Talk:Ugetsu

Authenticity check

Authenticity check: A search reveals that the phrase "regarded by many" appears in the text. Is the phrase a symptom of a dubious statement? Could a source be quoted instead? Perhaps the "many" could be identified? Might text be edited to more genuinely reflect specific facts?

Wetman

Name of Manor

The name of the manor in the film isn't Wakasa Manor; that's the noblewoman's personal name. I can't recall the name of the manor itself just now, but I'll try to remember to check it tomorrow. In the meantime, if I forget, someone else may know what to correct it to. 24.145.132.195 (talk) 05:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Possible hoax edit

This edit contains a false reference to "May Tossier". I cannot locate such a person. The other contents of the edit may also be a clever hoax. Can anyone check this against the Wakeman/McDonald books? Thanks. JoshuSasori (talk) 02:39, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

This .edu site seems to back up most of what's in that edit. Ribbet32 (talk) 03:02, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh thanks, May Tossier was meant to be Max Tessier. I will check the rest of that later. JoshuSasori (talk) 11:08, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Requested move to Ugetsu

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: recent move contested; reverted -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:02, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

---

Ugetsu (film) → Ugetsu – This is the primary topic for "ugetsu". JoshuSasori (talk) 02:23, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Support This move seems to have been done just out of boredom. "Ugetsu" primarily refers to the film and the book is primarily called "Tales of Moonlight and Rain." Ribbet32 (talk) 03:00, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support. This move should be reverted per WP:BRD. The film is way more notable than the book, which isn't normally called Ugetsu anyway, at least not in English. Here is the DVD version of the film currently sold in the North American market, just in case anyone wants to confirm the title. Kauffner (talk) 10:25, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Why is the film "way more notable than the book"? The film is based on the book, it mentions this fact in its opening credits, it has not the subject of centuries of literary studies like the book has, etc., etc. I agree that the book is not usually referred to simply as Ugetsu, but this is a possible abbreviation of the book's title, and the book is CLEARLY more noteworthy than the film. elvenscout742 (talk) 13:13, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move

Ugetsu → Ugetsu (film) – This film bears the same name as the much better-known book on which it is based, and the book is overwhelmingly more notable than the film version. Google Books search for the word Ugetsu in English without Mizoguchi (the name of the film's director), brings up 16,800 hits[1] and a similar search without the book's author brings up slightly fewer results[2] in English. This despite this film being disproportionately famous, in relation to the source material, in English-speaking countries. However, when one takes into account results in the original language of both the book and the film, results that don't mention the director[3] are more than twice as frequent as those that don't mention the book's author[4]. (I'm not sure why, but most of the hits in the second seem to actually mention Akinari anyway, and several are written by him.) Additionally, since the film states at the start of its opening credits that it is "Based on Ugetsu Monogatari by Ueda Akinari", it is safe to assume that everyone who has seen the film has at least heard of the book, but not necessarily vice versa. Neither work is known to the majority of people in the English-speaking world (the book is known to the majority of Japanese people, but the film isn't). Only film buffs who have gone out of their way to see this film know about it -- and those people are likely to already be aware that it is based on a book. elvenscout742 (talk) 01:29, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose for reasons above. The movie and book are called different things in English. Deal with it. Ribbet32 (talk) 01:40, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The book is principally called Ugetsu Monogatari in English, as consensus is building over at that move request, and Ugetsu is a common abbreviation, and if there is a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC in English it should be the book. (It's possible they are both equally "primary", but even then this page would need to be renamed.) elvenscout742 (talk) 02:17, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - the proposal is missing a ")" after "film". JoshuSasori (talk) 02:04, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry. Fixed. elvenscout742 (talk) 02:17, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. If you google Ugetsu -wikipedia, 19 of the top 20 results refer to this subject. The other hit is for an anime character. The book is generally called Tales of Moonlight and Rain, so there is no reason an English-speaker would confuse the two. Kauffner (talk) 04:40, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose, the proposer has shown only extremely weak evidence that the word "ugetsu" minus "monogatari" in English is ever used for anything other than the film, let alone that this is so ambiguous that the film needs to be moved to a different page. JoshuSasori (talk) 05:36, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose No other article is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 09:14, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

