Talk:Baku (mythology)

Tapir

What exactly is the relationship between the baku and the tapir? The Japanese Wikipedia article on tapirs uses the same Chinese character. — Pekinensis 05:52, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Japanese names many same name on mythical and real animals. The Japanese text for Kirin is the same as giraffe. How do you explain that? I thought if you can share your name with a vegetable, you would know what is going on.  :-) Kowloonese 07:19, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

I had always heard that Baku IS a tapir... (sry I don't have a log-in, just passing thru)

The relationship between the "baku" and the tapir is NOT simple. Yes, it is like the word "kirin," which has several meanings. Lots more on this below and on the Tapir talk page, plus a reference on the Kirin page. Timothy Perper 16:10, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Baku, tapirs, and references

Two years later... the Nakagawa reference is not very useful. It says only (in footnote 39, if anyone is interested) that the baku is "...believed to devour bad dreams." Believed by whom? On what basis did Nakagawa say this? We need more information.

Timothy Perper 19:13, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

You should be looking at creature number 30, the "mo", which is the Chinese reading of the "baku" character. Kotengu 小天狗 20:05, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

That's the creature I'm looking at -- and it is NOT a tapir. For more information, see the discussion page for "tapir," where I've posted more detailed comments. The gist of it is as follows.

Here is a reference to an image from 1791 that shows a “dream-eating” Japanese supernatural creature that has an elephant’s trunk and tusks. It is NOT a zoological tapir.

Kern, Adam L. 2007 Manga from the Floating World: Comicbook culture and the kibyoshi of Edo Japan. Cambridge: Harvard University Asian Center. page 236, figure 4.26.

It has tusks, a long trunk, a semi-human face, horns, and a body drawn in swirls and whorls rather like a dragon. Kern calls this creature a “baku.” I’d download the image except that that really would be copyright violation.

By contrast, *modern* dream-eating creatures in manga and anime are unmistakably zoological tapirs. Here’s a reference to Takahashi Rumiko’s dream-eating tapir (the original dates from the early 1980s):

Takahashi Rumiko 1995 Waking to a nightmare. In: The Return of Lum: Urusei Yatsura. San Francisco: Viz. pages 141-156.

So there you have it. The Edo period dream-eater was drawn in at least some contemporary Japanese sources with an elephant’s head. Modern Japanese dream-eaters are zoological tapirs. They are NOT the same.

Timothy Perper 14:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Wait, what's the problem here? I understand (and fully support) your disdain for anime-lore, but the word for the folklore critter and the zoological animal are the same, so an overlaping of the terms is to be expected, nes pa? TomorrowTime 22:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the question. It's a matter of keeping words straight and it's why Wikipedia has a disambiguation feature if the confusion amongst words is great enough to create problems. Note, though, that I don't think we need to go THAT far in this case.

For example, Cadillac the car, Cadillac the town in Michigan, and Cadillac the explorer are not the same. So, when people on the Internet cite Wikipedia to "prove" that in Japan "people" believe that tapirs, biological ones, eat dreams, well, it's not so. The Japanese FOLK belief refers to a creature called a baku, which has a history prior to 1854 in Japanese art and (we assume) folklore as a chimera with an elephant's head, tiger's claws, and so on. That beast simply isn't a zoological tapir, no matter what word is used.

Well, OK, the article needs to say that and cite some references. I haven't had the time to make the changes but I will over the next week or so.

Do you see what I'm driving at? There's more material on this in the Tapir discussion page, with a bunch of references. You might want to read it.

Timothy Perper 23:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Here is a detailed reference about baku

Hori, Tadao 2005 Cultural note on dreaming and dream study in the future: Release from nightmare and development of dream control technique. Sleep and Biological Rhythms, Volume 3, pages 49-55.

