Bulbapedia talk:Project Manga

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Italicised manga titles

I actually brought this up recently on Project Games' talk page, but I'd like to bring it up here too because it applies to the manga as well. In a formal context (which Bulbapedia is), titles should be italicised, so they should look like The Electric Tale of Pikachu and Pokémon Adventures instead of The Electric Tale of Pikachu and Pokémon Adventures respectively. Bulbapedia is so inconsistent with italicisng media titles (all anime titles are italicsed, as well as links to movies, tv shows, and books that are mentioned in trivia sections of various pages, but our games and manga-related titles aren't) and I'm trying to bring out consistency across the wiki. —★レシイラム^talk 07:07, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Pokémon Adventures Moves, Items and Places

I was browsing through the website the other day, and thought to myself "I should start adding all the Items, Places and Pokémon Moves present in each of the chapters.

I did, but then it got removed (which I totally understand why).

So here I am, officially asking:

Does anyone approves the idea of adding these things to the manga chapters? MannedTooth (talk) 08:07, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I think moves might be neat. Places too, but arguably that's already taken care of in the infobox in the top-right of the page.

Items...just seems pretty trivial to me. But IDK, maybe it could be alright too. Tiddlywinks (talk) 08:14, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Here's my personnal point of view on every type of content (please don't take my word too seriously, I am very unexperimented here):

• Moves:

They are most of the time specified when a trainer ask his Pokémon to do so. Sometimes, when a wild Pokémon is fighting, no moves are announced.

For example: in Pokémon Adventures Volume 1 Chapter 1 (PS001), a wild Mew attacks and damages Red's Poliwhirl. I had to go through all of Mew's moves, I,ve come to the conclusion that only Psychic could be the one since it's the only Gen 1 (Red's time) that deals damage. Is it too far-fetched in assumption? If yes, what should we do? Mention that it's most-lileky an electric move due to the sparks or not mention anything? After all, the Pokémon did attack.

• Items:

They are in fact trivial, but picture this, you are looking at a random chapter, in this very same chapter you see that a Master Ball was used (or shown). This can be a major information. (just my opinion)

Maybe it would be better to mention the chapter in the item's pages maybe? I don't know.

• Places:

The main place of the chapter is written in the infobox, that's true, but there's often more that only one place. Pokémon Adventures Volume 1 Chapter 1 (PS001) takes place in Pallet Town, but also in the forest around it, which is cannonly mentionned in the manga itself.

Anyway, these were my thoughts on the subject. Let me know what you guys think. :) MannedTooth (talk) 08:32, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Adventures' character ages.

I think we should add ages from past chapters, like we show ages from past games.

For example, Red's page would show:

11 (as of the first chapter)
13 (as of the second chapter)
14 (as of the third chapter)
16 (as of the fifth and the sixth chapter)
20 (as of the thirteenth chapter)

Ultra Ray (talk) 11:19, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Pokémon Adventures overhaul proposal

Problem: The way we refer to many aspects of the Pokémon Adventures manga does not line up with the way the manga refers to itself, and other aspects of our coverage are lacking.

We've been discussing the issue in #project-manga in the Bulbapedia Discord for a while now, and I think we've generally come to agreement on these changes. For the purposes of documentation and expanding the discussion to users that may be wiki only, here's a list of all the ideas we've discussed.

Proposed ideas:

1. Changing all references of "round" to "adventure"

I'm not sure where the term "round" comes from, but it doesn't seem to be official, and the official English translation from VIZ doesn't use it at all. There's currently 60 full volumes released in English, and the table of contents exclusively refers to all "rounds" as "adventures". Up until Volume 23, the actual chapter cover refers to "rounds" as "chapters", but starting with PS268, the chapter covers also switch to using "adventure" exclusively.

2. Modifying the way we refer to chapters

Right now, we refer to chapters (story arcs) in the format "Red, Green & Blue chapter" or "Yellow chapter", but again, the actual manga doesn't refer to itself this way. The actual manga uses the chapter numbering scheme alongside each chapter name, so I propose we change these pages to the format of The First Chapter: Red, Green & Blue, The Second Chapter: Yellow, etc.