You probably wouldn't be able to say that if I had chosen to request this move in however few days or weeks from now as Tales of Moonlight and Rain gets moved to its correct title Ugetsu Monogatari. That topic is clearly more notable, and Ugetsu is a natural abbreviation for its title. Additionally, the current title of this article is americo-centric anyway. Until I moved to Japan last summer I lived in Ireland, where most of our access to movies is the same as the UK (we called it Marvel's Avengers Assemble). There, we called the film either Ugetsu Monogatari[5][6][7] or Tales of Ugetsu [8] (between around 2001 when VHS became extremely obscure, and 2008 when the film received an official DVD release, the only way for me to see the film without a region-free DVD player was to import the Chinese DVD, whose English title I believe derives from an earlier one used in English-speaking countries). Can someone please explain to me why this article on a Japanese film should use a title that is only used in North America and not in order English-speaking countries? What is the special connection this film has with the United States? elvenscout742 (talk) 14:00, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Or, alternatively, can you explain why you think that "Ugetsu" should point at a book called "Ugetsu Monogatari"? You're the one requesting the move, after all. JoshuSasori (talk) 14:58, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Who said I wanted that? I think Ugetsu should be a disambiguation page. elvenscout742 (talk) 15:28, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

You recently moved "Ugetsu" to "Ugetsu (film)" then turned "Ugetsu" into a redirect to "Tales of Moonlight and Rain", so I assumed that was your intention with this requested move. JoshuSasori (talk) 15:31, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

That was a preliminary move. I expected you to discuss it rather than immediately revert me and ignore my arguments. Additionally, your recent bad-faith attempt to change this article's assessment under WikiProject Japan despite not actually being a member of said project, again solely to undermine me, has been noted. elvenscout742 (talk) 15:39, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

And what you did was vandalize a redirect link to make a point. There are links to Ugetsu from all over Wikipedia, and the intended meaning of the links is to link to the film. You moved the film, then changed the film page into a redirect to Tales of Moonlight and Rain, thus making hundreds of pages which link to Ugetsu become mislinked. You made no effort whatsoever to change any of the existing links to Ugetsu into links to Ugetsu (film). Your behaviour, as usual, was nothing less than outrageous. JoshuSasori (talk) 01:52, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Nothing is lost, for anyone anywhere, by the addition of this helpful precision. Serve the needs of readers rather than those of editors (see WP:TITLE). Noetica^Tea? 00:01, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Why is this "High importance" to WikiProject Japan?

Until yesterday, this film was classified as being more important to Wikipedia's coverage of things Japanese than the book on which it is based, which is absolutely ridiculous. I tried to change the importance to "Mid"[9] since it seemed reasonable to me that neither should be "High" or "Top", but the book should be at least as high as, if not higher than, the film. I was reverted almost immediately[10], and no explanation was offered why this film should be more important than its source material. In order to resolve the relative discrepancy between book and film in the least confrontational way possible, I changed the status of the book[11]. Now, however, both the film and the book are too high, as demonstrated by the book outranking similarly well-known works of Edo period prose and drama such as Nansō Satomi Hakkenden, Chūshingura and The Love Suicides at Sonezaki (all Mid) and matching Oku no Hosomichi, which is by far the best-known work of Edo literature, period.

