Talk:Hirohito/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Name

please look up Wikipedia rules on naming monarchs [[1]]

Taku could you please stop removing the move proposals? i wrote my ideas at the bottom Bhinneka 29 June 2005 12:13 (UTC)

Characterization of Bix

I removed this description of Bix's (possible) bias from the list of books:

based on books from pro-communistic publishers such as Aoki Shoten or Otsuki Shoten)

because I don't think it's accurate (if you look through the source notes from Bix's book, he does refer to some works from these publishers, but he also references many other sources, including contemporary diaries and other such documents). His text does not seem to many "traditional" leftish POVs (see, e.g. his treatment of Japanese surrender feelers, pp. 505-511), but even if he is, the copious sourcing allows one to see where his data comes from, and come to an independent assessment of his conclusions. Noel (talk) 17:11, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Questions

I have a question. The last part of the article said that doctors did not tell the Emperor of his cancer in accordance with Japanese tradition. What does this mean? I feel that such a statement requires some explanation, as the average reader is not going to go "oh they must mean the Japanese tradition of...." but might think something more along the lines of "Japanese culture is weird." Can anyone clarify?? The lesbian 01:55, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hirohito and responsibility for WWII

The responsibility of the war. Where, when and how was this issue "talked" out? It was pretty clear the Emperor of Japan lost power when the Japan's parliament was shut down. Tojo and cabinet was the "shogun" that took Japan to war. There was no thing really Showa could have done in that situation. It is definitely historical fact that Showa made the first radio broadcast for an Emperor.

http://www.glocom.org/books_and_journals/book_reviews/20010726_com_hirohito/

That book was just another angry American telling his point of view. -- Masssiveego

For an alternative view of the emperor's role in the war, suggesting that Tojo largely worked at the emperor's command, see the book by Bix cited at the end of the article. I think that we need to try to keep this article neutral, mentioning both sides of the debate (the emperor as puppet, and the emperor as war criminal) without treating either as if it were a proven fact. David 12:31, 2005 Apr 19 (UTC)

Note also that Bix carefully points to all his sources, most of them Japanese, so it's not like he's expressing purely his personal opinion; he has a lot of data to back it up. Noel (talk) 17:29, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

You know, he wasn't really either a puppet or a mastermind. The analogy that feels best to me is that of a guy who is a friend of bank robbers. He rides along in the back seat of the car and waits in the car while his friends rob the bank. A bank guard gets killed, but it wasn't he who did it. He was sitting in the car when it happened. The Japanese war and attrocities of the 30's and 40's were masterminded by Tojo, Anami, and their ilk. Hirohito was along for the ride. He is no more or no less guilty than the guy sitting in the back seat of the getaway car while his acquaintences shoot up and rob the bank.

The article doesn't represent Steven Large/Charles Sheldon's view that the Emperor rubber stamped policy due to his strong belief in constitutional monarchy representing the consensus. In this way, he was (possibly/probably) opposed to war, but preferred war to going against the constitution. An alternative view is also offered by Peter Wetzler that his actions were consistently guided by a desire to protect and uphold the imperial family (and their role in the state)

Renaming should be considered

I think the article should be renamed Emperor Showa of Japan or Hirohito, Emperor Showa of Japan, and Hirohito should redirect to it. Some conventions discussed and practiced here seemed weird. at33

And this is because what? Naming four emperors after Meiji Restoration is a tricky task, and the current title Hirohito is, I think, correct since his name is Hirohito after all. -- Taku 00:09, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Hi. Would you tell me why "you think" the current title Hirohito is correct?? at33

As said above, it's because the personal name of Hirohito is Hirohito, and this is the name Hirohito is usually known for. -- Taku 02:19, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

