[APPROVED] "Belmondo" to "Belmont"

@rowaasr13: > We've had this discussion before whether we...

2020-04-09T23:14:15-04:00

We've had this discussion before whether we should use Castlevania or Akumajou Dracula and it was decided to use Castlevania. Using the Japanese spelling for the characters was inconsistent given that we intentionally use the localized English names for the copyright tags.

I can hardly argue with site's owner, but you already have at least one example of such inconsistency and pretty big one at that: it's Pokemon once again.

Most games in the series spell out full "Pocket Monster" in its name and all official promotion materials in Japan, but English market overwhelmingly uses abbreviation "Pokemon". So you already do intentionally use the localized English names for those copyrights and still use original Japaneses name for trainer characters. I don't really see many people complaining about that and I don't even see this inconsistency as problem at all.

Remembering that, once again, ralph_c_belmondo tag was alive for more than a decade I don't think it really bothered anyone either until a month ago.

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If you want to make an alias request for Belmondo -> Belmont then I'll approve it. If there's some difference between new/old Trevor and they shouldn't have the same tag then we can talk about how to split the tag up. I'm not familiar with this character so you're going to have to explain what the difference is.

Good. I'll put up the request.

Relations from original story are common knowledge by now, so I won't hide them:

Dracula
His human wife: Risa / Lisa - killed by humans, and that's why D doesn't like humanity much
Their son: Alucard - that's an alias, real name Adrian Tepes, his another alias arikado_genya implicates alucard_(castlevania) on danbooru.

On Vampire Killer side:
Vampire Killer of 15th century: Ralph (ラルフ/Rarufu) C. Belmondo / Trevor Belmont
His wife: Sypha Belnades
Distant relative: Simon Belmondo / Simon Belmont - Vampire Killer of last half of 17th century, great-grandson of Christopher Belmondo who is great-grandson of Ralph above

Ralph works with Alucard to defeat Dracula. Simon only meets Alucard briefly once (or twice if you count not-sure-if-canon game).

In LoS (not hidden because this is info from promo/prologues):
Vampire Killer of 11th century: Trevor (トレバー/Torebaa) Belmont (without C. and actually "Trevor" in Japanese release)
Still his wife: Sypha Belnades (married into Belmont)
Suddenly their direct son: Simon Belmont
Now for Dracula's family and it goes behind the spoilers as it is heavy part of story post LoS1:
Dracula: is actually Gabriel Belmont, protagonist of LoS1, he assumed this alias after he became a vampire in post game DLC
His wife: Marie Belmont - killed by Gabriel himself though he was controlled and doesn't know that until much later
Their son: Alucard - that's an alias, real name - our new Trevor Belmont of LoS again - he's son of Gabriel and Marie, arikado_genya doesn't apply to him at all

Trevor(LoS) can't work with Alucard(LoS) because he is Alucard himself. Simon now works with Alucard, his own father, instead. Gabriel/Dracula is now first Belmont and Simon is his direct grandson, instead of being distant relative of Leon Belmondo.

As you can among those six loosely matching characters, 2 characters are actually merged into other 2 in LoS and then everything is heavily shuffled. This, obviously, invalidates pretty much any possible tag aliases or implications that would exist on original characters. Only Sypha is remotely the same, but any family tags except wife+husband for Trevor would be invalid either for LoS or classic incarnation if you keep them as single entry. Dracula(LoS) now implies Gabriel, when original doesn't. Alucard(LoS) is not implied by Arikado and subsequently Trevor(LoS) is not implied by Arikado either. Any family tags on all listed characters won't match between classic and LoS except that wife+husband again. Alucard(LoS) implies new Trevor(LoS) but NOT old Ralph/Trevor(Classic). Alucard(Classic) and Ralp/Trevor(Classic) on same image will increase sex count, but Alucard(LoS) and Trevor(LoS) will need alternate_persona instead and will carry implication anyway. None of LoS characters have any relation to Dracula(Original) and Risa/Lisa.

Those six characters above are most spoilerific and differ most between classic/LoS as of now, but since the rest of the story are heavily tied to them I'm pretty sure every future LoS character that shares name with classic will be different too because of relations to those and should be tagged separately from the start. So far it is really only recurring bosses whose names and lore come outside of Castlevania. Fan wikis use separate pages for classic/LoS characters too since not only entire stat/relation/summary box would be different between them, you'd simply have to list two different stories/timelines/hell, everything for each incarnation.

