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Incorrect credits

I told 2channellers already -but they are not easily convinced and now asking that if the DVD companies have really made such mistakes-they don't believe it - they want to know which companies DVDs' have had such wrong lists.

EDIT: I think one of the suggestions raised - to put a warning for every entry saying "The information here may not be completely reliable" is also a good idea. It's about time this was admitted and made clear to people; yes it's obvious this is a user-edited database but even Wikipedia has a disclaimer so I think it wouldn't hurt to add it in.

I think if it hasn't already been done (I'm out of the loop and haven't been active recently... and it sucks because I haven't finished Blood+ and Eureka 7 credits from so long ago -_- not to mention so many others like BKI and Chevalier and Utena...), there should just be some sort of must-read guide to translating credits where there is one and just ONE translation to each Japanese credit, so that there is no more confusion in future. Something like that link posted some time back with a translation and explanation of the various roles.

A drop-down list where people pick the roles probably wouldn't work because it would just cause confusion, although technically I think people who don't know what Key Animation means shouldn't be adding the credits in anyway... But maybe there's an allowance in the submitting system that will automatically change all subsequent attempted entries of "Original Picture" into "Key Animation"? And if people type in "Animation" they have to pick either "Key Animation", "2nd Key Animation" or "In-between Animation" to make it extremely clear.

I'm really glad this whole tirade is cooling down, I actually followed it at 2ch the whole time and it was really quite ridiculous and embarassing for both sides. For all the mistakes that are in the Encyclopedia, it is sad that absolutely no comment is made about entries that are fully correct (like the Ghibli movies ones). Quite a number of us spend hours making sure we enter proper information...

I think in the cases where things are mis-labeled, like not being able to find the right names and where other uses have mistakenly labeled credits, the solution is not to exclude the anime from the encyclopedia because there are many other things on the entry that are useful, such as links and voice actors' names. It will also bring extra problems for the staff because people will start asking "where is so and so anime series" and submit requests to add it in the encyclopedia.

Considering said attitude, I am extremely impressed by your effort and courage to come here and post regardless of your language abilities, Milk. This shows that at least you are genuinely interested in making the situation better and not out just to be 煽り or 厨. I'm not a staff member but thank you so much.

It just can't be helped that there aren't enough people able to work on the myriad of errors - and what serious 2chers could help instead of flaming and complaining (as per normal) is, possibly, to come here and point them out.

I think if it hasn't already been done (I'm out of the loop and haven't been active recently... and it sucks because I haven't finished Blood+ and Eureka 7 credits from so long ago -_- not to mention so many others like BKI and Chevalier and Utena...), there should just be some sort of must-read guide to translating credits where there is one and just ONE translation to each Japanese credit, so that there is no more confusion in future. Something like that link posted some time back with a translation and explanation of the various roles.

A drop-down list where people pick the roles probably wouldn't work because it would just cause confusion, although technically I think people who don't know what Key Animation means shouldn't be adding the credits in anyway... But maybe there's an allowance in the submitting system that will automatically change all subsequent attempted entries of "Original Picture" into "Key Animation"? And if people type in "Animation" they have to pick either "Key Animation", "2nd Key Animation" or "In-between Animation" to make it extremely clear.

EDIT: I think one of the suggestions raised - to put a warning for every entry saying "The information here may not be completely reliable" is also a good idea. It's about time this was admitted and made clear to people; yes it's obvious this is a user-edited database but even Wikipedia has a disclaimer so I think it wouldn't hurt to add it in.

So to sum up the 2ch demands regarding improvements made to the database, am I right to say it is:

1. Consistently correct/standardized translation of roles. (i.e. a proper format)

• Jan Scott-Frasier's Anime Job Titles (which unfortunately leaves out the writing tasks, among a few others. It also uses images, rather than the actual kanji/kana, and so is not as searchable as it might be).

From Ms. Scott-Frasier's work I have extracted/expanded:

• 原作 (gensaku—"original work"): original creator

• シリーズ構成 (shiriizu kousei—"series configuration"): Series composition / scenario

• 脚本 (kyakuhon—"scenario"): screenwriter/script

• 演出 (enshutsu—"production (e.g. play) / direction"): [episode] animation director or (live action:) technical director

• キャラクター原案 (kyarakutaa genan—"character original draft"): "Original Character Design" / "Character Conceptual Design"

• キャラクターデザイナー ("kyarakutaa dezainaa"): character designer

• 作画監督 (sakuga kantoku ("sakkan")—"drawing pictures / taking photographs" "supervision / control / superintendence"): animation supervisor

• 原画 (genga—"original picture"): key animator

• 動画 (douga—"motion picture" / "moving image"): inbetween animator

• プロデューサー ("purodeyuusaa"): producer

• 絵コンテ (e conte—"picture continuity"): storyboard

Lastly, I recall reading recently on-line(? Possibly in a DVD extra) an interview (with Mikimoto? someone who is well known), in which the interviewee stated that the difference between original character design and character design (or something very similar) was the creation of the design, and the creation of the design and cleaning it up for animation.

