Talk:Ghost in the Shell

Kōkaku Kidōtai

I would like to iterate to everyone that the original publishing title of the franchise has always been Kōkaku Kidōtai, Kokaku Kidotai or 攻殻機動隊 (written in Japanese above the subtitle). The Ghost in the Shell was indeed the subtitle of the first one volume plot in the manga, as well as any Western localizations of series installments, but that does not excuse retconning history and leaving out the original title. I would like User:Ryulong to provide any reasons to the contrary here. --BrettMosco (talk) 23:05, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

We do not need to provide that indepth of an explanation of the original title on this page. This page is meant to only have summary style descriptions, which means we do not need to have "Kōkaku Kidōtai" and "Ghost in the Shell" for all of these items. In addition, this is the English Wikipedia so the official English translation gets prominence over the Hepburn romanization when we do not need to include both. There is no "retconning history" or "leaving out the original title". The original title is at the top of the page. We describe the fact that Shirow always wanted it to be "Ghost in the Shell" but acquiesced to his publisher's desire for "Kōkaku Kidōtai". SO to sum things up, we do not need to be excruciatingly detailed on this general page and the common English name prevails over pedantry over the actual name in Japan.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:09, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Let me clarify this again BrettMosco, omitting repetitions of the Hepburn romanization of 攻殻機動隊 in one section on this article is not considered "retconning" or "rewriting history" or whatever you want to call it. It is entirely unnecessary to go "Kōkaku Kidōtai: The Ghost in the Shell (known as Ghost in the Shell in English)" for every single version of the manga that was not explicitly called "Ghost in the Shell" in Japan. Stop restoring your contested content per WP:BRD. Until you have a consensus here, then the status quo is kept.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 01:24, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

@BrettMosco: I've responded to you here. You are not following the basic etiquette and protocols of WP:BRD. When your change to the article is reverted you do not keep restoring your change because you think it's right. Your edit was contested by me and now it is up to you to convince me otherwise because when this happens status quo prevails over your proposal. There is no reason to have "Kokaku Kidotai" preface every single title of the manga on this article. This is only a basic English language version summary. It is not supposed to house an indepth discussion on the different titles in Japan and abroad.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 07:07, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Brett is correct. The original title as released was Ghost in the Shell. The over zealousness of the Chinese commenter is unnecessary and incorrect. Anyway a more important note is the supposed literal translation of the title is inaccurate. 　攻殻 xould in no context ever mean "mobile" and "armored" is a bit of a stretch as we would use that to mean shell. Literally: SHELL. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.3.105.57 (talk) 15:13, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

First sentence

I think the title translation/formatting in the first sentence could use some work. Currently it reads

Ghost in the Shell, known in Japan as Mobile Armored Riot Police (Japanese: 攻殻機動隊, Hepburn: Kōkaku Kidōtai)

however, this is not usually how Wikipedia deals with animes that have different titles in the original and in the English translation. For example, see these articles:

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Japanese: 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン, Hepburn: Shinseiki Evangerion, lit. "New Century Gospel")

Attack on Titan (Japanese: 進撃の巨人, Hepburn: Shingeki no Kyojin, lit. "The Attack Titan")

Fullmetal Alchemist (Japanese: 鋼の錬金術師, Hepburn: Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, lit. "Alchemist of Steel")

Erased, known in Japan as Boku dake ga Inai Machi (僕だけがいない街, lit. The Town Where Only I Am Missing)

Umineko: When They Cry (うみねこのなく頃に, Umineko no Naku Koro ni, lit. When the Seagulls Cry)

Based on this, I would either put bold on the English title only, or bold the Hepburn transliteration, but I would not bold the literal translation. I believe the phrase "Mobile Armored Riot Police" is invented by some Wikipedia editor, so it seems excessive to give it so much weight.

Second, as other people noted above, I think the translation "Mobile Armored Riot Police" is a bit dubious. The phrase kōkaku is an invented word in this anime, literally it means something like "attack shell" or "offensive shell". (When googling, I came across a blogpost by someone saying that based on the title they would have expected the anime to feature mechas shaped like sea-shells.) The Japanese article gloss it as "9課は、思考戦車という“殻”を着て戦う“攻性”の組織であることから“攻殻機動隊”とも呼ばれている"---"because Section 9 is an 'offensive' organization, which fights wearing think-tank 'shells', it is also known as kōkaku kidōtai", and cite some official pamphlet. So maybe we can be a bit more literal about it.

(In addition, I wonder if it's problematic to translate kidōtai as 'riot police', since Section 9 doesn't seem like what we would call riot police in English---they seem more like a combination of a SWAT unit and an investigation unit. Maybe the Japanese word doesn't completely overlap with the English one.　Kidōtai literally means "mobile unit", and while this word mainly seems used in the riot police force, elsewhere in the Japanese police system there are also 'mobile investigation units' Kidō sōsatai, and 'traffic mobile units' kōtsū kidōtai. The word 'mobile' means that these units are not responsible for a particular geographical area but can be put to use where they are needed, I guess simlar to the French Mobile Gendarmerie.)

Anyway, unless anyone has any better idea, I propose changing the intro to say

Ghost in the Shell, known in Japan as Kōkaku Kidōtai (Japanese: 攻殻機動隊, lit. Attack Shell Riot Police)

Vilhelm.s (talk) 18:59, 13 March 2020 (UTC)