Talk:Goradora
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Romanization
[edit]Another katakana -> English question... When I see "Gorādora", I read it "Go-ray-do-ruh". Am I reading that wrong? The katakana should be pronounced "Go-rah-do-ra".--BraveMax 08:08, 3 July 2013 (EDT)
- It's the standard Hepburn romanization of the name.KrytenKoro 10:03, 3 July 2013 (EDT)
- This wiki has chosen proper phonetics and/or meaning-based alphabetization over Hepburn (modified or otherwise) romanization for names in many, many circumstances. Look at the Arms Micron names for good examples.--BraveMax 21:35, 3 July 2013 (EDT)
- Uhh? It's a guy whose name has no English meaning and doesn't have an official romanization yet. Hepburn is just the standard we use in those cases, like with Kōmoribreast, Rāge, and Pīpō. It's only temporary till we get a view of the toy's packaging, so there's no point in being fussy about it now. (That's not what "alliteration" means.) Mimi 22:03, 3 July 2013 (EDT)
- My gosh, you're right, it's not. How embarrassing! I'm gonna pretend my phone autocorrected that. Yeah - it's Swype's fault! And fair enough. I'll be fussy about it later. Though, if there's an official romanization I know that's that.--BraveMax 02:17, 4 July 2013 (EDT)
- With purely Japanese names, an "a" is always defaulted to an "ah" sound. An "ā" is just a slightly longer "ah". An "ay" sound would come from an "ei" spelling. --Sabrblade 02:45, 4 July 2013 (EDT)
- I speak Japanese. I know that. But this wiki, as it's been pointed out, is aimed at people who DON'T speak Japanese. As - I'm assuming - a Japanese speaker, you ought to be more than familiar with how difficult it is for a non-Japanese speaker to read and actually correctly pronounce alphabetized Japanese. For you and I, our brains might read that and go, "Wait a minute - that doesn't romanize like that! It must mean..." even if we aren't familiar with Hepburn (And let's not assume we are. I've never used it in any formalized setting before this wiki, and I've been studying Japanese now for nearly 15 years.). For someone with no background in Japanese, it's just a macron over a vowel. In English, when a macron is used over a vowel, it's a long form of that vowel. "Ei" instead of "uh" or "ah". At least, that's how I'm used to it being used outside of Hepburn. In my opinion, telling people they should learn to read Hepburn to understand the correct pronunciation is kind of like telling them to learn to read Japanese. After all - why learn the middle step when you can just learn the origin writing system? This is an argument I have a lot with native Japanese speakers who insist that there's a point to ローマ字. I know, though, that every student of Japanese seems to have passionate views about their pet method of romanization. It's clear that the wiki has taken a stand on Hepburn, so I'm not going to argue with anyone about the use of it for most things. For a NAME with no translation, though, it seems like we should go with either A) the official romanization or B) a spelling that is phonetically correct to the origin word and easily understood by a layman. There's a very good argument to be made in favor of official romanizations (and one to be made against: *cough*Conboi*/cough*) and, as Mimi said, we haven't even seen an official romanization for this yet. So, as she suggested, maybe we ought to just let this sit until we do?--BraveMax 10:33, 4 July 2013 (EDT)
- Based on the trend with the Go! toys thus far, we'll very likely get rid of the macron once the official spelling is revealed by the toy's packaging. So, yeah, let us wait for the toy to come. --Sabrblade 19:21, 4 July 2013 (EDT)
- I think once again, "the wiki has taken a stand" has been confused with "Interrobang decided to do this and we didn't really have the energy to fight it". Personally, I am NOT a fan of the macrons and whatnot, because really... we just don't use the damn things for the most part. I don't see what's wrong with "Goryu" or "Goradora". --M Sipher 21:49, 4 July 2013 (EDT)
- I'm with you, Sipher. But I haven't exactly been around here long enough to be challenging the Wiki's defacto policies on stuff. Like I said - everyone has their preferred romanization method...--BraveMax 22:03, 4 July 2013 (EDT)
- I don't know any English speaker who both knows what macrons are and uses them to indicate "long" English vowels. They're only used by other languages to indicate actual long vowels and in transcriptions, like of Latin and Japanese. I also really don't see the issue in sticking with a widely accepted system of transliteration used by other sources like Wikipedia or IMDB. Most laypeople can't pronounce Japanese correctly in the first place (they'll inevitably pronounce Gaidora as "Gay-dora") so I don't know why we're stressing over that. Mimi 03:15, 5 July 2013 (EDT)