I'm very much in favor of creating such a list, and, say, appending it as part of the Lexicon.

I know most of them don't understand English well, but I should think some of us here at least would try to understand them if they posted machine translations. And I know *some* of them do understand a basic level at least, but well. Honestly it'd be the best if this board allowed Japanese posting but I don't see the administrators allowing that happening at all...

And I see what you mean. It is true that like what someone said, if you just list the "non-main" roles by alphabetical order then it makes little sense in terms of displaying the importance of various roles. It's sort of disrespectful to the animators, isn't it... Yes, key animation requires much more skill and time than the menial job of painting/colouring cels. But I guess this is one other thing that must be left to the administrators?

From what I gather they are intending to release a new version of the Encyclopedia "software"/"framework" in a few weeks' time or so, incorporating all the changes mentioned in this thread that have been approved by the administrators. I'm also interested in hearing if whether the ordering of "minor" roles will be considered as well.

So to sum up the 2ch demands regarding improvements made to the database, am I right to say it is:

1. Consistently correct/standardized translation of roles. (i.e. a proper format)
2. Appropriately list roles in order of general importance (as per actual staff credits)
3. Include a disclaimer stating the possible inaccuracy of the titles.

Sounds reasonable to me, really. One continuing drawback is that you can't see the episode credits separated by episode - which is extremely handy if people want to know who did a particular episode of an anime (and is something I like to bring to peoples' attention), but I figure that would require an extensive rework of the encyclopedia design and is unlikely to happen any time soon. Especially since this actually doesn't apply to a large number of titles which don't have information in such detail.

Thank you once again for the reply.

Quote:

Lastly, I recall reading recently on-line(? Possibly in a DVD extra) an interview (with Mikimoto? someone who is well known), in which the interviewee stated that the difference between original character design and character design (or something very similar) was the creation of the design, and the creation of the design and cleaning it up for animation.

Mikimoto-san is a famous character designer who did original Macross and Macross7.

We will not remove the Korean animators' names because we do not believe censorship is the solution. The solution is simply to add the missing animators' names and, where possible, change the ambiguous "animation" to either "in-between animation" or "key animation".

The solution is simply to add the missing animators' names and, where possible, change the ambiguous "animation" to either "in-between animation" or "key animation".

In the encyclopedia, the term "animation" can refer to either in-between animation or key animation or both. It is an ambiguous term but sometimes that is the best information available to us. Even if we don't know if someone was responsible for key or in-between, it is still useful to know that he was an animator, so I will not restrict the ability to add staff with the simple task "animation". You can interpret the task "animation" as meaning "either key or in-between animation, we don't know exactly which".

that if 原画(genga) and 動画(douga) are both present in a project they can be translated as key and in-between animation but older projects only have 動画(douga) which should then be translated as just "animation". These convoluted relationships make automatic language handling very difficult, as anyone can easily see from the quality of machine translations.

Listing all roles in order of importance would be a titanic task with little to no benefits.
1. Different titles have their credits in different orders, so there is no single "absolute order"
2. There are a lot of different tasks in our database (4522, to be exact); figuring out a global ordering scheme would be a major endeavor
3. Ordering each title individually according to the credits would also be a major time sink; I'd rather spend time on more useful things
4. It's easier to find information in a straightforward alphabetical listing than in an ad-hoc "importance order"

There's already too much work that has to be done by staff; I don't want to add more burden like checking if task names are valid or unique or whatnot. The desire to standardize is normal but I see no point to standardize just for the sake of standardization. Even if 動画(douga) is translated in different ways, the different translations usually convey the same general meaning of what the person's work was. And that's good enough for now.

I have previously stated that I want to stick to the exact wording used in the official credits. I still believe that but Japanese credits should be considered more official than english credits. If we can agree on certain iron-rule translations, we can use those instead of the official English translation, but do keep in mind that standardization is a distant concern compared to correctness and completeness. This also implies that there is no reason to stick to *any* credit list if it contains errors or ambiguities, or if it's missing information.

We are planning improvements to the Encyclopedia in the near future, and by that I don't mean "in a few weeks" but rather "around this summer". I'm not *that* much of a super-programmer.

For reference, Nihonjoe on Wikipedia started compiling a list of terms and credits which is now on Wiktionary at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Glossary:Japanese_film_credit_terms