Talk:Crow

Official name: Radonkel ?

In the official German player's guides "Game Boy Spieleberater 2" and "Super Game Boy Spieleberater" this bird is named "Radonkel". But I don't know whether this is also his name in English. Moving, or not? --Grandy02 12:20, 1 June 2007 (EDT)

Could somebody answer? The official German name is better than no official name, isn't it? --Grandy02 12:14, 22 June 2007 (EDT)

---

The crows from PM2 and the Bird from SML2 are COMPLETLY different characters. - Ultimatetoad

Actually, to be honest, we are an english wiki. Since it is conjectural, we give the article a common name so people can easily find it without too much searching. Wouldn't Crow be much easier to look up than Radonkel?Knife (talk) 15:54, 22 June 2007 (EDT)

Yes, of course, but Radonkel is official, Crow isn't. The template tells "If an official name for this material is discovered, please move the conjecturally titled information to the appropriate page.". --Grandy02 04:29, 23 June 2007 (EDT)

Fix'd. Full Metal Moogle

Crows in Donkey Kong

The "Crows" in the Game Boy Donkey Kong resemble the bigger Nitpickers in Donkey Kong Jr. and act like them (the stage they appear in is also similar to that respective stage in DKJR). I think the DK "Crow" should be merged with Nitpicker, and Bird (Donkey Kong) as well, and a part-conjecture template should be added then. --Grandy02 11:37, 9 January 2010 (EST)

Considering everything is conjectural anyway, this sounds like a good idea. They do look very similar, and if they have the same behaviour, this is probably their origin, as Snapjaws also make an appearance on the Game Boy. - Cobold (talk · contribs) 13:04, 9 January 2010 (EST)

Luigi's Mansion crows

I'm thinking it might make sense to split the Luigi's Mansion 2 and 3 crows from here. They're enemies confirmed to have a unique name (at least in 3) in Japanese (and Chinese and Korean, predictably), so it seems like a similar situation to stuff like Frog (Yoshi's Story). Blinker (talk) 08:51, April 29, 2023 (EDT)

Is Kāra found in the games themselves? It's not clear to me in which language the script of LM2 was originally written, but LM3's seems to be Japanese. (Ryunosuke Suzuki from Nintendo EPD is credited as the game's writer.) -- KOOPA CON CARNE 10:00, April 29, 2023 (EDT)

Kāra is found in-game, in Luigi's Mansion 3's ScareScraper, specifically the objective known in English as "Defeat the Crows!" Blinker (talk) 10:13, April 29, 2023 (EDT)

By the way, while not exactly crow-related, some of E. Gadd's lines in the Japanese version of LM2 confirm the spiders' Japanese (and Korean) name. Considering there was an official Japanese guide for LM2, that's probably where these pests' unsourced names came from. Who knows, maybe the Switch port will help here. Also, regarding LM2's localization, the game was probably originally written in Japanese as well, considering the credits only mention NOA and NOE localization (with the Korean version of the game additionally mentioning Korean and Chinese localization, which is absent from other versions of the credits for some reason) Blinker (talk) 16:58, October 23, 2023 (EDT)

Mario + Rabbids

Is the Mario + Rabbids bird confirmed to be a crow? I haven't played the game, but I ask because if it isn't, then it's just a recolored little bird and should be covered in that page rather than here, I think. Blinker (talk) 17:18, October 4, 2023 (EDT)

I don't think it belongs here either, that info should be moved to the little bird article. Ray Trace^(T|C) 12:05, October 6, 2023 (EDT)

Okay, can I go ahead with that, then? Blinker (talk) 13:56, October 6, 2023 (EDT)

Yep! Ray Trace^(T|C) 14:02, October 6, 2023 (EDT)

Split Luigi's Mansion series crows (and frogs)

This talk page proposal has already been settled. Please do not edit any of the sections in the proposal. If you wish to discuss the article, do so in a new header below the proposal.

