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V·T·E

The coverage of the article Shinto in popular culture is under discussion at talk:Shinto in popular culture -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 04:51, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

My recent endeavors

So, my recent endeavors have been focused on improving the Yuki Saito (actress) article. I've also created Sotsugyō (Yuki Saito song), Shiroi Honō, Hatsukoi (Yuki Saito song), Jōnetsu (Yuki Saito song), Kanashimi yo Konnichi wa, and Axia (album) (and template). I'm trying to source everything as well as possible, too, and any suggestions are welcome. Maybe this will inspire the jawp editors to source the equivalent jawp articles. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 05:09, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I upgraded the first two articles to B-class and C-class, respectively. Boneyard90 (talk) 12:57, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for reviewing them. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 02:57, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Sugawara no Takasue no musume

I posted this for RM, but not because I necessarily think it should be moved. As I'm sure everyone here is aware, no musume just means "daughter of", so what do people think about translating it? elvenscout742 (talk) 13:35, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I have no real opinion either way (though musume should probably be capitalized if left as is). But we should have a consistent naming policy... a quick search turned up Shunzei's Daughter and Kamo no Yasunori no musume. Also, do we know much about her life other than what comes from her memoir? If not, perhaps they should be merged (one way or the other). Cckerberos (talk) 22:33, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree that if the translation isn't adopted then we should capitalize. I don't know about having a policy though: it's such a rare concern that specifically including it in MOSJ seems ridiculous. Also, if we made it the policy to translate, then what's to stop "Murasaki, Daughter of the Master of Ceremonies" or "Sei, Wife of the Lesser Minister of the Interior"? (I'm pretty sure both of those are wrong anyway, but you get my point.) elvenscout742 (talk) 10:38, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
I guess that would be a point against translating them, then. Look, all I'm saying is that there are a number of "no Musume" articles out there and hoping for consistency in how they're handled doesn't seem unreasonable. Cckerberos (talk) 17:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
The nouns should all be capitalized, so it should be "...Musume". ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 03:00, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Kozukata

Hey what does everyone think about this page I started? I couldn't think of a good way to put the information in the Morioka, Iwate article, so I created a new one. The existence of Category:Former place names indicates that it at least has a right to exist, but I'm really not sure how to expand it. Apparently the historical boundaries of "Kozukata" were different from the present-day "Morioka", but ... anyone think of a reasonable way to merge it into the main article? Or think it should be kept? elvenscout742 (talk) 07:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Recreation and Amusement Association

Can somebody fact-check this edit? Sounds like somebody has a bit of an axe to grind. Jpatokal (talk) 21:55, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I have no intention of touching that article with anything less than an eleven-foot-pole, but the "literal translation" given should probably have a source. It is accurate, and the word for "comfort" (慰安, ian) is the same as that used to denote comfort women (慰安婦, ian-fu) used by the Imperial Japanese Army. But the translation that was already in the article at least looks like it had the same axe to grind as the above problematic edit. elvenscout742 (talk) 07:23, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
The "Okinawa" part is a violation of WP:SYNTH, as the sources cited are general discussion of US troops' poor behaviour during the war and (to a much lesser degree) the ongoing controversy about military bases in Okinawa. Neither of them mention the "Recreation and Amusement Association" or "comfort women" once, so they are invalid as sources to claim rape during the war was a contributing factor (!) to the Recreation and Amusement Association's founding, which is what the editor claims. I am removing them and requesting that a valid source be found. elvenscout742 (talk) 07:34, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Did the same for mention of rape on the European front being a contributing factor. I doubt the Japanese government in August 1945 were even aware of the numbers there, and I HIGHLY doubt the source (which I'll admit I haven't read) makes any more mention of the RAA or comfort women than the two Okinawa sources. elvenscout742 (talk) 07:47, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
The article says the RAA was founded on 28 Aug. That's the same day the first US troops landed in Japan. So there's no way that rapes of women in Kanagawa were a motivation for the RAA's founding. Cckerberos (talk) 09:12, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I took a look at the article Recreation and Amusement Association and saw some ridiculous OR & POV. Per WP:BOLD, I have removed mention of the "more literal" translation and mention of "comfort women" from the text. I provide my reasons on the Talk page. About the Okinawa mention; I have also heard the "10,000 victims" figure, but am inclined to agree that it would have had little to do with the formation of the RAA. I thought it was formed partly out of the civilians' crippling propaganda-driven fear of foreigners and the military officers' knowledge of what their own troops perpetrated in the countries they invaded. So shall we remove the Okinawa paragraph? Boneyard90 (talk) 13:19, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

