Talk:Shōtarō Ikenami

Requested move to Shotaro Ikenami

Shōtarō Ikenami → Shotaro Ikenami – This author's books translated into English use the form "Shotaro" without macrons. Please refer to the books by this author on Amazon.com:

• Master Assassin: Tales of Murder from the Shogun's City
• Ninja Justice: Six Tales of Murder and Revenge

By WP:JATITLE, "Use the form publicly used on behalf of the person in the English-speaking world;", this article should use "Shotaro" not "Shōtarō". --Relisted Tyrol5 [Talk] 04:09, 16 January 2013 (UTC) --Relisted Cúchullain ^t/c 16:21, 8 January 2013 (UTC) JoshuSasori (talk) 13:37, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Oppose Ikenami himself used the macronned form in his own publications, as Japanese editions of his works demonstrate on their covers.[1][2][3] WP:JTITLE states above the point you quote that "the form personally or professionally used by the person", and this should take priority over translations published after his death. Also (I can't believe I have to say this) I did not come here to harass you. You invited members of WikiProject Japan to join the discussion. elvenscout742 (talk) 13:45, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

I certainly have no intention of accusing you of coming here to harass me. As you say I invited participation. The reason to invite the participation is to get opinions from a greater variety of individuals. Actually, you have made a good point, and turned up something interesting. However, these editions were published posthumously in Japan (publication date is 2001). Ikenami had already been dead for ten years when those editions were published. Since they were not published in Ikenami's lifetime, it is too much to claim that "Ikenami himself used the macronned form" - unless you can find a pre-1990 edition with this style of writing. Also, these books are Japanese-language editions with the bulk of the cover and the inside of the book being in Japanese. Thus, the original rationale for the move, "Use the form publicly used on behalf of the person in the English-speaking world;", remains valid. However, it is interesting that the macronned form was used on the Japanese editions. Thank you for your contribution. JoshuSasori (talk) 00:59, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

That makes it somewhat more difficult... Pre-1990 editions of his books are almost all out-of-print and those that are still on Amazon don't have a romanized name on the cover like later editions have. It is entirely possible that the macronned version on recent editions is based on the copyright notice or title page of earlier ones that he himself signed off on, but since I don't own any such old editions I can't check at the moment. I will be back with further information at a later date. elvenscout742 (talk) 01:28, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I got a day off for the first time in a while and went to Book Off, and found a couple of old editions of Ikenami's books. The book jackets of the 1976 剣客商売：隠れ簑 and the 1978 剣客商売：待ち伏せ, as well as both the book jacket and the copyright notice of the 1977 散歩のとき何か食べたくなって, all printed while Ikenami was very much alive, spell his name as "Ikenami Shôtarô". I can email scans to anyone who is interested (although uploading them to Wikipedia for no other reason would be questionable). Should we change the destination of the proposed move, since it appears his personal preference was to mark the long os in his name with circumflexes? elvenscout742 (talk) 15:00, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

I should specify that by "book jacket" above, I meant the About the Author section that in Japanese paperback novels usually appears on the inside front portion of the jacket. I did not mean the front cover page. The name also does not appear in a romanized form on the title page itself, but does in the copyright notices. Additionally, it should probably be pointed out that JS's remarks about what romanization is "correct" are highly misleading without proper context. Japanese has countless romanization systems, and no one is more "correct" than any other. The use of circumflexes for long vowels but otherwise following Hepburn for the spelling sh rather than sy is not "standard" in either Hepburn romanization or Kunrei romanization. However, it does follow the system most widely used for romanization of Japanese in French, where circumflexes are already common and macrons are not. I can assume this is true for most other European languages where this is the case. (Irish, though, usually follows English for historical reasons when it comes to Japanese words, even though it actually marks long os as ó.) What JS calls "correct" is apparently based on the Japanese government guidelines; but I honestly don't think these guidelines are widely followed or ever enforced, since virtually every Japanese official document uses one or another variant of Hepburn. Again I must emphasize that there is no "correct" spelling of Japanese in roman letters, and numerous romanization systems exist. Wikipedia, however, favours Hepburn. elvenscout742 (talk) 04:27, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

That's what you get for your trouble. You tried to do proper research, and you've now turned up circumflexes as well as macrons. The easiest way out of this conundrum is to "Use the form publicly used on behalf of the person in the English-speaking world" and use the Shotaro on the English books. We don't know why the circumflexes or macrons on those books, did the publisher put them, are they his choice, did he even care? We don't have to worry about why they didn't put the correct Syôtarô, and so on. The same sort of thing happened when I tried to look up Juzo Itami on Google Books earlier today and found things like Juzô and Jûzô (it should in fact be "Zyûzô". Also with Yuzo Kayama, would you believe he writes his "romaji" signature with macrons on it: [4]. Now I'll Have To Eat My Words, Won't I? The only sane thing to do is to just pick the most visible public version in English-language sources. Which is Shotaro. JoshuSasori (talk) 15:26, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

