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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Excel Saga/archive1

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Excel Saga

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Self-nomination and support. The article has been almost completely rewritten in the past month, much of it resulting from an excellent and supremely productive peer review. I have based the re-write mostly on Red vs Blue, with necessary alterations, and I think it stands up to other television FAs. The article cites several reviews, discusses production issues, international adaptations, and as succinctly as I believe possible presents the large cast of characters and the several meandering plots. Please note that I am unable to fully alphabetize the categories because Anime and Manga are automatically inserted by the infoboxes. I look forward to your approval, and I stand ready to address questions and suggestions.--Monocrat 16:22, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support, very good article in all respects. My only complaint—and I suspect this may be more an issue of familiarity with printed versus online stylistics—is the heavy use of double (or sometimes even triple and quadruple) footnote numbers in the same place, as well as multiple footnotes within a sentence. From a neatness standpoint, I would combine all of those into single footnotes giving all of the associated citations; but this would require not using cite.php's automatic repeated footnote feature (possibly by introducing a separate "References" section and using short-form citations in the footnotes), so I'm not sure if you'd be willing to do that. Kirill Lokshin 16:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! I have concerns about them as well, but: WP:CITE seems to enjoin the inline-citation of all quotations immediately after they appear, so I have to have multiple notes in the sentences. I'm unsure, however, how I feel about have separate notes and references sections. It seem a little hard on my eyes in other articles, but I'll give it a thought.--Monocrat 17:27, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Waffling Support. I'd like to see more pictures- we hardly see anybody; no Dr. Kabapu, none of the ronin (no, the Daitenzin shot doesn't count) etc. Also, did I miss the link to the more detailed episode list with decent plot summaries? I'm sure there must've been one, since the recounting of the plot is minimal and broken up- almost more concerned with thematics than plot. A section on the metafictional and breaking-the-fourth-wall bits (which some of the more amusing parts, IMO) would be nice as well. --maru (talk) contribs 17:10, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The list to the episode list is in the navbox, I've made a link to it more prominent. It's hard to get good, humorous shots of the ronin together (the one in Characters of Excel Saga is rather non-descript), but I plan to soon add shots of Kabapu and maybe the ronin from the manga, but I lack a scanner. Regarding the metafictional and fourth-wall elements, I'm trying to fight my own tendency towards fancruft, and I think I've included most of the major ones. Still, more specific thoughts on are welcome.--Monocrat 17:27, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Although I do agree the insane number of footnote numbers gets distracting. Anyways, it'll be nice to see an anime article finally get FA. Good work.--SeizureDog 04:02, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the tip and support! Changes made with grm_wnr's assistance.--Monocrat 17:21, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A good example of how putting some work in can make an article much better. However, I think people have been blinded-by-footnotes, the actual article is majorly lacking in some areas.

