Well, I only read till latest chapter in Gravity tales. So don't see much romance except hinting about 2 girls.
My death flag shows no sign of ending? MC dodges all the love. Why would you avoid stories without romance?
I like romance in my stories myself, but if you're crossing out novels with that criteria, then you're missing out.
Just a personal taste. For me it serves as lubrication in stories. Too much action without romance is... I dunno... just impotent in my eyes. Especially when the novels focus on glorifying the MC. Not really. I still try them out regardless. But... Most of the novels I drop either have no romance or an MC so twisted it's practically a pretzel.
Ah well its not that I hate romance (I read Mills&Boon and most books that I read are pure romance since I have my girly side) its just that I find it annoying when a guy/girl should be saving the world or killing people but is busy cuddling. I just want something that's not about the girl/guy. Something where the MC comes, destroys, conquers you know? Thanks for all the recommendations so far.
Would Stellar Transformation apply? I mean there is romance here and there when the mc meets the girl he likes but they got separated and only got to be together again after they a really long time...... In fact one of the main reason the mc worked so hard to become what he is is due to his desire to meet his true love again.
Thanks but I've read that... I've seen all the current translated I Eat Tomatoes, Er Gen and Tang Jian San whatshisname books. Hell I read all of Coiling Dragon in three days...
It's like having an incomplete craving. If you're going to have pizza, you can get plain old cheese but decide otherwise to add the toppings since it gives it a whole new level. I'm not saying I don't read stories without romance but sometimes you feel like the character has a missing facet. While the lack of romance bc of the character's situation is fine(like in Reincarnator), I can't help but feel that glossing over one of the most important aspects of a person is wrong. Even an asexual person falls in love, they just don't have sex so If I'm reading a character's story and not a log, a memoir or something like that it should tell us about that regardless of success or failure. The only people who usually don't fall in love are psychopaths. The problem may lay in the fact that romance is hard and budding romance even harder. Not every author can pull it off while adding as well that wuxia/xianxia stories are about how a character progresses while growing hence the romance is usually about meeting and falling in love instead of an already existing relationship.
Oh nonono, don't get me wrong there are a handful of good novels without romance. It's just a personal quirk of mine. It just feels... inorganic, if a story doesn't have romance.
Lol Sorry I don't know many xianxia or wuxia novels that does not have much romance. I also really liked CD and ST too. When I started them I just binged out on them that I finished most of the translated chapters in nearly a day or two as well~~
Meh, just going to revive this thread to get my piece out there. I love romance but chinese authors seems to be completely and utterly incapable of writing good romance, it all just ends up ruining the story instead. I've hardly even seen a single chinese xuanhuan/xianxia/wuxia novel with proper romance. The girls all tend to be unlikable and the romance is exaggerated, to the point of being sickening. Like wanting to spend your entire life trying to meet or save the girl you met for five minutes or a few days this one time or planning to commit suicide because you can't live without the girl. Just how weak are they mentally? Cultivating the dao? F*ck that if you can't even handle some heartache. It also all too often overshadows the true story and supposed goals. Well, the worst parts are actually that I never see any true, proper development in chinese novels, it seems to be taboo and might have something to do with their culture. They're usually always caught in the same mold, they're very restricted in how they write and characters need to act in a special way, which makes it stiff and after experiencing it in a few novels, it just gets increasingly annoying. The men need to act exactly like this and you're not a man if you harm women or if you don't protect them like you'd die if they get a single strand of hair harmed or gets looked at in the wrong way. They always have to show off how manly they are and as soon as the romance part starts, they will lose their previous personality, they change too much. The same goes for the girls who might have some smidgen of personality before falling in love with the mc and getting to those romance parts(although it will be lacking and they're all the same in many ways, they can't be girls if they don't act in certain ways, right?), but after falling in love, they will generally always lose all of their personality and become meek while listening to the mc and supporting him with everything they have. They will also act as if they need to rely on him to exist. Some rare ones have some personality leftover, but it will be overshadowed by how you must act when in love according to their culture. Although this can also end up even worse where they have a big f*cking mouth and greed yet no positive points and no contributions if the author has masochistic tendencies. This all makes for shallow romance and the decisive lack of build-up/gradual romance and lasting personalities that doesn't get exchanged for card-board cutouts whenever the lovers meet makes one unable to be attached or immersed which also makes the excessive declarations of love off-putting, because there's no way we can truly root for the characters or feel like it's natural when we've not seen any development whatsoever that would lead to such levels of affection. Not to mention that I really don't support the notion that you have to be all mushy and lovey-dovey if you're in love, people keep their previous personalities and that's f*cking that. There's no complete change of personality at the snap of a hat whenever they're close to eachother, that just doesn't work. Just because you love someone doesn't mean it will change you and everything else. But everytime we get into those romantic dialogues, it's as if we're watching a long-standing couple cuddling in the bedroom while sweettalking eachother and this is the case no matter the situation, they will always be like that... It doesn't make it better that this often ends up in a way where the girl is nothing but a freaking cheerleader that will cheer on the mc and get in trouble while being damn baggage that only leeches all the time, the princess in distress kind of thing... Sorry, I don't like useless trash leeching off of the mc, I don't want a group of subservient b*tches that contribute with nothing. Neither do I want some unreasonable sh*theads that pretends to be all that as they act as if they mc is their sugar daddy and that they're the superior one in a relationship despite having no merits that says they're even a thousandth as good as him. That they get unreasonable power-ups is even more annoying. So, because of all this, I've developed something of a phobia concerning chinese romance. It just about never ends up well, it always tends to ruin previously awesome novels that I previously loved. Even if I can endure and keep on reading many novels, the horrible romance is so glaring that I keep on getting annoyed and pissed off, which drastically reduces my enjoyment points throughout the entire novel whenever the girl or girls is involved. Japanese authors are way better at this and the romance there is at least a thousand times more satisfying, although they often tend to go the opposite path by making things drag on for too long and never finishing, they build everything up properly but when there's proper groundwork and it's obvious that they love eachother, they just never truly end up together until the very end. Also a lack of s*x and other intimacy in general, which is kind of a turn-off. So, japanese romance aren't perfect either, but at least it's enjoyable and you get immersed into the romance, you understand why they love eachother and can support it, you also tend to like the girls much more there. Maybe the main issue that the romance is way too identical and rigid throughout every chinese novel, thanks to their unvaried and rigid cultural molds that everyone needs to adhere to, that I just can't help but hate it and notice more and more of its bad points. It's like reading the same romance a hundred times in different circumstances, with almost identical interactions. It wasn't that good from the start, but I remember I did enjoy it to some extent I was newer to chinese novels and could root for girls instead of just wishing they were dead so that they could stop ruining the story and flow. Then I was getting more and more annoyed for every novel and nowadays I hardly want to read any novel with romance in it if it's written by a chinese dude. Urgh. It's just that bad. Well, I still endure because there's hard to find a xianxia/xuanhuan/wuxia without a romantic subplot, so I don't really have any choice. Luckily the girls tend to be a very small part of the story.
Finally, someone that has the same taste as mine..romance in chinese novels especially in Xianxia are crap. Anyway, try this ones. The Path Toward Heaven Stealing The Heavens Swallowing the Heavens The Devil’s Cage Instant Kill
most xianxia are not truly romance, female characters only get introduced in few chapters, after that they disappear for hundred chpaters