I find the article name offensive. The Japanese people simply do not call the Emperor by His given name. Okay, okay, I know that this is an encyclopedia; and if a title must be so, then it must be so, offensive to some group of people or not. But then again, I see no reason why the title "must" be "Hirohito". It may not be the personal name, but who says it has to be? 朝彦 (Asahiko) 11:26, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

the Showa emperor is universally referred to as "Hirohito" among English speakers, so it makes sense to use that name in an encyclopedia entry, just as we refer to "Köln" as "Cologne". No offense is intended -- I'd guess that the usage came about because he had a highly-publicized European tour as crown prince, so he was fairly well known to westerners by that name before he became emperor. Dpm64 21:58, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think I can see Asahiko's point. In wikipedia, if there is an official name, we tend to use it. For example, just recently, we have renamed Mac OS X 10.4 to Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" even though it is commonly referred as Mac OS X 10.4 or just Tiger and done the same things for the like. But if we are to use names but Hirohito, the same questions remain: why, say Showa emperor? I know Japanese people use this name, but then we have an article Japan instead of Nippon. I guess I stand corrected. Hirohito may not be a correct article title, but what's an alternative? -- Taku 22:42, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

the article has been renamed to Showa Emperor and i think that is quite consistent. we need a discussion on Wikipedia´s rules on naming monarchs, at the moment it is quite a mess and ridiculous [[2] ] according to the rules, Queen Marie Antoinette should be renamed Maria Antonia, Archduchess of Austra. Maria Antonia who? you can see my point.. discussions on changing the rules most welcome Antares911 11:53, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The following is moved from my talkpage.

hi Taku.

nope sorry, it´s not. in Japan he is not known as "Hirohito". even by current Wikipedia rules, that name is incorrect anyways. it´s either "Emperor Hirohito" or "Hirohito of Japan". i used the title "Showa Emperor" because that´s what he is being called now in Japan, just like "Meiji-Tenno". i am aware about the discussion, it seems that the majority in that forum favours a renaming.

Well, I have not seen the renaming as consensus. A couple of people do not constitute a majority. As said above, I can see the article title Hirohito may be problematic, but showa emperor is not an alternative we have agreed. Just let me know if there is a ongoing discussion I am not aware of. -- Taku 12:58, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

"[O]versaw the greatest changes to Japanese society"

Surely this is arguable. I mean, what about Emperor Meiji? (Or should I call him "Mutsuhito", just to be awkward and disrespectful?)elvenscout742 14:34, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I'd say it's close to a toss-up, actually! Do remember that the Emperor Meiji was born at the time of Peary's arrival, so the wrenching change from the feudal non-industrial Japan of the Edo Period into a modern country was already under way when he became ruler 14 years later (and in any case he wouldn't have had much of a role at such a young age). Comparing with Hirohito: the change from the Japan of the 1920s, when be ascended, to the Japan of 1989, when he died, is also extra-ordinarily vast; Japan in the 1920s was still a semi-agrarian country with limited world-wide economic/etc impact, whereas the Japan of the 1990s was a wholly different country (urban/industrial - and with much of the old Japan of the feudal period that was still quite wide-spread in the 1920s now almost entirely gone), and a world economic superpower and a leader in technology to boot. Noel (talk) 15:29, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

I just came here to ask about this same thing. I don't know more than the basics of Japanese history but I thought of the Meiji Era when I saw this. If historians are near unanimous on this point then fair enough, but are they? In any case I don't think it's immediately obvious that the importance of Hirohito's reign exceeds all others when you consider the changes of the Meiji period, and since you say it's close to a toss-up I think I'd prefer to see this statement qualified somehow, but I'll leave it up to those who really know about this kind of thing. — Trilobite (Talk) 21:48, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Evidently no one is keeping an eye on this article. Some months later that statement is still there in the introduction unqualified, so I've toned it down. — Trilobite 00:28, 14 January 2006 (UTC

Personally I think that honor goes to General MacArthur...

Inclusion of personal characteristics?

Should an inclusion of a personal description of the Emperor be included? After reading the page I've only gotten an historical perspective...

Marine Biology

Can I expand on the blurb about Marine biology, should we mention that he kept a bust of Charles Darwin?

"Longest reign"?

Does this statement conform to NPOV? I mean, I personally am with pretty much every educated person in believing this statement to be true, but what wabout the legendary Emperors in the Kojiki that ruled for around ninety years? Would a phrase like "it is accepted by most historians that his reign was the longest of Japanese Emperors" not be better? elvenscout742 21:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

And I just noticed it refers to him as the 124th according to the traditional order. This means that, at least in the sentence two lines down from that statement, it probably shouldn't directly contradict that. elvenscout742 23:21, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe people dont want me clogging up this page with pointless messages, but i just want to thank whoever wrote this article. It has helped me write a whole essay which is worth 40% of my A-Level grade and has made life a lot easier for me.