Do not split 5-8
This proposal aims to split the crow enemy from Luigi's Mansion 2 and 3 into its own page, titled "Crow (Luigi's Mansion series)". These crows are a recurring enemy with a unique Japanese (and Chinese and Korean) name. While these games are developed by Next Level Games, they appear to have been written in Japanese originally (I think? LM2's English translation is weird enough for me to wonder if it even is a translation or if the two scripts were written in parallel, but probably not), and the other pest enemies have similarly generic English names (mouse, bat...).

Also, if this passes, the Luigi's Mansion 2 frog will be split too. Granted, I haven't managed to find a source for its name yet (there's only so much one can do with YouTube footage and guide preview pages), but sources have already been found for the mouse, spider, crow and Robomb, so chances are the frog's name is also correct. Also, it would just be inconsistent for that to be the only LM series pest to not have its own page.

Proposer: Blinker (talk)
Deadline: January 20, 2024, 23:59 GMT

Support

1. Blinker (talk) Caw (and ribbit).
2. MegaBowser64 (talk) Per proposal and Blinker's comment.
3. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) - If we have multiple pages for bats that are given distinct names in Japanese but standard names in English, it only makes sense to follow suit here. Plus, the frogs in Yoshi's Story and several examples of jellyfish.
4. FanOfYoshi (talk) Per all.
5. LinkTheLefty (talk) Blinker explained it well in the comments.

Oppose

#MegaBowser64 (talk) Umm, crows are crows and frogs are frogs. That's not to mention that there is no evidence that LM2 frogs and other frogs were ever even called different names. This is pretty much a pointless proposal, no offence.

1. Waluigi Time (talk) Opposing for the sake of simplicity. The only reason this is being considered is different Japanese names, but other than that... they're just crows and frogs, casual readers would most likely be looking for them here and I don't see a benefit to splitting. I don't think the Yoshi's Story frog should be split either.
2. Koopa con Carne (talk) The Japanese name of the crows in the Luigi's Mansion series is... "crow". Even if other Mario games identify crows as watarigarasu ("ravens") in Japanese, both crows and ravens are nebulous groupings within just one genus of birds, i.e. they have so many intertwined traits in real life that arguing whether a fictional crow-like character was based on whatever real species of corvid is splitting hairs immensely and has no place on a wiki about a video game franchise.
3. DrippingYellow (talk) The game was mainly developed by a Canadian company, with Nintendo staff only being in "Supervisor" roles according to the credits. So unless we find out that the Japanese name is used internally in the files or something (as is the case with Robombs), any talk of the developers "intending" these to be a unique species compared to normal animals just seems like speculation. Plus, these animals are consistently named just "Crow" and "Frog" internally in Dark Moon, for what it's worth.
4. Dark-Boy-1up (talk) I prefer simplicity for casual viewers over going all nitty gritty on some animals that are just the same but do different things than the others.
5. Sgt. Sarge (talk) I like keeping things collected together whenever reasonably possible. Splitting the Crows and Frogs into separate categories from the Crows in Frogs in other games will make it more difficult for users to find.
6. Mario (talk) Looks like it's splitting hairs. Or maybe barbules? Like what holds a feather together? I think all these crows will love peanuts though! 🥜🥜🥜🥜
7. Tails777 (talk) Per all.
8. Shoey (talk) Per all.

Comments

@MegaBowser64 Oh, I'm sorry I didn't explain myself very well in the proposal text. I'll try to do a better job of it. Basically, LM2 and LM3 seem to have been written in Japanese and translated to English, and the crow appear to have unique Japanese (and Chinese and Korean). That makes this pretty similar situation to stuff like this frog. These names are used in game, by the way. And while it doesn't have a unique name in English, that's probably just for consistency with stuff like the mice and bats in LM1 (and later games'), which have their own pages.