- I speak Japanese. I know that. But this wiki, as it's been pointed out, is aimed at people who DON'T speak Japanese. As - I'm assuming - a Japanese speaker, you ought to be more than familiar with how difficult it is for a non-Japanese speaker to read and actually correctly pronounce alphabetized Japanese. For you and I, our brains might read that and go, "Wait a minute - that doesn't romanize like that! It must mean..." even if we aren't familiar with Hepburn (And let's not assume we are. I've never used it in any formalized setting before this wiki, and I've been studying Japanese now for nearly 15 years.). For someone with no background in Japanese, it's just a macron over a vowel. In English, when a macron is used over a vowel, it's a long form of that vowel. "Ei" instead of "uh" or "ah". At least, that's how I'm used to it being used outside of Hepburn. In my opinion, telling people they should learn to read Hepburn to understand the correct pronunciation is kind of like telling them to learn to read Japanese. After all - why learn the middle step when you can just learn the origin writing system? This is an argument I have a lot with native Japanese speakers who insist that there's a point to ローマ字. I know, though, that every student of Japanese seems to have passionate views about their pet method of romanization. It's clear that the wiki has taken a stand on Hepburn, so I'm not going to argue with anyone about the use of it for most things. For a NAME with no translation, though, it seems like we should go with either A) the official romanization or B) a spelling that is phonetically correct to the origin word and easily understood by a layman. There's a very good argument to be made in favor of official romanizations (and one to be made against: *cough*Conboi*/cough*) and, as Mimi said, we haven't even seen an official romanization for this yet. So, as she suggested, maybe we ought to just let this sit until we do?--BraveMax 10:33, 4 July 2013 (EDT)
- With purely Japanese names, an "a" is always defaulted to an "ah" sound. An "ā" is just a slightly longer "ah". An "ay" sound would come from an "ei" spelling. --Sabrblade 02:45, 4 July 2013 (EDT)
- My gosh, you're right, it's not. How embarrassing! I'm gonna pretend my phone autocorrected that. Yeah - it's Swype's fault! And fair enough. I'll be fussy about it later. Though, if there's an official romanization I know that's that.--BraveMax 02:17, 4 July 2013 (EDT)
- Uhh? It's a guy whose name has no English meaning and doesn't have an official romanization yet. Hepburn is just the standard we use in those cases, like with Kōmoribreast, Rāge, and Pīpō. It's only temporary till we get a view of the toy's packaging, so there's no point in being fussy about it now. (That's not what "alliteration" means.) Mimi 22:03, 3 July 2013 (EDT)
- This wiki has chosen proper phonetics and/or meaning-based alphabetization over Hepburn (modified or otherwise) romanization for names in many, many circumstances. Look at the Arms Micron names for good examples.--BraveMax 21:35, 3 July 2013 (EDT)
- as far as I know, everyone whose posted so far except m sipher is fluent in japanese.
- the hepburn romanization scheme is specifically designed to be the premier scheme for communicating pronunciation to non-native readers. I personally don't think its going to be productive to derive a new romanization system just for this wiki and have any hope that it won't just confuse readers. If people really have a problem with the macrons, there's always wapuro (goraadora), which focuses less on pronunciation than communicating the kana correctly.KrytenKoro 22:17, 4 July 2013 (EDT)
- I do, however, have a decade-plus of experience with kana-to-English with intent to present names to people who don't read Japanese, as directed by someone who IS fluent and a professional translator. And while macrons work for pronunciation guides (I have no beef there), they are almost never used outside of that context, even in Japan, and especially not proper names. Waiting for Japanese packaging to not use a macron when using the English alphabet is kind of pointless because they're NOT GOING TO. --M Sipher 22:42, 4 July 2013 (EDT)
- Oh, sorry, I could have worded that better. All I meant was that for everyone else, I knew for a fact they were fluent, with you, I didn't. Hopefully I didn't cause any offense.
