Talk:Wata no Kunihoshi

Translation request

I note that not just the jawiki but the dewiki have extensive articles, which could be fruitfully translated. The latter has, especially, most excellent reception information. —Quasirandom (talk) 22:57, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, this InfoSeek article appears to be of use, since it apparently cites published Japanese commentary on the series. —Quasirandom (talk) 16:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Manga list

I haven't added a list of the ISBNs/publication dates of the 7-volume original collection because my search fu is unable to get at them, buried as they are under both the 16-volume reissue, the 4-volume reissue, and a 2000 reprinting of the 7-volume edition (which I didn't mention because that's too trivial). I found the data for the last three volumes, but not in a citable place (though I've confirmed them to my satisfaction). So I'll leave the media list as is for now, alas. —Quasirandom (talk) 16:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Following up on this, I still haven't found the pub dates for first four volumes of the original tankobons. In hopes that someone else can, here's what I have (these dates were picked out of Amazon.co.jp but confirmed by other (less-reliable) sources, so I'm pretty confident they're accurate). Once we fill in this table, we can move it to the article. —Quasirandom (talk) 19:10, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

No.	Release date	ISBN
1	—	—
2	—	—
3	—	—
4	—	—
5	January 1985	4-5921-1255-5
6	March 1985	4-5921-1256-3
7	September 1986	4-5921-1257-1

@Quasirandom: I've updated the article with the manga volume information. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 19:56, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

English title?

Who came up with the English translation "The Star of Cottonland"? I can sort of see how you might arrive at that, but it's wrong. It should be "The Starland of Cotton" or "The Star Country of Cotton." Matt Thorn (talk) 23:59, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

@Rachel Thorn: Really late reply, sorry. This is the most common English title used in various sources. Translated titles are not always exact translations or even close to the original. It can definitely be irritating, but it's what we use on Wikipedia. If the manga or anime ever get released officially in English, it may have a different title that may become the most common. In that case, the article can be moved to the new title. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 19:54, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Rachel Thorn: That said, it looks like it's common due to a fansub of the film. I started a discussion below regarding the title. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 22:10, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Correct title for this article - 7 August 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: page moved. (non-admin closure) Steel1943 (talk) 21:36, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

---

The Star of Cottonland → Wata no Kunihoshi – In the fan community, "The Star of Cottonland" is (by far) the most common title. This is likely due to one or more fansubs available for the anime film based on the manga. However, I can find no scholarly or other reliable sources that use "The Star of Cottonland". Rachel Thorn, an established expert on manga, asked about the current title in the section above, so I started looking to see what I could find. Within the books I have on manga and anime, only two mention the title (as far as I could find...I was scanning the indices and may have missed something).

• The Anime Encyclopedia (revised and expanded edition), by Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy, has an entry on page 113 for the same-titled anime film under the title "Cotton Star". It also has a romanized "Wata no Kuniboshi" (the "boshi" part is incorrect, based on the original manga) and an alternate translation of "Planet of Cotton".
• Anime: A Guide to Japanese Animation (1958-1988), by Andrea Baricordi, Massimiliano de Giovanni, Andrea Pietroni, Barbara Rossi, and Sabrina Tunesi, has an entry for the anime film on page 161. It uses the titles Wata no Kuni Boshi (the "boshi" again being incorrect according to the original manga) and a translated title of The Planet of the Cotton Country.

I did find an academic paper titled "The Invalidation of Gender in Girls' Manga Today, with a Special Focus on 'Nodame Cantabile'", by Masuko Honda, Lucy Fraser, and Tomoko Aoyama. It requires JStor access, which I have, but not at this location. It mentions the manga, and I'll look it up once I get where I can check the full paper. This is the only academic paper I've found that mentions it.

I can't find it any other books I have or in any that are on Google Books (outside of one that collects a bunch of anime and manga articles from Wikipedia).

So, the question everyone is: What title should this article be at? I suggest that it should be at Wata no Kunihoshi as that is the Romanization of the original Japanese title. Any mention of The Star of Cottonland should be in brief and we should keep the redirect from that title. Please discuss below. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 20:53, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