No, when there is a contradiction between two of the exceptional conditions that allow us not to use macrons, we give priority to the way they personally or professionally spelled their own name. Otherwise, we could just default to the standard Hepburn and not move the page. Your recent actions on Talk:Yūzō Kayama show you aren't against going by what publicists or publishers (or web designers?) choose on behalf of the person in published sources, regardless of how the subject himself writes it; and those sources are always in Japanese too. elvenscout742 (talk) 17:02, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Woof woof. JoshuSasori (talk) 17:04, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

• Administrator's comment: This discussion needs to get back to how the subject is referred to in English language sources. Some of his books appear to have been translated and commented on in English works; how do these write his name?Cúchullain ^t/c 16:21, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment That's not the rule regarding the use of macrons in biographical articles on Japanese people born after the Meiji Restoration. The rule on this is extremely awkward/controversial. But nowhere in its wording is reference made to "English works" other than encyclopedias. We are supposed to treat macronned and un-macronned spellings as equally acceptable variations. (It's possible more English-language sources prefer neighborhood[5] to neighbourhood[6], but we're not moving that article.) Firstly, we need to establish whether the subject himself had a preferred spelling, and we reached a gridlock when I presented two sources that appear to indicate that he favoured one orthography that has never been proposed, and JS stated the possibility that this was the decision of the publisher and not the author (although the same publisher does not appear to do this with other authors with similar names). A contradiction between two of the circumstances under which we don't default to the macronned version means we should give priority to the way Mr. Ikenami himself spelled it. This ridiculously complicated rule recently led to a long argument over whether it should be changed to just favour one or the other, to which there was of course no consensus. Honestly, though, I think there is consensus that we need the rule changed one way or the other. I would oppose a move toward only using non-macronned spellings, but if some higher power (ArbCom? Jimbo? I don't know...) weighed in and made a judgement call based on reasonably presented arguments, I wouldn't mind continuing to edit one way or the other. But this really is getting ridiculous... elvenscout742 (talk) 02:57, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose According to the Google Book search, "Shōtarō Ikenami" is the most common name.
  • "Shōtarō Ikenami" 1,410
  • "Shotaro Ikenami" 372

―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 04:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Shōtarō Ikenami is the correct romanized transcription. IMHO, we should stick to the Hepburn romanization system. Consistency of transcription would be lost by his kind of move. Cuchullain, please see this. I think MoSja should be rewritten. Oda Mari (talk) 08:22, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support. I found 3 relevant examples of "Shōtarō Ikenami" on GBooks. All three are his author name, put in by the cataloger. For "Shotaro Ikenami", the first 12 or 13 hits that come up look relevant. Update: The Encyclopedia of Martial Arts Movies (1995), Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film (2005), and Silver Screen Samurai (2004) are the most mainstream sources I found on GBooks. They all give this name without a macron. Kauffner (talk) 23:40, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

All of the books published in English, "Master Assassin", "Ninja Justice", and "Bridge of Darkness" use the form "Shotaro" without macrons. The Shotaro Ikenami museum does not use macrons. The Google Books search largely turns up books written in Japanese. JoshuSasori (talk) 23:50, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

This isn't a former prime minister we are talking about. He is a relatively obscure author. Of the two sources cited in the article, one appears to be a reliable source in Japanese, the other a less reliable one in English, and they are both for the same statement. He has not been discussed in a large number of English sources, and probably never will be. Most reputable English-language works on Japanese literature use Hepburn romanization, so why shouldn't we?? elvenscout742 (talk) 03:30, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Wait, all the sources Kauffner lists are about Japanese film? Why should we base our spelling of this novelist's name on books about Japanese films??? elvenscout742 (talk) 03:33, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Regarding to spelling, including macron usage, of the name of a modern figure, we have to follow WP:JATITLE#Names of modern figures. As mentioned above, Shotaro is "the form publicly used on behalf of the person in the English-speaking world", because it is used on The Ikenami Shotaro Memorial Museum and all of his publications translated into English such as Bridge of Darkness, Master Assassin and Ninja Justice. Additionally, Shotaro is "the form personally or professionally used by the person", because it is used on his seal. 124.85.188.105 (talk) 12:02, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Wife?

It's got nothing to do with the above move proposal so I didn't mention it there, but the reason two of the three books don't spell his name in the copyright notice is that the copyright is "Toyoko Ikenami". According to the Japanese Wikipedia page, this was his wife's name. Did she write the books and publish them under her husband's name for marquis value? Or did he just want her to get royalties? This is interesting... elvenscout742 (talk) 15:03, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

It could be any one of a number of things, it is perfectly legal to assign copyright ownership to another person or a company. JoshuSasori (talk) 15:32, 29 December 2012 (UTC)