- That being said, if the community dislikes macrons then using Wapuro Romanization instead of Hepburn would be the best bet.KrytenKoro 10:12, 5 July 2013 (EDT)
Can't we just wait for the darn toy to come out so we can get a definite official spelling instead of splitting hairs over a spelling that is just a stand in until the official spelling surfaces in August? --Sabrblade 23:42, 4 July 2013 (EDT)
- The fact that it causes this much contention in just about every place where it's discussed would seem to be a good reason to come up with some kind of clear policy and REASONING that addresses these concerns so that we don't have to debate it every time it comes up. But, as I said earlier, for this one I'm pretty sure that the official romanization will bear out my intent. So I'm perfectly happy to wait until August ;)--BraveMax 02:30, 5 July 2013 (EDT)
Intra-Predacon homages
[edit]Would it be unreasonable to assume that the Goradora components other than Dorara are named and colored after the Four Oni? Mimi 08:57, 22 July 2013 (EDT)
- I suppose Dorara would be an homage to Dragotron, then?KrytenKoro 10:20, 22 July 2013 (EDT)
- I would think so. Also, given he's Dorara, I'm surprised the middle one isn't colored like Predaking - surely he's at least named after him? -LV 10:21, 22 July 2013 (EDT)
- Based on what evidence? (Aside from passing name similarity)--BraveMax 20:10, 21 August 2013 (EDT)
- The evidence that BUrara is colored like Budora, BArara is colored like Bakudora, GArara is colored like Gaidora, and JUrara is colored like Judora. That's a heck of a coincidence. (I concede that DOrara doesn't actually seem to be DOragotron colors.) -LV 20:58, 21 August 2013 (EDT)
- And if one of them doesn't follow the pattern... Well, that's just an inconvenience that can be overlooked? I recognize that's nitpicky, but it's a little frustrating that you guys are so willing to jump to assumptions about meanings behind names and titles that there is literally NO evidence for beyond the circumstantial (there are a LOT of possible reasons why the imps could share some similarities to the four onis' names, and there's zero canonical evidence that that's where the names came from that I'm aware of) while requiring exacting canonical proof for things that there is actually a fair amount of evidence to support (such as Dragotron and Predaking being two separate characters). It comes off as more than a little arbitrary.--BraveMax 08:11, 22 August 2013 (EDT)
- Not that I see the immediate relevance, but I'm on record as saying I suspect we will have to separate Dragotron and Predaking, but it also doesn't hurt to have all the information before we do it. We're not likely to get any explicit "canonical proof" that guys with related names and matching color schemes who are canonically created by the characters they match up with are intentionally linked, and right now it sits as a trivia note at the bottom of their pages. That's a pretty minor thing to compare to splitting the page of a major character. And for what it's worth, I think Dorara's colors ARE close enough to Predaking's to underscore the fact that five Goradora components share the first syllable of their names with the five only other Predacons in Go!. I don't know if you have a bug up your butt about "Sanjo Gattai" or what, but "a lot of asumptions about names and titles" sure sounds like this is a poorly-chosen battleground on your part for some other war. -LV 10:09, 22 August 2013 (EDT)
- TF: Go! just happens to be the first place I've really been paying enough attention to to notice it. But it's something that's true for most of the primary characters in the show apart from the humans (for whom we have kanji) on this wiki. All of the Four Oni, every member of each of the two combiner teams, and all but one of these minions have "trivia notes" that explain that their names "mean" or "probably mean" *insert circumstantial conjecture here*. My problem with this is that A: It's presented as fact as often as conjecture (for half the Predacons and half the Autobots the note says "is associated with" or "means"; all six of the Autobots have a note saying that the "Gou" in their combiner name "means ..."); and B: Most of the fandom tends not to read more deeply into the wiki's reasoning for including things in articles or not. When you have a "trivia note" saying the name "means" something, people are going to take it as gospel that the name means that. But these names are based off Japanese - for most of them, there are MANY possible meanings. Some are obviously more likely than others, but we don't have anyone telling us what the writers' intent was and there are many cases where there are SEVERAL good-fit meanings or where the writers may never have intended a deeper meaning at all... So we're essentially misrepresenting wishful thinking as fact. This is frustrating to me because I'm someone with an obvious investment in Japanese, and because I'm someone who believes that consistency is a necessary component