Capitalization Standard/Japanese Releases Clarification

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Capitalization Clarification for Japanese Releases

  • Status: This is not a guideline, it merely explains how the StylePrinciple should usually be applied to Japanese releases.

In English

For Japanese releases by Japanese artists, CapitalizationStandardEnglish is not strongly followed. Japanese releases are more likely to have odd capitalization, so keep an open mind that it may be a deliberate choice by the artist. If you are unsure definitely copy the album cover as closely as possible.

Rationale

This practice arises because of the StylePrinciples: both ArtistIntent and ConsistentOriginalData take priority over the CapitalizationStandards.

For Western artists capitalization is not usually considered part of the title. They often use eccentric capitalization on covers, but revert to standardized capitalization and punctuation in discographies and on re-releases of the songs. In contrast, Japanese artists have a tendency to choose track titles and punctuation for aesthetic reasons, perhaps because native Kanji & Kana don't have case. They also tend to be very consistent about it once a track is titled. These titles will intentionally retain the eccentricities across multiple issues, on all entries on their website (and often label websites), and on compilation issues.

Example: Tommy heavenly⁶'s album Heavy Starry Heavenly.

  • The Capitalization changes from track to track and word to word, the caps also match the single releases that came before the album. The use of symbols is used on the album itself and originally on the official homepage, but now the homepage simply uses the word "love" instead of a heart.

Soundtracks

A separate issue deals with the SoundtrackTitleStyle, which states that you should exclude secondary information such as "Original Soundtrack". However, for many popular animé and video game series please take care that you also follow the following exceptions to that rule:

  • it is clearly part of the title of the soundtrack and
  • it is required to distinguish the release from other variations of the soundtrack.

Many anime series will not just have an Original Soundtrack, but also an Original Soundtrack 2, or various image albums. Certain video game series have many soundtracks for a particular game of the series, such as orchestrated or re-arranged versions, piano versions, vocal editions, etc... To distinguish between all these possible variations, it is often better to copy the title verbatim.

To Do

  • Insert a couple of good examples, here. Something from the Escaflowne soundtracks or Gits:SAC maybe, that have been edited a million times and are about as accurate as we'll ever manage)
  • Suggest changing the "In English" sentence to begin, "For Japan-market releases which have ReleaseTitles or TrackTitles in English (wholly or in part), ....". This answers my question about which "Japanese" you mean. —JimDeLaHunt 2008-02-27

Discussion

  • "They also tend to be very consistent about it once a track is titled." I've done alot of Japanese releases and I don't think this is correct. Like the rest of the world consistency is far more dependent on the label and the artists themselves; the correctness shouldn't be judged on the nationality of an individual person or the locale a CD was printed in. Compare the smaller labels of the US to Japan and they are just as inconsistent as each other. Avex Trax themselves, the largest label in Japan has been inconsistent with some of it's most popular artists (also see the Sony Japan(Tommy Heavenly) example in the text). So I think we mainly need to emphasize that Japanese releases require a bit more thought and open mindedness as to their capitalization, not blanket generalizations based on the CD pressing country. Blanket generalizations lead to another "Classical Style Guide" subset of the rules which deters consistency of rules and application of said rules across the database; and also deters new editor/voter participation (which Japanese suffers from enough as it is). — Kerensky97 2008-09-15