This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Page Maintenance Discussions
Infinix: I'd like to propose changing the naming order to eastern order. (Actually, I'm saying this for all Asian shows in general.) Because;
- 1. If it's a show in English, sure, we can use the western order because that's mostly how it's gonna address the characters; Given Name-Surname. But Japanese shows use the Surname-Given Name, so I think it's appropriate to follow that.
- 2. And I checked which order the Super Sentai pages and Kamen Rider pages are using. SS uses easten order mostly, and KR uses western. But seeing as both have exceptions (Bokenger with western, Kabuto with eastern), I don't think there's a set, say, "norm" for the naming orders yet. Might be nice to have one.
- 3. Another is that it'd be easier to just write down the names from the show as we hear them when editing.
Tokuiten: I rather strongly disagree with the idea of using eastern order. Western order is the standard way of referring to Japanese people (but not Chinese, oddly enough) in English-language media. I'm not just talking about works—read any news article mentioning Japan, and they will use western order. Further, all actor and creator pages on TV Tropes use western order. Yeah, I know we're not Wikipedia, but having some Wiki-wide standard for naming order is still a Good Thing, and western order is the closest thing we have to a standard. Eastern order only makes sense for works that are heavily-steeped in traditional Japanese culture, e.g. Shinkenger. If anything, using eastern order for Double is doubly bad, because the show is steeped in 1920s/1930s American Private Detective tropes.
Infinix: Reasonable enough.
Redkun: Took a chainsaw to the Shout-Out section. People seem to be confusing any slight overlap with anything else with a deliberate reference to another media. In a franchise that has spanned decades, there are bound to be some re-used ideas, names and designs. Please do not add any more examples to the Shout-Out section that are along the lines of "This thing in Double is kind of like this other thing". If you use the word "might", you're doing it wrong.
Capsarc: How are those things "slight overlaps?" Saying that the main character being named "Shotaro" isn't a Shout-Out is like saying that about a Disney character named "Walt." Why does THAT get axed and not the reference to Philip Marlowe, or the reference to Sherlock Holmes which says it might be a Shout-Out? And lest we forget that this series comes after a season-long tribute to Kamen Rider, so all this stuff would be fresh in the producers' minds. And some of them are bleedingly obvious. How is a green and black guy wearing a scarf and called "Double" NOT a Shout-Out to the original two riders, who wore green and black and had scarves and were called "Double Riders"? If a Spider Dopant showed up and he was colored red and blue with big white eyes and shot webs from his hand, wouldn't you think that was a Shout-Out to Spider Man? I'm putting some of the more reasonable ones back in, because saying they're not Shout Outs when there's this much evidence that they are makes no sense.
Redkun: "A Shout-Out is something subtle (a name or line of dialogue) in a show that refers to fans or family members of the cast or crew, or to another source of inspiration." Here in lies the problem: the reference has to come from outside the show or franchise. Your Spider Dopant example is valid because Spiderman is a different franchise; the Double Riders example is not because they exist within the canon of the Kamen Rider franchise itself.
Capsarc: So in other words, they're Mythology Gags.
Infinix: I felt like the page can be organized like what I did to the Shinkenger page, so I tried it out. Feel free to revert if it's not convenient.
Redkun: Best if you put the Characters bit in a dedicated Characters page. The re-write of the opening description was less a synopsis and more "description of what happens in the first episode" (and rambled a bit) so I changed that too.
Tokuiten: Nearly every Kamen Rider and Super Sentai page has a characters section. What's wrong with it here?
Infinix: The one who rewrote the description? That'd be me.
My description isn't to put up a synopsis *, but the premise in a compact text without revealing too much of the info. The text is short because it was just a fresh series without a lot of general stuff to add. In short, that was intended.
The character descriptions are to go to the Characters segment below.
Also, I'm confident in my English. If you don't believe, Check the Shinkenger page; I proofread and reorganized the whole page just a few days ago.
With that, I'm putting mine back up. Oh, and a few comments;
- A synopsis is "a summary of what happened".
- It's "Philip", with only one L.
- It's "tenuous"; it means "flimsy, weak". Not "tenious".