  • Many of the actual cites are silly: "the last episode was intentionally made too graphic for public broadcast and did not air in Japan.[8]" - does the footnote back up this assertion? 8. "Going Too Far." Shinichi Watanabe (Director). Excel Saga. No...
There have been some changes here, but I'd prefer if notes were used to expand on statements like that rather than on oddnesses such as 29. Note that sources disagree as to his given name: Anime News Network renders it as shown, as do the opening credits in ADV's English edition, but the ending credits render it as "Toshiro." (see ja:増田俊郎)
  • The 'critics' are entirely postings on websites by westerners. Sure, the NYT doesn't carry a manga/anime section, but the article is entirely dishonest in representing this small cross-section as the entirety of opinion.
Managed to access some of those ntusa-s I see, and they weren't just marketing propoganda? This is still the major issue, the material from Koushi/Watanabe interviews is interesting, but the article is still founded on the sand of horses'-mouth and netizens.
  • Shin'ichi Watanabe is mentioned in the article body exactly once, and as what? Writer of theme song lyrics. Other anime staff get disjointed mentions. The interview bits you give show there is material there, but it's only being used to hammer on about how the last ep is ott.
Some useful addition here, but still far from comprehensive on the out-of-universe anime side.
  • The prose hurts in lots of places, and the tense is often weird, random picks from one section: "The director, for his part, recounts that he was surprised to learn..." / "...all are notably parodied in extended sequences."
Have been improvements here. One thing I forgot to add first time round - personally I hate spoiler tags in articles, especially for significant amounts of the article. Have trouble seeing why they're needed for an encylopedia article, especially for un-narrative-y work like this - there's no punchline/ending spoiling requirement for summaries. --zippedmartin 23:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, the root of the problem, for all the citing, half the references are the manga/anime itself, and the other half are western websites. The interviews are the only meat. It's a good article, but does it "exemplify Wikipedia's very best work"? I think not. --zippedmartin 09:07, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Responding point-by-point:
  • The "silly" citations to the original material are directed to the ADV Vid-Notes and the VIZ "Oubliette" notes. See the beginning of the "Notes and references." I'll consider adding this detail to the notes themselves.
  • I ask that you assume good faith and withdraw "dishonest." There are three sentences that could perhaps be construed as "representing...the entirety of opinion", but most sentences are at pains to name or qualify the number of reviewers and to present a variety of views. In others, the presence of notes makes the limitation of the sample clear (to me). Moreover, I specify English-language critical reception in the lead and the main text. Is that a weakness, yes. But this is the English Wikipedia. I'll leave it to you to decide if that violates comprehensiveness. I can't read Japanese well enough to attempt the research, and Chinese, Korean, Arabic, and African language aux choix are right out. I am thus stuck with Western reviews. Furthermore, there is a paucity of what I consider "good" reviews out there (most of the reviews under "Additional reviews" are kind of iffy in my book), but I'll search more.
  • I want to avoid confusion between the director Watanabe and the character Watanabe. I have, however, added an instance of the director's full name.
  • I think we disagree on the stylistics. :) The examples you provide strike me as validly constructed, grammatically and stylistically. Nevertheless, suggestions are welcome to make the copy less painful. --Monocrat 10:33, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Concentrating on your biggest bullet (fair point on 'Watanabe' being potentially confusing, but there's still a content hole), it's not really about disclaimers. Just having a 'Critical reception', with nearly 30 citations, that deals soley with stuff found through google, is giving undue weight to fans with websites. It's like having a 'Reaction' section in the '2004 Indian Ocean earthquake' that's entirely drawn from blog postings... well, kinda. Is the best criticism section a wikipedia article can have an amalgamation of online reviews? I'd say not.
So, ignoring for the moment issues of content weighting and style, the central problem is a complete dearth of credible secondary sources. --zippedmartin 14:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have to disagree. These reviews I think rise above fan-websites in that they're not fan-website at all: these are (amateur to semi-professional) reviewers who review several and diverse works in even-handed and, on balance, well written postings. All but three of the reviews I cite throughout the article (these being two for the manga, and one discussing the "authorization scenes") are signed with a first and last name, for what that's worth. To see what I'm driving at, simply compare the quality of the review at TheGline.com with that from SciFi.com; the first is thoughtful and at times scathing, the other mostly banal. Crandol's reviews, bearing ANN's imprimatur, certainly are credible and immune to the label "fan site." Moreover, what I've found are the best there is. I welcome you to look, but the only promising hard-copy source I found was a Newtype-USA article way back in '02 or '03, but I can't access that—and it would probably be ADV (publisher of Excel Saga and Newtype-USA) hawking the series. Google Scholar comes up with nothing, and most hits on Google are either one-line descriptions linked to merchants or the type of fan-site you rightly decry. While the sources I employ perhaps do not survive a strict interpretation of WP:RS, I think that changes when one considers the subject matter and the irrelevance of some of that policy's criteria in this instance (we're discussing reviewers' opinions; and the reviews seem to me to fit "Independent secondary source" in this circumstance). Other than repeating myself, arguing policy, and adding other sources when I can (and I have done all three this morning), I'm not sure what else I can do to address your concern.--Monocrat 16:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. As mentioned above, the "reception" section refers entirely to online, english-languages sources. There is nothing on how the series was recieved in Japan at the time it first came out. The anime aired on Japanese television, but apart from the bit of info about the final episode being unaired, there's nothing about how it performed in ratings, and what television critics thought of it in Japan at the time. The only sales information that's been included is for the english-language graphic novel in North America. Overall, this shows an overly Western perspective about a Japanese series, and represents a major lack of comprehensiveness. I would suggest looking at some Japanese sources for this article. -- Lee Bailey(talk) 00:57, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Original-language criticism seems not to be a FA requirement: Tenebrae, promoted just over two months ago, focuses exclusively on the English-language reception, with one throw-away line about its continental European release. Triumph of the Will (promoted last winter) also focuses on the English-language response, only briefly mentioning Hitler's approval of the film. Considering that this is the English Wikipedia, I don't think this trend is inappropriate.--Monocrat 02:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have an issue with the article's sources being written in English, persay -- if you can find sources written in English that describe the reaction to Excel Saga in Japan, that will work. But it's still a Japanese series, and the reaction to a work in its native country should be a basic part of comprehensiveness. It isn't enough to just describe what was thought of it among Western anime fans (especially when some of the sources in the article apparently criticize the anime for having too many obscure Japanese cultural references). As for your examples, I'll admit Tenebrae could have afforded to spend a bit more time on its Italian release (although it was actually an English-language Italian film, designed with export to US in mind). Triumph of the Will, however, goes to great lengths to describe the film in it's proper cultural and political context in Germany and the rest of Europe in the WW2 era.

