VGCollect Forum
VGCollect Site Stuff => Video Game Database Discussion => Topic started by: telly on April 25, 2016, 04:20:32 pm
-
NOTE: The following is a discussion on naming Japanese games within the database. Please refer to post 16, as it outlines the most current rules we decided on. The remaining topic is used as reference so people can see what was discussed, and there we some changes from my original post.
Original Post
This is a rather long post so beware!
There seems to be a lot of inconsistency among how Japanese games are named in the database, and the style guide, while helpful in some respects, could use some more information about how to go about doing this. An admin suggested that I make a topic about it to discuss how we go about naming games so it’s consistent and makes sense to everyone. Then hopefully the style guide can be updated when everyone is on the same page.
Here’s what the style guide says already:
Use the item's regional release title, written in the language written on the case, but in the Latin alphabet (the letters we commonly use). If the title is in Japanese, use the most recognized transliteration.
This definition seems a little vague, especially when there is more than one language on the case.
Here's the problem:
The game used in the style guide as a reference is Dragon Quest VIII. They use a mix of English and Japanese in the database title when naming it: http://vgcollect.com/item/42695
Dragon Quest VIII: Sora to Umi to Daichi to Norowareshi Himegimi
However, Dragon Quest VIII has a full Japanese name on the case as well, so you could also argue that it should be the full transliterated Japanese name instead, according to the style guide, which would look like this:
Doragon Kuesuto VIII: Sora to Umi to Daichi to Norowareshi Himegimi
Because the example uses the first option, it would *appear* that English is given priority when it is on the case in conjunction with Japanese. However, this is not explicitly stated in the style guide. So I've seen games that are all over the place in how they're named. In addition, there are no examples that are all in English or all in Japanese either on the style guide.
So, I'm proposing that the guide be updated to say:
Use the item's regional release title, written in the language written on the case, but in the Latin alphabet (the letters we commonly use). (Kept the same)
+ All English words on the title game box are carried over to the title used in the database. Any Japanese words that are not in English as well on the box are transliterated. (Whether it's part of the title like DQVIII or the whole name of the game)
This method makes sense, because:
1.) We’re still using the title that’s on the box, and maintains the integrity of the name of the release. If the game is written with Japanese, it should have some iteration of Japanese in the title.
2.) It still makes it somewhat easy to search for things as some games will still have English in the title.
3.) It makes things consistent among all games, as we’re not deciding which language to keep or ignore on the box or which title is most recognized.
4.) It's generally what the games in the database are like already, so we don't need to change much
I’m going to put some examples below in a separate post, what do you think guys? Does this make sense? Post your thoughts and put some examples of games that we should look at. I want to hear what you guys think because there's probably something that I missed :)
-
Here are some examples to highlight how the different games should be named in every way that I could think of. Included are some technically “wrong entries” to look at. These are probably too many examples, but I wanted to cover all my bases.
1. If the full title is in English, that should be the title used in the database.
The Hybrid Front http://vgcollect.com/item/103149
Sonic Mega Collection http://vgcollect.com/item/37750 - Even though the full Japanese title is on the box as well and very prominent.
2. If the title has a mixture, English takes priority, the rest of the title is transliterated Japanese
Dragon Quest VIII, as mentioned above. English is carried over, Japan transliteration for the subtitle. The whole name in Japanese is on the box in this example.
Ace Combat 6: Kaiou e no Senka http://vgcollect.com/item/97309 English title carried over, Japanese transliteration for the rest, even when it’s the same as English if translated. This entry is especially important because "Ace Combat 6" is not in Japanese on the box like DQ VIII. Only the subtitle is, 解放への戦火
Zelda no Densetsu: Yume o Miru Shima DX - http://vgcollect.com/item/27065 Even the DX is carried over
And keep in mind, this would apply to other games in other languages, not just in Japanese
Dragon Quest VIII: El periplo del Rey Maldito - http://vgcollect.com/item/86110
3. If the game title has no English on it, then it is all in transliterated Japanese, regardless of whether it’s a direct translation to English or not
Sonikku Adobencha 2: Batoru http://vgcollect.com/item/99214 If translated would be Sonic Adventure 2: Battle
Akumajo Dracula Mokushiroku http://vgcollect.com/item/17998 If translated would be Devil's Castle Dracula Apocalypse, known as Castlevania in NA
4. Some “wrong” entries:
Zelda no Densetsu: Fushigi no Ki no Mi - Daichi no Shou - http://vgcollect.com/item/28379
- Should be “Legend of Zelda, The: Fushigi no Ki no Mi - Daichi no Shou” Because “Legend of Zelda” is in English on the box
Nintendo All Star! Dairantou Smash Brothers - http://vgcollect.com/item/17446 Should be “Nintendo Oru Suta! Dairanto Sumasshu Burazazu”, as there is no English on this game’s title.