That edit appears to have been taken from the history of the Rape during the occupation of Japan article (which is rather questionable in its own right), and includes a fair bit of WP:SYNTH. In regards to the 10,000 figure, I spent a grim afternoon in a library late last year following up the chain of references to this - as discussed at Talk:Battle of Okinawa#10,000 rapes in three months, the figure is the estimate of a historian who didn't want to put his name to it due to the lack of supporting evidence. As such, I removed this figure from the articles in which it appeared as it clearly isn't reliable. I've re-removed it from the RARA article, along with some obvious WP:SYNTH. Nick-D (talk) 07:39, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I removed the "1300+ rapes in Kanagawa in the first 10 days after occupation"; this was cited as "background" for the formation of the RAA. How does the rapes in the first 10 days after occupation began justify as "background" for an organization formed in the days leading up to the start of the Occupation? It might have been seen as a justification after the formation, but we don't have a source for that. Boneyard90 (talk) 08:09, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Agreed - while the source does contain that figure, from memory it doesn't argue that it lead to the establishment of the RAA. Nick-D (talk) 09:43, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Edit-only editor

As one can gather above, there is an on-going discussion at Talk:Recreation and Amusement Association. Consensus and reliability of sources is being hammered out, steadily and amicably. However, one editor, User:RoppongiHickey, continues to make sweeping changes, removing sourced info and replacing information considered irrelevant by consensus (like the Okinawa rape figure, discussed above). I have left a comment on the editor's talk page, requesting participation in the discussion and that the editor refrain from further major edits while the subject is being discussed. I'm requesting admin support, in case the edits continue or become more disruptive. Thank you. Boneyard90 (talk) 20:29, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Citation question

I couldn't find a noticeboard for this, but I figured I'd get an answer here pretty quickly. The article The Diary of Lady Murasaki currently uses a nice Harvard-ish style for its references. However, its bibliography contains two books written by Donald Keene and published in 1999. I own one of them, so I can check which is which quite easily, but at present all the inline citations of him (I'm counting 14) are at least superficially ambiguous. I know for a fact that the diary is not discussed on page numbers in the 40s in Seeds in the Heart (I'm pretty sure that's the Kojiki or the Man'yōshū), so most of them are obviously the other one, but still. Anyone know a good way of fixing this? elvenscout742 (talk) 06:28, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I'm understanding your question correctly, but when two works are published by the same author in the same year, you append lower case letters in order of publication date to the publication year to differentiate. So, in this case, Travelers of a Hundred Ages (published May 15) would be Keene (1999a) and Seeds in the Heart (published October 15) would be Keene (1999b). Cckerberos (talk) 11:42, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
You might be able to work out which one was which by going through the page history. Wikiblame can help you find the right revisions faster than you would be able to by hand. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 12:33, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Haven't checked, but I believe User:Truthkeeper88 is to "blame" for this great article including the references. bamse (talk) 23:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I suspected Truthkeeper's "guilt" on this issue from the start. Just like that editor to create a great article with proper references.
Seriously, though, it doesn't look like the page cites Seeds in the Heart even once. I'll look into that a bit later. elvenscout742 (talk) 03:56, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Dakimakura

There's an edit dispute at Dakimakura (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) about the use of the photo file:Dakimakura.jpg -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 08:18, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Women's History Month is in March

Hey guys, are we doing anything for WikiWomen's History Month next month? elvenscout742 (talk) 08:17, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Japanese American Veterans Association

