Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/February 2011

Japanese cuisine
I am creating a side bar template to adorn the various Japanese cuisine articles (Surprisingly there isn't one) and would like some help.Here are some others I have made:

I need to populate this and there are several articles that I know will go in there, does any one have any ideas? --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 10:10, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Good idea. The link to the top logo seems broken. Where is the image and what does it show?


 * There are many articles that are not yet translated into English. I don't know where to start. The Italian template may be a good example to follow. We can pick items to add from the List of Japanese dishes.


 * For starters, Japanese desserts should perhaps include both Wagashi and Yōgashi(ja:洋菓子).--Shinkansen Fan (talk) 06:22, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Hiroshima - where are they now?
I'd like to request that someone fluent in Japanese take a look at Hiroshima (book) and update the "Aftermath" section. Specifically, of the six people described in the book -- Kiyoshi Tanimoto, Hatsuyo Nakamura, Masakazu Fujii, Wilhelm Kleinsorge (Makoto Takakura), Terufumi Sasaki, and Toshiko Sasaki -- two had died by the mid-1980s. I want to know what happened to the rest. Raul654 (talk) 06:06, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I tried to find about Nakamura and Toshiko Sasaki, but no results. I stumbled across this blog and found we can use this image as it was taken in 1952 and PD. See the tag of this image and the linked page. Oda Mari (talk) 16:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Good find. What are the names of the people in that picture? (The bottom-right is Father Kleinsorge, and bottom-left is John Hersey. I can't tell the rest.) Raul654 (talk) 17:07, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The woman sitting at the sewing machine is Toshiko Sasaki. The man in white gown standing at the sliding door is Terufumi Sasaki. The man washing his hands is Masakazu Fujii. The man in bed is Kiyoshi Tanimoto. And the woman holding pencil in her right hand is Hatsuyo Nakamura. Oda Mari (talk) 17:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I've incorported the images into the article (Thanks!) but I'd still like to know what happened to the other four. Raul654 (talk) 03:15, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Please wait for a while. I'm busy right now. But who and who? I only know Tanimoto had died. Additional info: the magazine's name is Asahi gurafu/graph, a weekly magazine (1923- 2000) published by Asahi Shimbun) and the images were carried on the Aug. 6, 1952 issue. Oda Mari (talk) 04:47, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Masakazu Fujii was poisoned by gas one night, and spent 11 years in a coma before he died on January 12th, 1973. Kleinsorge died on November 19, 1977 at the St. Luke's Hospital in Kobe. Raul654 (talk) 05:58, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I could get the date of Tanimoto's death from this page and I added it to the article. That's all I could find. Oda Mari (talk) 15:19, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Help with an image
Would somebody mind annotating this image? I copied it from Flickr but I really have no idea what it is, we just need more free images of arcade games. Thanks! ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  10:59, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It looks like this game. Take a good look at the letters overlapping the girl's thigh on the left. It's a ranking page on the screen and tells nothing. Ask someone who has edited the article. Oda Mari (talk) 15:03, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Oda Mari. That's the game. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 17:02, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's the e-AMUSEMENT CABINET arcade system for that game. You can see the e-AMUSEMENT Pass, Gradius-style power-ups, and three buttons for "Power Up" (yellow), "Shot" (green), and "Burst" (red). Please add that image to Otomedius and e-AMUSEMENT. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 02:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

fixer-upper
Just found and tagged Age of the Gods. It looks interesting, but stubby.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 16:00, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Isn't it better to use the Japanese word "Kamiyo" (ja:神代) for the article title? This article (ja:神世七代, es:Kamiyonanayo) is yet to be translated, but refers to the "seven generations" of the Age of the Gods, including Izanagi and Izanami. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 04:33, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Shinkansen Fan asks an important question. I am uncertain about how to go about parsing and evaluating alternatives.  My guess is that the current title is the preferred default and that a redirect from Kamiyonanayo as a necessary redirect?  If not, why not? --Tenmei (talk) 18:10, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The Age of the Gods refers to the age from the emergence of Kotoamatsukami to Emperor Jimmu's accession to the throne prior to Hitoyo (人代). While this age is long, I don't think there is much to talk about in itself. Can we incorporate it into Template:Jmyth navbox long?


 * Kamiyonanayo refers to the age of Kotoamatsukami (1st generation) to Izanagi and Izanami (7th). Right now these seven generations are not explained in Japanese mythology, so we need to write more. See this picture.