Besides the issue of comprehensiveness, another concern I have here is that in only using English-language sources, this article ignores better and more reputable publications which may have talked about the subject in another language. I realize pop-culture topics are usually given leeway on the subject of using reputable sources, but they are still expected to use the best sources available. Shouldn't that still apply if the best sources are not in English? -- Lee Bailey(talk) 03:57, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but Tenebrae was dubbed into Italian for its release in Italy, and the article seems to suggest that the continental release was especially important to the director. And Triumph of the Will describes Riefenstahl's post-war attempts to mitigate the stigma on her, and the Vermacht's objections. As far as I can see, at least, it doesn't describe critical reception in Germany pre- or post-war, except for Hitler's praise, the two awards and how the film reflected on Riefenstahl. Beyond that, all films influenced by it and all the names cited seem anglophone to me. Anyway, I've spent two hours today trawling Google.co.jp (as a first pass) without success. I have also done (admittedly cursory) searches in Spanish, French, Dutch, Italian and Portugese—the languages I can sort of feel my way around, and those into which Excel Saga has been translated. But I could find only one half-way decent French review of the manga (which I cite). Any thoughts on those reputable publications? :) I'll keep searching, but I truly believe I have (at least most of) the best there is.--Monocrat 04:24, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate the hard work you're doing -- looking over the article's history you've made some great edits -- but I still think "most of the best there is" is inevitably going to fall short if you're limiting yourself to online sources and excluding the language the series is most likely to have the best coverage in. I think it's safe to assume that major entertainment magazines would have reviewed this material in Japan extensively at the time of its release. I also think comprehensiveness demands coverage of the response in Japan to an article about a Japanese series, written primarilly for Japanese audiences. I wish I could help you more with regards to finding great sources -- perhaps see what's sourced in the Japanese Wikipedia for Excel Saga? An index to foreign language periodicals at a good university library would be a decent jumping off place, too. What it comes down to though, is whether or not you can find track them down on Google -- or read them yourself personally -- sources exist. Unless nothing was ever printed about it in Japan, which seems unlikely. -- Lee Bailey(talk) 05:00, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"perhaps see what's sourced in the Japanese Wikipedia for Excel Saga?" - Japanese page has no references or external links. --SeizureDog 05:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My mistake. I should have checked first. I believe the rest of my objection still stands, though. -- Lee Bailey(talk) 05:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also, one more thing -- I think Wikipedia's fair use polices only allow for one screen capture from a tv series. That should be fixed. -- Lee Bailey(talk) 06:13, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
WP:FU says nothing to that effect, and other television FAs have several screen shots. The multiple shots are used to illustrate characters and the humor of the series: one would not suffice. I think these images satisfy policy. And I stand by my stance that while I would like to and hope to include Japanese sources, Excel Saga is just as comprehensive in this regard as recently promoted foreign media FAs.--Monocrat 14:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
With regard to the fair use bit, I'm sorry if I had that wrong. I was getting this from Wikipedia's image upload page, which asks you to select from several fair-use rationales before uploading -- the one listed for screenshots is listed as "screenshots (one per article). I assumed it was a part of WP:FU -- perhaps it's an older standard.