@evazion: If you want to make an alias request for...

2020-04-09T20:29:52-04:00

If you want to make an alias request for Belmondo -> Belmont then I'll approve it. If there's some difference between new/old Trevor and they shouldn't have the same tag then we can talk about how to split the tag up. I'm not familiar with this character so you're going to have to explain what the difference is.

@rowaasr13: At very least they should be aliases. And what...

2020-04-09T20:19:36-04:00

At very least they should be aliases.

And what about Ralph/Trevor being different characters, not simply same character rebooted? Check out spoiler in my post. Trevor's new "alias" is a pretty huge difference from "original Trevor"/Ralph.

@evazion: We're sticking with Belmont. Sorry. We've had...

2020-04-09T20:14:11-04:00

We're sticking with Belmont. Sorry.

We've had this discussion before whether we should use Castlevania or Akumajou Dracula and it was decided to use Castlevania. Using the Japanese spelling for the characters was inconsistent given that we intentionally use the localized English names for the copyright tags. And no, this isn't an invitation to switch the copyright tags to Japanese too, that has been proposed before and shot down because it quickly leads to people suggesting things like Zelda no Densetsu or Dairantou Smash Brothers and it gets stupid fast.

Even putting this aside, it's not unusual for us to ignore official romanizations if we think they're Engrish or just wrong. See アルトリア・ペンドラゴン -> Artoria Pendragon not Altria Pendragon for one prominent example. It's very common for Japanese creators to come up with some vaguely Western-sounding name, transliterate it to katakana in some weird or ambiguous way, then transliterate it back out to English so that you end up with Engrish.

@マローダー: I'm done with this.

2020-04-09T20:02:25-04:00

I'm done with this.

@rowaasr13: > You purposely missed my point in order to...

2020-04-09T20:00:03-04:00

You purposely missed my point in order to latch on to a technicality. Barging into the forums with your rudely passive-aggressive attitude whilst sparing no opportunity to give the impression that you think everyone you're talking to is an idiot

I've noticed that people fall back to "I'm offended!" when they're simply wrong way too fast nowadays. Please stop. This change is objectively wrong. If you have factual arguments, bring in links and facts, not your feelings. That's what I did.

Did you somehow miss when you yourself quoted the help wiki page?

If an alternate name, such as a nickname or a name from the English version, is widely used, you may "request an alias"/tag_alias_request/new from that to the original language title.

Of course I didn't. It says "use original, make widely used English name an alias to it". That's exactly what I want.

@rowaasr13: > And how is that an excuse to write a name in...

2020-04-09T19:46:24-04:00

And how is that an excuse to write a name in romaji when it's obviously intended as a foreign name in reading, pronunciation and writing?

Are you saying that "Belmondo" is not foreign or what? JFYI it is French family name. The only reason and not an "excuse" here is "that's what official Japanese materials use". Forget about kana already. They write "Belmondo" in Latin. I've posted scans and video (twice) above already.

Edit PS: I've never seen someone use "Belmondo" let alone argue over the use of "Belmont" instead. I don't think anyone half-serious cares enough about it either.

That's because you're either know only about your own market or don't care about series. But why are you discussing it then? Danbooru used it for more than a decade and only changed it month ago when some equally English-locked guy filled a BUR to change it. Check richter_belmont tag history. You've never seen it, you say? That means you've simply never looked at any series art here which fits "don't care" description.

I care for distinguishing Ralph (ラルフ) C. Belmondo from original and Trevor (トレバー) Belmont from LoS. This rename squashed two different characters together. They're both now "Trevor C." now which is wrong for both, since one is "Ralph C." and other is just "Trevor" without "C". If you don't, then again, what do you have against it?

I care for distinguishing original Alucard and Alucard from LoS. Because original Alucard is Adrian Tepes and LoS Alucard is the very same fucking new Trevor (トレバー) who is now merged into Ralph (ラルフ)/old Trevor.

Why people who don't care come in and break stuff with their renames and then other people who don't care come in and defend it?

