Wikipedia:WikiProject Anime and manga/Characters

This is a WikiProject advice page on style. It contains the advice of one or more WikiProjects on how to format and present article content within their area of interest. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community.

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This page in a nutshell: When writing about an anime character you have to show how they are notable outside of just their fanbase.

Overview

In this essay, we'll discuss how to properly write an article for an anime/manga character, as well as what standards qualify for inclusion. In short, we get that you may have a character that you really like, and want to see an article about, here on Wikipedia. At the same time, we have to make sure readers can rely on what you type up. As such, it's important to convey accurate information about these characters.

This is where reliable sources come in. They verify that what you type up is the truth, and not just things like fan rumors (see WP:RS and WP:V). Another major factor is notability (see WP:N); a character article is likely to be deleted if it's not deemed notable for inclusion. Notability comes through reliable sources, so if you can't provide enough of these sources, then an article simply can't exist.

When creating a character article, please keep in mind that you want to present information to a reader who potentially has never seen or read the series the character is in. This means that your average reader isn't going to understand how a character fires up his/her magical powers, or understand the timeline of Universal Century without accurately explaining it. For more information on the subject, you can read WP:JARGON.

Where to start?

Below this section is a layout for an average character article. The most important sub-headers that you want to focus on are Creation and conception, and Reception as they provide the most out of universe information.

A lot of deletion discussions zero in on sourcing for "Creation and conception" sections that link company-issued fan books. For example, don't rely on on Kadokawa sources to prove that an anime character made by Kadokawa is notable. It's easy to find "official" fan books with information about how a character was created or conceived by companies citing their own works. From a notability and significant coverage point of view, this would be a failed article. As for reception, finding decent sourcing that talks about the character in detail helps a lot.

Layout

The aim of Wikipedia's editors is to get articles up to Good article status, and beyond. The good news is that we have character articles that have made this high distinction. Most of these articles have a thing in common, that being the layout as follows:

Infobox

This will not be a subsection (The "===Infobox===" is just for this essay), but will be in the form of a template. {{Infobox animanga character}} is the template that is used for character articles, and has many fields to fill out. The top fields to focus on are: "name =", "series =", "first =", "creator =", and "voiced by =". An image is always preferred, but keep WP:COPYRIGHT in mind. Images that can be used include manga cover art, DVD covers, screenshots, or posters. These images can only be used once in the entire article per non free content policy, so the infobox would seem like the best choice. Free use images can be used anywhere but are hard to come by, as permission is usually required from the copyright holder. Other fields such as "gender", "nickname", "relatives", etc. are not normally used unless they are essential to the story.

Lead section

The lead section will also not have a subsection (so don't use ===Lead section===), and should contain no more than three paragraphs that summarize the entire article from top to bottom. Depending on preference, the lead may or may not need to include references (see WP:LEADCITE).

Creation and conception

This section is often the hardest to fill out, as it typically relies on Japanese-language sources. Nevertheless, this section is key to establishing independent notability, and will need answer questions such as "who created this character, and why?".

In general, character creation and conception from a series are not usually discussed in detail by reliable sources unless the series was popular in Japan or abroad. As such, primary sources are useful here for supplementary information; these could include interviews with the creator, character designers, directors, voice actors, and the author's blogs and afterwords. Possible places to find good sources for this section include anime/manga magazines, or Japanese entertainment websites.

Additionally, if you need to help translating a source, consider WP:TRLA. Although machine translations can establish simple facts or general information, it's preferable to get information verified by a human translator.

Appearances

This section is usually broken down by "In the manga", "In the anime", and "In other media" and should contain no more than four paragraphs per section. Some examples inclue Himura Kenshin, Akane Tsunemori, and Edward Elric. The golden rule is Let the reader watch/read the story for themselves; in other words, we do not need to narrate the entire story. Try your best to include only key parts of the character's plot line; it is very tempting to go into details about relationships, but let the reader enjoy that. Out-of-universe sources such as who played the character in x adaptation can also fit into this section.

Referencing may be done through self-published sources such as the manga books themselves or by episode. See {{Cite book}}, and {{Cite episode}} on how to use these references. This section can be used before "Creation and conception", but it generally makes sense to have out of universe information presented first.

Reception

Reviews for a character should include info from at LEAST 3 reliable sources. A selection of these sources can be found at our reliable source collection. You can take reviews of a series and use it for the character if enough reviewed information exists for said character. For example, if the review was for the first anime series of Rozen Maiden, and enough critical reception was devoted to Shinku, then that would count as a review. Passing mentions such as "the characters were good" or "Shinku is the best character" can't be used, as they are too broad, so use your best judgement when selecting reviewer comments. If you can find them, character popularity ratings in manga magazines also count as reception, as does in rare occasions, highly notable merchandise such as character songs or figures.

References

This section should be included on all articles on Wikipedia. All you need to do is put reflist with {{ }} on both sides to generate a references list. For help on citing references please read WP:CITE. Some editors prefer grouped references such as the ones shown in Allen Walker, as they do not flood the references section. For these, a separate list needs to be created under {{reflist}} called {{refbegin}} ending with {{refend}}.

External links

All external links have to follow the WP:EL guideline. As such, avoid linking fan websites dedicated to your favorite character. Good external links for standalone character articles are profiles on official series websites, such as Chi from Chobits. While websites such as IMDb may also be used, social media websites such as Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook are almost never used.

Help, my character article is being deleted!

If the article you create does not have enough reliable sources, then it can't pass our notability guidelines. We're simply not a fan site to host character articles on. If you want to create your own Wikia, there is always that option. Common outcomes for characters that are sent to WP:AfD are a redirect or a merger to a "List of <anime/manga title here> characters" article. If the character is minor or very limited in plot relevance, then it's more likely to be deleted.

This page was redesigned at the edge.