No Wonder Japanese Novel Translations Have A Bad Rep

All the samas, kuns are distracting from the story. It reads more like a fetish piece than a story. It's no surprise Chinese and Korean novels have surpassed Japanese novels.
I hadn't read a new Japanese novel in years and I couldn't help but be disappointed.
It's a chore to read...

Also the other suffixes as stated below. It breaks immersion. Only works if you are into fetish porn or eroge.
It is even more out of place in a novel set in Europe

 

Dont some translators prefer to keep it that way? Its some kind of principle or stuff (i rmb a translator group explaining abt this) if im not mistaken. To keep some things original or japanese-y or stuff.

 

And all the -nim and -hyung doesn't?

 

he's trolling, it's like saying Chinese has too many pictographs or English has too many alphabets. He's rather famous for trolling, Mr Wuji.

 

The honorifics are the problem? Not the indecisive, passive, doormat protagonists and the plethora of groupies that surround them?

 

Haha, some Korean novels do have it to be honest.
But imagine how Coiling Dragon would have read if there was Linley gongzi or Linley daren every few lines

 

And all those -'er are only decorations...

 

Well, he did learn it for the number one troll, jesus, who pretened to be dead for 3 days.

 

I think it has something to do with writing style... many JPN characters seem like caricatures, with exaggerated ways of speaking and acting... feels very unreal. This style works well in visual media like anime and manga, but when it comes to novels...

 

It's actually something that does not translate well into English. -er is a term of endearment, so when someone uses it, it implies a very close relationship like Parent-Child relationship or closer.

 

Touché! Add the honorific plus the groupies and it reads like bad porn lol.
Then again, I know that many learnt Japanese from eroge, so it's no surprise that the style is copied over.
The tone of the author might be very different from the translation

 

CN: daren, xiao, niangniang and er and etc
KN: Nim, Ssi?
JP: Kun, San, Samas

 

it's their culture. They ALWAYS use titles like san, kun, sempai or kohai, their culture is very structured in a caste like system and there are holdovers till today. Calling a person by name only either implies very close relations or is a big insult (along the lines of calling the Queen "Hey Queeny!" to her face).

 

Depends on translators. I have seen korean with the affixes and korean words. Examples are brother,sister etc. They have matching translator note saying it means brother/sister etc.

reminds me of that meme . It is according to Keiyaku . Keiyaku means plan in the footnote.

 

is this bait? either way i feel obliged to tell you i think the writing style of most chinese novels is trash and whenever i think i finally find one i'll enjoy the style sucks the life out of it and it gets dropped

 

And I have a hard time because there is way to much time wasted talking about face in CN novels...
Make me feel like every character is wasting their time acting like a overpuffed with pride rooster without doing anything interresting (there's a humorist in my country that said that the pridefull rooster is the national emblem animal because it's one of the only animal that sing harder when he is up his feet in shit ).

 

If he wasn't dead, I'm sure he'll be close to it once he hears Wuji call himself a Christian lol.

 

It's ironically humorous that Wuji is taking the piss out of leaving titles in translations when his name is Wujigege (Brother Wuji). If he hates it so much, why is his name a title? lol

 

Actually no, more people will read Japanese novels without unnecessary honorifics that ruin immersion.
Lack Last I checked, when Japanese speak English they don't use -samas, -kuns etc.
And I agree with others that stories picked by most are just PG 13 porn. It will be nice if Japanese novels with better stories get picked up. You know things like crime thrillers, murder mysteries etc eg Memorandum of Okitegami Kyoko.

I know that the average reader here is younger than we realize but Nancy Drew was read by kids. Even Detective Conan is aimed at kids.

 

I wasn't talking about the use of honorifics, tho. I actually have no problem with that. I meant things like ending sentences with, say, desu-yo. There also seems to be an air of frivolity around many of their novels- something I can't get used to.