Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hasekura Tsunenaga

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[edit] Hasekura Tsunenaga

Little known story of Japan's first official emissary to the Americas and Europe, between 1613 and 1620. Mainly self-nom PHG 01:44, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support as per nomination.PHG 03:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
• Object Nice start, and lots of work, but you need to expand the lead, simplify the table of contents, expand short sections or combine them into others, and reference the article more thoroughly. The references also need some cleanup (there's a large block of white space). There are also some prose problems. Picking a random section What became of Hasekura is unknown and accounts of his last years are numerous. Some say he willingly abandoned Christianity, others that he was martyred for his faith, and others that he practiced Christianity in secret. The fate of his descendants and servants, who were later executed for being Christians, would suggest that Hasekura remained strongly Christian himself, and transmited his faith to the members of his familly. This needs to be cited (as to who said what), the first sentence has awkward phrasing, and there's a typo. Sandy 01:55, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks. The lead has been expanded. Reference cleaned up. The above has been rephrased for clarity. PHG 02:33, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment I think there have been over 50 edits in response to Sandy's constructive criticism. It may be worth a second look to see if you can now support the proposal. Fg2 07:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment In the first paragraph of the lead section, you say that a person was an example of international relations. This should be rephrased. In the second, the article says, "... Hasekura was unable to reverse the course of his country's increasing isolationism... ." True enough, but it would be more significant if he had been in a position where one might expect him to have done so. As a mid-level samurai in a tozama han, he would not have been able to affect the policy of the shogunate.

Early life: "Oxu" should be romanized according to the Wikipedia system (Ōshū). Within the quote in the 1613 embassy section, the old Portuguese romanization might (or might not) be appropriate. Other places likewise (including "Date Masamunni, King of Woxu in Japan" where I linked Woxu to Mutsu Province). The word "daimyo" should not be capitalized in Early Life. The link to Taiko goes to the wrong article; you should check all links and fix ones that lead to the wrong articles or to disambiguation articles. (A later example of a link that goes to the wrong article is "factory.") Hideyoshi's surname should be included. In "his son also almost automatically was supposed to be executed" can you rephrase "almost automatically"?

Background: Not sure what a "definitive base" is. "... coast in Chiba, near Tokyo.": the names are modern, in contrast to Oshu; you might want to establish a convention of using either modern or period names; mixing the two can cause confusion. A title such as "retired shogun" can tell readers who Tokugawa Ieyasu was. Copying and pasting into MS Word can help you uncover misspellings such as "abandonned."

The 1613 embassy: The word "Galleon" (second sentence) should begin with a lowercase letter. "Bakufu" redirects to Shogun, but Tokugawa shogunate would be a better target. Can you link Toshima-Tsukinoura? I suppose it's on the Miyagi coast but I don't know just where. Near the end of the article, it's described as "near Ishinomaki"; probably that means "in present-day Ishinomaki" since every part of Japan is in some municipality. "... Sebastian Vizcaino who, in his own words, only had the quality of a passenger.": can you clarify this?

Mission to Europe: The word "godfather" should have a lowercase letter (and link to the right article). The "picturesque details" have a mixture of periods after quotation marks and periods before. The reference in parentheses has the comma after parentheses. The style should be consistent throughout the article.

Return to Japan: "Sakoku" isn't normally used as a period in Japanese history, but rather as a policy. It should begin with a lowercase letter here (as it does below). "Folding screens," a red link, should point to Byobu. "Enfukuji (Japanese: 円長山円福寺)," "Komyoji (光明寺)," "Sendai City Museum (仙台市博物館)": do the kanji serve a purpose, or can we remove them? Same question throughout. More discussion here.

Re-discovery: "The travels of Hasekura had so well been concealed by the Bakufu" I don't have access to Reference 18, so I wonder if it says that the Bakufu concealed the travels, or if it instead names another group (e.g. the Sendai han) or avoids stating who did the concealing? Ishinomaki is linked twice, on successive lines, the first time indirectly. "A 2005 Spain-produced animation film" is awkward, and presents the nation as the producer; this should be straightened out. Yohei's name is in italics but shouldn't be.

I hope these individually minor suggestions can be cleared up in a couple of hours, so that this outstanding article can become featured. Fg2 06:07, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you for the feedback. All comments addressed I think (I kept some of the Kanjis where I felt it added information on an obscure subject, such as temple names etc...). PHG 07:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support Thank you for an excellent article. Fg2 07:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support. I really liked reading this article and think it's thorough and well written. I had never heard about Hasekura before, but after reading this article I feal like I should have. But now I do. And so should everyone else ;). Make it be featured. Shanes 19:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
• Minor minor object. Strong support. This should be finished quickly. The article is great, but I'd like to bring a few formatting issues to light that could make the article even better. 1) Inline references should always come after the punctuation or full stop. Would you be able to correct that? 2) All of you quote sections within the article need to be finished in a full stop. Some of them end in a bracket or with the ref inside the bracket. Can you fix this too. 3) The "see also" section is usually placed above the footnote & references sections. Could you swap them over? 4) And finally, the first picture in the "Spain" section, the one of him praying, looks out of sorts there, & it disrupts the text there majorly & stuffs with the format of the quotes. Could you find a way to move the picture around so it doesn't stuff with the text? JSYK, I've already tried moving it to the right side, but it looked just as bad there too.... So if you fix all these minor things you have my support. Thanks, . Spawn Man 22:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Done for 1), 3), 4). For 2), I am not so sure what format should be followed: If you could show me the way for the first few quotes, I could harmonize the rest of the article accordingly. PHG 03:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Did it for you. Good work. Very long, so I guess it must be really good... ;). Thanks, now supporting. Spawn Man 06:20, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support Excellent work. -Ash_Crow 03:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support I came across this article a month or two ago, and thought it was great then, certainly someone I should have known about and feel guilty for my ignorance. It has since been cleaned up, and would make a wonderful featured article. — Nicholas (reply) @ 10:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)