-
Just popping in to say that these changes sound good and make sense to someone who doesn't know anything about non-American games for the most part ;D
-
I agree for the most part but titles written katakana (an alphabet for lawn words) should have their proper English spelling. You're telling me you'd rather have Poketto Monsuta and not Pocket Monsters? Supa Mario Burazazu, not Super Mario Brothers? Barun Faito, not Balloon Fight? Using the literal Romanization for katakana words doesn't really make any sense to because in cases like these the creators are using English words. -They just happen to be written in a different alphabet. We should try to retain the intended title.
-
I agree for the most part but titles written katakana (an alphabet for lawn words) should have their proper English spelling. You're telling me you'd rather have Poketto Monsuta and not Pocket Monsters? Supa Mario Burazazu, not Super Mario Brothers? Barun Faito, not Balloon Fight? Using the literal Romanization for katakana words doesn't really make any sense to because in cases like these the creators are using English words. -They just happen to be written in a different alphabet. We should try to retain the intended title.
I agree with this. Using rōmaji for English stuff written with katakana looks silly and would cause a lot of confusion. People would end up making even more dupes than they already do if we did that because the search bar won't show them Barun Faito - FC [JP] when they search for Balloon Fight.
-
One thing I've been suggesting for a long time is to have search include alt. name field as too so we can come up with better results.
-
One thing I've been suggesting for a long time is to have search include alt. name field as too so we can come up with better results.
Definitely this.
-
I agree for the most part but titles written katakana (an alphabet for lawn words) should have their proper English spelling. You're telling me you'd rather have Poketto Monsuta and not Pocket Monsters? Supa Mario Burazazu, not Super Mario Brothers? Barun Faito, not Balloon Fight? Using the literal Romanization for katakana words doesn't really make any sense to because in cases like these the creators are using English words. -They just happen to be written in a different alphabet. We should try to retain the intended title.
Lawn words? 8)
Anyways, this was what I was trying to say, why Super Monkey Ball should be Super Monkey ball rather than Supa Monki Boru. We had a disagreement over this naming, but alas the Style Guide (our rules for naming things) does not cover this, which is why it needed to be put out into the forum for people to discuss. ;)
-
I personally don't have a preference either way, but that's where discussion comes in, and personally it gives me a lot of questions on how to go about this, because I'm not sure how myself. :-\
How do we determine what should be with proper English and what should be in katakana? Can we definitively say that the creators of Super Mario Brothers had the "intent" to use English words? Where do we determine that that's the case, and is that applicable with the entire Japanese library where other Japanese characters are used? It just seems like that could get really messy in the other direction.
And if that's the case, where do we leave Japanese characters in? Is there any game that should not be translated into English? For example, is Nintendo All Star! Dairantou Smash Brothers named that way because part of the title contains non katakana characters and should be transliterated rather than translated?
It just seems like doing it this way is more for convenience sake, and it is not what is seen in the NA library. We have games title Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend or Disney's Aladdin, for example, even though nobody calls it that way, and the people created the game probably didn't "intend" for that. Yet we name this games that way in the database because it's an attempt to stay true to the title on the box.
In any event, the style guide definitely needs to be edited, because it does not mention anything about keeping the English names intact. It says to use the "language written on the case." So in the case of games written in Japanese, "Super Mario Brothers" is not a Japanese name, and that's where my mistake comes from.
-
How do we determine what should be with proper English and what should be in katakana? Can we definitively say that the creators of Super Mario Brothers had the "intent" to use English words? Where do we determine that that's the case, and is that applicable with the entire Japanese library where other Japanese characters are used? It just seems like that could get really messy in the other direction.
They are using English words, just written in a way that's easy for a Japanese person to read.
-
Yes, loanwords tripredacus. ;)
Unlike most western European languages Japanese is Syllabary, meaning consonant sounds are paired with vowel sounds. That's why when you hear the stereotypical Asian speak they'll inadvertently add an extra vowel sounds on occasion. It also doesn't help that there's no L sound in their language either. "Thatsu impossibru!" Basically it's just habit. Their language just has a hard time separating consonants from vowels (with exception to N).
