# ListenBrainz fails to recognize Japanese artists that have Latin names with Japanese characters in parenthesis
**URL:** https://community.metabrainz.org/t/listenbrainz-fails-to-recognize-japanese-artists-that-have-latin-names-with-japanese-characters-in-parenthesis/814712
**Category:** ListenBrainz
**Tags:** musicbrainz
**Created:** [April 22, 2026, 8:26pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/listenbrainz-fails-to-recognize-japanese-artists-that-have-latin-names-with-japanese-characters-in-parenthesis/814712 "2026-04-22T20:26:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@newmindsets](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/newmindsets)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2026, 8:26pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/listenbrainz-fails-to-recognize-japanese-artists-that-have-latin-names-with-japanese-characters-in-parenthesis/814712/1 "2026-04-22T20:26:38Z")
Hi all, just got started using this and am liking the idea so far.
One issue I’ve noticed while getting started was that a lot of my Japanese music is not getting auto recognized by LB after scrobbling.
I use MusicBee to tag my music and prefer to include both the Latin/English names of Artists, Albums, and Songs, as well as the Japanese character names of each, usually in Parenthesis for Artists, and = for Songs and Albums.
It looks like this may be trouble for ListenBrainz who is looking for specific formats that are present in MusicBrainz.
One example is the band Kikagaku Moyo. I have my music tagged with the Artist/Album Artist as Kikagaku Moyo (幾何学模様). When listening and looking at the LB page, it seems to correctly identify and assign the scrobble to the recording (it loads the Album Art and changes the artist name to just Kikagaku Moyo), but then when it gets added to my Listened list, it reverts back to being unassigned/unknown. MB has both the Latin and Japanese character versions of this artist in the database, as well as a “Latin/Japanese” format that separates the names with a slash. Would I need to use the Slash format to get LB to recognize the Artist?
I use the Parenthesis format for most Japanese artists in my library for the Artist/Album Artist tag. For songs, I generally use the Latin = Japanese format commonly used on Discogs, and it seems to have trouble with this format too, even if both a Latin and Japanese character version of the track are available on the DB.
Another example that LB was having trouble identifying was the Live In London album by Sadistic Mika Band. I have the songs in the format I pointed out above ex. Dontaku = どんたく (Live in London, 1975). The extra Live information I affixed to the end in parenthesis may also be causing problems, but I like having this extra information in the song title to differentiate it from studio recordings.
Anyways, is this entirely a User/Format issue due to my tagging preferences?
---
### Author:  [@crimeschneck](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/crimeschneck)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2026, 9:17pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/listenbrainz-fails-to-recognize-japanese-artists-that-have-latin-names-with-japanese-characters-in-parenthesis/814712/2 "2026-04-22T21:17:05Z")
Check out this thread:
> [@MBID Mapper version 2.0 preview has finally arrived!](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/mbid-mapper-version-2-0-preview-has-finally-arrived/813908/1):
>
> The new MBID mapper, which supports using releases for lookup has finally appeared in an early preview: [https://mapper.listenbrainz.org](https://mapper.listenbrainz.org) Check the supported use cases to see what is already working. If you find a use case that should work, but doesn’t please post the following pieces of data here in a response: inputs: artist\_credit\_name, release\_name, recording\_name expected outputs: artist\_mbids, release\_mbid, recording\_mbid So far, this new mapper is wicked fast and muuuch better in actua…
According to this thread, the new mapper will also work with aliases. But it’s not live in LB yet.
---
### Author:  [@DontMindMe](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/DontMindMe)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2026, 12:04am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/listenbrainz-fails-to-recognize-japanese-artists-that-have-latin-names-with-japanese-characters-in-parenthesis/814712/3 "2026-04-23T00:04:16Z")
Does MusicBee add MBID’s to files? Depending on how you are submitting if your files have proper MBIDs added to them and being sent to ListenBrainz they should always match. [My listening](https://listenbrainz.org/user/MusicListenzGood/) is KPop which has a mix and match of latin/hangul characters and since I started submitting full MBIDs everything is always how it should be. I use MusicBrainz Picard to tag mine.