---

I think Emperor Hirohito was the most famous imperial ruler of Japan I think because he had the longest reign,and did what all the Japanese people did and it was succesful.Anyway,heaps of Koreans hate Hirohito because when he grew up,he came to Korea around 1933 and killed ten thousands of Koreans.In 1939(when World War 2started)he came back and went to the war or went back toJapan(I think.)

User:Dark-hooded smoker

Just to make sure. Emperor Showa(Emperor Hirohito) had never gone outside of the Japanese archipelago (of course, not involving the Chosen Peninsula(Korea)) until 1971 after his succession to the throne.--Questionfromjapan 12:44, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Hirohito met the royal english family in London in 1921.

--Flying tiger 16:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

It's in the age of his crown prince. "After his succession to the throne", he had never gone until 1971. (His succession was in 1926.) --Questionfromjapan 14:48, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Taikō Tennō

"大行" is "Taikō", not "Taigyō". see this citation[3]. "Taikō" means "the emperor who has gone away", i.e., "the former emperor".--Questionfromjapan 01:55, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Scouting

The Japanese article links him to Boy Scouting, in what context? Chris 01:58, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Citecheck template removed

It appears that the wrong template was added to this article. Citecheck is designed for articles that have misused citations in some way, such as when an article claims an author took one opinion and the source shows the author expressed the opposite opinion. I don't see that sort of dispute here. Durova 01:46, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Renaming article

hi Taku. nope sorry, it´s not. in Japan he is not known as "Hirohito". even by current Wikipedia rules, that name is incorrect anyways. it´s either "Emperor Hirohito" or "Hirohito of Japan". i used the title "Showa Emperor" because that´s what he is being called now in Japan, just like "Meiji-Tenno". i am aware about the discussion, it seems that the majority in that forum favours a renaming. "Hirohito" in itself cannot stand, as a person who is not too familiar with Japan might not even know what this means? besides it´s kinda disrespectful on top of that Bhinneka 12:56, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

the japanese website of this actually lists him as "Showa Tenno" User:antares911

Sorry for mess of conversation; we should stick discussing this matter here. Anyway, while you make some good arguments, I want to respect the discussion we had long time ago. Basically the arguments are summarized to:

• Because this is an English encyclopedia, the title of the article does not have to follow the title in Japanese.
• Because the emperor is never addressed in English, saying him Hirohito is not disrespectful; if you write Hirohito in Japanese, it may be so. But again this is not Japanese encyclopedia.
• We don't choose the title of an article so that it can help readers who are unfamiliar with the topic. For example, a title Current Prime Minister of Japan may be more informative than Koizumi Junichiro, but we just don't do it.
• Also, we have to give more time frame for the discussion. There are maybe a sizeable number of people who are unaware of this discussion.
• The consistency is basically unattainable. We have many titles that do not have emperor name of country-name format. Examples are Prince Shotoku and Akihito. It seems arbitrary why we don't accept an exception for Hirohito while we do for others.

-- Taku 13:16, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

hm let´s see... about three users are saying the name needs to be changed. you are the only one against it. so yes that does constitue a majority, even per wikipedia rules.

monarchs have to be listed a certain way, i can give you the link to the rules [4]

You have not counted the past poll.

