Discussion Most cringeworthy thing you've read in a novel

CN: romance is too cringe, one reason I had to drop Dragon Marked War God
JP: MC can be some 20+ year old man but as naive as a preschooler, had to drop "Takarakuji de 40-oku Atattandakedo Isekai ni Ijuu Suru/I Won 4 Billion in a Lottery But I Went to Another World" cause of that.

 

SPECIFIC
If we're talking about a specific instance, then it would be in Stellar Transformations, when:

Spoiler

Qin Yu has an emotional breakdown and starts screaming in the middle of the street when Alice, a girl he's been dating for maybe a week, ditches him.

That was painful to read, and not in the emotional way.

GENERAL
CN:

• Countless 5,000 year old virgins who will try to murder the MC for breathing near the woman they fancy
• MC can't take two steps into a town without another would-be rapist coming after his hot girls, which makes you wonder how she survived up to the age she's at
• Romance that develops after a couple of boring lines have been exchanged, after which point the MC and/or the girl are willing to die for and/or wait thousands of years for each other. Same with side characters -- they can't get over their beloved who died millenia ago. The authors of these stories don't seem to understand logistics (I've read about a lot of cities that are bigger than planets) or time (characters and even civilizations don't change, and centuries are treated like weekends)

JP:

• Too many to list

I enjoy most of these stories, but yeah, there's a lot of stuff that'll make you roll your eyes

 

You are spot on.

"Oh my God, this person is having a cultivation problem and the ONLY way to help is to have sex with her. "

 

Anything related to romance and relationships, it can be CN and JP, it doesn't matter.

CN - the whole "fighting for an impossible love" thing. There are novels that the guy keeps chasing a girl for like a 1000 chapters and every f*cking single time he gets close to her, something happens, like the MC falls in love with a childhood friend but she goes to a badass sect and then after 300 chapters he gets to a level where he can finally get her and then "oh my God, she's the lost daughter of that ridiculously strong family" after another 3 arcs he's finally able to get respect from her family and then, surprisingly, the mother of the girl was actually a f*cking angel or something and she goes to another realm and this pattern keep repeating over and over.

JP relationships are annoying too, if you read a non adult novel the MC acts like a socially disabled person, he was like a mid age business man but after Isekai he acts like a potato but with a cheat, if you read the adult stuff you'll get stuff like rape and pedophilia going on, there's no balance.

 

it is even worse of it is the mc who does the same

 

Mostly when somebody says something over-the-top sexist. Like "you're a girl! You shouldn't be driving a tank/aiming to win world magic tournament/actively trying to get a boy!". In a series where all the girls are driving tanks, practicing magic and/or seducing that boy.

Second place goes to people who try to pretend there is no trouble brewing and wait for it to hit them in the face before they actually start fighting. I haven't yet seen it work for any of them.

P.S. I find most Japanese older male protagonists to be rather believable. If you were on a vacation in a fantasy world after hellish work in Japan, you wouldn't want to work too much either. And Japanese tourists are said to be quite naive and having trouble in other countries.

 

See, that's the thing... unless it's pre-spoilered, or one of the maybe 5-or-so hmangaka who absolute refuse to draw disheartening wtf sh!t and downer endings, you NEVER know until you turn the page

Could be lovey dovey AF happyfap goodness
...could also be something soulcrushing or please pass the brain bleach

The lack of plot armor is part of the attraction.

 

I wouldn't say it's part of the attraction, but unpredictability sure is there. Where do you buy your brain bleach from?

 

Just overwrite it in short term memory with something lighthearted

Whether it's happy pron or something like
...hmmm, actually is it just me or does the entire genre of isekai pretty much exist for short term memory flushing???

 

Cultivation type stories MC's that make an enemy out of every major power in the city they just got in less than a day ago because some kid said something rude to him thinking he was a nobody because he was hiding all his strength to look exactly like a nobody, but still gets pissed anyways after getting the outcome he wanted and kill the kid making himself and all of his friends the target of everyone for the next 200 chapters while he hides and cultivates picking up girls along the way.
Of course none of it is his fault, it's the world that's fucked up.

Oh yeah, there's also the -cough- Chu Feng -cough- type of MC's that are lecherous everytime they see a good looking female, have raped plenty of women, but somehow 9/10 times every female that is in the story is in love with him.

 

I think the most cringiest thing i read in Chinese novel is the author trying to force the girl to like the protagonist, like the first time the girl see the protagonist she already fell in love even though the protagonist didn't do anything...... WTF is that..

 

All the MCs made by Mars Gravity

 

It's called "love at first sight". I think it doesn't work unless the story is visibly idealistic.