With regard to the rest, I'm not sure I know what else to say, except that regardless of the state of other articles, the criteria for FA promotion are the criteria listed on WP:WIAFA and the status of other articles shouldn't matter as much as that. Comprehensiveness is a requirement, and for a Japanese series that's still best known in Japan, which has not been widely discussed or reviewed in the West outside of small, non-professional, online sources, ignoring the Japanese perspective is not comprehensive. There's no way to comprehensively cover a foreign television series without talking about its original ratings and popularity with the audience it was originally intended for. Anime and manga is a subculture in the west; in Japan it's a part of mainstream popular culture. It is not possible to have a reception section that claims is comprehensive which ignores the largest and most important reception the series received. The opinion of english-speaking genre fans is a small part of the big picture, especially in a series that's a satire of Japanese life and cultural conventions. -- Lee Bailey(talk) 18:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The way I interpret that upload statement is that there needs to be a rationale for each article that uses the image. :) I agree with you broadly, although I protest its actionability in this instance. Other, especially recent FAs are inseparable from the criteria: the state of other FAs being necessarily both the product of the FA criteria and a way of interpreting those criteria. Anyway, the article doesn't show it yet, but I am looking. Thanks!--Monocrat 18:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've been thinking about this a lot today, since I want to be as fair as I can with this article and not demand the impossible. I agree that recent FAs are useful tools, but I don't think they are inseperable from the criteria. Individual articles are passed by discussions involving relatively small number of editors, over a short period of time. The criteria have existed for over two years, and have been consistantly discussed and refined for as long. You could try to argue that a handful of examples demonstrate what "comprehensiveness" means with regard to foreign language media, but I think it's better to follow to spirit of the rule (since no two articles are exactly alike anyway) and think about what the most logical definition of comprehensiveness is in terms of this article. By that token, I think I've already made my case for increased Japanese context fairly well.
As far as actionability goes, that's a tricky thing, but I think the objections I've mentioned are in fact actionable, even if they turn out to be difficult to fix. That's the thing -- coming up with information about this would be easy if you or I spoke Japanese -- we'd probably only have to read a couple of entertainment magazines from the right time frame to find the information we're looking for. I know that's a frustrating answer since you don't speak Japanese, but on the other hand, actionability means that there's specific course of action available to fix the problem with the article. I don't think it has to mean that there's a course of action that's easily available to fix the article. I'm pretty sure if I tried to promote an article on an obscure element of physics to FA, if that article was subpar, the actionable objections to it would be things that I wouldn't be easily able to fix. That doesn't mean we don't have featured articles on those things. If you really want a specific action to fix my objection, that "action" would be getting help from someone who speaks Japanese. I'm not saying that's easy, but it's an action. -- Lee Bailey(talk) 22:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. Although this came out well in a citation spot check, with all the citations I checked looking good (results here), I'm concerned by the degree to which this leans on primary sources (that is citing episodes of the series as sources)(As pointed out to me below, that isn't what was happening.) and the fact that, despite the large number of citations of reviews and what not, the "Characters and Plot" section is virtually unsourced. That, plus a number of awkwardly phrased sentences scattered through the article (it doesn't need to be heavily copyedited, but someone needs to go through it), leads me to object. --RobthTalk 16:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • So you think that the plot (and only the basic plot, not any interpretations or extrapolations) of a fictional work does need citations from secondary sources? Basically, some authorative source needs to state that what happens does indeed happen? -- grm_wnr Esc 16:29, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think I have addressed your concern about primary sources: all such citations were in fact to the notes and commentary in the North American editions. Although previously noted, this has been clarified. Moreover, plot/synopsis sections are unsourced in recent FAs such as V for Vendetta, Gremlins, Tenebrae, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith (the last promoted just last week).--Monocrat 18:16, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sources are not so much for authority as for easy verifiability. In recognition of the fact that our articles are openly editable, constantly changing, etc, we provide references to which readers can turn to check if what they are reading is accurate. And although plot summaries are a case where it's best not to be overly pedantic about it, a plot summary generally, and this one in particular does include statements that include making some degree of analysis and judgement of the work (identification of major themes and styles, analysis of relationships between characters, etc.). I have no reason to believe that the summary given is anything but accurate, but we provide sources so that readers don't have to give us the benefit of the doubt (and secondary sources, so that they don't have to watch 26 episodes to be sure). --RobthTalk 19:00, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I don't like this: Arrested Development's plot section contained far more analysis and nary a citation, and the citation in Cheers's is uneven at best and seemingly unrelated to this point. Standards change, I guess. I'm willing to address you concern, but I'm not sure what needs citation or how to cite them in a satisfactory manner, and I can tell you now it will be difficult to escape the primary sources. Perhaps we could discuss this on the article's talk page? --Monocrat 20:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fair enough. I don't want to try and drive an unreasonable increase in standards. I would appreciate, however, at least a few citations pointing to some place where a general summary of the series can be found; having never tried to write a pop culture FA, I don't really have a feel for how difficult finding citations for one is. I have to assume, though, that somebody, somewhere, has written up at least a basic description of some of the major plot devices as part of reviewing the thing. I'm by no means insisting that the middle section be sourced as thoroughly as the later sections, but a few broad citations for each major subsection, pointing to some source that proves that our description of the show is grounded in reality, would be a good thing. What I saw of the sources while checking citations suggests to me that most of the more analytic points in the plot and characters section are at least mentioned in some of the sources. --RobthTalk 21:25, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I've added a few citations as well as a note exemplifying a notable difference (currently footnote twelve; I can add more of those if desired, but I'm not keen on it), but I think I'm to the limit of secondary sources. What more I can get from them are ACROSS's objective of city conquest, Excel's devotion to Ilpalazzo, and Hyatt's illness. And citing these would be citing third-parties for Iago's duplicity in Othello. I don't think your desired citation exists: I won't speak to pop-culture in general, but there really is very little decent material written about Excle Saga (in English at least), and next to nothing about the manga, and I think I've collected most of it. Most of what I cite focuses only on episode reviews for a given disc, mostly discussing what the reviewer felt was wrong or right, with little heed to plot. The three overall reviews are little better. Any material pertaining to characters addresses exlusively Excel herself, Ilpalazzo, and maybe Hyatt and Menchi (e.g., "Kabapu" appears only three times in all the cited articles). It's very hard to condense the decentralized plot (for an idea of why, just take a look at the episode and volume descriptions in List of Excel Saga media).--Monocrat 22:11, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Hmm. The limited number of sources poses a problem, then, but I'd rather not see it derail an article with a number of strong points (an article about a work of pop fiction actually written from a thoroughly out-of-universe perspective? Who could believe it?!). I'm a big fan of footnotes at the end of paragraphs or sections saying "much information in this paragraph/section is drawn from source X". A few of those or of some similar form of citation scattered throughout the middle section should be enough to provide a reader with basic corroboration for the article's statements. --RobthTalk 02:39, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I've added a general note to the end of the first paragraph of "Characters and plot." It's not exactly a citation, but the link provides broad-stroke corroboration of the section.--Monocrat 03:24, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, it isn't perfect, but it at least gives a reader an idea of where to look for corroboration of our statements, so I'll withdraw my objection. --RobthTalk 16:19, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • "I don't want to try and drive an unreasonable increase in standards" - this is not an increase in standards - we require this on living and medical articles now. Pop culture ones should be no different. A general reference should probably suffice though. RN 21:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object—2a. There's some good in this article, but I'm uneasy about sentences such as:
"Excel Saga first began publication in Japan in the mid 1990s, serialized in Young King Ours, and as of June 2006 fifteen collected volumes have been published by Shonen Gahosha."