@AngryZapdos: > rowaasr13 said: > > If you refer to caps,...

2020-04-09T19:46:10-04:00

rowaasr13 said:

If you refer to caps, then they're simpler way to empathize words than remembering tags of each particular forum. I'm not sure where you found any yelling otherwise.

You purposely missed my point in order to latch on to a technicality. Barging into the forums with your rudely passive-aggressive attitude whilst sparing no opportunity to give the impression that you think everyone you're talking to is an idiot is a surefire way to draw the ire of your fellow users, who will very quickly become disinterested in pursuing any sort of dialogue with you. There is more than one way to be loud on the internet.

rowaasr13 said:

And since we have do have rule for using Japanese names, can we please just follow them?

...

Why have rules if we not follow them? If we won't follow them - then just nuke them altogether.

...

Yet there's single official romanization in Japanese market. And that's what should be used instead of English-market localization name, as rules explicitly say.

Did you somehow miss when you yourself quoted the help wiki page?

Character tags should be the same name and name order that are used in the original source material. For example, Kiyama Hiroto, not "Hiroto Kiyama" or "Xavier Foster". If an alternate name, such as a nickname or a name from the English version, is widely used, you may "request an alias"/tag_alias_request/new from that to the original language title.

With that cleared up, I don't really see a need for any more discussion.

@rowaasr13: > Are you copypasting from wikipedia now?Is...

2020-04-09T19:19:50-04:00

Are you copypasting from wikipedia now?

Is that a bad thing? I don't have time to invent original explanation just for you for every term you don't know so I simply copy/paste ready made one from wikipedia after checking it is a good one. If you don't want me to do that, please study them yourself in advance or refrain from using terms you don't know altogether. You throw in random completely inapplicable term - you get explanation why it is random and inapplicable.

It's a made-up english sounding name, it doesn't follow normal rules for kanji constructs.

Please stop. "Kanji" is just another term that have nothing to do with current discussion.

For all we know what the original guy who came up with it meant is "Belmondth".

"All we know" about correct spelling of this name with Latin letters is sum of materials released in Japanese market that use Latin letters. And those "all we know" materials consistently use "Belmondo". Trailers, in-game profiles, artbooks, Japanese wiki for all titles that are part of original series - all of it. Using "belmondo" is consistent with Internet. It is only "inconsistent" with English-language market, which rules explicitly name as secondary and only to be used if original source is grossly inconsistent. And it isn't.

There's infinite equally valid translations of the katakana into romaji. What we follow instead of delving into that nonsense is the primary localization of the name, because it's common sense and because it makes it consistent with the rest of the internet.

Yet there's single official romanization in Japanese market. And that's what should be used instead of English-market localization name, as rules explicitly say.

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Also since LoS is a reboot, all its characters should be tagged as separate characters from original. Just like we tag original gridman and gridman_(ssss) and any other reboots separately.

@マローダー: > I don't even know where to start on how just...

2020-04-09T18:01:43-04:00

I don't even know where to start on how just wrong it is in every word. Pretty much every language that uses non-Latin script writes foreign names in its own script 95% of a time to show readers how it should be read.

And how is that an excuse to write a name in romaji when it's obviously intended as a foreign name in reading, pronunciation and writing?
Do you write メイ・リデル・アーシェロット and ルヴィアゼリッタ・エーデルフェルト as Mei Rideru Acherotto and Ruviazeritta Ederuferuto simply because that's the only viable way of reading their names in Japanese? Despite the very obvious fact that they're May Riddell Archelot and Luviagelita Edelfelt and pretty much everyone agrees to refer to them as such? Because it's the correct and most popular way to name them.

Note: a compound or prefixed word. "Belmondo" is a single non-compound, non-prefixed word and "do" is not an "initial consonant". "Initial" means "at the start", not "at the end". This have nothing to do with rendaku at all which only kicks in when you string several roots together. And no ド can't mean plain "t" unless translation department fucked up and invented their own romanization instead of what author had in mind. Japanese kana is much more phonetical than most of Latin-based alphabets.

So you pronounce literally every mute letter in every word that contains them? Specially "dt"?

Edit PS: I've never seen someone use "Belmondo" let alone argue over the use of "Belmont" instead. I don't think anyone half-serious cares enough about it either.