However, if the crow is merged, that only leaves the frog without a page of its own. While the Japanese name hasn't been confirmed yet, a bunch of previously unsourced names have been getting confirmed, so it's probably correct.

I hope this explanation was better written and made more sense. Blinker (talk) 13:17, January 9, 2024 (EST)

Ok, I understand now, that makes a little bit more sense. I'll switch my vote over I guess. BOWSER... (talk) 13:24, January 9, 2024 (EST)

@Koopa_con_Carne 'The Japanese name of the crows in the Luigi's Mansion series is... "crow".' You mean the English name? The Japanese name is not. "Kāra" is a pun on the word for crow "karasu", just as "Crowber" is a pun on "crow", that's not the same thing as just being named "crow". Blinker (talk) 13:47, January 9, 2024 (EST)

Going by the explanation in the article, their Japanese name is simply a truncation of "crow". I don't know the language so I'll let someone else explain if that name is meant to be a pun on something else, though my gut says it's intended to be just a middle-ground between karasu ("crow") and a crow's onomatopeia, "kā". The Chinese and Korean names brought up in the proposal also integrate the onomatopeia of a crow. Edit: To pre-empt the argument of "Frog (Yoshi's Story) is split because its Japanese name is also based on onomatopeia", I'd have to agree with WT that keeping that one separate from the common frog is kinda overkill as well. It's identified using something that's inherently tied to real-life frogs, and is an actual frog. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 14:02, January 9, 2024 (EST)

You're not mentioning the English (and so forth) names, but without taking that into account, you could make the same argument to merge Scaredy Rat, so I assume the English name is a big factor of your argument as well. Blinker (talk) 14:34, January 9, 2024 (EST)

Not at all. In fact, I've had plenty of arguments on here that the wiki should prioritize Japanese names if the creator of these names and their described concepts is Japanese, but that's usually just a proxy for the "author's intent" principle I'd like to push. In the currently-discussed fable of the Frog and the Crow, I'm positive their authors are simply giving them cute names, with no statement whatsoever that they're meant to pertain to the Mario brand specifically; Bat (Luigi's Mansion series) is in a similar boat. I'm not sure what point you're making with Scaredy Rat since that's clearly not a generic enemy; the generic mouse species the wiki has an article for has altogether different names in all localizations, Japanese included, so merging that with Scaredy Rat is off the table entirely. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 14:52, January 9, 2024 (EST)

The point I'm trying to make is that, if you ignore the localizations, Scaredy Rat is just another somewhat cartoony-looking normal animal named after an onomatopoeia. Same thing with Frog Pirate (which might or might not also be called "Froggy"(?) in which case it would even have a somewhat generic name in English). Or even Swoop if you count wing noises. See what I mean? I'm not saying to merge any of those, my point is that enemies that are based on regular animals, look like regular animals, and are named after the animal or some noise the animal makes are far from rare. And that "generic mouse species" you mention isn't that generic either. Again it has a unique Japanese name, and it will probably be getting merged to a ghost enemy soon anyway... Uh, sorry my response is so messy, by the way. This topic is getting too confusing for a more structured response, as far as my abilities are concerned. I hope you get what I'm trying to say. Blinker (talk) 07:28, January 12, 2024 (EST)

Okay, let's look at this way. There are four possible cases:

1. LM pests are unique enemies, LM2 and LM3 pests are generic animals, the bat and mouse in LM2 are new enemies - if you agree with this one, you might want to oppose the ongoing merge proposal. I don't recommend that though, for reasons already explained there.
2. LM pests are unique enemies, LM2 and LM3 pests are generic animals, the bat and mouse in LM2 are returning enemies - in this case, the mouse and bat went from being unique enemies to being a generic mouse and bat, while still being the same enemy? Like a reverse chicken/Cucco situation, I guess? I don't like this option, it's unnecessarily confusing.
3. LM pests are unique enemies, including the recurring mouse and bat, pests introduced afterward are generic - this case results in an inconsistent treatment of the LM2 pests (bat, mouse, crow, frog...), despite their similar roles.
4. LM pests are unique enemies, and so are those introduced afterward - this one... is what this proposal is based on.

