Talk:Taiji (musician)

Name

I'm not sure if the japanese kanji for taiji's name is correct or not since I can't read japanese, but I think it's right because I got it from the same site (http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_JAPAN) at the same place (except under information about taiji) that had the kanji for hide's name and it is the same in his wiki. ^My JPWP comes up with 沢田　退治 but it could be wrong.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Steal2 (talk • contribs) 14:49, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

沢田泰司 is correct. He changed the kanji to 沢田大司 for a few years in the 1990s, but I am not sure how important it would be to include that in an English article. Japanese music magazines of the time would be good sources to cite if its inclusion is necessary. Ibanez100 (talk) 21:07, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Statements about living persons

I deleted two parts of this article in compliance with WP:BLPSOURCES.

The first was a statement regarding Mitsuo Takeuchi's activities with D.T.R in 1996. A source was cited, however the source actually contradicted the statement in the article. Beyond that, the cited source, jame-world.com, is a fan site written by volunteers and has a reputation for incomplete and inaccurate information - in fact the cited page itself contained numerous errors. A reliable source (which actually contains the information in question) should be cited for the statement that D.T.R was put on hold due to Taiji's personal problems, however I did not delete that as (sadly) the rules regarding living persons no longer apply to Taiji.

The second and more serious was the paragraph regarding D.T.R in 2009. I deleted the entire paragraph in compliance with WP:BLPSOURCES. The paragraph made claims in regard to living persons (the other D.T.R members and staff members) which were both unsourced and written from an extremely biased point of view. The paragraph seemed to be based on an inaccurate fan translation of one of Taiji's own blog posts and did not account for anyone's side of the story other than Taiji's. Even if the translation were accurate (and it was not), none of the claims in it, not even disbandment, were ever confirmed by anyone other than Taiji himself. Every statement made was therefore non-neutral and contentious. If something regarding that Taiji blog post is to be included in the article, a reliable translation should be found and cited and the statements regarding it should be written in a neutral manner, for example "in a post in his personal blog, Taiji stated that..." or something along those lines.

I found these to be the two most significant problems as they contained contentious statements about living persons, however the entire article is fraught with errors and unsourced statements and could also use some general editing for clarity and grammar. Hopefully someone else can help out as well.

Ibanez100 (talk) 20:52, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Reliability of JaME as a source, and the statement regarding Taiji's "personal problems"

WP:RS#Questionable_sources

JaME (www.jame-world.com) is by its own admission both a fan site and a promotional site. To quote from http://www.jame-world.com/us/about-jame.html:

"The prime objective of JaME is to spread the popularity of contemporary Japanese music to the people of Europe and America."

"the JaME team is made up of volunteers with a strong passion for Japanese music. "

"JaME has passed all expectations of its original inception as a fan site to reach a high level of quality. JaME is not yet a company per se but we do however incorporate a series of pay for services including promotional services as well as a donation program to support our website and other activities."

JaME's D.T.R article (http://www.jame-world.com/us/artists-biography-336-d-t-r.html) contains both promotional hyperbole and a large number of errors. Here are a few examples.

Promotional hyperbole:

D.T.R is "one of the few Japanese groups that could actually be described as melodic heavy metal". (There are many Japanese bands that could be described as melodic heavy metal. It is debatable whether D.T.R's music could even be described as melodic heavy metal itself.)

"They left a very strong impact on the metal world." (I can't think of any Japanese bands influenced by D.T.R. Outside of Japan, they are unknown.)

Errors:

"All English lyrics". (A few of their songs are in Japanese.)

"After bassist Sawada Taiji left legendary bands X and Loudness, he created a new project called D.T.R.. Taiji was soon joined by Fujimoto Taiji (ex Judy and Mary and DANCER) and Kuroda Tonoyuki on guitars..." (The correct spelling is Kuroda Tomoyuki, and he was not part of the original lineup.)

"D.T.R.'s first album, Dirty Trash Road, was released in July. ... An acoustic version of this album introduced two new members to D.T.R.: Ichiro on guitars and Komori Shigeo on keyboards." (Both albums were released on the same day with the same member lineup, therefore no one was a new member.)

There are even more where those came from, and in various other band profiles as well. I hope it is now clear why JaME is not a reliable source.

Additionally, nothing relating to the claim that "D.T.R was put on hold when Taiji was going through personal problems" is mentioned in the JaME article to begin with. Where does this statement come from? Ibanez100 (talk) 20:34, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Dispute over death being suicide

Requesting the suicide references be removed. Per http://022.holidayblog.jp/?p=5794 there is reasonable doubt of homicide and an ongoing investigation. -anon, 24:34 27 July 2011, PDT — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.154.215.101 (talk) 07:35, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

That source looks extremely tabloidish. Unless the source's credibility can be established or the same information can be found from a credible source, I would not consider it reasonable enough doubt for removal of the suicide references, which are well sourced. Ibanez100 (talk) 22:58, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Another request for suicide references to be removed. Taiji's fiancee, Tomomi, who saw his body before he was taken off life support, has testified that he had no neck wounds at all, which would put "suicide by hanging" entirely in dispute as a cause of death no matter how many "official" sources state it. Also, there was no autopsy and the death certificate was issued by the detaining authorities, which is suspect as well. If you need to source this, Tomomi is @Tomomi_Red on Twitter and she will tell you what she saw (and she has plenty of tweets about it for anyone interested). Can we at least list the cause of death as disputed? I know we can't list as homicide until the certificate is reissued, but seeing as it is seriously disputed by his fiancee and by people who knew him, to the point of pressuring the Japanese embassy to look into the matter, "disputed" or "potentially suicide but disputed" would be FAR more accurate and respectful.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.127.113.130 (talk)

Find one reliable source about this and it can be added. If the embassy looked into it like you claim than surely it has been reported on. Xfansd (talk) 17:07, 27 February 2013 (UTC)