3. Adding a navigation template to the page for each adventure, and removing the navigation elements from the infobox

Right now, our links to the previous/next "round" are in the infobox, I propose we should add a navigation template to each page to help keep consistency with other types of pages that use navigation templates, like episodes of the anime. I already have this drafted up in User:Minibug/Template:AdventurePrevNext.

4. Standardizing head images to use the entire chapter cover page when applicable, and the page immediately after the chapter cover otherwise

Right now, we have essentially no consistent choice of head image for "round" articles. Sometimes it appears to be the panel on the chapter cover that contains the "round" name, but most of the time it seems to be a panel chosen at random. I think we should standardize this as follows:

1. Take the entire chapter cover page, and white out the dialogue, and use that as the head image. After removing the navigation elements from the infobox, the infobox actually stays just about the same size vertically, even when using an entire page as the head image.
2. Some volumes have chapter covers that use the same image over and over as a template, only changing the "round" name and number. To avoid uploading dozens of copies of functionally the same image, in this case we should use the first page directly after the chapter cover as the head image, again whiting out dialogue bubbles.

Minibug (talk) 18:46, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

This is a fantastic summary of the proposal! Thanks for putting in that work. In general, I think it's always a good practice to follow the source material (as that's kinda the whole premise behind what we do). That being said, I was wondering about a few things.

For #1, do you happen to know if/when adventure is used as a proper noun vs common noun? I remember a lot of the shared images said "Adventure" but your messaging here is all lowercase, so I was just curious about working that out before any changes were made.

Number 2 is appropriate based on what I've seen.

Number 3 seems like a good idea to bring cohesiveness to the rest of the wiki for the section.

For #4, I don't personally have a preference either way. ^Maverick_Nate 00:48, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

From what I've seen, the table of contents for each volume, and also sometimes the chapter cover, is the only place "Adventure" is used in this context. It's capitalized as "Adventure" there, but I've been treating it as a common noun in the same way we use "episode" to describe episodes of the anime, and not "Episode". Minibug (talk) 01:33, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

So while most VIZ-licensed manga do refer to their sub-volume divisions as "chapters" (EToP, MPJ, DPA, GRT, the movie adaptations [Volcanion/ICY/Zeraora], Journeys), Pokémon Horizon used the format "Event 01" and Pokémon Ranger the Comic: Double Mission used "Episode One". Checking some of the manga VIZ hasn't licensed, Pokémon Gotta Catch 'Em All used the format ゲット１ (Get 1), Pocket Monsters Platinum: Aim to Be Battle King!! used the format "BATTLE.1", Pokémon - The Legend of the Dragon King used the format 第１局 (Game 1 [of shōgi]), and Pocket Monsters BW: Good Partners used the format "EPISODE 01". So for consistency, if we're going to refer to the ones from Adventures as "adventures" based on the table of contents usage, I think we should also refer to the ones from these series as "events", "episodes", "gets", "battles", "games [of shōgi]", and "episodes", respectively. --Abcboy (talk) 06:16, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Sure, I think it's a good idea to be consistent about it. Considering there's so many, it might be a good idea to have some kind of dedicated terminology page for all these different chapter-equivalent terms, so "fifth battle of [...]" and "ninth event of [...]" all link to a subheading/table on a dedicated article. Maverick Nate also thought it would be worthwhile to document the history of these terms (like when chapter covers switched from "Chapter" to "Adventure") and we could have that on a page like this too. Minibug (talk) 13:03, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Something like "in the previous battle" (or event) seems far too ambiguous IMO. To be honest, I was already leaning towards preferring "chapter" when it was just "adventure"—the examples from other series just reinforce that for me.

There are a few options I can see.

