Sighed and went along with your guys' crazy desire to have the Touhous' names in English name order. Didn't say anything when you guys renamed Yu-Gi-Oh! characters to their dub names since most people in the West are probably more familiar with Tea than Anzu or Tristan than Honda. But with the recent Cardcaptor Sakura uploads I've really got to ask: SERIOUSLY? ¬_¬; "Madison Taylor" for Tomoyo? "Sakura Avalon" for Sakura? I wouldn't even know who Madison Taylor was but for the fact that the only other person in that picture is Tomoyo so clearly it has to be her. But what really takes the icing on the cake is the series tag name "card_captors" instead of "cardcaptor_sakura", "ccs", or anything else which 99% of fans call it when discussing it online.

Obviously this doesn't concern anime which came to the West after 2002 but for anything which came before it seems like this is going to be something where Japanese audio fans are going to be butting heads with DiC or 4Kids fans. Are you guys really going to insist on tagging Sailor Moon as "Serena Tsukino", Ami as Amy, Rei as Raye, etc?

I just think it's really dumb to insist on Western names for Eastern characters. Even the use of Western name order for Eastern names strikes me as dumb (see: the Touhous) but at least there it's still their actual names. But stuff like "Madison Taylor" is just ... >_< I feel like there's a difference between that and, say, your guys' use of English names with Pokemon characters. With Pokemon, most people in the West know them as Ash and Cynthia and Misty instead of as Satoshi, Shirona, and Kasumi. That I can see. But Card Captors was a hugely criticized 4Kids dub back in the day that drove people even back then to watch the original with English-language fansubs rather than settle for the 40-episode hackjob of 4Kids'. Similarly sure there were people who watched DiC's Sailor Moon back in the 1990s but the fandom as a whole has long since moved past referring to these characters as Serena or Amy.

Whew! OK, a lot of stuff to get through here.

Re: The Cardcaptor Sakura stuff:
At this point, it was mainly for consistency. Quite honestly, I don't care in this instance. The rule about western names was made mainly with shows like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! in mind. It's just kinda hard to write arbitrary exceptions into the rules.

Re: The Sailor Moon stuff:
If you noticed some of the recent comments, I suggested just using the characters' sailor names. It's easier to remember, saves time, and everyone remembers those names regardless of which dub they watched.

Re: Western name order:
Any anime/manga/JRPG with an official English release will, almost invariably, put characters' names in Western order, for accessibility. I wanted to keep that. I'm sure there are plenty of people who started watching shows like Naruto and Bleach when they were dubbed in English, where the names were said in Western order. As for Touhou names, I REALLY don't see what the problem is there. The 2 English patched Touhou games I have (10.5 and 12.3) both have characters' names in Western order, the Touhou wiki has the names in Western order, I've seen fan art from Japan with their names in Western order...

If you open up a history book about Japan, I dare say you will not find inside mention of a "Nobunaga Oda" or an "Ieyasu Tokugawa." When you go to Wikipedia, you find much the same thing. For whatever strange reason, pop culture names seem to be the only ones which Westerners will target for name reversal. For example, the Touhous ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Touhou_Project_characters ) or Naruto ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naruto_Uzumaki ) or Ohtsuka Ai ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Otsuka ) , and so on. If it's a pop culture figure, Western enthusiasts seem to insist on Westernizing the names. But for whatever reason, they dare not touch the Oda Nobunagas ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oda_Nobunaga ), the Takeda Shingens ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takeda_Shingen ), the Minamoto no Yoritomos ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamoto_no_Yoritomo ), the Natsume Sousekis ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natsume_S%C5%8Dseki ), and so on. Don't you think that's peculiar? Don't you think a standard approach should be taken? And if one should be taken, who better to listen to: the historians or the Shonen Jump manga publishers?