You are invited to join the discussion at WP:RSN#Japanese American Veterans Association. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 07:28, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Jirō Shirasu

I just created an article about Jirō Shirasu. I think he should be famous enough for inclusion - for example he's in this list of 100 significant Japanese people in history ja:週刊日本の100人 But I'm sure the article I started could do with some improvement if anyone is interested. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rsm77 (talk • contribs) 01:23, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

1912 in the Republic of China

1912 in the Republic of China has been proposed to be renamed 1912 in Taiwan, as Taiwan was part of Japan in 1912, I thought I'd let you know; see talk:2011 in the Republic of China for the discussion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 22:49, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Daisaku Ikeda

Daisaku Ikeda heads a large Buddhist organization. The article on him is long, poor (in my opinion), getting longer, and hardly getting better. The participation of one or two more editors with taste and stamina would be most welcome. Or indeed half a dozen more editors. (I've kept an eye on the article myself for some time, but know little about Buddhism, etc, so am constrained.) ¶ This is a cross-post; a few seconds ago I added it to WikiProject Buddhism. -- Hoary (talk) 15:16, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Order of family name and given name for Noh and Kabuki actors

Some time ago, I started the article Hideo Kanze (a Noh actor). I saw on my watchlist the article had been moved to Kanze Hideo. I reverted it, and questioned the editor who had moved the page, as it seemed to be in contravention of the guideline at WP:JATITLE with states "For a modern figure—a person born after the beginning of the Meiji period (January 1, 1868 onward for our purposes)—always use the Western order of given name + family name in Latin script, and Japanese style family name+<space>+given name in Japanese script." The editor (who is Japanese by the way) replied that "Because these names are the names to affect traditional culture (Kabuki and Noh) in Japan, the one where a family name is before it is good." I am no expert on Japan by any means, so I'm hoping project members can give their thoughts on this... --Canley (talk) 03:49, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the other editor, but you're correct. The MOS doesn't include any exceptions that I can see. Cckerberos (talk) 04:23, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
If I recall correctly, MOSJ used to specifically highlight Edogawa Rampo as an exception to the "modern Japanese should have their name in western order" rule. I actually brought this up earlier and didn't get any response, but it seems counter-intuitive that we have to use western order for people even if they have never been referred to that way in English sources. Anyway, Ichikawa Raizō VIII is another obvious exception to the rule: with Kabuki and Noh actors (as far as I can tell -- drama is the one area of classical JLit about which I know almost nothing), their full names -- not just family names -- are often "inherited", and so changing the order for modern actors in the line hurts continuity with older actors of the same name. I am not entirely sure if this applies in the case of Mr. Kanze, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was. elvenscout742 (talk) 04:58, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't agree with the other eitor. As far as I know, the family name + given name format is only applied to the traditionally used stage names like Ichikawa Danjūrō for consistency. See also Ichikawa Danjūrō XII. Hideo Kanze was his real name and he didn't use a traditional stage name. So Hideo Kanze is the correct article name. Oda Mari (talk) 05:20, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for clearing that up. I now disagree with Shikai shaw as well (the article didn't make it clear if it was a traditional stage name -- although "Hideo" should have tipped me off). I don't think there is any logic to the "names are the names to affect traditional culture (Kabuki and Noh) in Japan" argument under the current MOS rules, although I would probably support a proposition to amend the MOS that way. (There appear to be almost as many reliable sources in English and other European languages that give his name as "Kanze Hideo"[1] as "Hideo Kanze"[2], and if one factored in Japanese-language reliable sources[3][4] there is no competition.) elvenscout742 (talk) 06:11, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the input, very helpful. I have reverted the page move on Hideo Kanze again, but the "stage name" guideline makes sense and I'm happy for the other pages moved by Shikai shaw to remain or to be moved back as family name first. --Canley (talk) 05:50, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Requested Article Class Reassessment

Konichiwa WikiProject Japan Members.