• Just call everything chapters. Maybe "Adventure" and "Get" and everything is just part of the chapter title.
• Do everything we can to never refer to "chapters" in the abstract. Avoid "fifth chapter", "previous chapter", etc; instead: "Chapter 1 - Title Here" or "Get 1 - Some Title" or whatever. Never is perhaps a strong word, there probably are places where it will be required—but if we try to take this tack, at least we can narrow down the places where "chapter" or "battle"/etc may present its own problems.
• Call chapters "Adventures", "Gets", "Battles", etc, mimicking their manga...but treat them as proper nouns so that the particularly confusing ones plainly stand out as something "special" and are perhaps less ambiguous. I honestly don't think this is a "great" option itself, because I think throwing in all this jargon will mostly make reading pages confusing for readers. If I read "in the first Get", my immediate question would probably be "what in the world is a Get". Even if I read "in the first Battle", I think I'd just be going, "...why is that capitalized?" And sure, maybe there are ways to address this (sorta), like maybe linking the word. But that doesn't exactly make it not confusing—I'd rather have it not confusing from the start, personally. Overall, I feel like it'd be more readable to just use "chapter".
• Call chapters "adventures", "gets", "battles", etc, mimicking their manga. As I said at the start: I do not think this is a good option, primarily because of the ones like "battle" and "event" (and even "adventure" and "game").

Tiddlywinks (talk) 19:45, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Your first option that you listed here is the only one I don't like at all, calling them chapters in series outside of Pokémon Adventures could work, but I think the fact that the Adventures manga also prominently uses the word "chapter" to refer to story arcs would make this term ambiguous as well. Unless we also want to replace the term "chapter" with "story arc" or similar, but I'm coming at this from the perspective of trying to stick as to the source material as close as possible, because I think we should use the terms that the average reader is going to be exposed to.

My issue with the second option is that it can end up with tortured phrasing that makes it obvious we're dancing around referring to them as chapter/chapter-equivalents, if I were to see something like "In Adventure 2 - Title Here, [...]" and I'm on the page for Adventure 3, I'd wonder why it was written that way instead of just writing "In the previous Adventure". I guess I consider "title drop" links like that to be reserved for things separated from the current chapter/episode by more than just one increment.

As for your third option, I think that the more I consider the idea of using them as proper nouns the more I like it. For what it's worth, there's a lot of times on Bulbapedia or other wikis I have a "what in the world is a whatever" moment, but as soon as I click the link to whatever and read about what it is/what it means, the confusion is gone and I have an understanding of the proper terminology now. It was confusing, but only on my first encounter, and only for a brief moment, and I don't think there's anything wrong with users having an experience like that. Minibug (talk) 21:11, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

IMO, "chapter" and "round" are perfectly good terms as they are. Could be the part of me that hates changing long-established things talking, but that's how I feel. --FinnishPokéFan92 (talk) 21:17, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot, I meant to repost the little "history" bit I found about rounds. User talk:Empoleon Bonaparte: Chapter is the word used in the Japanese tankōbon. Round is traditional terminology from the days when every title was VS. something. Perhaps "round" came into being when people realized "Chapter" was the arc term and they just made something else up. (But at any rate, I think this clarifies that it's unofficial.)

As for the "why not just say previous" sentiment, maybe that could be a case to mix them: "in the previous chapter, Adventure 02". This would make it clear both ways. (And no, I'm not "just" referring to chapters. I kinda only talked about them because it's simpler, but the same thing would pretty much apply to the arcs as to the chapters.)

On the one hand, yes, these are terms readers of the manga will be exposed to. But 1) chapter is also a term whose most common meaning is not "an arc"; using it like that is always going to have a large potential for confusion anyway. And 2) these pages are not just for the "average (manga) reader"; readers who've never touched the manga probably form a large chunk of the audience too (you know there's tons of media you look up that you've only heard of, that's just the internet).

If we can reasonably just treat Adventure, Battle, etc as part of the title, then I don't see why we need to make awkward pages like "List of battles in Pocket Monsters Platinum: Aim to Be Battle King!!". Unless it's really clear that, like, they're saying things like "Have you read all the battles?" and using it in place of "chapter", I don't think forcing ourselves to use the jargon is the smart choice. Tiddlywinks (talk) 23:52, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I think you've mostly won me over. I think what did it for me is realizing that they way we cover Pokémon Origins is basically a perfect parallel to this, like how PO01 is titled File 1: Red but we still call them "episodes" and not "Files"/"files". I would support the idea of titling chapters in the vein of "Adventure 200 - Whatever" but I should note that starting with the Diamond and Pearl story arc and continuing with every subsequent story arc, the "Adventure" numbering system resets, so Adventure 337 - Epilogue is directly followed by Adventure 1 - Stagestruck Starly, and that, to me at least, presents a problem.