 * Please help me fix the red links in the template by translating Japanese and Spanish content. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 06:27, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * ja:天地開闢_(日本神話) es:Mito japones de la Creacion
 * ja:国産み es:Mito de la creacion de Japon
 * ja:神産み es:Mito_japones_de_la_creacion_de_los_dioses


 * I could translate the Spanish content. Just to make sure, the translated version should go to Kamiumi, Kuniumi and Japanese Creation Myth respectively, right? bamse (talk) 12:37, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Kamiumi, Kuniumi, and Kamiyonanayo are OK. Let's name it Japanese creation myth because the creation myths in the List of creation myths are not capitalized. Thank you. --Shinkansen Fan 14:17, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, so that's 4 articles. I'll start soon but it'll take a while. bamse (talk) 14:36, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Started with Kamiyonanayo. bamse (talk) 14:54, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Done translating (somewhat freely) es:Kamiyonanayo. Not sure what "siguiente" in the last sentence refers to so I left that part out. Also this article needs references (which I don't have). The clubmanga.net reference in the Spanish article is broken. I copied the names from the Spanish article, but it seems to be inconsistent in the use of "no-mikoto/no-kami". Lastly it might be useful to translate the image. bamse (talk) 16:04, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Done with Kuniumi. It would be good if somebody with more knowledge of the topic could have a look over it. I'll add some references to the Kojiki for both articles now. bamse (talk) 16:00, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Good job. Either one of "-no-mikoto/no-kami" is acceptable in many cases and we can omit it from article titles. I've got books on the mythology, and one of them is cited in the Japanese articles. I'll look over the articles and images and translate from Japanese. Kamiyonanayo is now linked to the Age of the Gods. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 05:48, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Done translating Kamiumi from Spanish. ja:神産み has information on the story according to the Nihon Shoki which is not present in the Spanish (or English) article and should probably be added. bamse (talk) 12:03, 11 February 2011 (UTC) Started to translate Japanese creation myth and am a bit confused. The Spanish version of the early creation (before the first three gods) has quite some detail which I did not find in either the Kojiki or Nihongi. I translated it (at the start of Japanese_creation_myth) but can't find a reference for it. bamse (talk) 13:21, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Before continuing, a simple question regarding the Japanese creation myth (天地开辟, Tenchikaibyaku): "When does it end?" The Spanish article seems to include Kuniumi and Kamiumi, while on the other hand es:Mito de la creación de Japón (=Kuniumi) claims that Tenchikaibyaku was before Kuniumi (i.e. does not include Kuniumi/Kamiumi). As far as I can see the Japanese article ends with the Kamiyonanayo, i.e. before Kuniumi. bamse (talk) 16:49, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I replaced the kanji at the top with 天地開闢 as I believe 开辟 is a Chinese word not used in Japan. In the narrowest sense, Tenchikaibyaku refers to the creation of Heaven and Earth and the most primordial dieties of Kamiyonanayo residing there, including Izanagi and Izanami. The Japanese and Spanish pictures inserted go with this definition. In a broader sense, however, I think that the Japanese creation myth should briefly mention Kuniumi and Kamiumi as well because Izanagi and Izanami are the creators. Perhaps this article should be the root of the creation myth articles, as in Template:Jmyth navbox long. I'll look up my books and add sources to the Japanese articles first. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 04:57, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * OK. I'll translate from the Spanish article until the appearance of Izanagi/Izanami and add a sentence or two, saying that it was followed by Kuniumi/Kamiumi. bamse (talk) 14:36, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. bamse (talk) 15:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well done. As for the writing style here, shouldn't we write in the past tense to describe these events, except for conversations? --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 02:55, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably yes. I'll go through the articles again later today and will fix accordingly. bamse (talk) 08:19, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Done as good as I can. Probably a native speaker should have a look over it though. bamse (talk) 10:20, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Definitely. I've noticed W. G. Aston's Nihongi is written in classical English. I'm not good at it, so I'll first reorganize information from my sources and add content. I'd like to retain the ancient atmosphere of the original. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 17:02, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

AfD for LGBT topics and Shinto
Please chime in at Articles for deletion/LGBT topics and Shinto. Aristophanes68 (talk) 17:52, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete: I' more with User: Shii on this because I don't know what this article is all about. Shinto (or more specifically Japanese mythology) per se does not tell anything about homosexuality. I'll check my books on the mythology.