Japanese has three different writing systems. The Katakana alphabet is almost exclusively for loanwords. When you read スーパーマリオブラザーズ (sū pā ma ri o bu ra zā zu), it's completely written in katakana. This indicates to the reader that these are all loanwords; not native Japanese. Obviously supposed to be Super Mario Brothers, it's just that there's all these extra letters floating around because the Japanese language naturally doesn't support our words and way of writing.
An issue we're going to run into is romanization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Japanese). There are multiple ways to translate Japanese writing into latin alphabet. Hepburn, Nihon-shiki, Kunrei-shik, and even the newer JSL. Hepburn seems to be the most common on the internet these days but others aren't necessarily wrong either. We'd have to come to a decision to which method we should adopt.
But yeah.... the Japanese games are definitely a mess and I agree there should be some like of consistency, but I feel blanketing everything in rough romanization will generally create confusion and duplicates. There has to be some compromise somewhere.
-
Thank you for the clarification abe and B@C :) That makes a lot of sense.
I'm totally fine with us keeping the translations for katakana rather than romanization! It just needs to be explicitly laid out in the style guide what forms or Japanese writing should be romanized, and which ones should be translated. I was accepted edits to change the names of Japanese games to romanized katakana, and so I thought I was doing things correctly. The first person who rejected it, tripredacus, referred me to the style guide first, which I technically was also following perfectly fine by making these changes. It's certainly not something that is defined well in both the style guide and among admins, and it really should be.
There should probably be some kind of education to inform users about how to name things or recognize inconsistencies. We could maybe provide some kind of distinction in the styles of Japanese writing, and provide examples to distinguish when it should be translated to English or transliterated to Japanese in the Latin alphabet. Personally I'm not the best at distinguishing the two either; I think this would be very helpful if it was explained like you just did, Bad@chaos
So for a game like Ace Combat 6, the Japanese name appears to have a mixture of katakana on one side of the 6 and what I'm assuming is hiragana on the other side. エースコンバット6 解放への戦火. http://vgcollect.com/item/97309
And it appears that you could be able to tell the difference even if you didn't know Japanese that well. Am I on the right track with this?
This may be too complicated, but it seems to make the most sense and is a good compromise if we do it this way:
English words are carried over to the title
Japanese katakana are translated to English
Other forms of Japanese writing (hiragana, kanji) are transliterated using the most recognized romanization
-
I think that's pretty good.
Even for those not 100% knowledgeable on the subject, katakana characters are often easy to spot because of the simplified and more angular styling.
-
I'm totally for it - your descriptions include a lot of possible cases and sound pretty clear to me :) If we add b@c's point about proper English spelling of Katakana too, I think it would make a great (and most definitely welcome) update to the style guide!
-
If we were able to have the search bar pull in alt names into a results list, it would really help pick up the slack too with games that are not so easy to find :)
So, now we need to find some examples in the database to use. I'm thinking we will definitely need
Mix of English and hiragana
Mix of English and katakana
Can you guys think of others? Maybe we want to put in all English, all katakana, all hiragana, or a mix or hiragana and katakana.
Also, are there any examples of games in the DB written with Kanji? How do you guys think that should be explained?
-
It's more common to see a mixture.
Here's a few examples that use some Kanji.
Kyojin no Doshin
巨人 の ドシン
(Doshin the Giant)
Hoshi no Kirby
星 の カービィ
(Kirby of the Stars)
Zelda no Densetsu
ゼルダ の 伝説
(Legend of Zelda)
Yume Penguin Monogatari
夢 ペンギン 物語
(Dream Penguin Epic -or- Story of the Dream Penguin)
Akumajo Dracula
悪魔城 ドラキュラ
(Devil's Castle Dracula -aka- Castlevania)
Doubutsu no Mori
どうぶつ の 森
(Animal Forest -aka- Animal Crossing)
-
NOTE: This specific post outlines the guidelines that one should follow when making and editing Japanese games in the database.
The rest of the topic provides background information on what was discussed and agreed upon. The style guide and foreign language guide should be referred to for games released in other languages that are not Japanese.
~
Examine the languages used on the front cover of the case very carefully. There are several rules to keep in mind when naming games from Japan in the database.
Any part of the game’s title that is English or has any characters of the Latin alphabet must be included in the title that is entered into the database.
