About Anime/Manga thread names

[Dragon D. Luffy]

So there was an argument between users (including me) and @MusubiKazesaru in the manga section that I am bringing to this forum by his request.

This is the topic in question. I suggest you all read it before posting so I don't have to quote the whole discussion:

Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen

Final arc starting on a cliffhanger.

onelastforum.com

Basically, @marf created a thread for the manga Kaguya-sama: Love is War. Musubi then edited the thread because he believes the name is bad and he prefers the one now in the title. Marf asked why, and Musubi just replied "Because I think the current name is better". They had an argument about it, which I decided to join. I will continue the argument here, since Musubi asked to keep the thread on-topic.

There's no ban, there's no rule, only a slight adjustment to fix the naming sense of this specific thread. Does it being called by the original Japanese title hamper your enjoyment of discussing the series?

It's been done plenty of times by plenty of mods in plenty of sections there as well including both the Akihabara Channel and Arcade sections which I frequent and the OBD as well. It's been done by both myself and others and it's always been accepted happily. Is there a reason why this title is an issue for you? Because both you and the OP are now clogging it up to the point where I might as well make a new one. Also this isn't NF.

Don't make this out to be a censorship issue because if anything the other title was censorship by completing alienating the original intent of the title. There's plenty of perfectly acceptable localization titles. This is not one of them.

Ok, first of all, here is why I dislike the current thread name: I don't speak Japanese. The thread name looks like a bunch of random gibberish to me. I can't easily pronounce it, I can't easily memorize it. According to TV Tropes (I had to look there because my first attempt, Google, failed to give a coherent translation), it means "Kaguya Wants to be Confessed to ~The Geniuses' War of Love and Brains". It's a decent title that stays in spirit of the manga's plot, I suppose. Still too long to use in a normal conversation, though. The localized title, Kaguya-sama: Love is War attempts to be easily recognizable and pronounceable. I would be fine with either of the two English titles, personally, it's just the Japanese one that looks like spam to me. That isn't to say all titles in Japanese are bad, though. Something like Jujutsu Kaisen is easy to recognize and pronounce, but the thing Musubi edited into the thread title is not.

But that's not my point, I didn't make this topic to have an argument over which title is better. My point is that an user created a topic, a mod saw fitting to edit it, against the user's choice, and asked why, he just replied "because I prefer this title instead". And when asked to specify that in a section rule, he refused and said something in the lines of "no need for a section rule, it's ok for mods to edit titles however they like".

I don't believe it's ok, though. I don't think mods should have the power to do anything at all unless it is specified by a forum rule, preferrably one that has been agreed democratically by the community, If we are going to decide thread titles should always be the original ones and not the localized, that should be written somewhere. If thread titles aren't supposed to be in English, that should be written somewhere. And if a mod thinks option A would be better than option B, they need to ask what the community thinks first before opening their shiny mod control panel and censoring the users. I think it's good practice that we don't start this forum with letting staff act one-sidedly, especially considering the kind of totalitarian policy we have created the forum to get away from.

Heck, if we end up deciding the rule is "mods are the final arbitrer of thread titles" (which I don't think is ideal), it would still be great if that was written somewhere, because right now Musubi seems to be trying to pretend his call was made because it's just verifiably better, not because it's his personal opinion. Might as well make it official and tell the community it is his personal opinion and that is the law, then.

 

[MrBopo]

Imo use localized names most anime/manga readers use that.

Also when someone looks/searches for an anime or manga they are more likely to use the localized name

 

[Baka]

surely kaguya-sama is enough to remember

this is another one of those things which simply shouldn’t have caused an argument and just isn’t that deep, both titles are fine, I’m not gonna fault musubi for changing it because I’m going to assume he wasn’t anticipating people getting upset over such a minor thing

that said, I agree we should be consistent in our practices, so I’ll bring this up with @Ral and @Trinity and get something in writing today

 

[MusubiKazesaru]

I know the site is acting up, but I think you posted too many times for even that.