Could someone please get around to making a reassessment of the class of Sonic Colors? The Talk page states that the article requires a check against WikiProject Japan's B Class Criteria. Thank you. MIVP - (Can I Help?) (Maybe a bit of tea for thought?) 10:38, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Japanese-Jewish Common Ancestor Theory

I just came across this funny article that presents a remote fringe theory in the words of the theory's proponents, but never actually points out that no serious historian buys it. I really wanted to divide the article into sections (one for each quotation) and add the sentence "However, this view has not achieved mainstream accepts among scholars of either Jewish or Japanese history."

However, I don't actually have a source by a credible historian that even acknowledges this viewpoint, so I can't actually provide a source for that statement. Could someone with more expertise in this area take a look at it? Thanks!

elvenscout742 (talk) 07:22, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Have you only brought the knowledge of this article here? Because there may be more knowledgable historians at WP:JEW or people better at dealing with fringe theories at WP:FRINGE who can help.—Ryulong (琉竜) 07:32, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
I took this to WikiProject Israel (the other project that covers the article, although I don't know why) and WikiProject Jewish History (which seemed appropriate, but their forum isn't as lively as ours). Israel told me I'd probably be better asking at WikiProject Judaism. I'll probably go there now. elvenscout742 (talk) 07:50, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
I always liked this fringe theory. But I don't think you're going to have much luck finding something serious acknowledging the theory, since it's so obviously ridiculous. Someone with access to JSTOR might be able to get something from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20019954. It appears to include a mention of Marvin Tokayer, the rabbi who wrote the most popular book on this in Japan. Cckerberos (talk) 08:05, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Waka

The primarity of "Waka" is under discussion, see talk:Waka -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 11:45, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Help with new article

I threw together a quick stub for Kumamon (mascot) tonight, and I think it could be built up into a decent size as the Japanese version. I only stuck with English language sources as they are the most easily accessible, but I think with the plethora of sources on the Japanese Wikipedia we can flesh this one out fairly well.—Ryulong (琉竜) 12:18, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

File:Mitsushima POW Camp.png

File:Mitsushima POW Camp.png has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 04:27, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

how many people with a certain name or surname

Lads, I want to improve and add references to many articles about names and surnames in Japan. I need something: what's the website from the Japanese government where you can search how many people in Japan have a certain name? Thanks, Azylber (talk) 04:59, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

See [5] and [6]. The number on the second link is household、not individual. Sorry, but I do not know the governmental site/page with the information. Oda Mari (talk) 10:11, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! Azylber (talk) 10:12, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Article on Mark Schilling on JoshuSasori 's page

I don't visit this WikiProject page all that frequently, so was surprised to see that JoshuSasori had suddenly been blocked indefinitely. I noticed that he had put together the draft of a BLP article on Mark Schilling, and I'd be prepared to add the few necessary citations (references)/ISBNs if it's copied/moved to article space. Mark Schilling already is mentioned many times in Wikipedia articles, so an article on him would surely meet notability requirements. I'm not sure of the best way to go about this; I realize that I could simply copy the contents from JoshuSasori's page—but the article should be properly attributed/credited to JoshuSasori, since he started it. Does anybody have any suggestions—or pointers to guidelines—as to how best handle this situation? LittleBen (talk) 04:39, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I've moved the draft to your userspace at User:LittleBenW/Mark Schilling. When you think it's ready, you can just move it into the mainspace yourself. Simple. :) — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ♪ talk ♪ 07:12, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Finding sources in Japanese

This is something I've been wondering about for a while. Often when I have been looking to create articles about Japanese things, I have found it inordinately hard to find Japanese-language sources online. For example, today I noticed that we don't have an article on daigaku-imo, a traditional dessert that is common throughout Japan. (The Japanese article is at ja:大学芋.) I couldn't find any good English sources - only a few passing mentions - but that's not such a great surprise. I was more surprised that I couldn't find any good Japanese sources either. From a Google Books search all I found were cookbooks, a collection of answers from Yahoo Answers, and this source which I can probably use, but it only has a few sentences on the subject. I can't help thinking that there must be better sources out there. How do people go about looking for Japanese-language sources? Is there an easy way to do it online, or do you have to do an offline search to get the best results? — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ♪ talk ♪ 05:25, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

