Talk:Yuru-chara/Archive 1

Some rationale:

• Title - yuru-chara and yuru-kyara seem to be both common romanizations, and it seems The Japan Times can't decide which to use. So I guess it's up for debate. I can't really see any policy or trend for what to do with contractions of loan-words like this. I used the word in italics throughout the page based on what I saw on other articles using Japanese words, e.g. tarento and yokai.
• It seems to be something notable judging by the amount of English-language news exposure, German and Hungarian WP articles, and various English articles that already exist for Kumamon, Funassyi, Hikonyan, etc. And there has been a book I could probably do with citing and another book I don't know too much about. I think it's a tangible and discernible sub-category of kigurumi.

Other:

• I would appreciate if someone could help with the translation of Miura's three requirements for a yuru-chara, because I'm sure my translation is terrible and barely makes any sense as is - but I think it could make an important definition of the subject (it's in the Japanese page, with cited source)
• I dunno if some of the "Features" section is too original-researchy. I could do with some real sources regarding merchandise, etc.

--Zilog Jones (talk) 23:40, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that article titles in an English encyclopedia should be either in English, or if no English term exists, in the original language. "Yuru-chara" is neither, and I suggest that no English reader should be expected to realise that "chara" is supposed to stand for the Japanese contraction of the Japanese pronunciation of the loan word from "character". So the title should be Yuru-kyara. (Or arguably without hyphen, but the hyphen does aid parsing.) Imaginatorium (talk) 04:53, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I know what you mean, but WP:MOS-JA does say "Japanese terms should be romanized according to common usage in English-language reliable sources as indicated by policy, including unconventional romanization of titles and names", so going for the Hepburn transliteration is not always the right thing to do. I can't find any other examples where there is such a contraction (of both a Japanese and borrowed word, where both are contracted - I'm sure there's others), but there are some other cases where English spellings are preserved, e.g. kogal (not "kogyaru") and Famicom (not "Famikon"). Some more points:

• The title may not reflect the Japanese pronunciation, and could initially mislead people to think it could be a Japanese "chara" （ちゃら）but I believe this is explained sufficiently in the article.
• Determining what has most common usage in this case is difficult, as both are used by reliable sources. I did consider NHK (who used "yuru-chara", with hyphen) as more reliable than others, but it was only used in one synopsis of a TV show episode (duplicated in several places) so am starting to doubt this. As said before, The Japan Times have been inconsistent with usage, although WSJ use "yuru-kyara" but only in what seems to be in a "blog" section.
• I know WP:EN says search engine results are unreliable, but there's a significant difference here (32k for "yuru chara" or "yuruchara" vs. 11k for "yuru kyara" or "yurukyara", English-only in Google).
• There is no transliteration mentioned in the trademark registration for ゆるキャラ (go [www.ipdl.inpit.go.jp/homepg_e.ipdl here], "Japanese Trademark Database", and search "4821202?" for the registration number - there are two results from around the same time for some reason, but second is from Jun Miura). Unfortunately the Yuru-chara GP site doesn't seem to mention any transliteration either. I'm not sure whether this is good enough to be considered "official" but the GP medals do say "Yuruchara" on them, e.g. Fukkachan's from last year: [1]

Before considering any changes to the article name I think there would need to be more discussion, and I would appreciate any input from others. --Zilog Jones (talk) 21:33, 25 January 2015 (UTC)