Hori provides some detailed history of Japanese beliefs in dream-eating and/or nightmare-neutralizing amulets, talismans, and supernatural creatures, including the baku. It's a lot more complicated than merely believing that zoological tapirs eat dreams. Timothy Perper 01:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Who exactly is saying that zoological tapirs eat dreams? Quoting that article:

I introduce two examples, Baku and Dream Catcher, that are still popular in Japan. The Baku, an existing animal (a tapir), from the horse family. It is a chubby animal, about 1.5-2 m long, with a stretched nose. It lives in the Malaysian mountains in Asia. According to "Nihon-Saiji-ki" written by Yosifuru Kaibara (1664-1700), the Baku used to be regarded as a charm animal in China, and was later introduced to Japan, but with extreme exaggerations: the nose of an elephant, the eyes of a rhinoceros, the tail of a cow, the legs of a tiger, the hair of a lion, the spot in black and white. The Baku used to be believed to eat bizarre foods, eating irons, coppers, and bamboos.

So a folkloric, supernatural alteration of the actual natural tapir by people who lived very far away from the real thing. What exactly are you trying to argue here, that the two creatures are completely unrelated? I'm not seeing that in this reference or anywhere else. Kotengu 小天狗 03:08, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. I won't include references here, since I’ve put them onto the talk pages before, both for tapir and baku (spirit).

Let’s look at this again. On the one hand, there is good evidence in (older) Japanese folklore and art that a supernatural creature called a “baku” could neutralize and/or devour dreams and nightmares. The descriptions and artwork show a chimerical beast, with the head of an elephant, long trunk, tusks, head, and so on. Nakagawa and Hori both describe the baku this way, and artists like Hokusai and the artist who drew the kibyoshi reproduced in Kern’s book draw this creature. Whatever its origins (the references say it’s originally Chinese), it is not a zoological tapir.

On the other hand, there are a good many (recent) drawings in manga and anime, as well as in various websites (some of them citing Wiki as proof), that show the baku as a zoological tapir that quite explicitly eats/neutralizes dreams. The earliest I have so far found is Takahashi’s manga, but there may be earlier examples.

Thus, what I’m doing is a kind of disambiguation or clarification. None of it implies anything about the relationship between the two kinds of baku. We’re free to speculate, but speculation isn’t Wiki-verifiable, so we can skip it. Let’s get the facts straight first: dream-eating baku have been depicted in two distinctly different ways in modern and in traditional Japanese art and folklore.

And also let’s discuss why the entry on “Baku (spirit)” needs some editing. It’s my belief that any entry should be as precise and as well-referenced as we can make it, and that holds not merely for Wikipedia but for any piece of intellectual-scholarly work. However, I strongly believe that merely making changes without prior discussion is not a good idea. The Wiki-injunction to be bold in editing is *sometimes* a good idea but I think some degree of consensus first is better. And therefore I’ve been putting the raw material on the talk pages first, so that anyone interested can read and comment.

Are we in agreement or do you have a different view?

Timothy Perper 14:41, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I have a revision of the Baku (spirit) article

I put all the comments I've been making into a single coherent article, including most (but not all) of the original article plus a bunch of new material, like references.

As you've figured out, if you've read any of this, I'm not a Wikipedian, and don't know much at all about the mechanics of editing. I'm a subject matter expert. So, a question -- what do I do next? Go into the article, highlight everything, delete it, and paste in the revision?

Timothy Perper 16:50, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, with the help of Twooars, I've made the changes in the article. It still needs a few fix-ups, but they're trivial. The links all worked when I just tested them. Timothy Perper 20:34, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Corrected a mistake and clarified the references

Someone recently added something to the article that is inaccurate, and I corrected the error. I also clarified the referencing, since this person said that tapir-like baku appeared in anime but not manga even though the article already cited two examples from manga. Now it's very clear that tapir-like baku appear in manga. I hope it's clear... (sigh) I wish people would read articles before they "correct" them and add mistakes (sigh).

I also fixed up = wikified some of the references. The entry still needs more citations.

Timothy Perper 22:10, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Added a reference to a manga with a baku

Hakase Mizuki 2007. Ba_ku. Los Angeles, CA: TokyoPop..

Yes, the underscore is correct. The title is Ba_ku.

Timothy Perper 16:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Korean counterpart

From the article introduction:

"The Japanese term baku has two current meanings, referring to both the traditional dream-devouring creature and to the zoological tapir (e.g., the Malaysian tapir). In Korean, the term is maek (Hangul: 맥, Hanja: 貊). In recent years, there have been changes in how the baku is depicted."