This should make discussion easier, I hope? Blinker (talk) 15:02, January 12, 2024 (EST)

@Waluigi_Time "The only reason this is being considered is different Japanese names" It's kinda funny, I know that's how it looks, but I've actually been thinking about this since before I knew what the name was. But when I noticed that unsourced name, I went "oh, I might actually be right", and started looking for a source. The initial reason was just that it felt weird to treat this recurring crow enemy like it's a generic animal. Well, more of a generic animal than, say, Swoops or Bloopers or whatever. Blinker (talk) 15:38, January 14, 2024 (EST)

I looked at the articles that this proposal concerns and found out: neither of them have anything cited for their Japanese names. In fact, as far as I can tell, none of the Luigi's Mansion pests (from Dark Moon onwards, at least) have anything cited for their Japanese names other than the Mouse being called "mimī" in Nintendō Kōshiki Guidebook Luigi's Mansion 2, which from my research seems to be reputable. But still, where are the other names from? DrippingYellow (talk) 18:08, January 14, 2024 (EST)

The crow's name appears in game in LM3, in one of the ScareScraper objectives, while the spider appears in game in LM2, in E Gadd's monologue before the spider web mission. The mouse, spider and robomb are also mentioned in some scans I found for that guide, but I haven't yet found anything for the frog, beetle, bat, flytrap, and orange flower. I didn't add references for the spider and crow because they're in game names. Does this answer your question? Blinker (talk) 05:13, January 15, 2024 (EST)

I suppose, but I thought it was required to cite sources for foreign names even if they appeared in-game? e.g. how the LM2 Big Boo cites a let's play as a reference for its Japanese name, with a time stamp around the time it is shown. DrippingYellow (talk) 14:49, January 15, 2024 (EST)

Nope. In fact, unless something is contested or an atypical depiction of a recurring thing, that's generally discouraged. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 15:00, January 15, 2024 (EST)

Regarding the above...

Should we not have made the proposal's options accordingly?:

"Just split crow"

"Just split frog"

"Split both"

"Don't do anything"

It would've made more sense, especially considering proposals like the Solo Toady or Naval Piranha. -- FanOfYoshi 02:49, January 22, 2024 (EST)

It didn't occur to me that someone might support splitting one but not the other, and to be honest I still don't think I understand why someone would. I would have added those options if asked or if I knew they would be supported, but from what I saw all the voters seemed to either support splitting both or neither. Blinker (talk) 08:27, January 22, 2024 (EST)

Names?

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I confused as to where a lot of names in this article were taken from. Since most of which were added in this edit, I asked SmashFan where they got the names once, but they said "Nope, I didn't added those translations", so I dunno. Why would there be a Russian or Portuguese name in the first place? Are the Twilight Town crows even called that outside of the "Feather Club for Crows" line? That line was added in the English translation, so where does "watarigarasu" come from as well? Blinker (talk) 16:21, June 8, 2024 (EDT)

The two Luigi's Mansion games with crows were translated into Portuguese and Russian, and judging by when the first edit was made, it seems they got them from Dark Moon. TTYD has a few lines where the word "crow" is used regularly:

"I've been thinking lately... I don't really wanna be a pig... but being a crow could be OK."

"Yea, verily, I have decided! I will go on an epic journey! I will gather what light I can! Though I am a mere crow..."

Scrooge200 (talk) 16:40, June 8, 2024 (EDT)

Hm, but crows aren't mentioned in game in LM2. As for TTYD, thanks for pointing out those lines. I've gone and checked the Japanese version on Youtube of that "being a crow could be OK" line, and it says "karasu", not "watarigarasu"... Blinker (talk) 06:21, June 9, 2024 (EDT)