of reliability. How can casual users of the wiki (read: most of the wiki's users) trust ANYTHING the wiki says when the wiki is highly inconsistent on whether it requires any basis at all for some of the most basic things (And yes - I do view the meaning of a character's name as a pretty basic fact)? Finally, I "fight" my "battles" where they're relevant. This page is an example of this issue, and people appear to be active in discussing the issue here (per the original question Mimi asked), so... I submit that yes: It's unreasonable to assume that the components are named after the Four Oni in the context of this wiki because we have no canonical evidence to support that. At most, there should be a note saying, "It's interesting that... It may be that..." Especially since all but one of the notes says that they are "partly" colored after... (which, without evidence of intent, is about as reliable as saying Wheeljack is "partly colored after" Prowl). There's also at least one instance where one is NOT colored after an obvious choice (Dragotron/Dorara; and you'll note that this is the one that conspicuously lacks a note, despite the name being as similar to Dragotron's as the others' names are to the Oni they're "named after"), as well as two whose names differ from the Oni they're supposedly named after, even though it would have been simple to leave the stem intact (Barara and Garara - and I'll grant that this may simple have been a choice by the writers to only use the first character in the names). Essentially, I don't like inconsistency or conjecture misrepresented as fact, and I know full well that just editing these articles without getting some form of consensus will just lead to a pointless editing war. That's all.--BraveMax 01:21, 23 August 2013 (EDT)
- I never would have guessed you had an obvious investment in Japanese. If you sincerely believe that in a series with five main villains total just so happen to share the same first syllable of their names with the only five other characters, whose main colors match the characters with whom they share first syllables, in a series that is demonstrably obsessed with the first syllables of the names of the Samurai Team...well, I don't see how I'm going to convince you. And FWIW, if you're persistent enough about this stuff, you will probably win, just like Interrobang. People's interest in arguing about every single Japanese thing on the wiki is finite. -LV 09:25, 23 August 2013 (EDT)
- Or, after spending far too much time cleaning up Interrobang's shit largely because he did most of it while other people weren't looking, we're gonna nip it in the bud early so we don't have to do all that again. --M Sipher 18:03, 23 August 2013 (EDT)
- I never would have guessed you had an obvious investment in Japanese. If you sincerely believe that in a series with five main villains total just so happen to share the same first syllable of their names with the only five other characters, whose main colors match the characters with whom they share first syllables, in a series that is demonstrably obsessed with the first syllables of the names of the Samurai Team...well, I don't see how I'm going to convince you. And FWIW, if you're persistent enough about this stuff, you will probably win, just like Interrobang. People's interest in arguing about every single Japanese thing on the wiki is finite. -LV 09:25, 23 August 2013 (EDT)
- TF: Go! just happens to be the first place I've really been paying enough attention to to notice it. But it's something that's true for most of the primary characters in the show apart from the humans (for whom we have kanji) on this wiki. All of the Four Oni, every member of each of the two combiner teams, and all but one of these minions have "trivia notes" that explain that their names "mean" or "probably mean" *insert circumstantial conjecture here*. My problem with this is that A: It's presented as fact as often as conjecture (for half the Predacons and half the Autobots the note says "is associated with" or "means"; all six of the Autobots have a note saying that the "Gou" in their combiner name "means ..."); and B: Most of the fandom tends not to read more deeply into the wiki's reasoning for including things in articles or not. When you have a "trivia note" saying the name "means" something, people are going to take it as gospel that the name means that. But these names are based off Japanese - for most of them, there are MANY possible meanings. Some are obviously more likely than others, but we don't have anyone telling us what the writers' intent was and there are many cases where there are SEVERAL good-fit meanings or where the writers may never have intended a deeper meaning at all... So we're essentially misrepresenting wishful thinking as fact. This is frustrating to me because I'm someone with an obvious investment in Japanese, and because I'm someone who believes that consistency is a necessary component of reliability. How can casual users of the wiki (read: most of the