.

Honestly it takes at most 30 seconds to look up the original name of a character, voting original.

T5J8F8 said: *hangs head* I'm responsible for the Pokemon aliases.

I know, I was referring instead to why Albert approved them after initially seeming to reject them.

T5J8F8 said: (FTR, I don't like the double-consonant system

Now I know you're my enemy and everything you say is suspect =P Fucking hate when double consonants are just tossed aside.

Anyway, I vote original as well, with exceptions where they're logical. Like Castlevania. 99% of the time there will be no question. That 1% of the time we can discuss it, but even then a lot of those don't require too much thought.

Wait, what was that bit with double consonants about?

evazion said:
West == US. As I said before, pick the most popular name or, if there isn't one, use the original name.

I'd like to direct your attention to the fact that the world has more more places than just US. Or even US and Japan. Not only is this shocking, but also rains on your "most popular" parade. Unless you want me to refer to Tonde Buurin (which we didn't have an alias for, btw) as Superświnka, which, I can assure you, is the name we use exclusively for the series in PL.

jxh2154 said:
Now I know you're my enemy and everything you say is suspect =P Fucking hate when double consonants are just tossed aside.

Assuming you two meant vowels, then yes, I fucking hate when people ignore them. Otherwise, what?

I feel I should clarify.

I by no means propose a total swing on to the other side, but case-specific consideration.

Preference for Japanese names will be rather obvious in a great number of cases: A lot of Danbooru’s content refers to things that everyone first meets through fansubs/scanlations or has simply never been officially translated to begin with. In many of these cases there’s nothing to consider in the first place.

My qualm is with stuff that one would specifically need to research to understand. The “West” isn’t the US of course. It’s a great deal more simple than that in truth. The relevant “other” version in these cases, this being an English-speaking site, is simply put whatever was released in English. There’s very rarely more than one of these. With exception of cases where the English version is of dubious nature or was released at a point where there was already an existing general knowledge of the original media, the issue isn’t so big. Some of the posts I’ve read make it sound as if the issue where between a single Japanese name and a slew of possible English ones, which is… not actually the issue at all.

To exemplify: While I have no idea if some popular series like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, etc have suffered naming changes in localization, anyone proposing standardization towards the English variants (if there were) would be logically laughed at. With fansubbing so ingrained into the anime/manga culture, localized releases take a paradoxical second-place in a lot of people’s perception of the product.

On the other hand, if you take cases where the product first reached English-speaking audience through an official channel… Say, pretty much the majority of video games ever released outside Japan, you will logically have an audience that is in a great majority familiar with the English names.

葉月 said:
Whilst there will always be special cases like Castlevania (ie. localised name so crushingly more popular that it gets acknowledged by the JP side), Pokemon (let's not be stupid with 400 aliases, it's a merchandise-driven kiddo show anyway) or Bison/Vega/Balrog in SF (ugh...), questioning the entire, very sensible and simple, policy on this basis is dumbstupidretarded.

I’m not exactly how anyone really thought I was saying anything but this. The problem is precisely when this policy steps into these “special” cases, which tend to be a good deal more common than you make them seem, as name changes are even now not unusual in game localization. Where do you draw the line? Why does “Castlevania” makes sense to leave as is yet not “Sabin Rene Figaro” or “Balthier”? Why is “Sekaiju no Meikyuu” even considered to be a well-known name yet the (very ironical) “Phantom Kingdom” is not? In short, what distinguishes a special case from a mundane one and under which criteria?

Ephyon said:
words

Your views intrigue me and I wish to sign up for your newsletter.

I should make it clear that I've mainly had videogames in mind, where, as Ephyon said, the localized English names are usually more well known than the Japanese ones. A quick example: who knows what Makaimura is without looking it up?

I haven't been saying we shouldn't use the original Japanese names for anime/manga, since most of the time the original names are what fans go by.

Well I guess Castlevania is a very special case because the English name seems to be rather well known in Japan, if you look at the Japanese Wikipedia entry you will find it right in the first line behind the original name, and several times more later. Besides, Castlevania is far more a unique name than the original, which is a fairly generic compound. Besides, the series has had a very consistence presence outside Japan.

Otherwise there are several reasons to prefer the original names, especially with characters. One is consistency. Personally I do not know a single case where a game character was renamed in a Japanese re-release. In the translations it happens all the time. Many characters in the Dragon Quest games had totally different games in the NES localizations, then names closer to the original in the Gameboy localizations, then completely new names again in the DS localizations, not even consistent necessarily across the various languages.

Another reason is that most of the artists whose works are displayed on danbooru are Japanese as well, so if a character name is integrated into the art, it will be the Japanese name.

葉月 said: Assuming you two meant vowels, then yes, I fucking hate when people ignore them. Otherwise, what?

Heh oops, I actually thought he was saying vowels, and thus read that word in where 'consonants' was, since the topic was vowels... So er, yeah, I assume he meant to say vowels. Though I don't like dropping doubled consonants either, not that I've ever seen anyone do that.

Okay, here's the new deal: I will not approve your alias or your implication unless you come to this forum, create a new thread, and make your case. I will only accept your submission if after a week a majority of responses are positive.

The Pokemon and Castlevania aliases have received a lot of grousing so let's test this new idea. Your options are: keep the aliases, remove them, or reverse them. Vote.

albert said: The Pokemon and Castlevania aliases have received a lot of grousing so let's test this new idea. Your options are: keep the aliases, remove them, or reverse them. Vote.

Asking for votes on these two right now? If so:

Vote: Remove the EN->JP alias for the Pokemon creatures. Use the English names.
Vote: Remove the EN->JP alias for Castlevania. Use the English name.

These are two significant exceptions, though, and usually I'd vote for the Japanese.

Same that jxh2154.
ENG over JP ONLY for pokemon names and Castlevania.

Absolutely remove the aliases for Pokemon and Castlevania.

I'd suggest that a number of game series need to have their name conventions analyzed, there are some distinct borderline cases.

jxh2154 said:
So er, yeah, I assume he meant to say vowels.

Heh, yeah, this, though I guess the double-consonants weird me out, too... maybe... *goes back to catching up*

*catches up*
I vote JP->EN for unique Pokemon names (i.e. not Coil or Pigeon).
For CV... I would say keep the English ones, but then the question of things like Bloodlines comes into play, along with the colon issue (which I guess could be covered by a non-colon alias). Just CVing everything would make the "Romaji versus Translated" thing with HoD a non-issue.

*forgot other point... goes to check*
I guess the Bloodlines thing (which doesn't have any of its own pictures so far, only a PoR one) was the other point, though the Belmondo thing is also rumbling in m' head. Since the only one associatedly hampered by it is Trevor/Ralph, I think the "Belmondo" things *remembers point* should stand, since "Simon Belmondo" and Simon Belmont" oughta be easy to figure out.

The Real Other Point: WarioWare versus Made in/In Wario. As it stands, MiW/MIW is implicated to WarioWare. Just puttin' that out there. Oh, and "super_mario_brothers"->"super_mario_bros.", pls.

Vote: Remove the EN->JP alias for the Pokemon creatures. Use the English names.
Vote: Remove the EN->JP alias for Castlevania. Use the English name.

As an aside, would it be okay to bring up old, already approved aliases for voting? I don't think biohazard -> resident_evil got any discussion and judging by this thread it seems most people would want it reversed.