Midonin: On the characters thing: The Wiki does have and has had character namespaces for quite a while. Perhaps those should be utilized for the toku section.
Infinix: Character namespaces? You mean a Character page?
Midonin: Yes
Infinix: Well, I'm not against it. The reason I haven't made them myself is because SS and KR series don't tend to have a large character roster like, say, Negima. So, a character page will be like a massive garage with a small car in it. Another is that I find the character pages to be a bit too simple; you list a character and put in associated tropes, maybe with some notes. They're not as flowery as the main page, where we can write witty sentences with wiki links embedded. Also, having character descriptions in the main page, people can just read everything directly from it. Of course, those are only my viewpoints.
Tokuiten: Yes—character pages only make sense for shows that have loads and loads of character-specific tropes (and often Loads And Loads Of Characters), like Death Note, Axis Powers Hetalia, etc. We really don't need them for these shows. The Characters namespace should only be for shows that need it, just like how we don't put every TV series in the Series namespace or every movie in the Film namespace.
Infinix: If you guys are really dying to make a character page though, here's an idea: Wait a while until the story goes on further and things unfold enough, and then make a character page with every single detail about the characters. Leave the Character segment in the main page as just character introductions or "teasers". But considering the later KR series runs for a year at most *, I still think it's unneeded work. Tropes are tropes, after all; if where they're put doesn't matter, why make things more complex?
Midonin: There's a character page for K-ON!, and that series is both short and has a very small cast compared to W. There's a fair amount more characters for this show, and having a place to put them all might be useful. Multiple namespaces might be more complex at first, but it ultimately makes for a smoother read.
Infinix: That's a good point, too. Give it a shot. It'll be dry for now, but we'll see how Troperiffic the characters can get. Also, if you're gonna make it and list every single character, please remove the "Others" section in the Character segment; leave the rest as teasers. Then you can put the link to Characters page for greater details about them.
By the way, are you gonna apply that for all KR pages?
Redkun: Why do we need a characters section at all? Can't the description of the series neatly describe the main players? It's sloppy and unnecessary. Also, Infinix: sorry I was snappy in my edit comment earlier, but I was having a bad day. :( The main description of Kamen Rider Double (which I originally wrote) remained the same for so long, I don't see why it suddenly needs a complete re-write.
Infinix: Well, as long as it's clear enough to help a new visitor understand, it's all good. And sorry about my comment too; I spotted some typos in there, so I felt a little doubtful and that's why I re-posted mine. As for the Characters segment, I wanted to try that for KR series since it worked for SS, but those two are kinda different when it comes to the roster, it seems.
Redkun: Yeah, Super Sentai has more of an ensemble cast.
Arrow: Why are so many of the Dopant names under spoiler tags? We're only 8 episodes in; 40 episodes from now, this page is going to look like hell if we keep that up.
Midonin: I went ahead and despoilered most of them. We should be able to talk about what the Monsters of the Week are in a toku show without having half of them unable to be read.
Terminus Est 13: What's with all the hottip tabs? Especially the ones IN the spoiler tabs?
Redkun: Agreed. It's lazy writing. What's wrong with brackets? Also did some general article maintenance/tidying. Changed the catchphrase to "This'll clinch it!" since "clinch" is more well known in its verb form, it's more natural and more dynamic. The literal meanings are also included under their entries for the sake of completion. If there's a huge disagreement to this, then I don't have a problem with changing it back. Also, can we work to keep the Mythology Gag section nice and pruned? I keep feeling that people are adding coincidences instead of deliberate, clear references. The show has been on for over thirty years, it's inevitable that some ideas will be re-used or have overlap with past ideas.
Infinix: Lazy writing? Do remember that a full hottip function takes 13 characters instead of 2 for brackets, Redkun. It's useful for decorative and text compacting purposes. An advantage is that unlike text between brackets, readers can just pass the hottips if they want to; like an ALT-text. Sure, it's not very different from brackets but hey, since it's in the wiki code, why not? *
The catchphrase change is nice. No translator is absolute, so there's no harm in changing to something catchier. Speaking of translations, "This is the (decisive) conclusion!" is not a literal translation
* of "Kore de kimari da!"; the closest you can get to its literal translation would be "With this, conclusion!" or "This is conclusion!"... which won't do at all. The translation issue is why I kept the direct translation in hottips, to not confuse the reader.