Ok, so what exactly does maek refer to? The folkloric beast or tapir, the animal? It's difficult to tell from the way the thing is phrased now (I suppose the beast from folklore is meant, but I honestly have no way of being certain). Furthermore, why does the Korean counterpart have to be here? No notability is proven. I'm not saying the article needs to be purged of the Korean equivalent, but I do have a problem with the kind of hit-and-run aproach this sentence seems to have been inserted with - there doesn't seem to be much rationale in having the sentence in there, besides: "Koreans have one too !!1!". If maek is a notable beast in Korean folklore (again, I'm assuming it's folklore we're speaking here), let's have an expanded view of this Korean counterpart, and maybe a section on how it passed from the mainland to Japan. If not, I don't see much point in this particular non sequitor sentence in the introduction. TomorrowTime (talk) 16:19, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Can't say I disagree. If you want to remove the reference to maek I won't stop you. I don't know anything at all about them, and can't add anything to the article about maek. As I remember, it was something that the original article had in it, and it remained after I did some editing a while ago. So we agree about this. Timothy Perper (talk) 17:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I just googled maek and "dreameater" and got a bunch of websites quoting this Wiki article. So someone who knows more than I do will have to step in here. However, the lack of a reference to the Korean term or concept means that we have another reason to remove it -- original research. I think I'll let this sit a few days and let other people comment if they want to. Then I'll take out the maek sentence. Thanks for bringing this up, TomorrowTime -- good catch. Timothy Perper (talk) 17:46, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'd wager that "maek" is the Korean word for Baku, question is, however, how prominent is the creature in Korean folklore. Does it only come up in stories that are translations of Chinese/Japanese traditional stories or does it have older stories of it's own, or is the word possibly just a term used recently to translate anime versions of the baku? TomorrowTime (talk) 09:05, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Good questions, but I have no idea at all. The "maek" word was in the article when I made some edits on the page a while ago, and I just left it. Whaddya say we just remove it? Timothy Perper (talk) 14:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I just removed the sentence mentioning maek. It seems irrelevant to the main point of the article (which is about Japanese baku) and lacks any source or description of the kind TomorrowTime discussed above. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Primary Sources

A tag was added asking for secondary sources for some of the assertions in the popular culture section. Secondary sources For descriptions, secondary sources are always less reliable than the primary sources themselves. If someone has some secondary sources (I could add some), then that's OK, but they're less reliable than the original. So, with all due respect for a good faith suggestion, I removed the tag. If someone wants to put it back, please explain what is unreliable about citing the original source.Timothy Perper (talk) 14:35, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I suppose I ought to add something based on the policy statement about primary vs. secondary sources. The idea of the policy about primary sources is to stop people from advancing their own ideas, crackpot or otherwise, using the original material as their only source. This policy is in line with the idea that Wikipedia is not the place to publicize original research, but is a compendium of existing ideas. That's a fine goal. But when it comes to establishing facts, e.g., descriptions of a fictional character, the primary source is the most reliable evidence we have. If I want to reference the assertion that Shane, from the movie, is a gunslinger, I cite the film itself, not a movie critic.

The idea behind using primary references is to get as close to the original as possible, with as few interruptions or interpolations by other people as possible. If I want to reference the assertion that Sergeant Frog in the anime is an alien frog invader of Earth, I cite the anime, not a critic. If -- however! -- I next want to assert that Sergeant Frog is also a parody of the Japanese Self Defense Force, then I need to cite something beyond the anime, because the assertion is an interpretation of the anime. So you cite the original when you are putting in a reference to a description that anyone can see who views the original, and you cite a secondary source for all interpretations of the description.

In the case of this article, most -- all, as far as I can tell -- of the descriptions are just that: descriptions. They are not interpretations of anything at all. So the primary sources are the proper references to use. I hope that's clear.