@nonamethanks: > rowaasr13 said: > > You're not actually know...

2020-04-09T17:50:39-04:00

rowaasr13 said:

You're not actually know or learning Japanese, do you? Otherwise you wouldn't link rendaku, as it description explicitly says in first paragraph it is a "the voicing of the initial consonant of the non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word". Note: a compound or prefixed word. "Belmondo" is a single non-compound, non-prefixed word and "do" is not an "initial consonant". "Initial" means "at the start", not "at the end". This have nothing to do with rendaku at all which only kicks in when you string several roots together.

Are you copypasting from wikipedia now? It's a made-up english sounding name, it doesn't follow normal rules for kanji constructs. For all we know what the original guy who came up with it meant is "Belmondth". There's infinite equally valid translations of the katakana into romaji. What we follow instead of delving into that nonsense is the primary localization of the name, because it's common sense and because it makes it consistent with the rest of the internet.
All recent media have that family name localized as "Belmont". They presumably had Konami's blessing in this, given that it's a central name to the Castlevania franchise. Bring it up with them if you disagree with it, not with us.

And compare the following google searches:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22belmond%22+%22castlevania%22

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22belmont%22+%22castlevania%22

Using a tag like "Belmondo" would be like using "Hitokage" for Charmander. It makes no sense. But if you can't see that then there's no point in arguing further.

@rowaasr13: > The rule of only using original names has not...

2020-04-09T17:29:42-04:00

The rule of only using original names has not been an absolute guideline for a while now.

Update help then. As of now I see nothing about that in there.

we follow the current official spelling rather than make up our own.

Official spelling with Latin letters in Japanese market is "Belmondo". See trailer from Judgement I've linked above. And then people ask why I use caps... Because nobody actually reads important parts otherwise. Wait, I'll link it again just in case: https://youtu.be/JL53m3fe9Cc?t=118

It's clear that the japanese name is meant to represent a foreign-sounding name, it shouldn't be interpreted literally, otherwise it wouldn't be written in katakana.

I don't even know where to start on how just wrong it is in every word. Pretty much every language that uses non-Latin script writes foreign names in its own script 95% of a time to show readers how it should be read.

And ド can mean many things. "-d", "-dt", and even "-t" depending on the syllabe that preceeds it (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku).

You're not actually know or learning Japanese, do you? Otherwise you wouldn't link rendaku, as it description explicitly says in first paragraph it is a "the voicing of the initial consonant of the non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word". Note: a compound or prefixed word. "Belmondo" is a single non-compound, non-prefixed word and "do" is not an "initial consonant". "Initial" means "at the start", not "at the end". This have nothing to do with rendaku at all which only kicks in when you string several roots together. And no ド can't mean plain "t" unless translation department fucked up and invented their own romanization instead of what author had in mind. Japanese kana is much more phonetical than most of Latin-based alphabets.

That character's official spelling is "Belmont" in all recent media tied to the franchise. I don't see how hard it is to understand this. Even your example, Lord of Shadow, uses "Belmont" in the english localization.

See video above again. Up to the very last game of initial series (yes, that's Judgement) it uses "Belmondo" in Latin in Japan. LoS is a European-made reboot with no connection to original series except being a spiritual successor. And it already have a character that explicitly have different name in Japan, as I mentioned above. LoS Trevor is Trevor in Japan, original series English Trevor is Ralph in Japan. Those are different characters now mixed together just because people CBA to follow rules and firmly believe that entire world revolves around English. Also according to same rules LoS characters should stay "belmont" - for them "original" names were written in non-Japanese studio. But I feel like broken record. I wrote all that already, did you even bother to read?

Or should we start tagging Dracula as "Dorakyura"?

No. We should research, get informed, not use unknown words and concepts without actually understanding them and stop building strawmen.

@nonamethanks: The rule of only using original names has not...

2020-04-09T17:02:14-04:00

The rule of only using original names has not been an absolute guideline for a while now. Especially in case of romanizations, we follow the current official spelling rather than make up our own.
It's clear that the japanese name is meant to represent a foreign-sounding name, it shouldn't be interpreted literally, otherwise it wouldn't be written in katakana. And ド can mean many things. "-d", "-dt", and even "-t" depending on the syllabe that preceeds it (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku).
That character's official spelling is "Belmont" in all recent media tied to the franchise. I don't see how hard it is to understand this. Even your example, Lord of Shadow, uses "Belmont" in the english localization.
Or should we start tagging Dracula as "Dorakyura"?