Why will our readers have to work hard to comprehend this? It's kind of long and contains rather too much information. Consider splitting this snake into two, or at least using a semicolon in the middle. "First began publication" jars with "have been published". Hypen required after "mid".

Can you go through and carefully weed out repetitions, e.g., "The anime, while maintaining the satire, is very much a gag-based and often self-referential comedy, often featuring ...". "Often" and "often"? And why not remove "very much"?

Then there are inefficient wordings, such as "censured the series as a whole for frequent references"—can you remove "as a whole" without damaging the meaning?

"Graphic"—unclear. Do you mean "obscene"? Violent? Our readers want accurate, useful, easy-to-read information.

"Additionally, the manga has been translated into English, French and Italian." Haven't you already been discussing the English-language version? Hate that word "Additionally".

It's savable, but a good copy-editor is required to spend an hour or two ironing it out so that we can be proud of the writing. No point in promoting this if it ends up in the FAR/FARC sausage machine in a few months' time. Tony 10:02, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Understanding that they are examples and that further work is needed: I think I've acted on these points. I have reworded the first to make it less snake-like; I didn't cut it because I think there's too little information for two sentences. The second "often" you note, I think, conveys some useful information, but I'll remove it if you want. "Censured the series as a whole" is meant to clearly distinguish that clause from the prior one, so I've kept it for now. I'm working on the rest of the copy, and have just given "Characters and plot" a going over.--Monocrat 14:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A second pair of eyes will do wonders, no matter how good a writer you are. Tony 11:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I will do this if I find the time - I'm a bit short at the moment, bur I'll try to give it a pass either later tonight or on the weekend. -- grm_wnr Esc 13:37, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I had a first go at it, straightening out some stylistic issues that caught my eye. What do you think? -- grm_wnr Esc 16:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, come on, sofixit. personally I'd prefer an original cover... --zippedmartin 13:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have no graphical skills, so I can't do anything about the artefacts. I don't like the white bars on either side of the cover on the Amazon photo, but I won't mind if somone else changes to it. Japanese covers are also available from Amazon, though I prefer the English ones in this context. Again, I won't revert.--Monocrat 21:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Done. -- grm_wnr Esc 23:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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