Talk:Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō

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[edit] Thoughts

Just a few thoughts I had when reading this --- I thought I would put them up for discussion rather than simply editing them, in case there are some objections.

1) Do we really need to list the title of manga (eg Aa! Megami-sama!) twice? I would suggest using one title, and leaving the wikilink to explain things futher.

2) ``Unlike many other shonen manga series... I always thought Afternoon, and YKK for that matter, was a seinen publication. As such, this whole paragraph is irrelivant.

3) Would it not be more concise to use `android' rather than `humanoid robot'?

4) ``YKK is unusual in that it can be said to have almost no plot... I feel this is an exageration. There is little in the way of an overall plot, and there is little drama, but each chapter has its own plot. Wheter this be Alpha making coffee, or Takahiro leaving home to become a pilot, there is no less plot in a chapter than in a scene (of the same length) from a play. These are much simpler, however, than we are used to. The noticeable lack of dialogue also gives a feeling of little plot, but works to make the illustrations more significant: we need to interpret the imagery to understand the plot. Perhaps I am the one going too far here, but that is just how I feel.

5) ``Alpha learns to navigate the human world around her. I feel `grows up' or `matures' would be more appropriate. She has no difficulty with the human world right from the start, but she clearly develops from an older child (tween?) to a teenager, and more recently to an adult. Her mental growth is most evident in her attitudes and emotions, rather than in her actions, though a notable exception can be found when she decided to travel to other countries.

As a smaller point, does anyone know if it is possible to get any good quality, colour pictures of the YKK cast to include in the character section? A portrait would be enough to make this more appealing to look at, but I only have colour pictures of Alpha and Kokone, not includng the manga covers. Other images would be good too: perhaps a manga cover at the top, and a snapshot from the OVAs in the OVA section.

I intend to help in building this article, but I wanted to clarify those points first, so I do not change something that I should not have. I feel I should be able to flesh out the OVA section safely enough, but it is the early part which is most important.

Actually, speaking of important, is there any relevance to including the ISBNs of the volumes published thus far? It seem rather pointless to me. Elric of Grans 01:44, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Character Page

I think the ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 Character Section is going to be one of the more labor intensive sections of the article since most characters' appearances are spanned across months, yea, even years! I believe Dave from ykk.misago.org will have something for us YKK fans to work with soon.

There is a small YKK dictionary/character list found at http://www.din.or.jp/~ems/ms_jiten.htm . It's in Japanese, unfortunately, but hopefully we can do something better, heheh. - Baltakatei 07:06 GMT

[edit] NPOV

Is this an encyclopedia entry or a love letter?

This is an encyclopedic entry on a series in a rather rare genre (future, close to cozy catastrophe, with eerieness). It is thorough but more will be added. What made you ask this question?
No really, some of the paragraphs are quite POV. -- Philip Nilsson 10:05, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Some? Please be more specific. If it is necessary to extract questions/opinions one sentence at a time this thread will be very, very long.
That's not a bad thing :)
p 2,6,7,8 - POV
p 1,3 - NPOV
p 4,5 - Not sure :p
Well, sort of, IMO.
-- Philip Nilsson 19:34, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Much of the NPOV allegations seem to stem from characterisation of the art and style. Please check the review at http://www.ex.org/2.4/27-yokohama.html (from 1997 I believe) that agrees on that. Moreover a closer look will tell you that the author has won prizes for his style.
Characterization is deep and and plot is still meted out in small bits, even after 10 years of continuous monthly publication much is unknown, much also remains unstated. Example: the relation to fighter aircrafts is not yet stated in the manga; it is something the reader has to discover, relating model designation. Another example: what at first readings look like lighting a candle is in reality the user interface for turning on an engine; again not stated, you have to think hard to see it.
What your issue with paragraph 8 is I do not know; entire chapters are truly dedicated to seemingly small issues such as brewing coffee.
In fact the entire manga is the literary equivalent of a Japanese tea ceremony: slow, meticulous, philosophising, elegant, intriguing, contemplative and much, much more. It is this set of qualities, particularly that the reader has to think and also know a fair bit about Japan and its history, that probably is the reason this Manga remains unpublished in the West.


Some things, your examples, can not really be proven unless they are stated by the author.
I'll elaborate on what I found POV about the paragraphs,
2 - No problem with the statement about the art, it does look great. However a reference to some award might be in order. engaging characters, that however, is more of a problem.
6 - Well, I'd like all of it to be reworded, a paragraph starting with magic is not a good one.
7 - Um, it's probably okay. Oh, it says interesting, that's not good.
8 - I don't like it, and I can't pinpoint the exact problem.
--Philip Nilsson 11:03, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)


