Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Magical girlfriend


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 04:51, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Magical girlfriend

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Magical girlfriend (魔法彼女) mostly overlaps with a more in-depth article Magical girl (魔法少女). Also, Google hits for "魔法彼女" are less than 2,000, with most of them being false positives. (e.g. 魔法 is the last word in a sentence, and 彼女 is the first word in the next sentence.) In contrast, "魔法少女" has over 3 million hits on Google. As an entry in Category:Female stock characters in anime and manga, which already has Magical girl, "Magical girlfriend" is unnecessary and not noteworthy. People who use the term "Magical girlfriend" may be getting it confused with "Magical girl" and actually be referring to more or less the same subject. Tokek (talk) 06:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Anime and manga-related deletion discussions. —Tokek (talk) 06:15, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect. You should have just been bold and done so, IMO. :) ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 11:18, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Change to Keep based on information added from Napier's book. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect I concur with Nihonjoe, although it needs to be done properly as there is a degree of usable information that should be kept. Although the two are similar, the articles are currently separate in content, and so the magical girl article should properly address the differences between the two. However, all original research (of which there is a lot) should be removed regardless. Dandy Sephy (talk) 13:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep Keep or delete, but do not merge. As someone who watched a lot of anime and has heard the term used, I can assure you that a "magical girl" is totally different than a "magical girlfriend".  A "magical girl" is a mostly normal girl who has magical powers.  A "magical girlfriend", on the other hand, is usually a goddess, alien, angel, android, etc., and isn't at all a normal person.  There really isn't much overlap between the two.  If you look at Category:Magical girl anime and manga, you will see that none of the examples listed in Magical girlfriend are listed there, which is because none of them are magical girl anime.  That said, I checked both of the sources listed in the article and neither used the term "magical girlfriend", so unless someone can find reliable sources, the article should be deleted.  I know I have heard the term used, but I don't know if it has gotten any in-depth discussion in reliable sources, which is why I am voting keep or delete .  Again, I very strongly oppose a merge with magical girl.  14:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Changed my vote to speedy keep, as I noticed that this is considered a high importance article by WikiProject Anime and manga, and I don't want to vote delete without actually having searched for sources myself. It does need to be sourced however.  I'm voting speedy keep instead of just keep since no one seems to be in favor of deletion.  Merge discussions should not be taken to AfD, but instead should be discussed on the talk pages of the articles to be merged.  Calathan (talk) 15:20, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment Even if, as you say, "magical girlfriend" can account for non-homo sapiens, I suppose they have enough anthropomorphic characteristics that would allow for them to be included into "magical girl", as I propose, no?


 * Also, could you give me a link to where the "high level of importance" has been explained? In the talk page, the rating it received was


 * ''This article has been rated as C-Class on the assessment scale.
 * ''This article has been reviewed for compliance with the WikiProject's B-Class criteria:
 * ''B1 (Referencing and citation) = Failed
 * ''B2 (Coverage and accuracy) = Failed
 * ''B3 (Structure) = Failed
 * ''B4 (Grammar) = Passed
 * ''B5 (Supporting materials) = Failed
 * ''B6 (Accessibility) = Failed
 * Neither this, nor your comment so far clearly address the question of notability or importance. Simply being able to conceive of a consistent definition for a stock character, or any other form of categorization, is not enough to prove notability. The concern over the very low hits for "魔法彼女" also remains. —Tokek (talk) 18:04, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Neither this, nor your comment so far clearly address the question of notability or importance. Simply being able to conceive of a consistent definition for a stock character, or any other form of categorization, is not enough to prove notability. The concern over the very low hits for "魔法彼女" also remains. —Tokek (talk) 18:04, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment Did a little bit more digging and found a series of edits (one interruption), or  (no interruption) by Repku. This shows that at one point in time, one editor thought it was of high importance. Since this article may be classified as a Definition article, the user most likely thought that it could be described by the following: "This article is fairly important as it covers a general area of knowledge." (WP:MANGA/ASSESS). I'll post a notice over at the user's talk page in case s/he may be intrested in this discussion. —Tokek (talk) 18:22, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment I'm onto the third search result page for "魔法彼女" at Google Japan and still no hits that aren't false positives. If it's an actual term used in Japanese, whether or not it's notable, I would imagine I would be able to find an Internet usage for it near the top of results, if at all.  —Tokek (talk) 18:44, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I thought you were proposing a merge. If you actually want the content deleted, that is a different matter, and it shouldn't be speedy kept.    Voting for a speedy keep is not the same as voting for a keep.  I was voting speedy keep as I thought you wanted a merger, which isn't something to discuss at AfD, but if you don't want any of the content merged, I will change my vote back to keep or delete but do not merge.  I'm not sure if this term is regularly used in Japanese, or if it is mainly an English language term (one of the article editors might have just provided kanji without it being a common term in Japanese).  I personally would have thought it was primarily an English language term, just because I have never heard anyone give a romaji name for the term outside this article (I can't read kanji, so I wouldn't have seen it in kanji even if it is commonly used).  A search for "Magical Girlfriend" returns lots of actual results on the topic, though I didn't bother to see how many are reliable sources.  Again, since I haven't done an in depth search for sources and don't want to do so, I'm not voting either for a keep or a delete, just opposing a merge.