In Japanese, the web pages i use: http://ci.nii.ac.jp , http://jairo.nii.ac.jp and http://webcatplus.nii.ac.jp, their many related different databases, and amongst others again.
Except, relating to your specific need now, these databases are ones that i use more generally and for more scholarly subjects than traditional foods, eg. i often search Japanese farming, nature and nature philosophy subjects. In my experience Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and co.—USA based companies—are systemically lacking in some of the range of sources from countries having classical philosophies different from western (Indo-European languages family), even though they do of course have web interfaces in the languages of, company offices in, employees working in and anthropologists researching on, many countries of different cultural and philosophical traditions. Simply, in my years of experience, western–ideology systemically biased! Sometimes notably in the media, anthropologists get employed by Google, Microsoft (and Yahoo i guess?) for exactly this cultural understanding purpose, notably mostly motivated by marketing. So they know they have this systemic cultural bias problem, you and i notice that they haven't entirely 'solved' it yet!
Anyway you may still find some articles on 大学芋 (daigaku-imo) in these scholarly Japanese databases, though such scholarly papers may be tangential academic aspects of daigaku–imo, compared to the general knowledge information about traditional foods such as this one.
goo – the Japanese general public search engine may or may not be much different to western systemically biased ones—i don’t know its database data sources and web crawling technologies. ——--macropneuma 06:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, Goo is a major Japanese search engine, and Yahoo! Japan is another. You might also find resources in the Japanese section of DMOZ. The Honyaku E<>J translation list on Google Groups is a particularly good resource for specialized vocabulary: the mainly-professional E<>J translators there would surely be happy to share their resources (though people seeking free translation get short shift). You need to sign up here, ideally via a Google account, wait until your membership is approved, then post your question (they request people to add their name at the end of posts). LittleBen (talk) 07:08, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
So that's what that dish is called. I pretty much stick with off-line sources (though I do make some use of http://ci.nii.ac.jp). The problems I generally run into are either finding a wonderful site with tons and tons of utterly unsourced information (when dealing with historical topics) or finding only blogs discussing something because all the reliable media sites have already deleted all their articles (when dealing with current topics). For something like 大学芋, I think your best bet online would be to do a newspaper search, though you'll be limited to recent articles. I've never been in a public library in Japan, but my university had access to full databases for Yomiuri and Asahi. If there's a large public library near you, maybe they would have that? Cckerberos (talk) 07:49, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Not sure about that - I'd have to actually go there and find out, and it's a bit of a trek. Thanks for the tip though. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 09:06, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
LittleBen - when you're using Goo and Yahoo Japan, is there a good way to distinguish between reliable and non-reliable sources? Or do you have to just use your judgement for each source that pops up? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 09:06, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Relevance, authority, and trustworthiness are a life-or-death matter for search engines. If they let garbage rise to the top of their search results then they will alienate users, and the users will go elsewhere. So the algorithms that they use to rank items in the search results are a life-or-death matter. Comparing the results of the same search in different search engines is a useful sanity check. (I'm not sure, but Yahoo! Japan might bump you to an overseas site if you're searching from overseas. But surely you know to move Japanese to the top of the preferred languages list of your browser when you want to search in Japanese.)
  • Dictionary and Encyclopedia sites are generally reliable; one way of finding these is to add とは　after a term that you are searching for. "X とは ..." is used at the head of a description or definition: "X means ...".
  • Google Trends for Websites used to allow you to compare the overall authority and trustworthiness rankings of different websites directly, but this has disappeared—possibly Google has concluded that this information is too commercially valuable to give away.
  • If you are searching for a phrase that includes a very popular keyword, then you need to know how to separate the wheat from the chaff. I think WP:SET is a useful guide as to how to do this, but I'm biased because I wrote many of the examples ;-). Madonna vs Madonna of the Rocks is a very simple example. The example of the soccer player from Argentina in the Tutorial, under Specialized options is a much more complex example.
  • If you know a few reliable web sites, then you can search only in those sites—you can search several reliable sites at the same time, and Google or Yahoo! will sort the results for you: higher-ranked results will bubble up to the top. Templates modeled on Template:Google RS make it easy to do this. Other search engines generally support the same site: protocol, so this method is not restricted to use with Google. If you have your own web site, you can create a customized Google search engine to search only the sites that you specify. HTH (Hope This Helps). LittleBen (talk) 10:09, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Feedback on two drafts