I can understand that this film is considered an important work of world cinema outside Japan, but WikiProject Japan's importance scale is for the articles' relative importance when it comes to Wikipedia's coverage of things Japanese. Almost no one in Japan (other than film buffs and people over 80) has even heard of this film, where the book's name is known to everyone who graduated high school. This film is already considered "Core" on WikiProject Film, so why does it need an inexplicably high ranking on WikiProject Japan as well?

elvenscout742 (talk) 04:56, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

etymology

I inserted an analysis of the word Ugetsu: from the kango roots u 'rain' and getsu 'moon' (inferred from the kanji shown). This was reverted as "rather misplaced". Does that mean it shouldn't be in the article at all, or only that a paragraph about the writing is not the right place for it? I think there ought to be some explicit statement of how Ugetsu monogatari corresponds to Tales of Moonlight and Rain. —Tamfang (talk) 05:30, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

While the information you provided is accurate, it is not really relevant to this article, because the sentence in question discusses the English title, which is a simple abbreviation, the link between etymology of the word "ugetsu" → title of the book → Japanese title of the film → English title of the film is pretty tenuous. We could use your help over at Tales of Moonlight and Rain, though. elvenscout742 (talk) 05:37, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The word ugetsu is the English title of the film; what link could be more direct? —Tamfang (talk) 05:46, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your edit. Sorry to revert. There are a number of reasons. First the edit was misplaced, in the midst of a section about the production of a film. Second, adding parenthetical comments mid-sentence is not very good writing style. Third, according to WWWJDIC "ugetsu" means "雨月 【うげつ】 (n) (1) (arch) being unable to see the (harvest) moon because of rain; (2) (See 皐月・1) fifth lunar month". I don't know which or either meaning applies here, but you had no reference and your edit didn't seem to add very much information about the actual meaning of the word. If you can find a reference for what the name means in this context, that would be great, since I don't know either. But I would suggest rather including the meaning in Tales of Moonlight and Rain before adding it here. Thanks for your concern, and edit, and thank you for commenting here. JoshuSasori (talk) 05:49, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I basically agree with JS's above comment on this. The etymology belongs to a sub-section of the article on the book, unless a specific reference for the English title of this film can be found that states that the localizers who invented the English name Ugetsu (or Tales of Ugetsu??) intended a particular meaning. Ugetsu in this context probably means "rain and the moon", and I have said as much on Talk:Tales of Moonlight and Rain#etymology, but it really doesn't belong here. elvenscout742 (talk) 06:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

"Official" British title

How does one commercial Blu-ray release make the title "official" for two whole countries? I take back what I said about Elven moving the article out of boredom- he has demonstrated he's quite hellbent on tearing this movie down. Ribbet32 (talk) 15:45, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand this either, the film could be released under any number of different names, for whatever reason. The name of a DVD release or video doesn't matter enough to be that prominent in the article. Also I think the film is out of copyright. I'm not sure about that though. JoshuSasori (talk) 15:49, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Also, please note that the same user is doing the same kind of thing at Sansho the Bailiff. JoshuSasori (talk) 15:50, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I didn't notice you moaning about this here and posted my reasoning below. Both films have been officially licensed for distribution by two separate companies (the BFI and Eureka) and have been released multiple times in three different formats, always under the same title. elvenscout742 (talk) 15:53, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Official UK title

I have been reverted several times by two different users on this. I now need to provide my justification here for what should have been an uncontroversial edit.

The film is officially licensed for distribution in the UK and Ireland by Eureka. They released the film on DVD under the title Ugetsu Monogatari[12] and then later re-released it on Blu-Ray under the same title.[13] In this, they are following the usage of the BFI, the previous distributor of the film on VHS[14][15]

The film does not appear to have been referred to as Ugetsu (without the second word) in official British or Irish sources since at least 1998. PLEASE do not remove this again: Ugetsu is the American title; Ugetsu Monogatari is the British title.