 * Tokugawa-era writer Ihara Saikaku joked that since there are no women for the first three generations in the genealogy of the gods found in the Nihon Shoki, the gods must have enjoyed homosexual relationships which Saikaku argued was the real origin of nanshoku.


 * I believe he referred to the Kotoamatsukami here, but I'm not sure if this statement is right. Was the sexuality of hitorigami was male? My understanding is that they were asexual and sexuality emerged when the married couples of Kamiyonanayo (from Uhijini and Suhijini to Izanagi and Izanami) were born. Specifically, Izanagi and Izanami signify the beginning of love, sex, marriage, and reproduction. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 02:33, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Oops, I forgot to close this. Shii went ahead and merged the most significant material into the Homosexuality in Japan article, mostly into the section on monastic same-sex love (and there's now a rename discussion for that). The idea isn't that Shinto has to say anything about homosexuality, but that if it doesn't say anything, then that absence should be explained: why is Shinto silent on the topic? If it's permissive, we could at least discuss why that is the case. And I was able to show that several English-language scholars have in fact addressed that issue. Aristophanes68 (talk) 03:00, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The most obvious reason I can think of is the following.
 * There is no text that forbids homosexuality.
 * Shinto celebrates heterosexual love because it brings offspring, Same-sex love can't.
 * I'm no expert on LGBT issues, so this is all I can say. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 02:53, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Translation required
Could anyone here help out with this where someone machine translated an article for jp.wiki? Cheers SmartSE (talk) 22:33, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That needs a lot of work...but I will try after translating mythology articles. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 06:43, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I started to translate Japan's_space_development and fix the formatting of references in that section. Hope that is fine with you. Still needs a lot of work. bamse (talk) 17:05, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Almost done with Japan's_space_development. Just can't make sense of the first sentence (糸川はロケット開発において大きなものを小さくして実用化した米ソとは対照的に小さなロケットを大きくする計画と立てた). Anybody? bamse (talk) 00:47, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a bad Japanese sentence translated into an even worse English. The last particle should be を. ロケット開発において大きなものを小さくして実用化した米ソとは対照的に、糸川は小さなロケットを大きくする計画を立てた. That refers to his Pencil Rocket and effort to make it bigger, in contrast to the American and Soviet miniaturization (?) of their rockets. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 02:13, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I see, thanks. Not sure whether Americans and Soviets really made their rockets smaller, so I asked for confirmation at the wikiproject spaceflight. bamse (talk) 09:51, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The reply was a clear no, so I'll remove that sentence from the article. bamse (talk) 15:25, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