The Mythology Gag section is nice to read, I think. It can tell casual viewers and newcomers the hints they could have missed. Something might not remind you of a previous KR trivia, but maybe it would for others, even if it's not "officially" proven. By adding a Mythology Gag, we're not accusing Toei of reusing an old idea; we're just saying, "Hey, something like this happened before too!" Just let people remember, and relax; this is TVTropes. *
P.S: There is a noun form for clinch. I don't know whether the verb is supposed to be more popular than the noun or not; if it's grammatically correct, it's all good.
Redkun: I disagree with you as far as hottips go... you say it's optional but I know that whenever I see one I always expand it. By "lazy writing" I meant that instead of finding a way to include the extra information in the sentence, it just gets stuck in a hot-tip and abandoned in the middle of it. Especially when the star contains information that could have easily been put into brackets. I don't mind hot-tips at the ends of sentences, just not in the middle.
That being said, since you're strongly for hot-tips I'll respect that and won't do another "sweep" of them.
As for the Mythology Gag section, I'm not saying we should get rid of it, but just that people should put a little more thought into what they put under it. For example, just because a monster is blue does not mean that it's a direct reference to a monster that was also blue from a series that aired 22 years ago. That's the kind of example that people keep putting in and It Just Bugs Me! because it's not a good example of the Mythology Gag trope. If it was any other trope and someone put in a bad or invalid example, wouldn't you remove or edit it?
Infinix: That, I agree with you. Very trivial mentions would just take space. Tell you what, just make a Wild Mass Guessing or Trivia page. If something doesn't fit in Shout-Out or Mythology Gag sections, and people still want to mention it, let them do that there.
Terminus Est 13: I disagree very, very, very heavily with the sheer amount of hottips. Just because one other page has it doesn't mean it's a good thing—compare the rest of the wiki's use of hottips. Cramming almost EVERYTHING behind a hottip is just bad form, especially when it's INSIDE a spoiler.
Terminus Est 13: Ohhay, turns out most of the hopttips were removed/integrated with the article since I last actually read it. Still think what few remain are unneeded, but at least they're not everywhere. NEVERMIND, THEN.
Eddie Current: Okay, I'm on Ep 9, and Shotaro still can't tell Akiko her dad's dead. There's a trope for that, I know. Even if it's rectified soon, it still plays to the fundemental conflict between Shotaro's desire to be hard-boiled and that heart we often see on his sleeve, and we should note it. But I'm at a loss finding it. (Saying that, the prairie boy from Ontario will now find it in five seconds, he's sure.)
Terminus Est 13: Cannot Spit It Out.
Phosphatide: Is "half-boiled" considered a Berserk Button for Shotaro? As far as I'm concerned that was a one-time conflict in episode 2 that at the end he pretty much brushes off, like he's decided that he won't let the phrase get to him anymore. And I bet it's a lie, but I swear Philip said it again and Shotaro did not explode that time.
Infinix: Considering he doesn't always blow up from the nickname, it's looking more like a "Tease" Button used as a Running Gag.
Infinix: Slight inaccuracy in the introduction text: Shotaro's campaign is mainly directed against Dopant crimes *, which, in turn, will direct him to the Family. Granted, he will be going up against the Family directly sooner or later, but both the Narumi Detective Agency and the Police are sill in investigations; the Family's not even out in the open yet. Also, after about 20 episodes, it's safe to say that Riku Sanjo chose to make Futo the "default" stage in order that the confrontation isn't presented immediately.
Short version: The premise isn't that Shotaro and the Family are fighting each other; they don't even know each other yet, aside from knowing a few hints about their opponent.
Infinix: On a different matter; which spelling is it? "Double" or "W"? The Kana in the title does say "Daburu", but anywhere else says "W"; the official site, the merchandise sites, everywhere. While there are aspects where the word "Double" does make sense, "Daburu" might well be an inaccurate Kana spelling, be it accidental or just stylization. Kinda like "Fives"/"Faiz" and "Kiva"/"Kiba".
