Talk:Mazoku

Major Rewrite

This page should be completely rewritten--at least, the Slayers portion. The text is copied word-for-word from inverse.org (http://inverse.org/e/bkg/races/mazoku.shtml), a site whose information predates this wiki article by almost ten years. Heck, the site even predates Wikipedia itself. --Sapphire, Sun April 23, 2006 @ 8:02PM CST

Rewritten, major overhaul. Took away fancruff and no where near official, twisted and wrongly written story in the Yu Yu Hakusho part. MythSearcher^talk 06:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

This page still looks in need of a major rewrite. The introductory lines clearly claim that Mazoku are a common race in Japanese fantasy, perhaps along the line of halflings (which I believe is another made up, constantly appearing race) in modern fantasy. However, we have two sections: Slayers, and Yu Yu Hakusho. Ideally this should treat Mazoku throughout ALL of Japanese fantasy, and there should be a seperate section for Slayers and the like. However, first this page should be expanded to exposite the role of Mazoku throughout fantasy at length (which I doubt will ever really happen), then the Slayers and Yu Yu Hakusho section can be moved (not undone). Jaydubayubee 00:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree it still needs a rewrite for wikipedia, I only did a rewrite to make sure the information is correct, instead of a bunch of fan made up stuff. Halflings, well, is a word coming from Lord of the Rings hobbits, then used in Dungeons & Dragons to prevent copyright problems or something, I guess. I can translate the Japanese wiki page over here for better info. I have translated the Japanese wiki article over here, as well as merging some of the maou stuff over. Someone can shorten the Slayers and Yuyu Haskusho parts, and a horrifying long list is in the Japanese wiki article I am not going to move here. MythSearcher^talk 03:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

More references

Ja-Dou has mazoku, ranging from the Xelgaddas-like blue-elves covered in tattoos to flesh devowering vines. 2 of the 5 manga & likely many of the Light Novels explain about mazoku in contrast to YuYu & Slayers.

Kyo Kara Maoh is about the Maou or Mazoku King. these mazoku types also heavily contrast the other 3 references.

Ergo, if someone can gather the info on these 4 series & find anything in common, it would be more useful.

Well, the term is simply too common in Japan, I'd say we should add in some other sources and change the intro to reflect that this term is actually very common in talking about "a clan of beings different from human". In fact, Chrono Trigger, Chrno Crusade, and I'd say about 15~20% of anime, manga got a clan called Mazoku... MythSearcher^talk 07:16, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

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Original research

First, any linking the magical abilities of Mazoku to the space travel technology is going to require a source, otherwise it is original research. Slayer's Mazoku do not use technology to travel in the way they do, and their natural ability seems to function far more like the Transporter (Star Trek) than the warp drive.

Second, the phase 'pure positive view words' appears to have been created by you. I can guess what you mean by it, but it still seems to be original research.

Finally, even if Lina uses the technique (it's been a while, but I only remember Amelia doing it) she is capable of positive emotions, so saying she did not feel them at the time is original research without sourcing. Edward321 (talk) 16:42, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Warp drive is basically traveling by bending space. It is the basic definition of the term, thus I have linked the article's bending space to warp drive. It has no OR in it, it is simply a definition linking. It does not require technology to be called a warp drive. Or you can call it warping, but the term warp is a disamb term and the only article having the same meaning is warp drive.

I don't have a better term for that. In the show, the whole team started praising life as a whole only to make Xellos feel bad, and Lina is simply making fun of Xellos instead of saying those lines like she meant it, it is not in situations like her life depends on it. MythSearcher^talk 17:46, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Total rewrite

This article should be structurally more similar to its equivalent article in the Japanese Wikipedia. Information about 魔族 in particular fictional series such as Slayers or Yu Yu Hakusho or whatnot should be covered on those series's individual articles, since they are only particular instances of 魔族. Note how the page angel doesn't include trivia about how angels are portrayed in angel sanctuary or whatnot. — flamingspinach | (talk) 12:26, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, the article was originally about the mazoku in those two series, I can see why those are so dominant in the current article. Another reason here would also be that these fictional uses are almost the only usage of those terms. I would suggest cutting the sections down to small paragraphs, but not removing them totally. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 00:59, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Those fictional uses may be almost the only usage of those terms known to English speakers, but they're definitely even close to representative of all uses of the term in Japanese fiction (just to give another example off the top of my head, see Violinist of Hameln). Please remember that for every one anime/manga/game/whatever that's translated to English, there are like 50 which are not; and that's not even including novels, magazines, plays, movies, etc. etc. If we included all of these, this article would become ridiculously large. The Japanese article has the right idea -- just keep the article general enough to describe all the usages. The most important topic to be covered here is the original use in mythology. All other uses are peripheral and should be described as such. — flamingspinach | (talk) 04:33, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I read manga in Japanese and/or Chinese, I know they are not all translated to English. The problem here is, the term itself is not used very extensively in Japan as a common term, you can give some other examples, but most will not be very famous like the few mentioned here. And this is pretty much why the article has to also go into the Mao term as well.(In fact, the term Mao is used more than mazoku.) There are no original usage in Japanese mythology, all are from fictions in quite modern usages. Of course you can infer the use of the word used for translating India mythology, but that have nothing to do with the English translation of the same mythology. The word was simply used, quite modernly, for races against the shinzoku, or gods, I would translate sometimes used interchangeably with demons(akumazoku) and sometimes don't. This is pretty much inferred from the two said series, a race opposing the gods race(or legend tells), or simply a race that lives in another plain. Your example of Hameln falls into this. It is a later creation which took the common meaning of the term, inflenced pretty much by the idea of these two series, or the Dragon Quest series. If you are familiar with Japanese mythology, you will know that the Japanese do not have a demonic race called mazoku in their myth. They have the Oni instead, and their 8 million gods were not necessarily good in nature, they are just super natural beings. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 08:59, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, fair enough. But we still need some sort of proof of these claims that modern usage of the term 魔族 are derived mainly from their usage in Slayers, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Dragon Quest. The article cites no references whatsoever, which makes it kind of suspect in my view. Again, the Japanese article doesn't mention anything about individual fictional settings and what 魔族 refers to in those settings. Why should the English article? — flamingspinach | (talk) 16:10, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

This is pretty much impossible. I can understand the reason why the Japanese article have more weight to it, since it was used in Japan for other translated literature as well. However, the English loan term will not use it in those context, and I would say that the article itself is pretty much not notable and sources will be very hard to find. However, even you say I used OR, I would say that Yu Yu version where mazoku is not necessarily evil is a very prominent case, (Other than the more famous Disgaea games) seems to be very different from other previous use of the term. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 01:20, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The article itself is pretty much not notable, you say? OK, then I'll AfD it. — flamingspinach | (talk) 05:03, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The AfD has been closed with no consensus. If there are no reference to be found, I would just split apart this artcle, mearge the good parts and delete the rest later. Or the article could just be left alone. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:24, 24 January 2010 (UTC)