Donmai

[APPROVED] Hisasi de-alias + rename

Posted under Tags

remove alias hisasi -> hisashi_(nekoman)

Link to request

forum #133141 for my justification on this, or expand below for a more up to date comment. I want to start a new thread on this since I feel as if we kept going with the necro'd thread, we'd be again arguing over something we shouldn't be.

My comment here

Hope no one minds me necrobumping this thread again, as I'm sort of... annoyed at the fact we've been using the hisashi_(nekoman) tag for so long, based on some pesky alternate reading of his name when on nearly all of his works, print and digital, feature the name "Hisasi".

MyrMindservant is pretty much right on this (forum #88934), that we've been approaching this problem wrong from the very beginning. Hisasi is NOT a romanization of ひさし, rather ひさし is an alternate kana reading provided for the sake of helping others understand how to pronounce his name. Yes, you can call it a Nihon-shiki romanization but that's not how it's intended to be interpreted otherwise. Going by ひさし as a name for "consistency" purposes falls incredibly flat when you consider that artists are naught to stick to any one alphabet for their name.

MyrMindservant said:
Oh, and we are not going to drop the qualifier, it is there for a reason. So the request should be
hisashi_(nekoman) -> hisasi_(nekoman).

Disagree with this. His name is pretty much ubiquitous -- if you ask anyone who Hisasi is, chances are no one will confuse it with anyone else.

S1eth said:

Just read the whole thread...
Our romanization policy is actually very clear on this. If the name is just written once in kana (assuming the artist is Japanese of course), then this trumps EVERY OFFICIAL romanization of the name, so ひさし takes priority over Hisasi no matter how often the latter is used.

And I'm pretty sure the artist pronounces his own name as Hisashi. And our system's goal is to represent the original pronunciation as close as possible.

It should be amended then. Sticking to any one rule is bound to be messy and annoying, and it's incredibly vulnerable to other cases. Every other site, official, unofficial, print and digital media otherwise, use his name as Hisasi. He even signs his own work as such (post #1601322). We shouldn't even be taking his "kana-fication" reading into account, especially now on such an abandoned site he rarely updates anymore.

If we're going by what you're saying, that means all I would have to do to request an artist name to be changed to some nonsensical romanization is find a kana reading of their name somewhere and claim that "this is consistent with how we romanize artist names". Let's put that into example:

  • michikingmichikingu. Nope, nope nope nope nope nope nope nope.
  • ilya_kuvshinoviriya_kusshinobu. His name is イリヤ on Pixiv.
  • hideousbeinghidiusbiin (ヒディウスビーン). Just one kana reading on Pixiv, and all his other sites use roman letters.
  • capricciokapurichio. His pixiv says Capriccio even though his name is written in kana as かぷりちお. Plus, his twitter handle (capri134) and pixiv ID (caprin134) also give it away.

The point of artist tags is to help find an artist more easily, not to be pedantic about readings. As such, they should be intuitive, user-friendly, and as accurate to the original name as possible.

When an artist chooses to write their name in roman letters to begin with, we should prefer that reading over ALL else. The romanization policy only comes into effect should an artist not provide a legitimate reading of their own name in hepburn. Again, Hisasi is not a 'romanization', it is the actual reading of his name. ひさし is to help pronounce his name, not replace it.

Hisasi is the bonafide name of this artist. Calling him "ひさし" (hisashi) outside of verbal pronunciation would otherwise be inaccurate to the name that he uses pretty much everywhere, on all print and digital media (post #2150982, post #2758962) and even signatures (post #1601322).

I would put this in topic #7713, but given his name is so ubiquitous and that this conversation may set a new precedence, we should discuss it in a wholly separate thread.

Follow up request will be hisashi_(nekoman) -> hisasi whenever the above is done.

The bulk update request #1216 has been approved.

Updated

It would be inconsistent with the standard, since "Hisashi" is a standard Japanese name and the artist has verified that it is pronounced like that in the past. Though honestly there are some cases where I think we should be open to making exceptions, and I would agree in this case. In my opinion, there's a difference between a simple official nonstandard romanization difference on a full name (for instance, I have no problem with standardizing Gotoh Keiji or Goto Keiji to Gotou Keiji) and a deliberately stylized name (for instance, I don't think Kobayashi Ritz should have been aliased to Kobayashi Ritsu).

Mikaeri said:

Disagree with this. His name is pretty much ubiquitous -- if you ask anyone who Hisasi is, chances are no one will confuse it with anyone else.

