I want to contribute to albums from the anime series Ojamajo Doremi, but have some questions about how to deal with artist relationships and credits.
Many songs from the series are credited to the fictional group MAHO-DO, which originally consists of the fictional characters Doremi Harukaze, Hazuki Fujiwara and Aiko Senoo at the beginning of the series. Later, Onpu Segawa, Momoko Asuka and Hana-chan join the group, one by one, so the number of members of MAHO-DO ranges from 3 to 6, depending on the episode.
Now the question is: how should I deal with the members of MAHO-DO? I think the best logic is creating 4 MAHO-DO consisting of 3/4/5/6 characters accordingly, and then making all of them subgroups of a meta MAHO-DO group. But is this overkill?
Another question is about the artist credits of Hana-chan’s Vocal Album. Hana-chan (ハナちゃん) is a witch from the Witch World who do not have a surname. In the Human World, she is known as the pseudonym Hana Makihatayama (巻機山花). She is voiced by the voice actress Ikue Ōtani (大谷育江). As a result, the credit on the obi is written as 巻機山花（ハナちゃん／大谷育江）. Currently, the artist credits is segmented as 巻機山花（ハナちゃん and 大谷育江, which is very ugly. I think it is better to add Hana-chan twice, displayed as 巻機山花 and ハナちゃん respectively. But will this cause any trouble to the database?
Overkill, yes. The group is still the one group MAHO-DO, but members change. With normal humans dates are applied to the time ranges when the different members are in the group. Does this anime series have a date line of any form? (even if future)
Sorry I can’t read the language or understand the normal syntax, but I can talk MB database. It is common for a “real name” and “stage name” for a person. In this case “real name” is “Hana-chan (ハナちゃん)” and “performs as” “Hana Makihatayama (巻機山花)” would cover the human realm. The actual voice actress would use a “voiced by:” credit to " Ikue Ōtani (大谷育江)"
I agree that there should just be one MAHO-DO entity, but I don’t think that fictional dates should be used as begin/end dates for member-of relationships (if that’s what you’re suggesting – apologies if I misunderstood).
For the begin date, use the date and area (in real life) when the character concept was created. The end date should not be set, since new media featuring a character can be created at any time. The begin and end date fields should not be used to hold the fictional birth or death dates of a character (this information can be put in the annotation).
Presumably that would also apply to dates set on relationships.
I followed the logic of Fictional Group with Fictional Characters therefore the dates would be correct for their Fictional reality.
Your quote about fictional character dates is more about when the Character was created. A cross over to the RealWorld™ Not when they are a Fictional member of the Fictional band joined or left that fictional entity in their fictional world on a fictional date.
But then my logic can often break rules of reality\sanity…
I think general practice is to use the real-world dates for fictional artists (characters and groups). I would also only create one artist for the band, and you can connect the characters to the group (with real-world start/end dates, if applicable)
some other similar examples you can follow (a couple also from anime)
(edit: there’s several more examples tagged virtual band)
I could go either way on this… while it could make sense to double credit (if it actually is credited this way on the release), I don’t know if there’s any standard to follow here as of yet
It was an anime series aired from 1999 to 2002 (in Japan). No date line was explicitly mentioned, but some episodes were related to real-world events (e.g. Christmas, New Year of the New Century).
Thanks for the examples! It seems customary to use real-world date of airing for fictional groups.
Well, technically, I think MAHO-DO is not a virtual band. A band usually consists of vocal(s) as well as instrument players, but it is not the case here. Actually, MAHO-DO is the name of a grocery store / flower garden / sweet house / another grocery store (depending on the seasons), and the members are the little witch apprentices working there. They are not involved in music performance (most of the time). The tracks credited to MAHO-DO are just insert songs sung by the members, so I think it is inappropriate to call it a band.
Maybe I didn’t explain the current situation clearly… The credit on the obi is written as “巻機山花（ハナちゃん／大谷育江）”. Currently in the MusicBrainz database, {“巻機山花”, the left parenthesis, “ハナちゃん”} is linked to ハナちゃん as a whole. Then comes the slash as a separator. After that is the normal 大谷育江 linked to the corresponding page. Finally comes the right parenthesis as a separator. What I said as ugly is the left parenthesis inserted into the link…
if I were entering the vocal album, I’d probably do the double credit (two credits to Hana-chan and one to the voice actor), but as there’s no guidelines on this specific case yet, some editors (including @maimainoue and @ms0010, who added and edited this release) might prefer the single credit (one credit each to the character and voice actor)
I think as long as the original credits are represented, it should be fine either way
I think the following data would be good for user relationships regarding MAHO-DO. Since MB is not an animation database but a database for sound sources that exist, the requirements would be satisfied if the series name and its participating members are known. The relationship of the Artist-Recording/Vocal should also be indicated.
Start date
Series Title
MAHO-DO members
1999-02-07
おジャ魔女どれみ
どれみ、はずき、あいこ
2000-02-06
おジャ魔女どれみ♯
どれみ、はずき、あいこ、おんぷ
2001-02-04
も〜っと！おジャ魔女どれみ
どれみ、はずき、あいこ、おんぷ、ももこ
2002-02-03
おジャ魔女どれみドッカ〜ン！
どれみ、はずき、あいこ、おんぷ、ももこ、ハナちゃん
And, although it is true that the way to implement “巻機山花（ハナちゃん／大谷育江）” artist notation is somewhat ugly, but it is the only way to keep the credit in its OBI and avoid ‘multiple appearances of a link to the same artist in the same artist credit’.