wiki's users) trust ANYTHING the wiki says when the wiki is highly inconsistent on whether it requires any basis at all for some of the most basic things (And yes - I do view the meaning of a character's name as a pretty basic fact)? Finally, I "fight" my "battles" where they're relevant. This page is an example of this issue, and people appear to be active in discussing the issue here (per the original question Mimi asked), so... I submit that yes: It's unreasonable to assume that the components are named after the Four Oni in the context of this wiki because we have no canonical evidence to support that. At most, there should be a note saying, "It's interesting that... It may be that..." Especially since all but one of the notes says that they are "partly" colored after... (which, without evidence of intent, is about as reliable as saying Wheeljack is "partly colored after" Prowl). There's also at least one instance where one is NOT colored after an obvious choice (Dragotron/Dorara; and you'll note that this is the one that conspicuously lacks a note, despite the name being as similar to Dragotron's as the others' names are to the Oni they're "named after"), as well as two whose names differ from the Oni they're supposedly named after, even though it would have been simple to leave the stem intact (Barara and Garara - and I'll grant that this may simple have been a choice by the writers to only use the first character in the names). Essentially, I don't like inconsistency or conjecture misrepresented as fact, and I know full well that just editing these articles without getting some form of consensus will just lead to a pointless editing war. That's all.--BraveMax 01:21, 23 August 2013 (EDT)
- For the name meanings of the Four Oni, they have titles which are fairly straightforward to translate, and whose first character roughly shares reading (except for with "Gaidora", in which the kanji wouldn't be pronounced "Gai" unless it was part of a kanji compound) with the "X" part of "X-dora". If we were dealing with a, let's say, German Transformer named "Schwanagl", and we were told his title was "The Black Claw", I wouldn't call it irresponsible to note that the name is based on the title, but in German. Likewise, we can submit that Bulkhead's name alludes to his immense size, without worrying that it is instead meant to denote that he is a retaining wall.
- Furthermore, the naming scheme of the combiner components follows a similar pattern (first kana + -rara, instead of of first kanji + -dora), and their color schemes are rather similar. We are allowed to use our brains without being spoonfed by Hasbro, just as when we were able to note all the homages packed within Ruination (WFC). Personally, I think it's healthier for the wiki to eliminate spurious claims of homage after the fact, per community discussion, rather than to have a blanket rule of requiring explicit confirmation from Hasbro/Takara even in the most blatant cases.
- Finally, Dorara is an orangey-yellow, so I'm not convinced he is an exception to the homage.KrytenKoro 18:38, 23 August 2013 (EDT)
- That's all well and good - and of course, everyone has their right to an opinion, and I know this wiki is supposed to make policy based on the greatest consensus... But the main thrust of my point is that the articles aren't even consistent with the rule the wiki appears to support - as I said, in some cases we point it out as speculation, in some we don't. In some cases we speculate about the name's meaning, in some we don't. In some cases we pick a random potential reading among many possible, equally-likely readings and say it IS the meaning, and in some we don't (the example that's strongest in my mind for this last one is, again, the "meaning" of the "Gou" in the combiner names, which on the individual robots' pages is called out as "meaning" something that makes no more sense than at least one other potential meaning - and unlike with the Oni, we DON'T have any evidence that "Gou" is supposed to mean something else at all... And for the Samurai team, we don't even mention the most likely kanji (斬、迅、巌) as potential meanings for their names.). Ultimately, as long as the wiki is consistent with its policy on this, it's hard for me to nit-pick. But it isn't, and I don't even know that there's a consensus on what the rule SHOULD be for me to go and correct anything. I'm not Interrobang - I'm not going to go and just change things because I don't like them unless I know it fits with the wiki's policy. It would just make work for everyone else. I'll say it again: Essentially, I don't like inconsistency or conjecture misrepresented as fact, and I know full well that just editing these articles without getting some form of consensus will just lead to a pointless editing war. That's all. If you have evidence - great! I'm happy to be proven wrong! If you've got access to the bio and understand it, then throw it (or at least info from it) up on the wiki so that other people can draw the same conclusions! That's a lot more helpful than adding some note about the name "meaning ____", when that meaning is based off conjecture - even enlightened conjecture (the released Oni DO have their functions up - but not the rest of their bios). Anyways, I didn't really get into this to try to be antagonistic. Rather, I just wanted to call attention to the inconsistency so that someone could make a call on it.--BraveMax 01:52, 24 August 2013 (EDT)