What you say is unshakably true though: there is a decades-old tradition (if not older) in the West for Westernizing Japanese names as it avoids confusing the public about which is the family name and which is the given name. I just think the problems in your own system become very evident when you encounter names like Fujiwara no Mokou or Inaba Udongein Reisen, the former being one you opted to leave untouched, the latter being one which you sort of cheated on and simply shortened to Reisen rather than presenting in a Westernized name order as you had all the others. (TBH, why *didn't* you call her Reisen Udongein Inaba? You cited the Touhou Wiki earlier. Well, she's right there. ^_^; http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Reisen_Udongein_Inaba" rel="nofollow">http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Reisen_Udongein_Inaba In fact, we could even say that the current alias is bad considering that there is a totally different character whose name is simply Reisen, http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Reisen )

TBH, Western name order isn't too big of a deal so long as partial name searches still work. (For instance, so long as a search for "Naruto" still yields all the pictures tagged as naruto_uzumaki.) The bigger concern I had/have is what happens when a fan searches for "Usagi" or "Tomoyo" and they get zero hits because they were expected to search for "Bunny" or "Madison"? =\ You could say, "Well, we'll just alias daidouji_tomoyo into Madison ^-^" but I guess I'm asking why you don't do it the other way around instead.

Wait, what? We didn't shorten Reisen Udongein Inaba to "Reisen", we put "Reisen" as an alias for Reisen Udongein Inaba. So, if someone just searches "reisen", they'll find all pics tagged as "reisen_udongein_inaba". And that's just because Vanndril assumed people would be lazy with her name (I wonder what he thinks about Estellise Sidos Heurassein :P). And I even brought up the character simply known as "Reisen" when I first saw the alias. He thought it would be better to use her fan nickname, "Reisen II", than to erase the Reisen alias. So that's what we did.

And if you're saying more fans will recognize Cardcaptor characters by their Japanese names, then use their Japanese names. I guess I can change the rules so that the western names only apply to Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! characters. I still think we can just call the main Sailor Moon characters by their sailor names, though.

I'd try to defend the way we decided to do it, but I didn't really have a hand in this one. I just let Mindwipe decide, saw no particular reason as to why we shouldn't, and helped him figure it out.

So, have fun Mindwipe! :P

Edit: Because this topic seems fun.


*shivers* Do you know how annoying it was to find the RIGHT ESTELLISE? I mean, for my first time trying to find her, it took me more than one search! *shakes fist*

Yeah, I misread that in the alias column, my mistake. Though I guess I now what I have to wonder is why you didn't add an additional alias for converting inaba_udongein_reisen into reisen_udongein_inaba. Like, have two: one that converts short to long and the other that converts eastern to western (since that is what you are going for).

Twofold. An oversight, and because I never knew what her eastern naming order was anyway. I can add that now. :P

I've NEVER seen her name as Inaba Udongein Reisen. Even on Gelbooru, it's Reisen Udongein Inaba.

That's probably because it's not even her real name, but a slew of titles given to her by different people. Pretty sure you told me that, Mindwipe.

But I added it anyway, just in case. :P

By the way, how is it that *I* ended up telling *you* things about the Touhou series? Aren't I the guy who said he wasn't interested in the series, and you the one who got me to try SWR? Shouldn't you be telling me these things? :P

Well I'll be damned, you're right. Always figured Reisen's name was Japanese given the reference to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_of_Inaba in her name but it looks like her name is canonically presented in Western order and her family name is written in katakana. [/the more you know™] I guess you could leave that there for fools like me ;p but otherwise I guess you can delete that suggested alias.

It's because you're infinitely bored, with never anything to entertain yourself, so you stoop so low as to read wikis. :P

Me? I have my MMORPGs, so I'm never that bored. ;)
Most of what I know of the Touhou series is from comments and context in hentai, or lines from some of the earlier games before the tenth. XD

But yeah, we'll keep the alias just 'cause, sctoagn. Doesn't hurt anything.

Inb4 we alias Cirno to ⑨.

jk :P

Lol XD

Okay, so...what did this thread accomplish?

We cleared the misunderstanding with Reisen's name...but what about all the OTHER issues? All I heard was "we could"s, and no "we will"s. Is this thread done, or are we actually going to change something? o.o'

Well, I don't have a problem with changing the rules on using Western names to only apply to Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon characters, if it causes so much of a problem with... 2 other shows. Everything else would stay the same, though, as far as I can tell.