Dear all,

Besides the 'as credited' option we have, should we include the '^' in the master name? For instance, 'Toshirô Mifune'.

Imo, the '^' is only added for basic pronunciation purposes. Wouldn't it be easier to leave these out, so there can be no mistakes as to where '^' is placed?

Using the circumflex is just one particular means of romanizing long vowels.  Because different people use different methods, you may see credits for Toshiro, Toshirou, Toshiroo, Toshiroh or Toshirô (perhaps not for this name, but for others that have the same issue).  All of them are for the same name, of course.  Of those, the one I like the least is the circumflex because it's more difficult to enter and search for, and is in no way more 'accurate' than the other methods.

In one of the threads on rules for romanizing names, it was pretty much agreed on to use one of the revised Hepburn romanization methods.  The furigana for his name, mi'fu'ne to'shi'ro'u, would thus be 'properly' romanized as Toshirou Mifune.  This hasn't been explicitly accepted and added to the rules by Ken, though.

Quoting schultzy:

Quote:
Yeah.  The ' is only breaking up each syllibal (spelling is bad) and I don't agree with it either, but maybe because it was never taught to me as being correct when I took Japanese

I'm only using the ' to separate the individual kana used because the forum doesn't support displaying asian characters.  Didn't mean for it to look like syllable marks, sorry.

This Thread is updated with the latest comments from the Contribution Rules forum discussion.

Quote:

This is an attempt to bring some accuracy and consistency to names of non-western actors and actress to the DVDP community. The problems inherent with converting non-western names to western centric program such as DVDP are that the alphabets and conventions are vastly different. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean names are written using unique Asian characters and cannot easily be input into current version of the program due to absence of unicode support. Even if the program was fully unicode compliant, you would not neccessarily want to solely input Asian names in their native characters, because they would be unreadable to any one who is unfamiliar with the language.

Japanese names are more complex than Korean names but not nearly as difficult as HK/Chinese names.

1. As with all Asian names, Japanese names are written Surname followed by Given name. (ie. Mifune, Toshiro; Kurosawa, Akira)

2. There are three common romanization system for Japanese. They are modified Hepburn, Nihon-shiki, and Kunrei-shiki. Modified Hepburn is the best known system in the western world. (refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romaji)

3. Pseudonyms are common, but English names are still relatively rare.

I propose the following for romanizing names of Japanese actors/actresses into the master name database.

1. All names for Japanese actors and actresses will be written using the modified Hepburn romanization system, with the following adjustment: long vowel sounds will be written using the waapuro variation for kana spellings rather than using macrons or circumflexes (eg: Toukyou, tooi, kyuu).
Mifune, Toshirou instead of Mifune, Toshiro

2. All actors and actress will have their name parsed into surname - Last name and given name - First name. Accuracy of parsing will rely on native experts, but may be challenged with proof of error.

3. When native actors and actress also have a western name or a nick name they would be placed into the middle name field (nickname in "")

4. All names will be input into the cast list using above rules unless there is an English version of their name on the credit screen, in which case, credited name would be inputed into the database using the "as credited option" and properly linked to the official name in the main database

5. All roles should be translated unless they are proper names

6. Many actors and actress use pseudonyms. When they sound like conventional names, standard parsing of names into surname and given name should be applied as above.

7. Some actors and actress use pseudonyms that utilize what sounds like given name only. In this case, the name should be parsed into First name field with no Last name.

8. Although these rules attempt to account for most scenarios, there are going to be some ambiguous names from time to time.  Common sense and intent of these rules should be used when names are ambiguous.

Some examples follow (They are in Last Name/First Name format, but there is an option in the program to display names in First Name/Last Name format):

Kurosawa/Akira/
Mifune/Toshirou/
Miike/Takashi/
Kitano/Takeshi/Beat

I welcome your input. I know this effects very few of you, but this is an important issue to some of us who collect these movies.

Thank you for reading,

The concensus in the other thread was that we should not use the circumflex or other accent characters for Japanese romanization.