Eddie Current: After doing a wide search, it seems pretty evenly split. In other words, we could use either and people would wonder if it wasn't the other. Wikipedia is using W as the "literal" translation and "Double" for the romanization. At this point, I'd say it's a coin toss, especially after I put aside my confirmation bias for W.
Tokuiten: The full name of the series is given as Kamen Rider Double in tiny print below the logo. W is just a stylistic affectation like the DCD in Decade's logo. Kiva's a bit different in that it's a pun: it's officially an abbreviation of "King Vampire", chosen because it's represented by the same kana as the Japanese word for "fang". Also, I believe that when Ryu talks about the W Memory, he's says daburyu, not daburu, so at least the writers distinguish between "W" and "Double". I could be mishearing it, though.
Infinix: You didn't mishear it; he did say "Daburyu".
Eddie Current: Yes. So I think that rather well distinguishes the two, and my note (as kindly edited by Infinix) is our best way to cover all bases. Thanks, all.
TMR: whoever thought Fang Strider and Accel Glanzer were correct spellings has a poor knowledge of japanese. for the case of Fang Strizer, if it was supposed to be strider, the japanese spelling would be "sutoraidaa" but we have a zaa there instead. in the case of Accel Grand Tour, one: Glanzer is only usable as a last name, and "Gurantsua" works into Grand Tour because tsu is the kana substitute for the "too" sound, and it works the same way as the japanese way to say Grand Prix "Guranpurii". even though wikipedia spells them wrong doesn't mean we have to
Tokuiten: Actually, it should be "Streiser". It's not Gratuitous English; it's Gratuitous German. Streis is German for "streak". Same with "Glanzer"; Glanz is German for "gloss".
Troper Discussions
Lord Aaronus: So I just watched the Ice Age Dopant arc, and Katahara Kiyoshi reminded me a godawful lot of Tsutomu, the Oni dropout from the summer arc of Kamen Rider Hibiki, but I ran a quick check and the actor names are completely different. So just a headsup. (I checked the opening credits of Hibiki 27 fyi.)
Tokuiten: By the way, the awesome translation of Accel's Catchphrase originates with W-Time's fansubs, not whoever posted it here. They're fond of Woolseyisms like that, which is why I love them; they were the ones who corrected "Begins Night" to "the night it all began". Of course, I'm biased: W-Time's fansubs are the only Double fansubs I watch, as I'd rather not deal with TV-N's half-translations or OZ's stilted dialogue.
Eddie Current: See, it,s interesting how taste can vary. For example, I prefer honorifics intact in dubs and manga trans. I feel like I'm losing some subtleties otherwise, like how Genta is basically Hey, You! to Takeru in Shinkenger. On the otherhand in a sub, I can HEAR the honorifics, so I don't mind some Woolseyism. It's very much personal taste, isn't it? I watch Nihon purely because I RAN from OZ, and it was the one I ended up on. :)
Infinix: I'm kinda interested in that sub group for their Woolseyism. It's not that Takenoko's translations are bad; he's trying to make it understandable and cover all the important words in the Japanese script, and that's no small load. On the bright side, much of his translations are generally literal and simple, so it's handy if you don't mind learning a Japanese word or two. Take a look at the Samurai's first battle appearance in Shinkenger Act 1:
- The Japanese script:
Ayakashi: "Sono kamon?! Masaka omaera-!" *Takeru: "Sono 'masaka' da." *
- Takenoko's take:
Ayakashi: "That Family Crest! Don't tell me you guys are...!"Takeru: "That's right."
- My take, with a bit of Woolseyism:
Ayakashi: "That Family Crest?! You guys can't be-!"Takeru: "Exactly what you're thinking."
So, yeah. The translation issue is quite diverse, depending on which route you'll take. My personal choice is that when you've learned enough of a language, the next step is to go a little flowery. But what's more fun than that is to compare different translations and their takes. Gotta love languages! *
