Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Archive/September 2020

Technical associate
This small article has been sitting in CAT:NN for over a decade, and no one seems to know what to do with it. The corresponding article in jawiki (under the name 専門士) seems pretty extensive. I wondered if anyone might have some time to look at this and see what might be done. It seems notable to me based on the sources in Japanese and extent of the jawiki article, but as I don't read Japanese I wouldn't feel comfortable removing the tag myself. Thanks for any guidance anyone might be able to provide! AleatoryPonderings (talk) 05:13, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

What to do about New CDP Party?
Copy and paste of the message I left on the talk page of Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan:

So the newly merged party is set to launch in a couple days and as a result the current CDP (the party this article is about) will technically be defunct. However the new party is retaining both Edano as leader as well as the CDP name. How should we handle this? Should the new party get a new article or should we just incorporate it into the history of the current article? Personally I think the latter makes more sense, although it is complicated by the fact that the current CDP is technically going to be dissolved and the "new" CDP is technically an entirely new party. Thoughts? Basil the Bat Lord (talk) 02:52, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Question about an actor
I'm currently working on an article for the 2020 Vancouver International Film Festival, and one of the film's that's screening this year is a title called Special Actors, directed according to VIFF's website by Shin'ichirô Ueda — but we also have a recently created article about a voice actor named Shinichirou Ueda. So I wanted to ask, because I've run into this before with Japanese actors and directors: are they the same person, and if so, which is the more canonically correct transliteration of his name (which is further rendered as "Shinichiroh" rather than "Shinichirou" on his own website)? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 22:49, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * These are different people. The voice actor (with the page at Shinichirou Ueda) is 植田慎一郎, and the director is 上田慎一郎. Both of their names' standard transliterations in Hepburn would be Shinichirō Ueda or Shin'ichirō Ueda (o with a macron), but if the English language press uses a different spelling consistently (ō vs. o, oh, ou), then that would be the preferred article title. Hope that helps! --Prosperosity (talk) 23:14, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Not quite. In Hepburn, an apostrophe is obligatory to distinguish between a syllable 'nV' (n followed by a vowel) and 'n-V' ("syllabic n" followed by a syllable beginning with a vowel). The name shin'ichirō (shi-n-i-chi-ro-o) is very common (with various kanji), but I have never encountered a shinichirō (shi-ni-chi-ro-o). All sorts of things required to disambiguate readings are often omitted to make things "easier" for non-Japanese speakers, but that doens't mean WP should do it. Imaginatorium (talk) 06:17, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Events in the Reiwa era
Reiwa includes a section "Events"; it is not clear why, since Showa for example does not. There might be really major events, as the second world war was a major event of the Showa era, but it looks like developing into a "What happened in 1984" style omnibus. The current things listed include Abe becoming the longest-serving prime minister, which is a bit marginal, and a trade deal signed with the newly liberated, global power of England, sorry UK, despite this being eclipsed by the related trade deal with the EU, which is not mentioned. I described this as "Brexiteer soapboxing", which I think is accurate. Actually I would like to suggest removing the section entirely, but hope for more eyeballs on it. Thanks. Imaginatorium (talk) 06:26, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The same editor has now moved this snippet to Economy of Japan. I have again removed the "renewed sovereign state" nonsense, though I wonder if it would be relevant to mention the fact that the UK government has recently announced that it does not feel it is bound by international agreements it has entered into. Again it is not clear why this is more important to the economy of Japan than the more-or-less same deal signed with the EU. Imaginatorium (talk) 07:00, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Translation help
A fellow user created the article Akira Nishikiyama but it is lacking information about its creation. I found this interview that has some comments about the character but it's all in Japanese. Could anybody help with translating Nishiki's part? Cheers.Tintor2 (talk) 20:21, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Emperor dies AND abdicates?!
Article Ten'an claims the emperor both died and abdicated in 2 consecutive bullet points on the same day (September 27, 858). I left a message on the talk page there but because few, if any, people will see that, I also leave it here. If anybody decides to fix it, please also remove that message. --Dutchy45 (talk) 06:11, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The nengō articles are, in general, a mess, as are most of the articles that were written by (and one or more of his sockpuppets) before 2013 and rely heavily on the sources "Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric" (a highly dubious work, written in French by a layman who apparently didn't read Japanese, before being translated into English by someone with no connections to Japan) and "Titsingh, Isaac" (a very old source). These articles simply have not been rewritten yet.
 * Emperor Montoku died on 27th day of the 8th month of Ten'an 2, or 11 October 858 in the Julian calendar. Emperor Montoku was the reigning emperor at the time of his death, as his immediate successor, Emperor Seiwa, succeeded him in the same month. The obviously false claim that Emperor Montoku "abdicated" was added in 2007, when, to quote Freedman, Wikipedia was itself "elementary and often wrong". If you look at the reference list of the article, you'll see that "Brown" and "Varley" are actually just translations of medieval interpretative propaganda works (discussed here and here), and so the citations themselves are wrong -- the actual sources were the 13th-century priest Jien and the 14th-century nobleman Chikafusa, not the Berkeley scholar Delmer Brown and the Columbia scholar H. Paul Varley. It would not surprise me if these medieval works either (a) get their facts/dates wrong or (b) gloss over it and simply say that Emperor X was succeeded by Emperor Y in a particular month, but it's actually beside the point since the offending source here is Titsingh alone.
 * Fixing these articles has been on my agenda for some years, but it would be a massive undertaking and it would probably be better to get consensus on what exactly these articles are meant to cover first.
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 05:56, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Names of Japanese people in English
Japan has officially adopted the policy of using the same word order for Japanese persons’ names as is used in Japanese, i.e. surname first followed by given name.