The author did win a prize for his art, specifically for his work on YKK, ref the Japanese language article on him. Unfortunately my command of Japanese is not sufficient to make a good translation.
Engaging characters: that refers to what drives the arch. It is character and character development, not events as such, another contrast to most other stories. The events of the past, cataclysmic as they must have been, are still not explained or even fully stated.
Magic: While I didn't write it, this is to me the only word that fits. The closest comparison to the mood is that of Twin Peaks: something big has happened, is partially still going on, everyone seems to know but the reader/viewer is not fully informed. There is a strong atmospheric undercurrent that is hard to quantify and fully explain, thus I feel the use of magic is appropriate.
Interesting: It is interesting as opposed to incidental or coincidental. It is also of interest because it is what lies behing parts of the arch of the story: humans grow up, end up looking even older than robots, all while robots look timeless. Again I feel this can be defended.
8: If you cannot pinpoint it then it will be hard to counter. I will however again refer you to the article about the tea ceremony.
In summary: YKK is unique in a great many ways and it makes it hard to fully describe it to those who do not know it yet and to that end it words are used that are hard to justify in other contexts yet appropriate here.


No matter how true it might be, it is still like a love letter, which means that it is not encyclopedic.
--Philip Nilsson 23:14, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC) (off to the UK for the weekend)
If truth is not sufficient for an article to be encyclopedic we have some serious pruning in front of us. The example of Leonardo da Vinci below is one. The Beatles is a more modern one. A sufficiently hardline religious fundamentalist will easily dispute their influence. Moreover Wikipedia is a labour of love. Is it time to wipe it out entirely?
I like this saying “A Wikipedia entry is a report, not an essay” (WP:NOR). I am not really saying that things should be removed—although some things should be—I am saying that things should be rewritten to conform to the Wikipedia standards. And I am too lazy to do that. For art and things, it is possible to make quotes as the one below work by attributing the saying to some expert. As we all know, everything an expert states is absolute and undeniable fact. —Philip Nilsson 11:40, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The problem, of course, is that it's difficult to be perfectly encyclopedic about works of art. Art, by it's nature, has a subjective component that subjects like chemistry do not. For example, see this (pretty darn subjective) language from the article on the Mona Lisa:
"Leonardo knew the ultimate expression which is the link between love and knowledge. This complex idea, the link between Eros (love) and knowledge, goes all the way back to Plato. The Mona Lisa is expressing love and knowing. She knows you when she looks at you. This means that she must have loved you (desired to know you). She expresses love and knowing at the same time (love is to know)."
When I wrote the article, I wanted to include material on why it was a compelling work of art, but I do see your "love letter" point. I'll tone it down a bit.

--dDave 20:04, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article move

Although "Kikou" is the popular way of writing amongst fans of the series, the correct title should be written "Kikō" in the article and "Kiko" in the article name according to Wikipedia policy. Would moving this article to "Yokohama Kaidashi Kiko" (with a redirect at "Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou" of course) be objectionable?

It seems like a trivial move, but I might be overlooking something. Please comment if you think this move should be undone. JeroenHoek 14:24, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

New version of wikim is now in with unicode love, so moved to Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō. --zippedmartin 01:20, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles) seems to discourage macrons, so I moved it to the current title. KJ 09:08, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
The discussion (if you follow the link above) on macrons is still undecided. The Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles) was written before the new version of the wiki software that allows macrons. That the software didn't support it before seems to be the only real reason why it was discouraged. I suggest moving it back and leaving this page as a redirect. --nihon 10:48, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Remember that "Kikou" is not just a "popular" way, it's acceptable Hepburn romanization too, which has been around for decades. I learned "kikou" style romanization, "kikō" but gets the job done too. But to claim one or the other is more correct seems silly, since they are both approximate transliterations. One favors (Engish) pronunciation, the other favors (Japanese) grammatical rules. The stronger argument would be based on Wikipedia standards.

[edit] "Quiet Country Cafe"

This is only the title for the second series of OAVs (though it also appears on the cover of volume 9 of the manga). It is not the official or unofficial English title of the whole series (manga and anime), however. The first OAV has no English title (so the translation of the title would be as "official" as you can get), and the manga has no official English title, either, at least not as of volume 11. --nihon 10:48, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alpha's last name

There is a good deal of back-and-forth over the Engish Spelling of Alpha's last name. Her name should be Hatsuseno. The confusion seems to stem from a miss-translation in an English scanlation of Volume 1, page 143, when Kokone reads Alpha's name off the mailbox. An error that was admitted to here:

http://ykk.misago.org/Forum?cmd=show&id=560&replies=1

However, in the OAVs and the Drama CD where you can hear the name spoken, it's clearly "Hatsuseno".

[edit] Genre

I don't know what to do with the following:

"Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō (YKK) is noted for its beautifully spare pen and ink drawing style, as well as its calm, meticulously paced stories and engaging characters. Unlike many other shonen manga series, there are no scenes of violence, no overtly sexual graphics, no posturing heroes, and no display of superpowers, in marked contrast to the usual stylistic conventions of its genre."

YKK is not a shonen manga (Afternoon is a seinen magazine, not shonen), nor has the "genre" of it been mentioned before this ("manga" is not a genre, nor is "shonen manga" -- I would be hard pressed to fit it into any particular genre. I tried to rewrite that paragraph but maybe someone else can do better.

Apparently you just deleted it. --User:Zaorish

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