"Monarchical titles. Pre-emptively disambiguate the names of monarchs, of modern countries in the format "{Monarch's first name and ordinal} of {Country}". Examples: Edward I of England; Alfonso XII of Spain; Henry I of France; Cleopatra VII of Egypt. Where there has only been one holder of a specific monarchical name in a state, the ordinal is used only when the ordinal was in official use. For example, Victoria of the United Kingdom, not Victoria I of the United Kingdom; Juan Carlos I of Spain, not Juan Carlos of Spain."

all set? the example you gave of Akihito is not valid anyways, see rule above. and of course it does not make sense to put Junichiro Koizumi as something else as he was not a monarch. and you gave the example of Prince Shotoku which is fine with me. but then you can´t put Hirohito like that, according that rule he would have to be listed at least as Emperor Hirohito. i mean we can talk about this, but i think the wikipedia rules are quite clear.. Bhinneka 29 June 2005 12:08 (UTC)

Well, I am afraid titles of Japanese emperors are an exception. You have to convince people first that this rule applies to non-western monarchy. -- Taku June 29, 2005 13:40 (UTC)

ahm, well I´m afraid this article´s name is violating Wikipedia rules at the moment, sumimasen :-) Bhinneka 29 June 2005 19:07 (UTC)

Which rule? Monarchical titles? But who has made an editorial decision that all of titles for Japanese emperors have to follow this naming rule? Again, I am open to discussing if we want to change the rule of naming. You probably want to make your proposal at Wikipedia_talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles). You do agree that renaming articles arbitrarily is not reasonable, don't you? -- Taku June 30, 2005 01:21 (UTC)

In my opinion, we have following options:

1. Name each article of Japanese emperor according to Monarchical titles. (That is to say change this clause "These conventions do not apply to eastern civilizations. See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (China-related articles), Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)." at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles)
2. For the title of this article, agree not to follow any naming convention.

Is there any option I am missing? (I don't mean to be sarcastic.) -- Taku June 30, 2005 01:29 (UTC)

I'm weighing in as another opinion in favor of renaming this very badly titled article. Arguments in favor are:

1. First, and foremost, the Imperial Household Agency itself refers to him as Emperor Showa in English (For example, see this). That alone should be enough to put this silly bickering to bed.
2. It makes sense sense from the standpoint of consistency because all of the 121 emperors in Wikipedia that precede Emperor Meiji have articles named "Emperor X of Japan". There is no reason why this article should be an exception.
3. For people who are familiar with the name Hirohito, a redirect will be sufficient to take them to the proper article (that's what redirects are for.)
4. As a native speaker of English and a fluent speaker of Japanese who has studied Japanese for over 17 years (and lived in Japan for 10), referring to him as simply Hirohito is disrespectful.
5. Emperor Shōwa is a direct translation of what he is called in Japanese. And in a situation like this where you don't have decades or centuries of English language convention on how to refer to the emperors (like you have for English royalty), an English translation of the convention that has been adopted in Japan simply makes sense.
6. Finally, this discussion has gone on and on and I've seen several people express the opinion that this title should be changed, and only one person expressing a different opinion.

-Jefu 12:40, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

This issue has been taken up at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)#Names of modern Japanese emperors. A couple of points, though.

For one, it's completely incorrect to say that "only one person has expressed a different opinion". Read further up this page - this question has been debated again and again, and the article is still here because many people expressed that wish.

For another, I don't agree that it's disrespectful to refer to the Showa Emperor as "Emperor Hirohito" - although you might have a point for plain "Hirohito", and I wouldn't object to moving this article to "Emperor Hirohito". However, even for plain "Hirohito", it is still very common in serious writings to refer to him as "Hirohito" (see, e.g. Bix, which refers to him as "Hirohito" throughout, after initial use or so of "Emperor Hirohito").

As for use of Hirohito, it doesn't matter that his actual name (in any form) was never used in Japan during his lifetime. Using the principle from Danzig that it be referred to as "Danzig" when writing articles about historical periods in which that was its common name in English, most of the references to Hirohito will be articles about historical events in his lifetime - when he was widely and respectfully referred to as "Emperor Hirohito" (no doubt from the usual form of address in the English-speaking world for reigning emperors) in the English-speaking world. (Note that both prior to WWII (when people generally treated him well, after the good PR of his world tour when Crown Prince), as well as many decades after WWII, when he was seen as a force for good in post-WWII Japan, especially in helping oversee a peaceful and forward-looking Occupation, he was treated respectfully.) Noel (talk) 14:55, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