Timothy Perper (talk) 15:06, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I added a couple of {{citation needed}} tags. Timothy Perper (talk) 16:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Here's an example (IMO) where secondary sources are needed, though I didn't add the tag that's on the article: List of To Love-Ru characters. Timothy Perper (talk) 07:32, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Deleted Unreferenced Opinion

A while ago, I had flagged a sentence as needing a reference. No one added one and I was not able to find a reliable source that Drowzee from Pokemon was a tapir. In fact, I found a reliable source that said Drowzee was an elephant.

http://books.google.com/books?id=6txO1UzgOmEC&pg=PA38&dq=drowzee&hl=en&ei=yxGWTt-ME6Hd0QGRwOG6Bw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=drowzee&f=false

"Improving Writing at KS2 getting it right for the boys and girls" by Kirklees Children & Young People Service, page 38. So out it goes. Timothy Perper (talk) 22:26, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I also deleted a dead link and repaired an out-of-date link. Timothy Perper (talk) 22:41, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Drowzee

Here's a cute little mess. Drowzee is a dream-devouring creature from Pokemon who looks like a cross between a tapir and an elephant. For some time (over the years since 2007-2008), a large variety of mostly anonymous people have added unreferenced sentences about Drowzee to the Baku article. That's fine with me -- IF -- we had some reliable sources for Drowzee's identity or heritage. I found one source, which sounds authoritative -- the so-called "Pokedex" (for "Pokemon Index") -- which lists all the Pokemon characters, including #096, Drowzee. Problem is that the source is the Pokemon wiki, which goes by the name of Bulbapedia (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Drowzee_%28Pok%C3%A9mon%29) which is user generated and hence not reliable by Wikipedia standards even if it's quoting material that's part of the TV show. I haven't found any other sources, except one that says that Drowzee is an elephant. So I'm going to leave it out until either I stumble on a reliable source or someone else does. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:55, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I found a reliable source for Drowzee, so I added it with the reference. It's to the Pokemon website itself, making it as reliable as we can expect. Timothy Perper (talk) 22:02, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

some more popculture uses of this spirit

the pokemons Musharna and Munna, and baku is the personal summon of Danzō Shimura.88.91.186.130 (talk) 01:03, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

The article needs reliable sources for these statements before they can be added. Otherwise, who knows? Timothy Perper (talk) 14:56, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Deletion of Documented Material

A well-meaning editor deleted some reliably documented material, and I reverted the deletions. This article concerns a variety of dream-eating characters in Japanese folklore and modern manga and anime, for which reliable documentation exists and was cited. The point is that the concept of the "baku" -- the "yumekui" or "dream-eater" -- has changed in Japanese history. If the article omits that fact, it falsifies the phenomenon. We might regret these historical changes or we might not -- but they have occurred, and the article must reflect that fact. Timothy Perper (talk) 14:11, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

That was me. I'm very sorry for deleting without bringing it up here first. I definitely should have done that! My reason is that the references mentioned, particularly the Paprika one, are not baku. The Paprika reference feels like a random pop-culture list to me. If you've seen the movie, you'll note that the "dream-eating" scene is a very brief section at the end, and has nothing to do with the character of Paprika at all. It's just a visualization of her ending the dream-state of the main villain. Paprika herself is just the alterego of a psychotherapist. Calling her a kami of dreams and a baku just does not seem to fit with this page. (Maybe that belongs on the Paprika page.) The connection to baku is so vague and so forced that I think it makes the article weaker. The baku is a very specific folkloric monster with roots in Chinese mythology, and religious connotations in Japan. It is not solely defined by the fact that it eats dreams. This would be putting something on the "Lions" page that says "some lions don't look like lions. For example, bears are lions that look very different from lions, but they also eat meat so they are lions." Eating dreams does not a baku make. --- Osarusan 00:30, 30 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Osarusan (talk • contribs)

I agree that discussion is best. You asked if I had seen the film; I guess you didn't read the paper on Paprika cited -- I wrote it myself. It was published in Mechademia, and it explicitly refers to Paprika as a dream-eater, in particular a baku, the same kind of yumekui as the Hokusai baku illustrated in the article. There are, nowadays, other kinds of human-shaped baku in manga, and the article mentions some of them. I looked at your website, and see that you have drawn a number of illustrations of classical Japanese supernatural beings -- so I can understand your preferences for the older characterizations of these beings, the baku included. But the fact is that these traditional depictions of folkloric beings have changed considerably in the last 50 and more years in Japan. In Hokusai's day, the baku were depicted one way; by the time Takahashi and Oshii drew them, they had become tapirs; more recently they are human. So I can understand that you'd prefer it, perhaps, if the baku was still drawn only as a Hokusai-style yokai, but it isn't. We can't omit that fact without falsifying the data, and that I won't do. Another way of saying the same thing is that you, as an artist, will probably choose to draw the baku one way, but other artists have drawn them differently in recent years. It's the kind of historical change we have to live with -- we can't remove it. Timothy Perper (talk) 05:15, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree that we can't try to fight culture. I'm not trying to change the definition or anything, and it's not that I have a personal attachment for the animalian/spirit baku; I just honestly don't believe they are the same thing. I feel it should be deleted (or moved to a separate "yumekui" page about eating dreams in Japanese culture?) for the same reason I wouldn't want to put the "angels" from Neon Genesis Evangelion on the page for the Angel Gabriel, or Gizmo from the move Gremlins on a page about the belief in mechanical spirits called gremlins during the early 20th century. There's a connection, sure, but it's not at all the same thing. (I just read your article on Paprika -- very cool, by the way!)