Hello. for some months, I've been working on articles for the Japanese composers Kazuya Takase (ja:高瀬一矢) and Tomoyuki Nakazawa (ja:中沢伴行) over at my Sandbox. I'm currently thinking of publishing Kazuya's article, but I'm worried about the fact that much of the content there is unsourced, and reliable sources (even in Japanese) are hard to come by, and those that I have found are somehow affiliated with them. However, Takase has composed and/or arranged a number of notable, or charting songs, notably Tori no Uta. My main question here is this: are either of them notable? And in the case of Takase's draft, if I publish it, will it likely be deleted due to a lack of citations? Thanks. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 00:22, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

  • I'd agree that they seem to be little-known or unknown in English. The best strategy to avoid deletion of an article is to Wikilink to it from other articles in English Wikipedia, or provide adequate references. So you could check Japanese Wikipedia for articles that link to their articles. If the links are from more notable people, organizations, or events, etc. then you could see if they are on English Wikipedia: if not, start with them. LittleBen (talk) 09:39, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
If you have one good source -- it doesn't matter if it's in Japanese -- they won't get speedied at least. If you have a reasonable argument in favour of the articles' existence, then even if they get taken to AfD there's unlikely to be a consensus for deletion. I don't even work on articles in my user-space most of the time. Just put them in the main space, defend them if need be, and then either leave and come back later or continue. Other users are likely to be more of a help than a hindrance as long as the article is published. elvenscout742 (talk) 03:23, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Microsoft Windows/Multilingual support RfC

may be of interest. LittleBen (talk) 04:41, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Hino Tomiko

I just started an article for Hino Tomiko. She is in the list I mentioned before of 100 famous Japanese people in history ja:週刊日本の100人 but wasn't in English wiki yet. Like Hōjō Masako she's one of the few women to have played a significant role in medieval Japanese history, and so has gained a lot of interest since the 20th century. --Rsm77 (talk) 01:04, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Smile mask syndrome for a DYK?

I am not seeing enough English sources to finish expanding, but perhaps there'll be some Japanese ones. Needs only about 50 words or so, and would make for an interesting hook. The syndrome seems to be affecting hundreds of thousands in Japan, and was discovered by a Japanese psychiatrist. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:44, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I found the Japanese name, スマイル仮面症候群 (sumairu-gamen shōkōgun), and this definition on Goo (search engine), and also the original 2006 book on the subject by Makoto Natsume. I didn't find much in the way of reliable, independent sources, though. Apart from the Goo link above, all I found was publishing sites for the book and blogs mentioning the condition. It doesn't look like Natsume's theory has caught on in the academy, and with this level of coverage I'm thinking it might be best to merge it into an article like Depression (mood) or mood disorder.

I'm also not sure that we should trust the judgement of Leo Lewis (the writer of the Times piece) in conflating the "smile trainings" in workplaces with the condition identified by Natsume - Lewis is an Asia correspondent, not a psychologist as far as I know, and it sounds a lot like pop psychology to me. The syndrome described by Natsume is not a result of a "requirement" to smile at work, but of perceived social and societal pressure to smile all the time, even at home, with friends, etc. Japanese male-dominated culture is such that men almost never feel pressure to smile all the time in this way (the Goo definition mentions this); it is much more of an issue for women than it is for men. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ♪ talk ♪ 06:32, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Yui

The usage of Yui is up for discussion, see talk:Yui (singer) -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 23:02, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

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