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MangaBaka General Title Style

Table of contents

  1. English (Translated) Titles
  2. Capitalization
  3. Subtitles with Special Styling of Official English Titles
  4. !? vs ?! In Fan Translated Titles
  5. Romanized Titles
  6. Japanese Native Titles
  7. Handling Non-Reading (Semantic) Furigana in Titles
  8. Native English Titles
  9. Additional English “Official” or “Canon” Alternative Titles
  10. Additional Short Titles

English (Translated) Titles

  1. English titles should always follow the English language rules with the use of colons (: ) and em-dashes (—) for subtitles and sub-subtitles.
  2. All straight (typewriter) apostrophes and quotation marks (', '...', or "...") shall be replaced with smart (typographic) quotation marks (’, ‘...’, or “...”) for proper visual representation and consistency.
  3. All elipses consisting of three dots “...” shall be replaced by the propery elipses symbol “…”.
  4. For official licensed works, look at the covers first and foremost for the full title and correct punctuation, any (publisher's) website is secondary.
  5. If the publisher of officially licensed works has a special decorations or styling—mostly mimicking the Japanese title—of the title on their website, follow that instead of rule 1.
  6. In cases where having an em-dash looks better than a colon or when the subtitle contains a colon already, you can swap the em-dash and colon position.

Examples of the English title styling and correcting what is shown on the covers:

  • Disney Twisted-Wonderland: The Manga—Book of Savanaclaw (Adjusted title from VIZ Media)
  • Naruto: Sasuke’s Story—The Uchiha and the Heavenly Stardust: The Manga (As-is by VIZ Media)
  • The Strongest Hero: Envoy of Darkness -Betrayed by His Comrades, the Strongest Hero Joins Forces with the Strongest Monster- (Styled by Manga UP! Global)
  • 86—EIGHTY-SIX (Styled by Yen Press but adjusted the -- to be a proper em-dash)
  • Excellent Property, Rejects for Residents: Baths, Lavatories, and Angels Are Communal (Full title from cover, incomplete on Yen Press)
  • You’re My Cutie!! (Corrected punctuation from cover and adjusted the apostrophe compared to Kodansha Comics)

Swapped colon and em-dash examples;

  • Holoearth Chronicles Side:E—Yamato Phantasia (Used em-dash instead of a colon for the subtitle separator as it looks visually better due to title containing a colon near the sub-title separator).
  • tbd (Here em-dash is used first as the sub-subtitle separator given by the publisher is having the colon, so to keep the sub-title and sub-subtitle together, an em-dash is used first).

Capitalization

  1. For official translated works follow the capitalization that is shown on the cover or otherwise the publisher's website if no cover is available (like chapters as a service platforms).
  2. Short titles that are all caps on the cover should be also all caps as English title (e.g., ONE PIECE, ONE-PUNCH MAN). For any long (sentence) titles look at the website for capitalization.
  3. If the title is fan-translated into English then Chicago Capitalization shall always be used, as it is the most common for novel titles.

Subtitles with Special Styling of Official English Titles

When the official English titles have special decorations or styling—mostly mimicking the Japanese title—and there are one or more sub-titles present one can use a comma for a stop and visual clarity which at the same time also keeps part of it to the decorated title. For example two official decorated English titles which also has been broken down in parts:

!? vs ?! In Fan Translated Titles

When fan translating a native title that has the ！？punctuation to English, always translate this to ?!, as this is the most common use of interrogative exclamations in English literature.

  • The question mark typically carries more syntactic weight being first as it defines the sentence type (interrogative).
  • The exclamation mark then adds the emotional emphasis (exclamation) when reading left to right.

Romanized Titles

MangaBaka follows the English language title rules with romanized titles as well, using only colons (: ) and em-dashes (—) to separate the titles, subtitles, and sub-subtitles.

  • ソードアート・オンライン　オルタナティブ　ガンゲイル・オンライン is titled as Sword Art Online: Alternative—Gun Gale Online
  • 本好きの下剋上　～司書になるためには手段を選んでいられません～　第三部　「領地に本を広げよう!」 is titled as Honzuki no Gekokujou: Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan o Erandeiraremasen—Dai 3-bu: Ryouchi ni Hon o Hirogeyou!

For further langauge specific romanization rules, refer to:

Author Romanization

Use author romanized titles only for the reading of the native title, always use our MangaBaka Romanization Style to romanize native titles.

Japanese Native Titles

  1. Native titles should retain any special symbols for indication of subtitles (usually copied from BookWalker Japan, Amazon Japan, or the cover itself).
  • Only use the following for subtitle markers: full-width tilde ～, full-width hyphen －, quotation bar ―, or full-width space 　
  1. Any normal space present between the title and subtitle (indicator) should be a full-width space “　” for visual clarity.
  2. If there is no space between the title and subtitle indicator add a full-width space “　” in between.
  3. In a few rare cases, Japanese websites do use the "official" wavedash, for consistency replace this with the full-width tilde “～”.
  4. Replace any !, ?, (, and ) with the full-width equivalent ！, ？, （, and ） for full-width title consistency.
  5. Roman Letter(s), abriviations, or Arabic numbers (that are stand-alone or with a counter) are replaced with their full-width equivalent for consistency.
  • 落第賢者の学院無双　～二度目の転生、Ｓランクチート魔術師冒険録～ (full-width space and tilde for subtitle, full-width Roman letter S).
  • 会社と私生活　－オンとオフ－ (full-width space and full-width hyphen).
  • お隣の天使様にいつの間にか駄目人間にされていた件　after the rain (full-width space for subtitle, roman subtitle is kept as-is on the cover).

Extra spacing between the title and subtitle

It is not required to add a space by Japanese rules for titles using a subtitle indicator and this is also not strictly followed by Japanese websites listing the series, so for consistency and visual clarity we would always want a full-width space in between the title and subtitle, even if there is already a subtitle indicator present. If there is a normal space already present, simply replace this with the full-width space.

Handling Non-Reading (Semantic) Furigana in Titles

When a cover title includes furigana that is not the reading of the kanji, but instead conveys a different, author-intended meaning or nuance, the title should be styled as follows:

  1. Main Native Title:
  • Write the full native title as it appears, but insert the author-intended furigana reading in 〈…〉 brackets after the affected word.
  • This indicates the presence of an alternate semantic reading rather than a phonetic one.
  1. Alternative Native Title:
  • Include an additional version of the title without the inserted furigana, matching the cover’s printed form exactly.
  • For MangaBaka, add the following to the note field: Without furigana
  1. Main Romanized Title:
  • Romanize the title using the author-intended furigana reading, omitting the original kanji form that carries a different written meaning.
  1. Alternative Romanized Title:
  • Provide an alternative romanization that reflects the literal reading of the kanji (without the substituted furigana).
  • For MangaBaka, add the following to the note field: Without furigana

Example Title

  • Main Native Title: 四姉妹〈エルフ〉は夜をおまちかね
  • Alternative Native Title: 四姉妹は夜をおまちかね
  • Main Romanized Title: Elves wa Yoru o Omachikane (Elves and not Elf as Yonshimai is plural here)
  • Alternative Romanized Title: Yonshimai wa Yoru o Omachikane

Single Angle Brackets

The injected furigana reading is enclosed in full-width 〈single angle brackets〉 to avoid conflicts with （parentheses）, 【square/lenticular brackets】, or the 《double angle brackets》 that are commonly used in Japanese titles for stylistic or subtitle purposes. This symbol pair is visually distinct and unambiguous in database and display contexts, while still feeling Japanese-adjacent rather than arbitrary.

Native English Titles

  1. If the series has a title that is already "English" then add this first to the romanized field of the series.
  2. If the series shows a native reading of said title—be it in katakana or hiragana—then add this to the native title field of the series.
  3. If there is no such thing as a native reading title, then add the "English" title—matching the romanized field—to the native title field as well.

For example; ONE PIECE (ワンピース), DEATH NOTE (デスノート), FAIRY TAIL (フェアリーテイル), HUNTER×HUNTER (ハンター×ハンター), VINLAND SAGA (ヴィンランド・サガ), etc.

Additional English “Official” or “Canon” Alternative Titles

When native works have an extra English(-ish) title(-like) on the Cover, Inner Cover, ToC, or repeated multiple times throughout a volume, then add this as-is as an alternative title.
However, if the aditional English title is in all caps, then convert this to Chicago Capitalization.

Additional Short Titles

When native works have a shortened name or hashtag, either author made or community recognized, add this as an alternative romanized or native title.