elvenscout742 (talk) 15:46, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

It wasn't removed from the article, it was put under "release/home media". JoshuSasori (talk) 15:51, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The statement that this is the official (and implicitly best-known) title in the UK and Ireland was removed, and the wording implied that the film was not known by this title before 2008, but it was available on VHS (from a different company) under the same title in 1998. Prominent variant titles belong in the intro for clarification purposes. As an Irishman I was not familiar with the American title of this Japanese film until I read it on Wikipedia. The Avengers (2012 film) gives the UK title in the opening sentence, even though that film is American and is known throughout the world by its American title; this is a Japanese film that is known as Ugetsu in America, but as Ugetsu Monogatari in its country of origin and in several English-speaking countries. elvenscout742 (talk) 16:19, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• This issue relates to the RM and is likely to be of far less interest to readers than it is to editors. It certainly doesn't belong in the lead. Also, the word "officially" doesn't convey any additional information; It is a WP:PEACOCK word. If Ugetsu Monogatari is the name used to refer to this film in Britain, that does not support the proposed title of Ugetsu (film). Kauffner (talk) 23:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

It only relates to the RM in so far as the current title of the article is not the title by which the film is known either officially or casually in the UK and Ireland. When have I ever said that the official title of the film in UK and Ireland supported the title being changed to Ugetsu (film)?? If I had my way, this article would be titled according to the way I first learned about the film, and not in this silly "abbreviate the Japanese title" that seems to be quite common in North America. (Admittedly, the latter film is known as Kuroneko in UK as well, that is why I have not mentioned any variant title on that article.) However, I understand that my way is unreasonable given that this film is known in some English-speaking countries as Ugetsu and the article has always had this title as a result. This is why my above RM relates exclusively to this film being disambiguated from the far more famous book of the same name, and does not attempt to move the article to its Japanese/British/Irish title. Your attempt, despite this, to read bad faith into my edits to the article has been noted. Why is it a peacock word to mention that the film's official release title in several English-speaking countries is the same as the Japanese one? Surely by calling the article by its "official" American title you are doing the same thing? elvenscout742 (talk) 00:45, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Additionally, it might be pointed out that the Eureka page provides yet another literal/accurate translation of the Japanese title (as a gloss for the meaning of the title, not saying "this applies only to the film and not to the book", or acting as an "official UK title"): Tales of the Rain and the Moon. elvenscout742 (talk) 00:49, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Official implies it's official, as if decreed by law or something. I've left the British "alternate title" in the intro but changed the wording. Ribbet32 (talk) 00:52, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I didn't actually want to say "official" originally, I wanted to say "is sold as", but this seemed inappropriate. Additionally, the UK title is every bit as official as the American title, since the American title also was not thought up by the film-makers, but rather by an independent distributor. elvenscout742 (talk) 01:26, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Elvenscout742 has already vandalized this page to make a point, by moving the page then changing the redirect to Tales of Moonlight and Rain without making the slightest effort to relink any of the then-mislinked pages. This addition of the UK title, his reverting of consensus, and endless nitpicking argumentativeness on the talk pages, is yet more of the same outrageous behaviour that he has exhibited elsewhere. JoshuSasori (talk) 01:57, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Regarding this: [16]- Elven, boy, am I getting tired of you. But actually, if you're making a claim in an article, the burden is on you to provide the source. I'm not going to revert again, but I'll ask someone else to, and ask that we can build a consensus on this. Ribbet32 (talk) 04:34, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Wow, I didn't think you would resort to name-calling this fast. Anyway, there is no need for me to cite three or more sources, or to build consensus. You are working against a clear Wikipedia guideline here, as outlined below. elvenscout742 (talk) 07:49, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

By the way, I thought I could get this through peacefully with logical debate and reasoning, without having to rely on MOS, etc. My change has stood for a few hours and it looks like this might be over, but I should probably point out for posterity that WP:NCF is very clearly on my side here:

Use the title more commonly recognized by English readers; normally this means the title under which it has been released in cinemas or on video in the English-speaking world. Normally, this will be an English language title that is recognized across the English-speaking world; however, sometimes different English-speaking countries use different titles, in which case use the most common title, and give the native and alternate English title(s) afterward.

elvenscout742 (talk) 07:49, 16 January 2013 (UTC)