Why Japanese Web Novels Have A Bad Reputation

My comment is not about individual translators and their quality nor about authors and their good or bad writing style. Syosetsu and others are platforms for amateurs and fan translation has many people, whose first language isn't English (like me for example). In the first place, judging something like that falls into the case-by-case category. A good translator can make an author's "bad writing style" more enjoyable and likewise an author's good story will survive even a mediocre translator. A good story sells, and that's what counts for both parties.

What I tried to express is that I'm tired of all these generalized arguments "Japanese stories focus too much on food, Japanese write only about beta MCs, Japanese suck at writing about romance or all of their stories are about harems." I have seen these kind of comments for years and they don't get better by more people posting them. Heck, even I hate translating paragraphs about Japanese food, but I accept them as part of the subculture and simply get over with it (while grinding my teeth and cursing).
Or to make it easier to understand what I'm trying to say: If you go to a platform where gardeners write about their gardening hobbies because you want to read about different plants, it makes no sense to judge the writers because they write about insects or gardening tools. It's part of the show. Skim through it and be done with it. Or simply don't go reading about plants from hobby gardeners. ;-)

Also, I'm not underestimating Japanese media. While it might be a Japanese subculture, it does have many good works that are an enrichment or of such a high quality that they are capable of entering normal Western media. And as said above, good stories sell, no matter where they originate from.
All I'm stating is that this subculture has tropes, phrases, habits etc. pp which might seem odd to a non-Japanese person, but are still basic part of it, in good or bad. ;-)

 

I think the complaints about beta male protagonists is pretty laughable since all popular anime have the same protagonists and the same people love them.
I think it has just become cool to claim that you prefer psychotic mass murderers that Chinese novels have.
Personally, I have no issue with the food. I skip them
Nothing exactly wrong with beta protagonists, I just feel the stories are sometimes not consistent which is forgivable since the works are unedited
My biggest issue is the female characters, they dont feel real to me. Even Japanese have complained
eg Hayao Miyazaki, and I agree
“Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know.”

“It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans.”
https://soranews24.com/2014/01/30/g...strys-problem-is-that-its-full-of-anime-fans/

 

As sad as it may sound, that makes very much sense. Going back to my initial statement: "by Japanese anime/manga/LN fans for others of their kind," your issue is also included within that. I'm no professor of sociology, but even I can judge that unique, enclosed subcultures live in their own ethic bubbles. It's probably no stretch to apply the 80/20 rule here and say that 80% of the Japanese authors (that might as well be labelled as otaku) have never had a relationship with real women (same probably applies to the female side of the authors too). So how should they write about something they don't know?
You can easily guess that from the derogatory usage of "riajuu" in some novels, which clearly points towards the authors feeling something akin to hate towards those who are accomplished in life by having girlfriends, lovers, wives or whatsoever.
Such subcultures tend to have their own moralic codes and terminologies that distinctively separates them from what they perceive as "normal society."
That's no Japanese-only phenomenon though. You will find many such enclosed subcultures in modern society as well as throughout history. Of course their values and rules differ depending on their circumstances, but that kind of "isolated thinking" applies to all of them.

Nevertheless, it's maybe also a reason why some of those authors were able to create works that attracted and fascinated thousands or millions of people. That's a part that should be honored about that subculture.

 

It is beautiful how a country with zero natural resources is able to thrive just using literature.
Lack of censorship does help I have to admit.
China is deluding themselves, it has nothing to do with money.
Throwing Money at it does not guarantee stories that touch me especially when you kill everything with restrictions and pointless censorships

Hopefully, more Japanese live action adaptations of shounen manga flop too. It can be overkill if all we get are Bleach and Full Metal Alchemists in both anime and live action
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/cultur...ns-decade-closed-country-cinema/#.XdWik1dKhPY

 

A long and storied history of Japanese "translations" getting warped and butchered in the name of localization has made some translators scared of making anything that could be perceived as changing the meaning of something.

 

Sorry, but I run a translation website.
You are making false equivalences with anime dubbing.

A European setting novel and you have numerous Japanese phrases is not a good translation.
Needing to use a Japanese to English dictionary to read a translation means it's a bad translation.
There is nothing wrong with localization.
Cowboy Bepop had no issues

 

Read anything written by Nanasawa Matari. Her works are well made when compared to the vast majority of JP novels.

 

I linked to a girl who ate the death god

 

Didn't see that, my bad.
Here's a few extra then:
Legend of Galactic Heroes
Katahane no Riku
The Evil Organization’s Recruitment Ad
She Was Both Called God, as Well as Satan
Ouroboros Record ~Circus of Oubeniel~

 

I know them except for maybe one. I was trying to convince people that Japanese novels are not necessarily bad, the translations are just usually crap even by the supposed best translators.
My translations of girl who ate the death god side story was just as bad

 

I think that you're being overly generous. There are a lot of linguistic elements that don't transfer well to a different language. Things like the heavy usage of onomatopoeia, or indirect phrasing, and so on are to be expected of Japanese writing so it's a bit unfair to criticize them for that. But here's the thing, the bad writing qualities that plague Japanese web novels aren't problems in the Japanese novels that are actually good. So I don't think that it's really a matter of style - it's really as simple as calling it for what it is: bad writing.

