User:Crestfalling/Writing "Production" sections

A guide to writing production sections for animanga articles. Typically, this is the hardest section to write for several reasons:

1. It requires a lot of research. Anyone can write a review, but only those involved in the actual production can give information on it. As such, sources are few and far between.
2. There's a language barrier. I'll go over this again later, but in order to write a good production section, you must rely on Japanese-language sources; there's really no way around it. Accurately conveying information, not to mention even finding the sources in the first place, is difficult, and in my opinion, the hardest part of writing it.
3. It requires judicious choices on what to include. It's very rare that 100% of the info in a source actually makes it into the article, yet with limited material to work with, you also can't be too picky.
4. It requires careful organization. Even once you have all the right information, presenting it in a way which makes it clear to the reader requires a lot of thought.

With this in mind, a production section is arguably one of the most important parts of the article for several reasons:

1. It provides a real-world perspective. The reception section explains how people feel about the work, yet the production section explains the significance of the work itself; the themes, the techniques used to make it, etc.
2. It allows greater understanding of the work. A few comments by the original author or director can be as significant as any insightful third-party analysis.
3. It's needed for complete coverage. If the information is out there and it's not included, then an article, by definition, cannot be called comprehensive.

Research

Start off by looking in English-language sources. I usually start off by Googling "[media name] interview". Depending on how popular the media is, you might find anywhere between 0 and 5 sources, usually towards the lower end.

Now comes the harder part: finding Japanese-language sources.

Step 1: Go to the Japanese-language wiki article for the work, see if there are any interviews in the references. If it's a popular series, there will generally be some. Make sure to give attribution if you later translate any of the wikitext.

Step 2: Find any official materials (guidebooks, official press releases, etc.) Also, for anime, the official website often has interviews under the "Special" heading.

Step 3: See if the author has web presence online by searching their name and then ブログ (roughly "blog") into Google. It'll typically be less-indexed, so specifically searching for it is important. Blogs are often hosted on note.com.

Step 4: Copy-paste the Japanese name of the work and the phrase インタビュー (roughly "interview") into Google. Click on the results and do a quick translation; if it looks like an interview then bookmark it for later.

Additional phrases you can try include:

• 制作秘話 ("making of")
• アニメ化 コメント ("anime adaptation comments")

Step 5: Copy-paste the Japanese name of the work into the search bar of some common websites, use a translation tool to skim the titles to see if it looks like an interview. An abbreviated list of websites I've used follows:

Light novels:

• ln-news.com
• ddnavi.com

Manga

• comic-walker.com
• media.comicspace.jp

Anime, or multiple

• natalie.mu
• thetv.jp
• mantan-web.jp
• animatetimes.com
• animageplus.jp
• ponycanyon.co.jp
• dengekionline.com
• animeanime.jp
• realsound.jp
• hominis.media
• webnewtype.com
• cho‑animedia.jp
• excite.co.jp

Organization

In order to keep things well-organized, you want to have a simple but appropriately nuanced system of headings and subheadings. Typically, you should create top-level headings for "light novels", "manga", and "anime", and then second-level headings for design aspects within that. If a design aspect is especially nuanced, you can create a third-level heading.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of common second-level headings.

All

Anime-only

Footnotes

• The Executioner and Her Way of Life (long)
• Sakura Trick (short)