@rowaasr13: > most of whom, especially after the Netflix...

2020-04-09T16:43:52-04:00

most of whom, especially after the Netflix series, are definitely going to come here looking for Trevor Belmont, not Ralph Belmondo

Why exactly they should be treated any different that people who come looking for Ash Catchum? Or "Nessa" if you want more recent and girl example? There are aliases for that.

/wiki_pages/howto%3Acharacter explicitly says

Character tags should be the same name and name order that are used in the original source material. For example, Kiyama Hiroto, not "Hiroto Kiyama" or "Xavier Foster". If an alternate name, such as a nickname or a name from the English version, is widely used, you may "request an alias"/tag_alias_request/new from that to the original language title.

Why have rules if we not follow them? If we won't follow them - then just nuke them altogether.

It also mentions Pokemon and FE exceptions and explicitly says

This is not to be used as precedent for tagging other copyrights with localized names unless a similar degree of inconsistency exists.

There's zero inconsistency in original Japanese material - it always refers family name as "Belmondo" even when it uses Latin letters, so this does not apply.

Therefore it is definitely "belmondo" and "ralph_c_belmondo" for original, but seeing how "original" for LoS is Spanish studio and non-Japan releases came first it is "trevor_belmont" for LoS character. I'm not familiar enough with Netflix version to say about it.

@rowaasr13: Yes, there is. Since I didn't care about LoS...

2020-04-09T16:28:19-04:00

Yes, there is.

Since I didn't care about LoS details too much before, I just found out that new Trevor is LoS reboot is literally Trevor (トレバー) in Japanese release, not Ralph (ラルフ) from original series. So they're completely different characters that this rename just mashed together.

"Always use original character names" rule was made exactly to stop this from happening.

@blindVigil: > rowaasr13 said: > > If you refer to caps,...

2020-04-09T16:25:34-04:00

rowaasr13 said:

If you refer to caps, then they're simpler way to empathize words than remembering tags of each particular forum. I'm not sure where you found any yelling otherwise.

I don't see downside either for having extra aliases whatever way they will be defined. And since we have do have rule for using Japanese names, can we please just follow them? Also family name is not the only one market difference. For example "Trevor" is originally "Ralph" and Alucard mom's is "Risa".

There's no point creating an alias when the only difference between the two tags is the very last letter. Aliases exist to make it easier to search for something that may have multiple distinctly unique commonly used names. Typing simon_b into the search field will bring up simon_belmont regardless of whether or not you intended to type simon_belmondo. Demanding an alias in this case just for the sake of maintaining the existence of an unneeded tag that helps no one is unreasonable.

As for Trevor/Ralph, I wouldn't oppose it personally, but at the end of the day this is a western based site used primarily by English speakers, most of whom, especially after the Netflix series, are definitely going to come here looking for Trevor Belmont, not Ralph Belmondo, so I wouldn't worry about it either way.

Finally, is the 'prioritize Japanese names' "rule" actually a rule or is it more of a suggestion? Cause if it were explicitly a hard rule I don't think there would be so many English names on the site as it is. And frankly I hate the "rule", it doesn't seem like it actually makes searching easier in most cases, and a lot of the time just seems to be a constant cause for debate regarding which names to use. If aliases didn't exist, which haven't even been applied to everything that would benefit from them as it is, some things would be near impossible to find for the average user without doing extra research offsite because they're using the Japanese names that most westerner's probably haven't heard of even if they are big into Japanese media.

Handling things case by case would be a lot more productive than just defaulting everything to Japanese, in my opinion, and this is one of those cases where the Japanese names don't really help in any way.

@rowaasr13: > A gentle hint for you, rowaasr13, is to try...

2020-04-09T15:59:20-04:00

A gentle hint for you, rowaasr13, is to try and be civil on the forums. People tend to take you a lot more seriously when you aren't yelling at them.

