Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ink Music: In the Land of the Hundred-Tongued Lyricist

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. -- Cirt (talk) 01:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ink Music: In the Land of the Hundred-Tongued Lyricist

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An article for which no reliable sources are proffered, about a documentary film that has never been shown in public and that crashingly fails Wikipedia:Notability (films).

The article is largely written by Bkce23. It's illustrated with a poster, the copyright of which Bkce23 says he or she holds. Could the author of the article be somehow related to its subject?

I had never heard of this film (or its subject) until I noticed its prominence in the article Shuntarō Tanikawa. I then found that it was similarly prominent in the articles on Kazuhiko Kato (musician), Sadistic Mika Band, Juichi Yoshikawa, Michiyo Yagi, Yukihiro Takahashi, Maaya Sakamoto, Yoko Kanno, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Considering that the film has never been available to the public and that there's no suggestion that it soon will be, the prominence was very surprising. (And if the film did emerge and these people appeared in it, even this would hardly be remarkable.) The write-ups may have been done with the noblest of intentions but they came off as spam, and I therefore deleted them. (See the recent history of any.)

Not reliably sourced, not evidently notable, and smells like a promotional exercise. I wish the film well; once it's released and written up it can then get an article here. -- Hoary (talk) 02:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Later elaboration: I left much of what was written in the article Shuntarō Tanikawa, because it had some detail to it (even though it was unsourced). I did remove the humdrum stuff about how Tanikawa appeared in this film. (However, I deleted the peacockery added by Bkce23 whereby Mosdell was a "celebrated lyricist".) -- Hoary (talk) 07:46, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Japan-related deletion discussions. —Hoary (talk) 02:37, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. —Hoary (talk) 02:41, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as I can find no evidence of it meeting any notability requirements. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 03:01, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment With respects to the nominator, while a film not having theatrical release might well limit its coverage, such is not an automatic reson to consider it non-notable. What does matter is whether or not its coverage meets the coverage requirements set forth by WP:NF. For instance, the coverage of this film film and its lyricist in Japan Times shows a significant coverage rather suprising for something without a theatrical release... perhaps due to it having been released... but made available for download through the internet, rather than a theater.[1] A not-for-profit documentary production has a more difficult time jumping Wikipedia's hurdles, but sometimes they do it anyway. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 22:09, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, a film (let's term it so, though no celluloid was involved) made for the web such as The Story of Stuff richly merits an article. You point to this article in the Japan Times. It's a fulsome piece about Mosdell, not about this film. It does talk up the film a bit, though, saying that it "is set to debut at the South by Southwest movie festival in Austin, Texas, in March" (2009), thus implying to me some sort of theatrical release.

Well, is it made available for download over the web? This link among those on the page of Google hits suggests that it is, but it's hard to tell whether you're getting the movie or a mere trailer for it. I clicked to download anyway, and was offered an EXE file (useless on any of my computers).

Surely if it is available for download, its website would say so. What does it say? Within the megabytes of Flash (or whatever), we read:

Ink Music: In The Land Of The Hundred-Tongued Lyricist is a 90-minute documentary film detailing the creative relationships in the expansive career of artistic innovator Chris Mosdell. This vibrant production film comes by way of debut feature filmmakers Jeff Reece and Brian Comerford, with lush cinematography by Robert Muratore (National Geographic Explorer). Shot in HD on-location in Tokyo, Japan, the film highlights Mosdell’s rise from obscure bohemian poet to renowned lyricist for Japan’s biggest band ever, Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). [...]

Mosdell's music, both captivating and sought-after by an expansive cult audience, was recently recognized as vitally relevant by Sony, who chose to re-issue his watershed solo effort Equasian in a gloriously color-saturated gate-fold edition CD highly prized by collectors around the world. With his affiliation as part of the “YMO Family,” Ink Music undoubtedly will become one of those must-have additions to the collection of every Japanese-obsessed audiophile, and will likely enrich the considerations of that country by cultural investigators.

(my emphases) What an idiosyncratic taste this writer has for "expansive" ("eclectic"? "big"?). No mention in that of any availability. (Incidentally, I prefer the Mark V Shaney ish version here.)

Now, what does our own article say? That the film:

is a 90-minute documentary film detailing the creative relationships in the expansive career of artistic innovator Chris Mosdell. Shot in HD on-location in Tokyo and Fukui, Japan, and New York City, USA, the film highlights Mosdell’s rise from obscure, expatriate poet to lyricist for Japan’s popular group Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). [...]

(my emphasis) Good to be reminded that this isn't New York City, Belize. Hang on, that "expansive" stuff sounds rather familiar....

Though this isn't obviously relevant to the article-worthiness of the film, we have to take what Mosdell says with a shovelful of salt. "Lafcadio Hearn was the first foreigner here who wrote all about Japan," he tells us in the Japan Times article. Hearn hardly wrote all about Japan, and he only arrived in Japan in the year (1890) in which Chamberlain published his book Things Japanese, which was a pretty good attempt for its day at writing all about Japan, its unexotic as well as its exotic aspects. And you can easily go further back, to Aimé Humbert (inexplicably redlinked) and so on.

As for what the publicist writes (as quoted above) about other elements in the film: Japan’s biggest band ever, Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO)? Come on! If biggest means head-count, then Exile has YMO beat; if sales, then Smap. (Musically, both Exile and Smap are unremarkable, to put it politely; but in Japanese pop, the music counts for far less than do the dance moves, complexions, hairstyles, etc.) -- Hoary (talk) 01:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC), tweaked 10:20, 7 September 2010 (UTC) (... fixed one silly typo -- ~~1990~~ 1890 -- 07:45, 13 September 2010 (UTC))[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JForget 00:40, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Not seeing any reliable sourcing or evidence to suggest that this meets the basic notability criteria. --DAJF (talk) 00:56, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.