- Not that I see the immediate relevance, but I'm on record as saying I suspect we will have to separate Dragotron and Predaking, but it also doesn't hurt to have all the information before we do it. We're not likely to get any explicit "canonical proof" that guys with related names and matching color schemes who are canonically created by the characters they match up with are intentionally linked, and right now it sits as a trivia note at the bottom of their pages. That's a pretty minor thing to compare to splitting the page of a major character. And for what it's worth, I think Dorara's colors ARE close enough to Predaking's to underscore the fact that five Goradora components share the first syllable of their names with the five only other Predacons in Go!. I don't know if you have a bug up your butt about "Sanjo Gattai" or what, but "a lot of asumptions about names and titles" sure sounds like this is a poorly-chosen battleground on your part for some other war. -LV 10:09, 22 August 2013 (EDT)
Goradora name meaning
[edit]I know this is a bit grasping for straws, but I may have a lead on the origin of Goradora's name. It may be derived from "Terror Dragon", to be exact from the Sanskrit word घोर (Ghorá) rendered as ゴラ (gora), meaning "terror". The fact he's made up of G1 Terrorcon-homaging molds and that the G1 versions were called Terrortrons in Japan makes it too coincidental to ignore. Anyone? JelZe GoldRabbit 13:18, 5 September 2013 (EDT)
- I know nothing of Japanese, but didn't the other Oni's name meanings align with their bio function? What's Goradora's function? Jalaguy 13:43, 5 September 2013 (EDT)
- Just in response to the first comment, this is something that has precedent with Dorugoramon.KrytenKoro 14:36, 5 September 2013 (EDT)
- For all purposes Goradora has no real "function" to speak of, only the "title" 邪鬼5体合体 (jaki gotai gattai) or "Jaki 5 Piece Combination". And KrytenKoro hit the nail right on the head, that's exactly where my hunch came from. I looked up "Gora" and "Terror" on my own, but both yielded nothing relevant. JelZe GoldRabbit 15:36, 5 September 2013 (EDT)
- Just in response to the first comment, this is something that has precedent with Dorugoramon.KrytenKoro 14:36, 5 September 2013 (EDT)
- Y'all know how I feel about assigning meaning without evidence. So, while this is a cool thought, I still vote that it shouldn't be included in the wiki article. That precedent isn't even from the same company, let alone the same brand. And every other name in this show has been based in Japanese... Right? But still - I agree it's a possibility, and a cool one.--BraveMax 19:47, 5 September 2013 (EDT)
- It's a just theory, and you're all welcome to contest it, that's what the talk pages are for. Limiting to looking for meaning in Japanese and English only is a bad idea IMO, however I do admit theories are always trumped by what the designers were going for when they named the guy. Maybe one can shed some light? And not to open that can of worms again, but theories about meanings should be kept to a minimum on the main page, or at the very least made clear they're just theories. JelZe GoldRabbit 10:04, 6 September 2013 (EDT)
- I'm actually not contesting it. And it seems like we're on the same page. Just saying - I don't like theories that aren't noted as such. So... I don't have anything to complain about :p--BraveMax 11:34, 6 September 2013 (EDT)
- On a slightly different note, it's possible it simply means "五ら" (~5), since it's a combination of five recyclable dragons.KrytenKoro 14:42, 6 September 2013 (EDT)
- Less likely. Remember - the "ra" is long...--BraveMax 19:35, 7 September 2013 (EDT)
- On a slightly different note, it's possible it simply means "五ら" (~5), since it's a combination of five recyclable dragons.KrytenKoro 14:42, 6 September 2013 (EDT)
- I'm actually not contesting it. And it seems like we're on the same page. Just saying - I don't like theories that aren't noted as such. So... I don't have anything to complain about :p--BraveMax 11:34, 6 September 2013 (EDT)
- It's a just theory, and you're all welcome to contest it, that's what the talk pages are for. Limiting to looking for meaning in Japanese and English only is a bad idea IMO, however I do admit theories are always trumped by what the designers were going for when they named the guy. Maybe one can shed some light? And not to open that can of worms again, but theories about meanings should be kept to a minimum on the main page, or at the very least made clear they're just theories. JelZe GoldRabbit 10:04, 6 September 2013 (EDT)