Wikipedia:Peer review/Hayao Miyazaki/archive1

Hayao Miyazaki
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to improve this article to GA and eventually FA. Would like to know what needs to be cleaned up and how.

Thanks, 陣  内 Jinnai 00:47, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Comments 4meter4 I have seen only three Miyazaki films and would not consider myself highly familiar with his work or his person. I am a great admirer of Spirited Away. Given my limited familiarity with the subject, my comments are related more to style, organization, and general fixes as opposed to content. While there are some wonderful things about this article, in my opinion much work still needs to be done before its submission for either GA or FA review. In particular, this article needs more citations for verification and a considerable amount of re-structuring. I hope the following is helpful to you.4meter4 (talk) 04:34, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Lead
 * Many English speakers may be uncertain how to pronounce "Hayao Miyazaki". I personally would add a Template:IPA that would explain how to say his name correctly.
 * The lead section should consist of three (no more and no less) fully developed paragraphs which give a general overview of the article's content. There are currently too many paragraphs; many of which are short and could be merged together.
 * The lead should not contain any citations. All content in the lead should be stated somewhere in tbe article's body where it can be properly cited. If it's not in the body it shouldn't be in the lead.
 * The film Titanic should be italicized consistantly.
 * Just a personal preference: I would begin the article with a simple statement of occupation: "Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese anime director, animator, and manga artist." This should be followed by a sentence which establishes his importance. A possible sentence would be "Through a career that has spanned nearly five decades, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films." From here you could list some of his awards and honours, but I would avoid dedicating more than a sentence or two to this. More details about his accolaides should be contained in an "Awards and honours" section and not in the lead.
 * The lead should contain an overview of his entire career. Perhaps you could begin a second paragraph with the following: "Miyazaki began his career as an animator at Toei Animation in 1963. He first obtained wide recognition in his own nation with... In 1985 he co-founded Studio Gibli with... With that studio he rose to international success... etc.


 * The third and final paragraph could discuss his work. I like what the lead currently says about the themes. It should further summarize other sections on his work from the body like the "Creation process and animation style" section, etc.
 * Okay. I cleaned up the lead somewhat. The refs I still have to find a place for so that's temparary (don't want to hide as this is a living bio). However I'm having a hard time figuring out where to place the last paragraph which talks about the thematic elements of his films. 陣 内 Jinnai 03:14, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Body
 * The body of this article is poorly structured. "Personal life" is a far too broad of a heading to be of any real use to either the editor or the reader. Anytime I see that heading in any article, it raises a red flag in my mind. For one, it suggests a separation between the subject as a person and the subject as an artist, politician, athlete, or whatever career they may have. This is always a false separation. A person's career is always influenced by their personal life, and vise versa. To talk about one as separate from the other is the antithesis of a good biography. Serious scholars and biographers disect the personal lives of their subjects and attempt to draw connections/insights between person and career. It is much easier to do this if Miyazaki's personal and career details are related together in chronological order so we know what is happening in his "person life" while he's creating certain works.
 * The "Films" section is also not well constructed. Firstly, it is largely unreferenced and needs citations for verification. Second, in a section labeled films I would expect to find a critical analysis/apprecitation of his work as a whole. This happens to only a small extent here, although it happens to some extent in other sections further down with varying degrees of success. Hopefully some books have been published which have in-depth discussions of Miyazaki's artistry which can help verify the content. If not, newspaper reviews would be a good place to start. Some of the content in this section is really a chronological account of his career (i.e. what he created in what years and where). That kind of content should really be included in an earlier section detailing his career.
 * I would suggest the following structure for the body:
 * Give personal life and career details in the following three sections. Avoid giving detailed analysis of the films in these sections but indicate the importance/impact of such works in relation to the big picture of his life/career.
 * Early life and education:1941-1963
 * Early career:1963-1984
 * Studio Ghibli:1985-present
 * Gone through and reorganized with different names, but along the same breakdown. 陣 内 Jinnai 17:05, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * These should be followed by the following:
 * Works. This section should give a critical analysis/appriciation of his overall work as an artist. It should avoid giving detailed plot synopses. While some analysis of individual works is necessary, remember the goal here is to give a picture of the artist and his work as a whole. The really detailed stuff should not be in this article but in the articles on the individual films, manga novels, etc. Sub-sections here could follow what's already in the article "Films", "Manga", "Creation process and animation style", etc.
 * grouped his works together per other FAs. I'll go about cleaning up later. 陣 内 Jinnai 17:05, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Awards and honours This could be a bulleted list or, if you prefer, prose. I would delete the ugly award succession boxes at the bottom. If you have time, create some templates instead.


 * Filmography This is good. No complaints here.

Well that is all. Hope this is helpful and good luck!4meter4 (talk) 04:34, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

This is a great start to a biography on a important person in the anime and manga field. :) Aside from needing more citations, and the style of those citations being cleaned up (page numbers for Helen McCarthy's book, consistent use/disuse of citation templates), I noticed that there were many fair use pictures that seemed to be decorative rather than illustrative, so I've removed them. Also, a better summary style would be helpful between the daughter article Styles and themes of Hayao Miyazaki and Hayao Miyazaki. --Malkinann (talk) 21:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)