I'm firmly of the belief that the localized title completely disregards the entire point of the series. Dragon D. Luffy completed disregarded everything I said on the matter and summed it up as "just cuz".

Kaguya-sama is in either title, thus Bopo's point don't really fly all that well since it's still blatantly obvious that it's the same title so there's no reason not to go with the original. Though I'd argue against such a thing normally since there's plenty that completely change the title.

Ironically the mangaka himself said that he regrets the overly long subtitle

I'd say the best option is to leave it as is and if not then we should strike the subtitle, since as you say it is rather long, but then again when has that ever stopped Japan?

 

[Kaigainiki]

God, now I'm just imagining every thread title on forums related to a certain anime being exactly "Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaete mo Omaera ga Warui!" everytime instead of the common vernacular of "Watamote", and wanting to crawl into a hole.

 

[Dragon D. Luffy]

I'm firmly of the belief that the localized title completely disregards the entire point of the series. Dragon D. Luffy completed disregarded everything I said on the matter and summed it up as "just cuz".

I mean every time someone tried to brought up the fact you were being arbitrary you replied with. "I'm not being arbitrary, my opinion is just the right one" or "I'm not censoring you, I just edited your post because I can" or "we don't need rules in place, just do as I say because the title I picked is the better one".

Yeah It's paraphrasing, cuz I'm not gonna turn this into a wall of quotes and nitpick the exact wording. My point so far you have shruged every time someone called you authoritarian and refused to even debate the issue. You have your view on why that title is better, but my problem is you thinking your opinion should be the law.

I know the site is acting up, but I think you posted too many times for even that.

I mean it's easy for you to say that. You flexed your mod powers, forced your way in and declared the discussion over. You don't have to post when you have won the discussion through the mod control panel, right?

 

[marf]

@Dragon D. Luffy

Thanks for making the thread. I planned to do it myself but life got in the way.

I know the site is acting up, but I think you posted too many times for even that.

I'm firmly of the belief that the localized title completely disregards the entire point of the series. Dragon D. Luffy completed disregarded everything I said on the matter and summed it up as "just cuz".

Kaguya-sama is in either title, thus Bopo's point don't really fly all that well since it's still blatantly obvious that it's the same title so there's no reason not to go with the original. Though I'd argue against such a thing normally since there's plenty that completely change the title.

Ironically the mangaka himself said that he regrets the overly long subtitle

I'd say the best option is to leave it as is and if not then we should strike the subtitle, since as you say it is rather long, but then again when has that ever stopped Japan?

The "wants to be confessed to" part comes from the fact that both main characters view love as a battle to be won. Whoever confesses first loses in their eyes. "Love is War" is far from an unfitting title.

The title itself wasn't really what the argument was about though, it's how you went about changing it and behaved afterwards that annoyed me and started the argument.

You came in and changed the title without either asking or giving an explanation. You just said that you fixed it and nothing more. "Fixing" implíes I messed up when choosing the official english title of the manga for the thread title.

I then stated that a fix wasn't necessary and posted the official cover for the translated manga that uses said title, twice and linked the Viz page for the manga itself. Your responses were "Love is War is just the refrain of the first OP", an optimistic rating and then a rant that basically boils down to you not liking the english title.

"Next thing you'll be telling me is that Shokugeki no Soma is called Food Wars. What's your point? They just slapped a fan name as a subtitle and destroyed the original title. I could get behind it if it was only the subtitle but they obliterated the "wants to confess" part of the main title. Without that, what the fuck is the point of calling it Kaguya-sama? Don't blindly eat up official releases and their arbitrary decisions. There's plenty of more accurate non-official stuff out there.

In many ways it's even worse than Kimetsu no Yaiba since at least that got to keep the original title as a subtitle."

I then pointed out that this doesn't change the fact that the title I used is an official one and also told you that if you don't want us to use the english titles, you should make a thread with section rules, because we can't read your mind to know what your personal preferences are. Which you refused to do then and apparently still do now.