The link between Paprika and baku is weak. The spirit has a long history that dates back thousands of years to ancient China. They both ate dreams, but there is nothing else to link them. I really do not think it is strong enough to warrant including her on the baku page as a baku. I wouldn't argue that Paprika could be called a yumekui, but in all of my research and in my years living in Japan, I have never heard of anything other dream eater except for the folkloric animal referred to as a baku. I realize you have done research of your own -- have you come up with other references?

Eating dreams certainly may be a recurring theme, and characters with traits similar to a baku may have been created, but I disagree that they belong under the "baku" taxonomy. Just as we don't call all creatures that breathe fire dragons, or all one-eyed creatures cyclops, not all creatures that eat dreams are baku. It muddies up the definition and implies more of a connection than there truly is. Osarusan (talk) 08:17, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Here's another -- and there are more in the article (I added most of the references in this article). It's to the character in the manga/anime Yu-Gi-Oh named Bakura (獏良了), which means "Good Baku Ryo" (Ryo = his name). The kanji for "baku" (獏) means dream-eater, yumekui. Here's another picture of him <http://www.nekomagic.com/?p=16115>. Since I've been the only person working systematically on this article over the years, I decided that we don't need every example we can find of baku. But you seem to have missed many examples of baku who are not the folkloric animal -- the article give a number of examples, all referenced. I know you'd like a definition that's clean and neat, but that doesn't work for "baku." Once again, we might not like that, but it's a fact nonetheless. So far as Paprika is concerned, the paper of mine that I cited is as good a reference as any, so although you might disagree with my conclusion, it still is a reliable reference for the issue at hand. I'm quite sympathetic, BTW, to your rather classical or traditional view of what and who these beings are and how they should be portrayed, but other artists have done it quite differently. I wish you had an illustration of a traditional baku on your website, because I'd include it as an example of a Western artist's vision of a baku. Timothy Perper (talk) 14:19, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

You're wrong about the kanji for baku -- there is nothing about eating dreams in it. In fact, the kanji specifically implies that we are talking about an animal, not a person. The 犭 that you see as the left part of the kanji means "dog," and specifically refers to the baku as a kind of animal. The other parts of the kanji mean "big," "sun," and "grass;" not something that eats dreams. The word itself implies that we are talking about an animal here. Eating dreams was secondary a trait of the mythical animal known as baku; it was not a dream-eating spirit that later took on an animal form.

I don't we should be putting Yu-Gi-Oh characters on the page either, regardless of whether they use the baku kanji in their name. Bakura Ryo may be based on a baku, but is he a baku? No. He's an anime/manga character with the word baku in his name. Put that as a fact on the individual character's page and link here, but it isn't relevant to this page.

I understand that you put a lot of time and though into the page, but citing an article that you yourself wrote is not going to convince me unless you can show me an external source that refers to Paprika as a baku (and further, that Paprika herself is relevant enough to the definition of baku to be included in the article, rather than mentioning her baku connection on the Paprika page instead). It could be that Yasutaka Tsutsui was inspired by legends of the baku when he invented the character of Paprika, but unless he specifically calls her a baku, I don't think that is relevant information for this page. I think you may be drawing a connecting where there actually is none.