 * Also, about it being a high importance article, you just have to look on the talk page and see in the box at the top that it says "high importance". I have no idea how article assessment works (either in general or for the Anime and Manga Wikiproject), so I don't know why it would be assessed that way.  Also, I still think you don't understand what a magical girl is.  It isn't just any girl with magical powers, but a mostly normal girl with magical powers who has to deal with both the issues that a normal girl would deal with and the issues brought about due to her magical powers.  A magical girlfriend, however, doesn't usually deal with the issues of a normal girl.  Also, the two genres have very different conventions (e.g. a magical girl often has a transformation sequence, while a magical girlfriend usually doesn't).  They also have very different target audiences, as magical girl shows are often aimed at young girls (though some are aimed at moe or lolicon fans), while magical girlfriend shows would always be aimed at guys (they are wish fulfillment for guys who wish they had a girlfriend.) They really are completely different genres, which both happen to have female characters with supernatural powers. Calathan (talk) 20:44, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * My vote is for delete, because I believe the article does not meet Wikipedia's notability standards. What I wanted to say was, magical girlfriend may be mistaken for a notable term by confusing it with magical girl. I agree with you that the definitions as stated in each article are not compatible. We can leave magical girl at that.


 * While in English, "magical girlfriend" could appear accidentally without the anime connotaion, the term 魔法彼女 is not used in Japanese, period. This is because, unlike the Japanese term, the English term can be used to mean "1. produced by or as if by magic" or "2. mysteriously enchanting" instead of just "3. of or pertaining to magic." The article uses this characteristic of the English language to be ambiguous with its definition enough to not overlap with magical girl.


 * The article is currently about a sexy female protagonist character that falls in love with the male protagonist. Sure, sexy female protagonists exist in anime, but like I said, just because one can create a definition for something doesn't automatically mean the term is notable. Looking at the edit history, the article was first a redirect page, then a genre page. Now it's about a female stock anime character, and maybe still also about an anime genre. There is only one external link referenced in this article, despite being tagged for references since 2007. And the referenced external link does not use the term "magical girlfriend," so in reality there are zero relevant references. There is no external references to give definition to this supposed neologism. As unreferenced material with a somewhat shifting definition, it doesn't really have encyclopedic value for any possibility for a merger. It would be like any other content out there that was created without Wikipedia's standards in mind. Even though it's all GFDL, I don't see where it could be merged to. —Tokek (talk) 00:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep The one who is confusing magical girl and magical girlfriend is the nominator. They are separate concepts with very little ovelap.  Edward321 (talk) 16:12, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep As Edward said, it seems the nominator is the only one confused. These are two totally different things.  A girl with magic, and a magical perfect girlfriend.  Both articles are fine, so leave them be.   D r e a m Focus  05:32, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment My apologies, and a bit of clarification. Currently we are already in agreement that "magical girlfriend" != "magical girl" according to the articles' definitions, and no one is disputing this anymore. With this fact agreed upon, the article itself still  has the problem of notability, as initially addressed. The article references a pseudo-Japanese term that has zero usage in Japanese, and it has been unable to come up with an external source that actually defines the term (despite being requested for references back in 2007), so we can't be sure of what the article actually is supposed to be about. Neologisms are considered problematic. "Magical girlfriend' could be given the illusion of notability if confused with the notable term "magial girl." —Tokek (talk) 12:10, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't believe anyone will confuse the two. Google gives 4,180,000 for 魔法彼女, so perhaps somewhere they are referred to as that.  There is usually more than one way to translate the Japanese characters.  The examples listed seem to validate the article's concept.   D r e a m Focus  20:25, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Please re-read: my argument for deletion is not based on whether the two terms can be confused. I am saying that, hypothetically, if the two were confused by a reader, one might fail to see the underlying problems with this afd nominated article. The part where you think the fact that the article lists other anime titles validates the concept to the point that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for notability was IMHO constructive, however. Thank you. —Tokek (talk) 00:30, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Anime and manga are a subculture, so it's easy for people who aren't familiar with it to confuse the two - they are both girls who wield magic, but the question of the gaze and story function largely determines which is which. Susan J. Napier devotes a chapter to magical girlfriends in a book. I've done a rough initial add of it to the page. --Malkinann (talk) 20:49, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep appears to meet minimum notability requirements, this article of course wont grow past C without more references, but as it stands I don't see any problem. -- Kraftlos  (Talk | Contrib) 11:40, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Changing my vote to keep per Malkinann's reference. Just that the kanji, which initially mislead me, should be removed from the article. —Tokek (talk) 10:19, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.