Any part the game’s title that is in katakana must be written as its English translation. For reference, writing in katakana uses more simplified, angular strokes, and is used for words that are meant to be in the English language but are difficult for Japanese speakers to say. It’s usually used for pronouns or very specific names or brands.
Any remaining portion of the title in kanji or hiragana that is not already represented by another form above must be romanized using the most recognized transliteration. Hiragana and kanji are typically used for native Japanese words, and usually are what makes up a game's subtitle. Kanji in particular features complex and compacted symbols, and can sometimes represent a whole word rather than sounds.
Some examples to look over, with listings for reference:
Example 1 - Super Mario Bros. (FC) [JP]
Name on Japanese Case: スーパーマリオブラザーズ…
…becomes Super Mario Bros. in the database
http://vgcollect.com/item/103212
Example 2 - Sonic Adventure DX: Director’s Cut (GC) [JP]
Name on the Japanese case: ソニックアドベンチャーDXデラックス...
…becomes Sonic Adventure DX: Director’s Cut in the database
http://vgcollect.com/item/99231
Example 3: Legend of Zelda: Triforce of the Gods (SFC) [JP]
Name on the case: ゼルダの伝説 神々のトライフォース...
...becomes Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce in the database
http://vgcollect.com/item/16884
Example 4 - Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation (X360) [JP]
Name on the case: Ace Combat 6: 解放への戦火...
…becomes Ace Combat 6: Kaihou e no Senka in the database
http://vgcollect.com/item/97309
Example 5 - Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Falzar (GBA) [JP]
Name on Japanese Case: Rockman EXE 6 電脳獣 ファルザ…
…becomes Rockman EXE 6: Dennoju Falzar in the database
http://vgcollect.com/item/103635
Larger image: http://www.gamefaqs.com/gba/929992-mega-man-battle-network-6-cybeast-falzar/images/170194
This style is the overall accepted method when Japanese games are talked about in English speaking countries, so it’s not inherently difficult to find the right translation. However, it does warrant additional caution when creating or editing names of Japanese games
-
の (no) is Hiragana.
The Smash Bros example you gave isn't really correct. The series is Dairantou Smash Brothers.
大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズ
Dairantō doesn't really have a direct translation. It's commonly translated as Melee. If you break apart the characters you can read it as a large disorganized fight. Also, the word super is not present.
-
Ah I see. Does it make sense to put Hiragana and Kanji in the same category? As being romanized rather than translated, that is.
For Smash Brothers, I was taking the name from the first game; that's what my link points too. I'm pretty sure the first game has all that "Nintendo All Stars" stuff in the beginning (at least the title here in the database does).
-
I guess? Hiragana and Kanji are both used for native words. Kanji is logographic, meaning each character can represent whole words. Hiragana is more of a traditional alphabet like katakana, symbols represent sounds. There's all kinds of examples that use Hiragana:
Doraemon
ドラえもん
Kururin Squash
くるりんスカッシュ
Ganbare Goemon
がんばれゴエモン
Pikachu Genki Dechu
ピカチュウげんきでちゅう
Puyo Puyo
ぷよぷよ
Doubutsu no Mori
どうぶつの森
-
Ok, that makes sense!
It just seems like it would make more sense to have both kanji and hiragana as transliterated, since the symbols are both used for native words. I feel like things will look strange if one was translated or otherwise treated differently compared to the other one. Does that seem acceptable?
I updated my old post to include hiragana/kanji, but keep the colors the same.
-
Toh Shin Den S
http://vgcollect.com/item/42171
I have already found online, various wikia sources, saying that this is the name in Japan. Can either of you see if the cover artwork is actually implying the name is to be spaced out like this instead of being rendered as Toshinden like the rest of the titles in this series?
-
The Japanese PS1 game has Toh Shin Den in English on the box, and has it spaced out like that in two places. It seems like most places online have it spaced out, except for GameFaqs (and here suprisingly). I'm assuming if the first game is spaced out like this, than the other initial games in the series are. It seems like they shifted to Battle Arena Toshinden on later titles in both NA and Japan
The first game on PS1: http://vgcollect.com/item/55532
Bigger image of the front box art: http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/572396-battle-arena-toshinden/images/133493
-
These particular budget titles for Nintendo DS:
http://vgcollect.com/item/105146
http://vgcollect.com/item/105161
http://vgcollect.com/item/105853
are お買い得版 aka Best Version.