file:Japanesefont.png
image:Japanesefont.png has been nominated for deletion. 65.94.45.238 (talk) 05:59, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I added that image to Ming (typeface) and Meiryo. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 06:49, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I moved the file to commons and deleted it here. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 16:53, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Reliable source for Nihon Shoki
I am looking for a reliable (and complete and online) source for an English (or German or Spanish or Dutch) translation of the Nihon Shoki. So far I've found this (reliable?), this (difficult to reference specific pages) and this (excerpts only). Which of these is preferable for use in wikipedia or is there an even better source available? bamse (talk) 23:37, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The second one, I should say. Oda Mari (talk) 15:14, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * OK. bamse (talk) 16:36, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe we can borrow wording from the other sources though. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 02:59, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Shikoku Island League plus
Please check this page move. If legitimate, the "plus" needs capped per MoS.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 11:43, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Seems legitimate enough; see and . The "plus" styling seems to be official as well, though I agree that we ought to capitalize it for our article. — Gavia immer (talk) 16:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Inland Sea
The usage of Inland Sea is under discussion, see Talk:Inland Sea. 65.95.14.96 (talk) 05:36, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Bukkake
There are a few sources, including one sexologist (who admits he used Wikipedia for his research), asserting that bukkake is or may be based on an ancient Japanese ritual used to humiliate an unfaithful woman. This may well be an urban myth (see e.g., as well as an instance of WP:CIRCULAR; see Talk:Bukkake for a history of this snippet of info in Wikipedia. Is there any support for this theory in Japanese scholarly literature? -- JN 466  13:29, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Didn't we discuss this some time ago? I don't remember the specifics, but I remember getting the impression at the time that this was a theory pushed forward by someone with an axe to grind and an impression of foreign cultures that was entrenched in far too many anachronistic "exotic other" stereotypes to be taken seriously. TomorrowTime (talk) 17:58, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Was it something like this? -- JN 466  23:29, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I suppose so. It's argumentation that's painful to watch from a culturological point of view. First you have the immersed viewer, someone who (apparently) only knows their own culture and judges all others according to standards that apply to that culture. So from this point of view you get the "cumshots are demeaning, ergo multiple cumshots are ultra-demeaning" rationale. While I personally agree with this, it's not for me to judge how a hypothetical "ancient Japanese culture" would view the hypothetical act of communal-village-bukkake - I have no place saying "obviously since I find it demeaning, they must have done so also". For all we know, it could have been a fertility rite, a way to wish a newly-wed girl many children. Or something. (This seems like a good point to reiterate I strongly believe the communal-village-bukkake thing never existed :) If I remember my Dune correctly, there is the following scene in there somewhere - an outsider is greeted into a desert tribe and gets spat at by the tribe elder - not because the elder despises the guy (which would be our first interpretation, and is the outsider-guy's as well) but because in the desert, bodily fluids are precious and "wasting" them like that is a sign of respect - this illustrates the danger of applying personal judgments on foreign cultures. You may understand a gesture correctly, or you may misunderstand it horribly, so the best thing to do is to first understand and then judge, not the other way around.
 * Then, the next thing is this obsession with Japan-as-a-thoroughly-misogynist-culture. As I said in the response I (think I) wrote on the talk page there somewhere, there is plenty of real, documented cases of misogyny in Japan, historical and present, and there is no need to grasp at straws and reach out to poorly researched, phantasmal cases to prove it, even if it "sounds right" (which I suspect is the entire reason this myth lives on).
 * And third, there's the whole business of "in ancient Japan" which IMO is just a terrible give-away for "I made this up" - if there really is documented cases of bukkake-as-punishment there is enough of us here who can speak Japanese and verify the veracity of the source that would describe this "ancient Japanese ritual", so the excuse that "due to the language barrier it's hard to verify" is moot. Unless of course one is to believe in some conspiracy theory according to which all us speakers of Japanese are bent on doing is whitewashing Japanese misogyny, in which case, meh.
 * In short, unless rock-hard proof is presented, that claim has nothing to do in the bukkake article, IMO. TomorrowTime (talk) 13:00, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree. And hey, I loved the Dune series. ;) Lots of amazing thought in it. -- JN 466  21:27, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Articles on Japanese buildings and structures needing translation
Over the years, I have been viewing some articles about skyscrapers, stadiums, ballparks, and other structures in Japan and their corresponding articles on the Japanese Wikipedia and it looks like the Japanese versions of the articles have a lot more material than the English versions. Some of the articles include Meiji Jingu Stadium, Tokyo Station, and skyscrapers in the Shinjuku CBD. Some of the Japanese articles have timelines detailing the history of the subject. I request that a user who can properly translate from Japanese to English to expand the English articles using text translated from their corresponding articles in the Japanese Wikipedia. I would do it myself, but I can’t because every time I use a translator on an article on the Japanese Wikipedia, the translated words get all jumbled up. So are there any professional Japanese-to-English translators that will step forward and help in this effort? Jim856796 (talk) 01:35, 21 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Online dictionaries like SPACE ALC may be helpful, but online translators seldom work. Please add Expand Japanese to the articles that you are interested in. I guess this is relevant to the following projects. Feel free to participate if you like.
 * WikiProject Japan/Geography and environment task force
 * WikiProject Japan/Infrastructure task force
 * WikiProject Trains in Japan


 * Many Japan-related articles (aside from popular culture ones) are substandard due to the shortage of media coverage in English. Our task forces and projects are meant to fill this information gap. I'm not able to work on these topics for a while because geography is currently my fourth priority of translation. Rail specialists here may be able to help you though. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 05:57, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Interac Japan
I'm trying to improve this page. As it is, it's a mash of rumor, misinformation, and stuff from the General Union. I'm more than willing to get sources to improve the page quality so that it makes it into the Japan Project and the Education Project. I'd appreciate any helpKeroroGunso (talk) 00:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Commons deletion inquiry on Hachiko images by Fg2
Hi! There is a Commons deletion inquiry on the Hachiko images by Fg2.

Since Fg2 is deceased, he is unable to comment on this discussion, please investigate the issue and share your thoughts at Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Hachiko200505-2.jpg WhisperToMe (talk) 23:08, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't worry. The images are not a copyvio case. They will be kept. Oda Mari (talk) 06:18, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

WP Japan in the Signpost
"WikiProject Report" would like to focus on WikiProject Japan for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Other editors will also have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 04:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)