• Support as nom. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 20:56, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support per nom. The English language title seems to be a fan translation. lullabying (talk) 21:24, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
• I know the title of this manga could be really confusing, and why Rachel Thorn couldn't get it right. However, it's not (wata no) + (kunihoshi) lit. "The Country-Star of Cotton" like one might assume, but actually (wata no kuni) + (hoshi) lit. "The Star of Cotton-Country". Ōshima Yumiko made it clear that a pun was intended: (wata no kuni) + (hoshii) "I'd like to have Cottonland." Incidentally, when the movie was released, the "official translation" of the title was Un Blanc Jour D'un Chaton - it was "official" but more like "decorative" to make it look fashionable. In many cases, the official ("decorative") translation of manga/anime title, used in Japan only, is not used in the English version of WP, because iirc it has a policy where the title of an article should be the one that is most commonly used by English speaking people (even if it's not technically correct). For example, although Suwano Tokio should be Suwano Tokio, many English speakers like to mirror it for some reason, calling him Tokio Suwano (perhaps because they naively assume that a family name is always the last name). Anyway, "kuni hoshi" should be two words or at least "kuni-hoshi" if you want to use it. 210.153.178.253 (talk) 21:05, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
  • @210.153.178.253: I'm fine with that, but you have given no references to support what you claim. Do you have any links to anything supporting it? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 16:43, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Also, it's the title most commonly used by reliable sources, not general people at large (though they are often the same). Otherwise, we'd be always using whatever 2chan, 4chan, Twitter, and other random chat places use. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 16:45, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support per the discussion below. Nomian (talk) 02:28, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
• Comment From what I observe, there doesn't seem to be a clear winner here while the nom actually said the English title is the most common among anime fans which means the current title should remain. Please ping me if I'm missing anything. Nomian (talk) 04:49, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
  • @Nomian: What it's called in fansubs, on fan discussion boards, and the like is really irrelevant to the discussion as they are not considered reliable sources. I pointed that out in the nom. That's why I posted a few different reliable sources and what they called it. The reliable sources are not consistent, so the title should be the Romanization of the original title. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 15:56, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Alright now I understand, even the English title of the manga has several variations while the romanized title of "Wata no Kunihoshi" has more mentions than any other. Although I have to presume these are the only sources available to determine the WP:COMMONNAME. Nomian (talk) 02:27, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

They are the only sources I've found. It's possible there are others, but unless we can find them, we don't have any way to use them. The film is not as well known in the West, so English sources are harder to find. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 22:53, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

---

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Some quotations from Chapter 1 (on the title of this manga)

Basically, the meaning of the title is explained in the story itself, not really open to personal interpretation. Quoted from Wata no Kuni Hoshi by Ōshima Yumiko, Chap. 1. (大島弓子「綿の国星」より抜粋引用)

RAFIERU

こいつ言ったんだ　「綿の国」だって　「とてもすてきだ」って　そして死んだ (Koitsu ittanda / “Wata no Kuni” da tte / “Totemo suteki da” tte / Soshite shinda)

[Rough translation: The guy said, “It’s Wata no Kuni.” “So nice.” Then he died.]

CHIBINEKO

綿の国って？ (Wata no Kuni tte?)

[What’s Wata no Kuni?]

RAFIERU

架空の国さ　真綿の原の　ある国だよ (Kakū no kuni sa / Mawata no hara no / aru kuni da yo)

[It’s an imaginary country — a country where there is a sea of cotton.]

CHIBINEKO

綿の国って　いうのは　空のあの星の中の　ひとつなんじゃ　ない!? (Wata no Kuni tte / iu no wa / sora no ano hoshi no naka no / hitotsu nan ja / nai!?)

[Maybe Wata no Kuni is one of those stars in the sky, isn’t it?!]

As you can see, they are talking about Wata no Kuni (lit. “Cotton’s country” or “Cottony Country” — usual translation: “Cottonland”). Chibi thinks Wata no Kuni might be one of the twinkling stars (Hoshi) in the sky. Hence the title, Wata no Kuni + Hoshi (lit. “The Cotton-Country Star” i.e. “The Star that is Cottonland” or “The Star where Cottonland exists”). “An Introduction to Japanese Subcultures” (Keio University, Japan) calls it Wata no Kuni Hoshi in Japanese and The Star of Cottonland in English. Notice Kuni Hoshi is written as two words, not Kunihoshi. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/intro-to-japanese-subculture/6/steps/591033 The Star of Cottonland also appears in “Japanese Anime & Manga... Yale Summer Session, 2019”. https://summer.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Syllabi/2019/EALL%20S26%20Japanese%20Anime.pdf Like it or not, The Star of Cottonland seems to be the de facto standard title in English, used by English-speaking readers and researchers, perhaps almost for half a century. Although being judgmental as to whether it’s good or bad is not WP’s job, it’s at least an accurate translation, if a bit unimaginative. It’s similar to Fushigi no Kuni = “Wonderland”. Not sure why someone would want to hide the basic fact that this manga is commonly known by that name (so much so, it doesn’t seem very likely that the publisher will rename it if and when it’s officially translated). That said, writing it in rōmaji is a good option too, provided that the editors understand that Kuni and Hoshi are two separate words. It’s not like “Kunihoshi” (though even not a word) is totally unacceptable, but if kuni and hoshi were closely connected like one word, we’d usually pronounce it a bit differently (“kuniboshi”). If you don’t believe me, you can ask any of your Japanese-speaking friends. Please, don’t take this personally, though. It’s just about a language — something written in plain words in the story itself, not a personal opinion. (I speak Japanese as it’s my native language.) Hopefully this will help clarify some confusion among people who have never actually read this manga. 210.153.178.80 (talk) 14:44, 7 September 2020 (UTC)