Checking the use of Chinese and Korean names, I see that the Chinese and Korean system (also surname followed by given names) is very widely adhered to. The only exception I found was ‘Syngman Rhee’, former Korean president. But this usage failed to adhere to any standards of spelling of Hangul words in English as well.

It is time for Wikipedia to follow the standard set by Japan and switch to following the recommended Japanese practice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ugetsu53 (talk • contribs) 05:16, 22 August 2020 (UTC)


 * "Time"? Why? What the Japanese government wants to do has no tie to Wikipedia or anyone outside their authority. The Japanese government also wants people to stop walking up escalators: should that become Wikipedia policy, too? --Calton &#124; Talk 05:21, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Japanese government agencies advocate for Izumo Shrine to be referred to in English as "Izumo Taisha Grand Shrine", which could be interpreted as a denunciation of the shrine's official website's reading of 大社 as "Ōyashiro". Wikipedia follows common English usage for well-known individuals and after that favours things like personal preference. But the majority of Wikipedians have always favoured internal consistency: just because during Abe's second premiership this became a talking-point and official documents related to his administration started calling him "Abe Shinzo" or "ABE Shinzo", this doesn't mean that our article on Junichiro Koizumi, whose premiership ended more than a decade before this, we should assume that he has no personal preference and therefore maintain the current order for his name but change the name we give his immediate successor. It's possible that, in a decade or two, the change in government policy will result in English-language news media overwhelmingly switching to Japanese order when describing the country's leaders, but it's also possible that there will be pushback for, for example, the reason that Chinese and Korean surnames are overwhelmingly monosyllabic, but it can be difficult to tell a Japanese surname and given name apart just from appearance: Jinping Xi sounds weird because English media have never favoured calling him that, but this is not the case with Japanese politicians or business people, many of whom appear to still actively favour so-called "western" naming order when interacting with Americans and Europeans (even, presumably, Hungarians). The recent changes also are part of a pattern that has been going on for about a decade -- when I was ALTing in junior high school in 2015-2018, the English textbooks all had the characters' names in Japanese order, which my senpais tell me was not the case back in the day. Anyway, if and when English-language media overwhelmingly change the way they write these names, we will follow, but we can't anticipate such a change right now. If you want to write articles about Meiji-Taishō novelists and use Japanese order for consistency and to follow the reliable English-language sources on that topic, fire ahead -- that's what I will continue to do. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 06:21, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Women in Red Asian women contest
From 1 October to 31 December, Women in Red is running a virtual contest on Asian women. In November, this will coincide with Wikipedia Asian Month. We look forward to strong participation from all those interested in improving coverage of Japanese women.--Ipigott (talk) 16:09, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Need help working on this article.
Not sure if it's okay to comment this here but, I need help working on this article. It's basically a list of haunted locations in Japan. Link to article.