I'm also a bit unclear on what your idea is for dealing with the "chapter" name for story arcs is, if you could expand on that. At the moment, I'm thinking of something like "The First Chapter: Red, Green & Blue is the first story arc [...]" would be a good approach. Minibug (talk) 14:58, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

VIZ refers to the arcs as the Ruby & Sapphire arc, FireRed & LeafGreen arc, Black 2 & White 2 arc, X•Y arc ("XY arc" on the back cover); so an easy solution might just be to swap out "chapter" with "arc" directly.

In terms of the chapter titles, I'll note that the chapter title pages don't include the full "Adventure 1" language until Platinum, so I'm not sure if we really need to consider it as part of the chapter title proper. In Japanese, even the recent ORAS volumes just use #610 on the chapter title page even though they use 第610話 in the table of contents. --Abcboy (talk) 19:25, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

One last thing I wanted to bring up, I'm on board with chapter → arc and round → chapter, but I think we should still note the "Adventure" and "Chapter" language somewhere on the page(s). I don't know if the infobox would be a good idea? Having the "chapter number #whatever" field and then below it having an "also known as/other names" field for the Adventure terminology. Minibug (talk) 11:30, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

(Stealing a few minutes for some quick answers/comments, lemme know if you have any more questions...)

This "The First Chapter: Red, Green & Blue is the first story arc [...]" is a great intro for the arc pages.

Noting the page Chapter (Adventures), I think maybe that could be List of arcs or something?

Re: I think we should still note the "Adventure" and "Chapter" language somewhere on the page(s). I don't know if the infobox would be a good idea? For chapter/arc pages, I think we could modify the infobox to include Adventure 01 and the full arc name (respectively). Tiddlywinks (talk) 13:50, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I have no more questions, and I'm happy with the discussion we've had here the past few days. I will get back to documenting pages affected by these changes, and, when I'm done with that, I'd like to start actually implementing everything we've discussed here, unless anyone else has any objections. Minibug (talk) 16:46, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

(resetting indent)I don't have a problem with chapter → story arc and round → chapter (a handful of the author/illustrator notes refer to chapters as story arcs), but I'd like to go back to the question of head images. Whiting out all the text on the page might be a problem for the early story arcs where the name of the chapter is written on top of the images, so erasing it would require redrawing part of the image. How do you plan to handle that?

Another thing to note is that some chapters have a special image that's used as the cover image for the magazine release, but these images go unused in the full volumes. I think we should try to use those for the head image where possible. VIZ often includes a clean version of the artwork at the end of full volumes, so they shouldn't be too hard to obtain.

I think it's also a good idea to make a draft of what a round/chapter and a chapter/story arc page would look like after all these changes, just so we can make sure we're all on the same page. Storm Aurora (talk) 13:16, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

When I mentioned whiting out the text on the page for the head images, I just meant the text in dialogue bubbles, not including the chapter titles, I'd actually explicitly want to keep those because it's the main signifier that the image we're using is in fact the chapter cover.

I can definitely draft up a version of the chapter/story arc pages. When I have those done, I'll reply back here with a link. Minibug (talk) 13:57, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Italics for manga titles, quotation marks for manga issues

I see there's a manga overhaul proposal in the discussion above. While we are doing this, let's please also consider using italics for manga titles and quotation marks for manga issues.

For instance:

• Red is a main character in Pokémon Adventures.
• In the Pokémon Adventures manga, Daisy debuted in "Extricated from Exeggutor".

It seems that at least we are already consistently using italics for manga arcs like this:

• Yellow chapter
• Platinum chapter

--Daniel Carrero (talk) 09:54, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Do you happen to have any Adventures print sources to support Pokémon doing that in real life? I know that we avoid doing that for other topics because the brand doesn't follow that standard. ^Maverick_Nate 11:54, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Okay. Looks like those kinds of formatting are used in the notes from the writer and the artist.

Examples from the volume 23:

• Manga title in italics:

  The Fifth Chapter of Pokémon Adventures starts in this volume.

• Issue title in quotation marks:

  Adventure 268, "The Escape," (included in this volume) is an episode we created for a grade school magazine.

I think it's interesting that actually the arc titles don't seem to use italics in running text, as seen in the Fifth Chapter mentioned above. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 20:40, 9 August 2023 (UTC)