It is disrespectful to refer to him as just "Hirohito". "Emperor Hirohito of Japan" would conform more closely to wikipedia's standards, but it would still be wrong. I agree with Jefu: this article should be renamed Emperor Showa of Japan and a redirect from Hirohito would suffice for anyone unfamiliar with the naming conventions of Japanese Emperors. I will bring this up at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)#Names of modern Japanese emperors as well. -Parallel or Together? 06:36, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately it seems as though the issue has already been settled and archived at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles) so I will just leave my comments on this page as my complaint against the title "Hirohito." It is shockingly disrespectful, but since that disrespect was somehow sanctioned recently, I will wait a while before bringing it up again. -Parallel or Together? 07:08, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Just my two cents, but I'm doing a eulogy for a class project on Emperor Hirohito, and so far the only time I've seen Emperor Showa is as a subtopic or alternative name. If this article was in the Japanese Wikipedia, I might say Emperor Showa is better, but as this is in English, Emperor Hirohito seems to be the better choice. He is known more widely under that name for purposes of histories and articles. www.googlefight.com match up Emperor Hirohito v. Emperor Showa and Emp. Hirohito wins. However, just Hirohito, while not earth-shattering, is a little disrespectful to such an influential man. Emperor Hirohito or the like should be the title. -Kill Mage 71.241.224.245 00:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

As Parallel or Together points out, this ship has long sailed. But in response to your comment, Emperor Showa can be found widely used in The Japan Times, for example, Japan's most widely read English language newspaper. But this just reflects the fact that the Showa name (which is actually his name now) is widely used in Japan (in both English and Japanese), while Hirohito continues to be widely used outside of Japan, because changing someone's name midstream is a difficult thing to get people to do (as Prince also found out.) But it is far from unheard of outside of Japan, especially among people who speak Japanese and are familiar with Japan's culture. And respect has nothing to do with anything here. We're writing neutral encylopedia articles, not addressing the man.-Jefu 03:55, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I really don't get this whole taboo about not referring to Hirohito by his given name. Maybe we're being overly politically correct. Like people getting upset over images of Muhammad. In fact, the English Muhamed article doesn't use "(pbuh)" right after mentioning his name. 71.140.117.137 09:17, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Missing mention of Hirohito and concubines

Hirohito's monogamy and abolishment of concubinage in 1924 has modern relevance to the current imperial problems of succession.

If you have a reference we can cite, the information should go into the article. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 15:21, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 22:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Responding to comment left on my talk page
Hi, I simply do not understand your comment about "in line citations" in the article. This text has more citations and references than any article on Wikipedia...
--Flying tiger 14:01, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
For the benefit of comparison I would direct you to look out other historical articles and their reference styles like the FA quality of Bhumibol Adulyadej and Mary II of England as well as the GA quality of Condoleezza Rice. But most importantly, it undercited for the benefit of the GA criteria. Unfortunately, I don't have time to go through and add {fact} tags to every little thing that would need a cite but with a brief overview, the glaring stand outs are the entire sections of Early life, Accession (both should also probably be expanded for GA benefit too) having no in-line citations. Death also has no citations when there are a couple areas that need it. (Never told about his illness?) The citations in The problem of imperial responsibility could do a little tidying in accordance to WP:CITE (I strongly recommend utilizing the footnote tag. Early Reign has only cites in one paragraphs when there are important claims preceeding it that the reader doesn't know if those "sources" verifying them or not. After the first paragraph Post-war reign does not have any sources. World War II and Last days of the war have similar issues to the "Imperial respsonsibility" section with long gaps between sources and important claims in between.

I don't doubt that truth in the article or even that the work written in here is based on solid references and reliable sources. Unfortunately, without the needed in-line citations the article can not easily pass WP:V which is the whole point of it all. In light of Jimbo and the Wikipedia's community desire for more quality over quantity the GA project is working on increasing our standards of quality and accordingly to the articles with the GA label attached. I ensure you that the editors of this article will have ample time to include the needed in-line citations and the finish product will be even better then it was before. This group of editors have done an outstanding job on this article, these are just cosemtic touches to keep it in line with WP:WIAGA. Agne 17:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

"had been improved by a repulse of the coming Allied invasion"

How can one repulse a coming invasion? Does anyone know what this means?--68.175.39.163 18:48, 17 December 2006 (UTC)