I just want to know when this change to all English over everything was made in the first place, as I can't find any mention of it on the forums. I can only find this post by AbsoluteDestiny back in 2004 after the database was cleaned:
viewtopic.php?p=452271#p452271AbsoluteDestiny wrote:You are not alone - it happened to my video too. However, I was told to honour official english language versions of titles over japanese ones. Plus at least this one actually is a translation not some silly made-up title like Knight Hunters or Pilot Candidate.
The point is he said
official English titles (even if Knight Hunters and Pilot Candidate are silly, they
are official, but IMO if something's
not licensed, the title should merely be transliterated, not translated - the only exception being that it has an English subtitle as part of its Japanese name, like in Code Geass' and some others' cases). No mention of translating everything or near-everything, just because a small number of fansubbers do it (as would be the case with SZS and the Toaru properties) or a non-Anglosphere release has a wonky English titling (which is
partially where Toradora!'s issue lied - Tiger X Dragon was a Hong Kong title in addition to being a licensing hoax elsewhere). Translated fansub titles certainly aren't official, nor should they be considered valid if we want to stay true-to-point with discouraging the use of fansubs as source, and the odd release of something with an English title from a non-North American, non-UK, or non-Australian source would hardly be considered official in any of said corresponding countries. Even if the title is grammatically right and may eventually
be the official title in North America, et al, if it's prior to being licensed there, it's wrong by virtue of being non-official.
Currently non-licensed stuff is an odd mix of fan-translated names and transliterated ones that are simply 'established' by prevailing trend. If all non-licensed properties are transliterated (or copied verbatim where applicable) and all licensed material has its proper English title, then at least the situation is consistent, and that's preferable to confusing people by using an unofficial translation that has a hazy identification factor or is clearly not used by anyone. It's like when the U.S. Congress and a few restaurants decided to call French fries 'Freedom fries' because of anti-French sentiment over French objection to the invasion of Iraq. Freedom fries = wrong, French fries = right, pommes frites = also right, but it's not in English parlance.