SZS's R1 licensed name is... SZS

[Scintilla]

Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei licensed by Media Blasters. No indication that they translated the title. I can't find it on Media Blasters's website, not even under "Coming Soon", but I found it on TRSI; they're taking preorders for the first disk even though no release date has been set yet.
I don't think TRSI web store links ever work outside the session that generated them, but I might as well try anyway:
http://www.rightstuf.com/cgi-bin/catalo ... 6831/4/0/0

So, can we please get the official name switched back in the animé database from "So Long, Mr. Despair"?

[mirkosp]

Done. :3

[Qyot27]

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:
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/forum/v ... 71#p452271

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.

[mirkosp]

Cool story bro Sugoi monogatari aniki.
Ehr... jokes aside (sorry, it was too fitting ), I've been the one dealing with most title confirmations lately and I've been doing that using the Japanese titles when the anime wasn't licensed in the US or the license title was the same, so your problem is with titles confirmed a few years ago, which I haven't really touched, because:
1) There really is no explicit rule on how to confirm titles yet.
2) The catalog is a half mess atm: some titles are confirmed without the (TV)/(movie)/(OVA)/etc at the end, and some titles still have the "The" at the beginning. We need to overhaul and fix the whole catalog, however we need to first polish up the definition of anime for the site because lately we've been getting a whole lot of GMVs which with the current definition are fine but should really not be there in the first place... since Vlad doesn't have time atm, the discussion for that is slated to happen in a few months. Once that happens, we'll get this down well too.
So well, if a few titles get licensed with a specific title, I'll gladly fix it to the official English title, but since there is no specific rule yet, I don't see the point in changing all the titles now if when we'll do it we might end up changing them all again depending on how we decide to write down the rules.
The only one I confirmed in English without it being licensed is "To aru Kagaku no Choudenjibou (TV)," which I confirmed as "A Certain Scientific Railgun (TV)" to keep a continuity with the already confirmed Index.
In any case, I don't see how using a translated title over a simple transliteration would be a reason to throw a fit (that's the feeling I get, sorry if I'm mistaken).

[Qyot27]

I wasn't throwing a fit, it's just that this has seemed to flare up in weird ways over the past year or so, when I thought there was a different precedent already set. I just don't know what happened between ~2005 and ~2009 in relation to how titles were managed, or why any consistency about it I remembered seemed to dissolve, because there was nothing pointing it out.

As an aside, the Toaru/A Certain thing is fine by me, although I think there is at least some weight toward using 'Index' and 'Railgun' in the Japanese titles too - since the English words are actually used in dialogue, and the furigana for them on the light novel/manga covers are specified to override the pronunciation of the kanji used for them (Index would be Kinsho Mokuroku otherwise). But that's a weird case.

[Nya-chan Production]

Why don't we simply use official Japanese names (prolly in romaji or so) anyways, with adding English synonyms when they're out? |: