[Partially Answered, More Input Needed] Question re: Japanese editions and formats

[Drace]

So I'm currently in the middle of writing up a cleanup thread for the Projects folder to fix issues with The Night of Baba Yaga, a Japanese crime novel that's getting an English translation this summer. While doing so, I found the listing for the original Japanese novel on Amazon Japan, so I figured I'd do my best to correct errors with the Japanese edition page on Goodreads (the page count and publisher are missing, for example).

However, I noticed that the Japanese edition has its format listed as "Tankobon Hardcover." I know what a tankōbon is (for anyone who needs a translation, Wikipedia says that "The tankōbon is one of the standard publishing formats for stand-alone books in Japan"), but seeing this confused me, because when you hit the Format dropdown menu on a work's editions page, "Tankobon Hardcover" is not an option. (This edition actually isn't a hardcover either, but that's a whole other issue.) (EDIT: It actually does seem to be a hardcover based on photos of the book that I was able to find, but Amazon JP calls it a paperback when the page is set to display in English.) It looks like the Goodreads bot made this change, so is "Tankobon Hardcover" some kind of internal format option that's only available to the bot or librarians or something? How was that able to be accessed?

Additionally, there's a missing Japanese edition that is in the bunkobon format, which is, roughly speaking, Japan's equivalent of the mass market paperback format (smaller, cheaper editions of a book previously published in hardcover; although sometimes bunkobon editions are hardcovers themselves). Should this just be categorized as a mass-market paperback, or is there a bunkobon paperback option buried somewhere in the formats dropdown?

Thanks for any and all help with this issue, it's much appreciated.

EDIT: Also, one more question for anyone who might be able to provide advice: should the publisher's name be listed in the original kanji or in romanized Japanese? I.E.; should it be 河出書房新社 or Kawade Shobō Shinsha?

[Melanie]

Drace wrote: " It looks like the Goodreads bot made this change, so is "Tankobon Hardcover" some kind of internal format option that's only available to the bot or something? How was that able to be accessed?..."

On the edit page, next to the format dropdown menu is a link that says 'Other'. If you click that, the format dropdown becomes a text field where you can enter formats that are not available in the dropdown list.

[Drace]

Melanie wrote: "On the edit page, next to the format dropdown menu is a link that says 'Other'. If you click that, the format dropdown becomes a text field where you can enter formats that are not available in the dropdown list."

Got it, thank you for your help. So should this be corrected to just Hardcover (because it is just a standard hardcover), or should it be left as-is?

[Melanie]

Drace wrote: "So should this be corrected to just Hardcover (because it is just a standard hardcover), or should it be left as-is?"

I don't know enough about this specific format to say definitively how it should be listed. Hopefully someone else comes along who may have more knowledge about these Japanese formats.

I just wanted to pass along how a format not in the dropdown could be entered.

[Drace]

Melanie wrote: "I don't know enough about this specific format to say definitively how it should be listed. Hopefully someone else comes along who may have more knowledge about these Japanese formats.

I just wanted to pass along how a format not in the dropdown could be entered."

Understood, thanks for the help. Hopefully some more eyes will fall on this thread soon. I might mark it with "unanswered" or "partially answered" or something in the title to get other librarians' attention in the next day or so.

[gem]

Drace wrote: "Should the publisher's name be listed in the original kanji or in romanized Japanese? I.E.; should it be 河出書房新社 or Kawade Shobō Shinsha?"

There is no specific rule for this in the "publisher" page in the Librarian Manual, but the "title" page offers this guidance:

transliteration

If a title is given in non-roman characters (kanji, Cyrillic script, etc.) and a transliteration in roman characters is available, the transliteration can be placed in square brackets after the title and any subtitle; this is optional. Do not provide a translation in the title field.

Examples of transliterations:
エア・ギア 1 [Ea Gia 1] (Air Gear #1)
Дверь в лето [Dverʹ v leto]
夏への扉 [Natsu e no tobira]

So in this case, I think the most correct entry for the publisher field would be:
河出書房新社 [Kawade Shobō Shinsha]

[Drace]

gem wrote: "So in this case, I think the most correct entry for the publisher field would be:
河出書房新社 [Kawade Shobō Shinsha]"

Thanks for the advice on the publisher name, it's very much appreciated.

Still looking for advice on the format, so if any other librarians want to chime in there I'd be very grateful.

[Drace]

Just in case any librarians here want to take a look at it, I've posted the cleanup thread for this book in the Projects folder:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...