That's still not as bad as needing that same dictionary to read the title of the goddamned book. I get it if the original title is short and catchy, but a lot of these untranslated ones are super long and super opaque. Would it kill someone to translate them?

 

Well, my issue with JP novels is two-fold.
Firstly, the majority of translators for reasons unknown avoid localization like it's the plague. (The inclusion of honorifics IMO is unnecessary). If you are translating a Japanese work into a foreign language, then it most certainly needs to be heavily edited. Not just translated word for word and sent out to the consumer.
Secondly, the JP novel consumer seems content with reading smut novels that barely have any plot. And i am not sure why to be honest.

From what I've seen, for a JP novel to become popular it needs its premise to be cool, the characters wild/OP and the world sexy. Just look at the amount of posts asking for smutty novels and OP MC's here. The number of people that enjoy JP smut and consume faulty CN/JP web novels seem content. We in the forums who complain on the number of shitty novels being translated are just a small percentage of people in an otherwise oversaturated market filled with a majority of content weeaboos.

 

Hahaha, A novel I translate had the name translated wrongly as Revolution of an 8th Class MAge instead of REturn of an 8th Class Mage but that is still better than 8 hamina dongi or whatever.
I usually contact Tony to change the title of novels that I translate into English
There is one that I need to do just that
Cheers!

 

cuz jp work more well known compared with cn or kr
hence it easier to find trash on it
it also have to do with popular or mainstream both on source and translator choice plus ability
source, what kind of story is popular on jp community? no not international who interested about jp community but jp community for jp only~ it is funny judge apple comparison with orange ya know
second is translator fault ya know, picking story and it own ability let be honest how comparison between who can choice read what ever they want without language barrier and those who not? this where different lie hmmm let just say jp translator have quite different taste of story compared with cn or kr translator~ sadly international reader who love to singing on stage have different opinion~ while other just read while eating cake and sipping tea enjoying da show

 

You forget that fan translators claim their calling is to spread Japanese culture.
If they are picking too niche novels then it is counterproductive and they are not doing what they want to.
That's the other way to look at it instead of saying International readers are picky

At the end of the day translators are not translating for their own personal consumption. They are translating to share.

I believe everyone sharing would prefer to share to the widest audience they can

 

people share what they want to share
with various purpose
imo on translation group most just on level
hey this good let share with other even it just shared among 3 cat that enuf
it not on level let's spread it to whole world level

 

I would agree if I dont see threads of translators complaining about not having any comments or views
Humans are vain, if you are undermining yourself and shooting yourself in the foot and limiting your reach
there is zero advantage.
No one starts something because they want to fail

 

And these stupid Japanese novels are just stupid and annoying. With those dense and naive MC's. Also they really love High school and by love I mean worship.

You're right most of them are harems. Very annoying

You're right. And when
I see people liking one piece I just can't understand . It probably was a little good at but the author ruined it. Now I see Nani and Robin wearing underwear the whole series. It's just distracting and annoying. They aren't w**res showing their everything to everyone at least it shouldn't be. And it's not them only it's every women in the series.

Not really Chinese and Korean novel are written for themselves but they're still good. At least better then those Japanese crap. Japanese novels are just terrible, face it

 

In the current trend, generic Isekai novels are designed to be counterintuitive to their genres.

As everyone else had already pointed out, Isekai is an adventure into other worlds novels, meaning it would have adventures, fighting, and creative world-building. Then, what did JP do? They flipped everything upside down.

We have inactive slothful MC with their stupidly overpowered yet lazy-writing power. The whole point of Action and Adventure/Exploration aspects of the novels had already been destroyed. Inactive MC is not for action novel, which everyone expected.

Then, world-building, it's the same everywhere. No new idea, no new things, just same old, plain cliche that everyone had already been bored to death with. Almost every character existed to be in awe of the MC, and/or fell for his charming character. Sike! He's a total beta and the girls fell for him because he saved her life once, and/or because it's the super-duper rare love at first sight that happened with every other female character.

And because of the overpower ability, coupled with the passive personality, there would be pretty much no plot or tension in existence, as MC would just wave their hand and the baddies would die or become his harem members.

At least CN and KR had a good protagonist that is suited for their genre. Hot-blooded MC for action genre is better than the passive one.

 

Hahaha you are triple posting
I disagree that Japanese stories are generally bad but the novels that are popular are bad.
And I avoid high school stories.
You can find great Japanese stories quite easily as many have pointed out but they are not as popular as the "bad" ones