I'm not questioning that ideas change over time, and I am not trying to enforce one specific vision of the baku. I am challenging that Paprika belongs here. The only citation you have for that is an article you wrote yourself, and that article does not cite any other references for Paprika being a baku. The only conclusion I can make is that you drew the connection yourself -- which is fine, but that does not make it fact and I don't think warrants its inclusion in the article. Surely you can see where problems would arise if we all simply cited our own articles as reasons to add anything we wanted to Wikipedia? Someone else could very well do the same thing, and write a blog article himself stating that Santa Claus is a type of Cookie Monster because he primarily eats cookies and milk, and cite that as a source on the Cookie Monster page... but would we accept that? Not at all.

The other modern examples, the Pokemon Drowzee, for instance, are very clearly modern re-imaginations of the monster. Does it belong on the baku page? Maybe, maybe not. I would say it fits better on the page for that specific pokemon instead of here, but I don't necessarily see a problem with it being on both pages, because it very clearly is a re-imagining of the baku. I haven't seen all of the other characters that you refer to, so I can't comment fairly on all of them. The Paprika, one, though, I really think needs some more citations that one article that you wrote yourself for it to be included. I love Paprika -- it's one of my favorite movies -- but she is not a baku any more than Santa Claus is a Cookie Monster. Osarusan (talk) 05:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Hoary, for helping out. There's more work to be done on this article, and I'm glad to see a few other people involved. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:39, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Timothy, what you are doing here is the very definition of original research. You wrote a paper in which you claimed that Paprika is a baku, which is of course fine. But you can't then turn around and edit a Wikipedia article, citing your own paper as proof that Paprika is a baku. Apart from the ethical questionability of citing yourself in an article you are editing, it should be patently obvious that since you are, as far as I know, the only person on the planet who has claimed that Paprika is a baku, the reference has no place in this article. Find another human being, anywhere, who has made the same claim, in print (and without being urged to do so by you), and then you would have something. As it stands, what you are doing is using a Wikipedia article to put forth an opinion. And it's not the first time you've done this. I don't understand why you don't see what makes this questionable. If another person, who has no connection to you, independently referenced your article here, I don't think there would be a problem. There's an article about me here on Wikipedia that contains outdated information and minor errors, but I would never dream of editing the article myself, or even asking anyone else to, unless there was blatant slander there. Similarly, there are articles here on subjects that I have written or spoken about, but I would never add a reference to my own work. If someone else does (and they have, several times), then great. But it's not my place to go around pushing my own ideas into Wikipedia articles. Which is precisely what you are doing. To be blunt, it's embarrassing to watch, and frustrating, as a Wiki editor, to deal with.Matt Thorn (talk) 07:58, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Osarusan and Matt Thorn. Using an article written by yourself as a source would be WP:COI. I also think the addition would be WP:OR. The third-party and independent published sources are needed. Besides, the kanji 獏 does not mean "dream eater". See also [1]. Oda Mari (talk) 08:15, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Matt, you're simply wrong. Here's the guideline on COI and on citing oneself:

Citing oneself

Editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest. Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant and conforms to the content policies. Excessive self-citation is strongly discouraged. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion. In any case, citations should be in the third person and should not place undue emphasis on your work, giving proper due to the work of others as in a review article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Citing_oneself

If you disagree with my assessment of "Paprika," then publish a rebuttal in Mechademia or elsewhere in the professional literature. And, in that larger context, I'm not the only one who identified the little girl in "Paprika" as a baku = yumekui, but this is not the place to debate that issue. Concerning the kanji 獏, my source is the Breen-Monash dictionary <http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1E>. I don't have the time to look it up in the Kōjien.

And I'm fed up with endless Wiki-lawyering. I'm working now on another book, and don't have the time or interest to argue. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:49, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Pop Culture References

The "modern representations" section is a mess to look at, and it constantly gets filled by well-meaning people inserting walls of text on the latest manga character who is based on a baku or even just ever so slightly resembles it. It's essentially become a "pop culture list" and is already longer than the actual article itself (let alone the couple of massive edits that I've undone recently referencing this or that character. Is there something we can do to improve this section so it doesn't become a magnet for a million minor references with no paragraph flow at all?

