Guidelines for Contributors

Helpful Links

• https://mangapedia.com/ (find out how to read character names from manga adaptations. They provide character lists with the actual name readings, so as long as the kanji matches up with the actor role)

Drama, Movie, and Special Titles

Titles follow most commonly used name and should be romanized (romaji).
The exceptions to this case is when the title is in katakana or English, these should be used instead.
Examples: Kingdom (katakana + English), Nodame Cantabile (katakana), Hana Yori Dango (romanized)

We use romanized names because English translations of titles vary greatly and make it difficult to associate to Subtitle Projects.

This doesn’t affect the site’s search feature. All Romanized, Native, and Alternate Titles are indexed and searchable.

Add the year in parenthesis after a title for multiple Dramas, Movies, and/or SPs that have the same title:

• Haru (2022)
• Haru (2005)
• You may have to update the URL (slug) if the title was created already in the WP Dashboard.

Alternate titles: Use the add new button to add more fields. Do not add all in one field.

People

People names follow Japanese order: Last name and first name

Long vowels in names are usually omitted and will follow a western format, ie. Ryuusuke will be Ryusuke. Names with long vowel sounds should be added to alternate names.

Add the person’s birth year in parenthesis to either person:

• Amuro Namie (1976)
• Amuro Namie
• You may have to update the URL (slug) if the title was created already in the WP Dashboard.

Alternate names: Use the add new button to add more fields, do not add all in one field.

Broadcast Season for Dramas, Movies, and Specials

Only tag the Broadcast Season that the drama first started airing in.

Adding Cast or Crew

Add the important main cast and crew first. Then supporting cast, finally guests. The templates show cast and crew by oldest added first.

Synopsis for Dramas, Movies, and Specials

The synopsis should be as original as possible. Many sites have machine translated writing and Engrish. Google Search dings any sites that have unoriginal content.

Excerpts for Dramas, Movies, and Specials

Please copy 1 or 2 sentences from the Synopsis to the Excerpt field in the WP Dashboard or write a very brief synopsis including the main character’s name and actor/actress’s name.

Example: Hana Yori Dango follows a commoner Makino Tsukushi (Inoue Mao) who attends an elite high school where super-rich Domyouji Tsukasa (Matsumoto Jun) and his friends, F4, terrorize the school.

Featured Images

Dramas, Movies, Specials and Series

• Use an official image from the official website
• Orientation: Either landscape or portrait images are okay
• Do NOT upload images with the incorrect orientation (images previously landscape or portrait that are flipped to the side)
• Resolution: Use images that are at least 1280 pixels in length—anything bigger may not upload properly on the front-end forms
• Series: Use any official image from any of the series

People and Groups

• Use an official image and recent (if possible) from the person’s agency website
• Avoid using selfies if an official image exists
• Tasteful selfies can be used for Crew if no official image exists
• Close-up headshots are the best so they can scale properly throughout the site especially on Drama, Movie and Special pages
• Avoid long shots that include everything below the waist; focus on images from the chest up
• Orientation: Portrait images look best on the site
• Resolution: Use images less than 1280 pixels; try avoiding small resolutions and grainy images

Placeholder Featured Images and/or Placeholder Synopsis

If a Drama, Movie, or Special was just announced, usually there’s placeholder posters, visuals, and brief synopses.
If adding placeholder Featured Images and/or Synopses to Drama-Otaku.com, do the following:

• Use the tag “Placeholder” under Genre.
• Also upload placeholder Featured Images to the Media tab. Once the real poster/visual is available, we can just replace the the Featured Image.

Every once in awhile, please check the Placeholder Genre tag page and update Featured Images and/or Synopses.

Remove the “Placeholder” Genre tag if replacing with updated Featured Images and/or Synopses.

Updating Empty Fields

• Click any of the Index links: All Dramas, All Movies, All Specials
• The All Dramas Index may take a little bit of time to load since there’s over 1600 titles.
• These links are also available at the top on the Dashboard
• Use the indexes to search (use your browser’s search/find) for duplicates or to see if the title exists already.
• Use the indexes to also search for titles with empty fields in Details, Synopsis, Cast/Crew.
• Example: Search for titles without Cast–Use your browser’s search/find and search for Cast: N/A
• Hover over the information icon in the Details header for specific fields to search by, ie. Season: N/A.
• If a column for a Drama/Movie/Special is blank, this means the content was filled out.

Subtitle Projects

Be sure to include some start date and end date, otherwise the filtering on the Subtitle Providers’ page will not sort properly. Subtitle Projects with N/A is removed from the sorting feature because the code doesn’t know what to do with it.

Let’s add 02-02-2022 as a dummy date in both Start and End dates if this is unknown.

For official Subtitle Projects, add the release date in both Start and End dates.