As far as I can tell from all of your responses, you didn't "fix" the title because it was a wrong title, but because you disliked it.

And to be frank, I don't care which title you personally prefer. I used the official english title because it's easier to read, memorize and also better known. If you want me to always use a certain type of title, you have to make it a rule. Otherwise I will continue to choose the thread titles with the same criteria that I used for Kaguya.

 

[Zed]

So there was an argument between users (including me) and @MusubiKazesaru in the manga section that I am bringing to this forum by his request.

This is the topic in question. I suggest you all read it before posting so I don't have to quote the whole discussion:

Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen

Final arc starting on a cliffhanger.

onelastforum.com

Basically, @marf created a thread for the manga Kaguya-sama: Love is War. Musubi then edited the thread because he believes the name is bad and he prefers the one now in the title. Marf asked why, and Musubi just replied "Because I think the current name is better". They had an argument about it, which I decided to join. I will continue the argument here, since Musubi asked to keep the thread on-topic.



Ok, first of all, here is why I dislike the current thread name: I don't speak Japanese. The thread name looks like a bunch of random gibberish to me. I can't easily pronounce it, I can't easily memorize it. According to TV Tropes (I had to look there because my first attempt, Google, failed to give a coherent translation), it means "Kaguya Wants to be Confessed to ~The Geniuses' War of Love and Brains". It's a decent title that stays in spirit of the manga's plot, I suppose. Still too long to use in a normal conversation, though. The localized title, Kaguya-sama: Love is War attempts to be easily recognizable and pronounceable. I would be fine with either of the two English titles, personally, it's just the Japanese one that looks like spam to me. That isn't to say all titles in Japanese are bad, though. Something like Jujutsu Kaisen is easy to recognize and pronounce, but the thing Musubi edited into the thread title is not.

But that's not my point, I didn't make this topic to have an argument over which title is better. My point is that an user created a topic, a mod saw fitting to edit it, against the user's choice, and asked why, he just replied "because I prefer this title instead". And when asked to specify that in a section rule, he refused and said something in the lines of "no need for a section rule, it's ok for mods to edit titles however they like".

I don't believe it's ok, though. I don't think mods should have the power to do anything at all unless it is specified by a forum rule, preferrably one that has been agreed democratically by the community, If we are going to decide thread titles should always be the original ones and not the localized, that should be written somewhere. If thread titles aren't supposed to be in English, that should be written somewhere. And if a mod thinks option A would be better than option B, they need to ask what the community thinks first before opening their shiny mod control panel and censoring the users. I think it's good practice that we don't start this forum with letting staff act one-sidedly, especially considering the kind of totalitarian policy we have created the forum to get away from.

Heck, if we end up deciding the rule is "mods are the final arbitrer of thread titles" (which I don't think is ideal), it would still be great if that was written somewhere, because right now Musubi seems to be trying to pretend his call was made because it's just verifiably better, not because it's his personal opinion. Might as well make it official and tell the community it is his personal opinion and that is the law, then.

This sounds like a really silly matter but i guesss the core problem is legit.
What power a mod should or shouldn't have is something that needs to be discussed

 

[Dragon D. Luffy]

This sounds like a really silly matter but i guesss the core problem is legit.
What power a mod should or shouldn't have is something that needs to be discussed

Look, I know the subject is silly, what bothered me was the response. If the OP had made the thread with that Japanese title I wouldn't have minded even though I don't like the title, I just don't like how the whole thing got modded.

 

[Baka]

since we're trying to go for transparency here i'll let you guys know i've made a thread about future policy on this subject in the staff section

might be a while until everyone's on so we can reach a consensus, but we'll get back to y'all soon

 

[Dr. Watson]

I want to address this one thing first: No mod should be editing user's threadtitles because they feel like it/don't like the title (unless it's an adminfuck and the user's consented/warned about it.)

That's not what your powers are for.

 

[Baka]

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@Dragon D. Luffy @marf