I'm not sure why I was supporting the qualifier in the past, but I don't mind either way now. So there is no disagreement here.

And I want to stress that reversing this alias does not require us to change anything in our rules regarding romanization (although I'm not against amending them). And it doesn't create inconsistencies either, because howto:romanize should not be involved in this case at all. The artist's original name is already in the Latin alphabet.

EB said:

It would be inconsistent with the standard, since "Hisashi" is a standard Japanese name and the artist has verified that it is pronounced like that in the past. Though honestly there are some cases where I think we should be open to making exceptions, and I would agree in this case. In my opinion, there's a difference between a simple official nonstandard romanization difference on a full name (for instance, I have no problem with standardizing Gotoh Keiji or Goto Keiji to Gotou Keiji) and a deliberately stylized name (for instance, I don't think Kobayashi Ritz should have been aliased to Kobayashi Ritsu).

Ah, is that really the case for Kobayashi Ritz? Yes, then I prefer the 'stylized' romanization rather than the literal reading of his name. I think if we can get this one resolved, then I'll push through with another BUR to reverse the alias for him.

Artists pick weird names all the time (providing loan words in hiragana among other things), but if they're intent on pushing their stylized 'romanized' name no matter what, going as far as to use it on official publications and the like, then we shouldn't fight them over it. This even goes for lesser known artists like satosi -- his pixiv ID reads "fukumaru_satoshi" but since we don't usually go by just the pixiv id as an artist tag and he doesn't mention it anywhere else, it's provided as such.

EDIT: Perhaps the weirdest violation of this consistency rule is doyouwantto, and a lesser known example would be synchroaki.

Then of course there's artists like shirabi who inconsistently stylize their name to be shirabii (post #2739300, post #1163526), but since he almost always uses the kana reading of his name in print works (such as the front covers of ryuuou no oshigoto!), there's that exception to be made.

Updated

Oddly enough, michiking's name is officially romanized as "Mitiking". Dunno where that leaves the tag; personally I hate the ち->ti romanization in general, but if that's the official one - and since "michiking" is in no way native Japanese - well, I dunno.

sgcdonmai said:

Oddly enough, michiking's name is officially romanized as "Mitiking". Dunno where that leaves the tag; personally I hate the ち->ti romanization in general, but if that's the official one - and since "michiking" is in no way native Japanese - well, I dunno.

I usually go by whatever has seen the most use, but his name is especially strange. I don't like the ち->ti romanization either (since nihon-shiki/waapuro readings are phonetically misleading, "ti" is more like てぃ), and going by how his name has been "romanized" for so long as michiking it just makes sense for it to be that, since we at least know that the "きんぐ" part is meant to be read "king" going by what's provided in many of his print works. Neither "mitiking" nor "michikingu" would sound great -- they'd just lead to more confusion, even if in the name of "consistency".

EB said:

Perhaps he uses that spelling to be consistent with his various social media accounts.

This is probably it. I interpret it more as a "pixiv id" or twitter username sort of thing.

sgcdonmai said:

Oddly enough, michiking's name is officially romanized as "Mitiking". Dunno where that leaves the tag; personally I hate the ち->ti romanization in general, but if that's the official one - and since "michiking" is in no way native Japanese - well, I dunno.

If by official romanization you mean licensed releases by FAKKU, e.g. post #2333018, then yeah. But official Japanese releases actually use "Michiking" (capitalization may vary), see volume cover at Melonbooks or corresponding post #2178109 and post #2190228. His newer tankoubon is the same so it's consistent, see scans at nhentai: one and two.

So I think that keeping "michiking" as our tag is the best option.

MyrMindservant said:

If by official romanization you mean licensed releases by FAKKU, e.g. post #2333018, then yeah. But official Japanese releases actually use "Michiking" (capitalization may vary), see volume cover at Melonbooks or corresponding post #2178109 and post #2190228. His newer tankoubon is the same so it's consistent, see scans at nhentai: one and two.

So I think that keeping "michiking" as our tag is the best option.

Makes sense. Didn't notice that earlier.

EDIT: Amusingly enough, I did have both of his most recent tankoubons (Seikatsu Shuukan and Shujuu Ecstasy) downloaded to my computer from already taken down torrents months ago, and it's indeed confirmed. On Shujuu Ecstasy it's even easier to read on the 4th page.

What an interesting find... OT, but I guess I should read it all later (along with other things on my backlog).

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