If we include every time a baku is referenced in pop culture, this page will be miles long and have no really useful information on it. That's why I've been deleting new material added to that section that doesn't have a significant cultural impact. If I've undone your edit, I meant no offense. I really don't like to mess with other people's edits, but there has to be a point where we protect the integrity of page over any pride its readers may have. These references should go on the Wikipedia page for those individual mangas or manga character, mentioning that there is a character based on a baku; not vice-versa (linking to every single manga/video game character from this page). Osarusan (talk) 16:10, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• Ditto, Please see guidelines WP:TRIVIA or the essays WP:LISTCRUFT and WP:POPCULTURE • Serviceable†Villain 01:07, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

The pop culture section has basically become a game of whack-a-mole, with people adding new insignificant mentions of baku or baku-like creatures from every anime and manga that they can see. It has gotten out of hand. Since none of the pop culture/modern baku really added anything to the article at all, other than just being a trivia list, I have removed that section to discourage the constant posting of new anime baku sightings. It would be better to link those pages to baku, unless we are talking about a particular anime/manga in which the baku plays a major role. Osarusan (talk) 01:15, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

• Ditto (I'm ServceableVillain above; username changed) • Arch♦Reader 04:56, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I get that the "in popular culture" sections are generally useless trivia, but this is a perfect example of how they can often contain useful and relevant information. This article should mention drowzee/pokemon in some way. It is relevant information to the topic at hand. 73.145.175.54 (talk) 10:21, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

What's useful or relevant about including pokemon information on the baku page? It's neither. Pokemon on the whole may be a cultural phenomenon, but Drowzee is not a majorly important element of Pokemon nor significant on its own. We don't put lists of movies that include elephants in the background on the Elephant page, so why would we include minor pop culture figures that are slightly based on a folkloric creature on its page? The connection just isn't strong; and to the extent that there is a connection, it's entirely one way. Drowzee is based on a baku, but the baku has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Drowzee. There's no value in including lists of bird-like pokemon on the Bird page, or lists of dog-like pokemon on the Dog page. So why would we include a baku-like pokemon on the Baku page? It's not relevant or valuable information. Osarusan (talk) 00:11, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

There is not an abundance of Baku-like pokemon. Your comparisons are moot. A japanese cultural phenomenon bears mention as modern interpretation or use of Baku mythology. 73.145.175.54 (talk) 09:07, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

If it were a major character like Pikachu you might have an argument. But it's not. Drowzee is not a cultural phenomenon by any measure. Go post a link to Pikachu on the page for Mouse and see what kind of reaction that gets you. It doesn't belong. It's an irrelevant pop culture reference, and the reference is only one-way. Keep the insignificant anime references off of this page please. Osarusan (talk) 09:40, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

This is not insignificant or irrelevant. The cultural phenomenon is Pokémon, not Drowzee, and Drowzee has been featured in a prominent enough role within the franchise to qualify according to WP:POPCULTURE. Not sure what a "one-way" reference is, this is how references work. Please reread the relevant guidelines. This article fails to inform if it does not include any reference to modern interpretation and usage of the mythology. I understand that there is no reason to include a list of every reference, and this is not what I'm advocating for, but simply removing every single one instead of cleaning up the section is not the right approach. This is a detriment to Wikipedia. 73.145.175.54 (talk) 19:34, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

This has been discussed ad nauseum already. See guidelines WP:TRIVIA or the essays WP:LISTCRUFT and WP:POPCULTURE. Pokemon links do not belong here. Osarusan (talk) 00:55, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah it keeps getting brought up because you're wrong. Please review WP:POPCULTURE and WP:POPCULTURE, as well as WP:TRIVIA. This absolutely belongs here and you clearly have a conflict of interest. Additionally, upon review of the edit history for this page, you are in violation of WP:3RR. Please refrain from further removal of this content. 73.145.175.54 (talk) 19:40, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't know what conflict of interest you think I have, but please bring another editor in on this if you think I'm acting inappropriately. You continue to re-add the same material over and over again. There's at least one other user in this discussion in agreement with me, while you are the only person who has voiced an opinion to the contrary. The same rules are followed on every other folklore page as well. Touhou video game cruft and pokemon are not relevant to this page about folklore. The relevant Wikipedia guidelines have been supplied earlier in the thread, please review them. Also please review the 3RR rule which you posted, as it very clearly states what it is and does not apply to anything I did. You don't need to take this personally or make this into an edit war. Osarusan (talk) 06:49, 16 March 2021 (UTC)