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A) The kanji given for jikininki make no sense for the reading. B) Those kanji don't appear in Japanese Wikipedia. C) The kanji do appear in Chinese Wikipedia, but as the translation of the word "ghoul." D) I think this article has serious factual errors. --66.8.203.13 01:35, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
- Please fix it then. — BrianSmithson 07:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
- I fixed the problem with the kanji and the short translation of the term. I also fixed the kanji on the Spanish and Norsk pages where the problem had spread to. It looks like this has spread to other parts of the web copied from this article. They are the only hits for the old incorrect kanji on the web. I'm not prepared to address other problems with this page though. (Note that the link to the Japanese article is actually a link to a novel with the name 食人鬼 "jikinninki", there is no Japanese article on this subject, just a disambiguation page.) Tweisbach (talk) 00:49, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
A proposal
editI think this article should either be deleted or completely overhauled to reflect its fictional nature. There are no sources cited within the text except for a Lafcadio Hearn story, which the corresponding Japanese Wikipedia article indicates is a work of fiction inspired by an Ueda Akinari story. The Japanese disambiguation page at ja:食人鬼 indicates that the word is a generic term for ghosts that eat people, or cannibals, or a translation of ghoul. A quick Googling of the term also brings up only the Lafcadio Hearn story, the Japanese Wikipedia article about the Lafcadio Hearn story (which it calls a 小説), and modern works of fiction inspired by the Hearn story.
It would seem to me that Lafcadio Hearn basically mistook a generic word that in modern Japanese isn't even pronounced jikininki, for a Buddhist term, and the proper word is gaki.
Therefore, while a Wikipedia article based on his story (like the Japanese article linked to here) would be appropriate, the current article is unacceptable. I could translate the Japanese article and put it on here instead, if no one disagrees?