If you refer to caps, then they're simpler way to empathize words than remembering tags of each particular forum. I'm not sure where you found any yelling otherwise.

I imagine there was no need for an alias because, for the small percentage of people who decide to search/tag using "x_belmondo", the autocomplete will show "x_belmont". As you yourself pointed out, the only difference between the names is the final letter(s) so there is little chance of someone missing the correct tag.

I don't see downside either for having extra aliases whatever way they will be defined. And since we have do have rule for using Japanese names, can we please just follow them? Also family name is not the only one market difference. For example "Trevor" is originally "Ralph" and Alucard mom's is "Risa". It's funny to look at post #668617 that clearly says "Ralph Belmondo" and see zero ralphs or belmondos in tags.

@AngryZapdos: A gentle hint for you, rowaasr13, is to try and...

2020-04-09T15:49:58-04:00

A gentle hint for you, rowaasr13, is to try and be civil on the forums. People tend to take you a lot more seriously when you aren't yelling at them.

rowaasr13 said:

Anyway, before going further and discussing what should be main name, my most important question right now is why *belmondo was completely removed instead of aliased?

I imagine there was no need for an alias because, for the small percentage of people who decide to search/tag using "x_belmondo", the autocomplete will show "x_belmont". As you yourself pointed out, the only difference between the names is the final letter(s) so there is little chance of someone missing the correct tag.

@rowaasr13: And here you are: Judgement is THE LAST game in...

2020-04-09T15:43:55-04:00

And here you are: Judgement is THE LAST game in original series before LoS reboot and without remakes/rereleases. It says "Simon Belmondo" in easily readable Latin letters.

https://youtu.be/JL53m3fe9Cc?t=118

"Up-to-date" enough?

@rowaasr13: > This means that the "Belmondo" romanization...

2020-04-09T15:28:28-04:00

This means that the "Belmondo" romanization has been retconned as far back as the second game, or 1987, one year after the first game came out. I find dumb to use a previous romanization that has been retconned since more than 30 years ago.

Gentle hint: please look up release date for Akumajou Dracula X. No, it isn't "more than 30 years ago". PSP didn't exists back then. Also most recent game, "Lord of Shadow" still uses ベルモンド for character family name. You don't even need to know Japanese - only katakana half of kana to tell "to" from "do" - i.e. ト and ド. And how the hell you can "retcon" a romanization and change original name with that? If they'd retcon anything, they'd retcon original name to ベルモント. I feel like I fell 20 years ago in past to 90-ies and I'm back on web 1.0 Phantasy Star forums with some people lunging at everybody screaming that Noah and Lutz are two different characters (no, he's not) because first two games managed to mangle all names in different ways and "we don't give an eff about your weaboo originals".

Again, outdated information (and maybe even mistyping). The official western name is "Castlevania", without space and with a lower-case V.

This was only to demonstrate why EXACTLY using Japanese originals is better - because they don't switch around all the time. Especially with Konami who seems to love mangling translations differently in different languages.

I'm probably gonna bite my tongue after saying this, but Castlevania isn't the original japanese name! The original name is 悪魔城ドラキュラ (Akumajō Dorakyura, "Dracula's demoniac castle").

You don't say! Who could have guessed that with manual I've linked called "Akumajou Dracula X Chronicles" game itself is "Akumajou Dracula"!
Excuse me, couldn't resist. Also adjectives/descriptives go first in Japanese so it's "Dracula of Demonic Castle" or "Demon's Castle Dracula" or whatever way it sounds better in English for you as long as you get idea of Dracula, who resides in said Castle along. But right now I'm not talking about title.

But of course nobody knows the series with that name. So "Castlevania" is a better option.

Err... no? While 200k hits at google is of course lower than 27m, pretty much any half-serious fan of series knows this name.

And since we're using the more well-known western name, for the sake of consistency we should also be using the official western romanizations.

Yawn. Pokemon again. While all mosters are in English on danbooru, because explaining all the original puns would be kinda impossible, all trainer characters are listed with their original Japanese names.

See above. We didn't change his name, we just used a more up-to-date romanization.

Except it isn't "more up-to-date". It is simply "for different market".

Anyway, before going further and discussing what should be main name, my most important question right now is why *belmondo was completely removed instead of aliased?