I need help adding more places to it, confirming if the sources presented are good, and making the article look good.

Do forgive me if this seems like a dumb request or this goes against the rules. I don't edit here on Wikipedia that often. CycoMa (talk) 15:25, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest moving the photos to the right side. Check your photos to make sure they have captions. Reference #3 needs a URL added to the citation. The AfC process takes a long time, so don't get discouraged as long as you have high quality, verifiable reliable sources for references (I did not check their quality before writing this.) Netherzone (talk) 16:48, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I cleaned it up and moved it to the mainspace: List of reportedly haunted locations in Japan. ··· 日本穣 ·  投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WP Japan ! 18:32, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * (pinging you because I probably wouldn't have asked this if the article were still in the draft space) If the alleged grave-site of Masakado counts as a "reportedly haunted site" in Japan, then don't virtually all Shinto shrines around the country also count as the same? The fact that some specific instances of the local tutelary deity allegedly enacting revenge for disruption have been cited (in western popular media sources meant for readers without a strong grounding in Japanese religion) doesn't actually make the Otemachi "Mound of Masakado" different from any of the other more obscure sites associated with Masakado, and if we are going by the criterion that all sites believed to be "haunted" by kami should be listed, then would it be good form to add the various sites associated with apparitions of the vengeful ghost of Sugawara no Michizane? I honestly don't think it is, which is why I have no intention of doing that, but ... what would you say are the criteria for inclusion? I definitely don't think it should be "the word haunted has been used in an English-language source to describe the site", since such sources are by definition dependent on Japanese originals that are likely describe Kitano Tenjin the same way. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 08:36, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I think there's a difference between "haunted" and "kami hang out there because people worship them there". "Haunted" implies possible bad things (the ghosts/spirits/whatever are trapped there because of unfinished business, because they were killed there, because they intend ill toward those they encounter, etc.), at least to me. ··· 日本穣 ·  投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WP Japan ! 17:16, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Pageview spike for Public holidays in Japan
Public holidays in Japan has gotten a giant pageview spike from this reddit post. It has two maintenance tags; anyone want to clean it up? &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 06:42, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The tags seem somewhat questionable: one says more citations are needed, and the other says there is a list of general references but more inline citations are needed. The latter claim is demonstrably false (the article contains only one general reference, apparently inserted in error, and some 25 inline citations) and the latter ... well, there are 25 inline citations. The vast, vast majority of the article's text is in either (a) the lead (which should summarize the article body and therefore in principle only requires citations for direct quotations and controversial material) and (b) a large table that includes a "Ref" column, which is mostly filled in.
 * I would prefer if multiple, better sources were used, and without performing a thorough check I can only say that I am skeptical that the Japan-Guide page supports all the content attributed to it: the one thing I did check, Prior to the establishment of this holiday, November 23 was celebrated as an imperial harvest festival called Niiname-sai (新嘗祭), is not apparently supported by the cited source, but having myself written the Niiname-sai article I can tell you that the information is verifiable and it is sourced in the linked article.
 * Would simply removing the tags, which were more accurate 10 years ago, solve the problem in the short term?
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 06:59, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
 * , I haven't read the page itself, but I wouldn't be surprised if the tags are outdated; feel free to go with your best judgement. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 07:01, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree. Removing the tags seems acceptable as they are severely out of date. ··· 日本穣 ·  投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WP Japan ! 18:07, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Japanese political party discussions
There are currently these matters being discussed about possibly creating new pages for Japanese political parties. More editors views would be greatly appreciated. Please comment on the relevant talk page:


 * Talk:Kibō no Tō
 * Talk:Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan
 * Talk:Democratic Party for the People

Helper201 (talk) 09:04, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Module:Kana
FYI module:Kana has been nominated for deletion; this may be of interest to you. -- 67.70.32.97 (talk) 02:44, 30 September 2020 (UTC)