So, I come across a lot of comments denouncing CNs of the romance genre as trash, vomit-inducing, etc. Overbearing, rapist MLs and doormat FLs seem to be the major cause for this. Yet such criticism isn't limited to a particular trope/character type, but extends to the genre as a whole. Another point to be noted is a sizeable chunk of the naysayers are male, and (admittedly) infrequent (to put it lightly) readers of this genre. Tho I admit that NU is flooded with sub-par CN romances, there are IMO still many gems out there. While a couple of bad first experiences with the genre might lead to a poor perception of it, shouldn't the logical next-step (for those genuinely interested) be asking for recommendations instead of labelling the whole as garbage? Is it people being too impatient and quick to judge or CN romance just being a easy target of hate like, say, BL? How many can honestly say they tried to evaluate fairly and after actually trying on a decent amount of what the genre has to offer? If the grousing at cultivation novels comes from repeated experience of veteran readers of that genre, then the detestation for CN romance is a result of stereotyping by a (mostly) uninterested audience (who over-generalize)-- is what I feel. So, what about you? TIA for your time and replies. P.S. My impression of the above is shaped by the fact that I only rarely encounter what is described by the majority as "trashy romance", and am inclined to think that (from personal experience) with a little research into the title, summary, tags, ratings, reviews, etc, one can easily avoid pitfalls. Or you can easily request recs P.P.S. For those interested, Plumlizi and Fuyuneko hv great romance novels. But let's not make this into a recommendation thread.
Maybe if people have the time and effort to pick needles through the haystack they might find some gems. But its easier to just paint everything bad get on with life. JP novel have the same stigma too.. Gems will be there but most just wont bother
What you consider as gem is a trash for other people (true experience, my favorite novel is arifureta). CN likes to mixed up political and romantical coupling that the line just got blurred as the result ....still wandering what the heck is cultivation. What's being cultivated? Body? Mind? Inner power? They mixed up soo many ways to attain power that everything got mixed up that sitting for weeks give you stronger body rather than sore butts or stronger mental prowess
From personal experience, I could say there are gems out there but you rarely find them unless you're that motivated. Anyway, CN are really long winded (is that the right word?) that sometimes it becomes boring to read especially with the repetitive use of plot. (sorry for my bad english)
Different people, different tastes. On what other people call it trash, some people call it hidden gems. Even today, I still call Zhan Long as a treasure, not because it's one of the early CN that was translated but it's because I genuinely liked the novel regardless of what the average consensus of NU would say.
LOL That made me laugh. So damn true. Honestly, CN have about 99% copy and paste work, with 1% the real gems so that's why we then to generalise CN with the bad majority.
Uuuh. LOL. Categorically incorrect as far as my own experience goes. The problems with rapey MLs and doormate FLs aren't limited to just singular tropes/dynamics but endemic to CH culture as a whole which still encourages demure, obedient women who are expected to marry young and considered unmarragiable spinsters by 30, which is why people bemoan this dynamic so much in CH novels - the same way almost every JP novel gets the "beta male" complaints, because it's an issue reflected in cultural values that don't exist in the west. While I definitely wouldn't say we appreciate strong, outspoken women on a cultural level, we are at least tolerant of and expect more of them. A lot of the people I see bemoaning CH romances are people who read majority CH novels. It is exactly because they are exposed to so many that it becomes something they habitual complain about. Read one novel with a rapey ML, that's a bad novel. Read two, that's a worrying repetition. Read five and it's an ugly trend. Read it in almost every CH novel you pick up to some degree (sometimes it's subtle, sometimes it's wildly explicit), then it becomes an issue of that specific export of novels. How do you know they're male? I see a lot of this complaining going on specifically in LCD and Spoiler threads for romance novels that have majority female readership -- many of whom are self-admitted female so I can confirm gender bias in the genre -- so for my own anecdata, I say that the naysayers (which is a weird choice of word but okay) are majority female. I occasionally see male or gender unspecificed also bemoaning these issues, but rarely specifying "rapey MLs/doormat FLs" are the problem, but rather, in the wuxia genre especially which has a readership slanted toward men, the issue is just that the FLs tend to be flat, characterless, and don't have much presence in the story (all true). Even when the MLs are rapey, this is rarely cited as an issue. Otherwise the only other complaint I see from readers I can confirm as being male is "what, this isn't harem? Forget it, I don't want to read it." It's not a generalisation to point out that Chinese mores re: gender expectations that end up reflected in their fiction (I've mentioned this in other threads, but a lot of this comes from the "Baby, It's Cold Outside" paradox wherein, especially wrt romance novels, FLs are simultaneously expected to be attracted to the ML and desire them, but also to maintain their purity, therein they must be forcefully bullied, coerced, tricked, or outright forced into sex with the understanding that eventually she will consent, because they are the designated breeding pair and are in love of course, but she can't actually actively want to have sex because that would make her a horny slut, and as we all know, a good CH female lead cannot be a slut and even if she is drugged and raped, the rapist must always always always turn out to have been her destined true love all along but that's a geeeeeeeneralisation right). Beside that, cultivation stories are just kind of inherently misogynistic right from the ground up (hey fun exercise, name me one cultivation novel that doesn't open with detailing how it's "law of the jungle" in this world and then later on implicitly or explicitly extrapolating that this also means that every single female cultivator is at constant danger of being raped at every moment of their lives, or another fun exercise, count out how many cultivation novels you've read wherein a woman's appearance, especially their bust, ass, and/or legs are described before she is even given a name - if ever), and also very very rarely well tailored to tell a balanced romance because cultivation novels generally have this "lone warrior against the heavens" romantic aesthetic and so much of these stories feature the MC stranded, surviving by the skin of his teeth, alone against the world as part of a large chunk of their narrative, and having anyone there, whether a love interest or just a platonic comrade, often messes with that dynamic. While that's true I feel like this exactly proves my point -- if by randomly picking up a novel with no vetting results in a story that has misogynistic, shallow, rapey, flat romance 9 times out of 10, doesn't that kind of indicate that... a very huge chunk of novels have these issues? Like I dunno, to me that feels like saying "people who claim that Disney monopolises the box office with movie releases are people who very likely don't watch movies very often -- by the way, I arrived at this conclusion because I check every movie I watch beforehand to determine who the production and distribution companies are and thus avoid ever having to watch a movie made by Disney or any of its acquired companies". It's such a weird self-defeating argument to make. Anyway this came off as kind of combative and sorry for that but I guess your thesis statement of "this attitude is held by people who don't even go here" kind of off-putting and also wildly inaccurate to my own experiences, but at the end of the day I acknowledge that's what they are -- experiences, personal. Yours will be different to mine, so your conclusions based on those will be too.
It's more or less a culture standpoint that different 'tropes and cliches' are born... Also with how they are being raise im that nation also contributes to how they write the personalities of the characters. Also that's why those overbearing, rapey, etc. are only confined on words since in real life those are not normal at all to harbor
@Kurotsubaki @jersanxx1 I am not talking about people having different tastes. If one doesn't like romance, that's fine. What I am talking about is making blanket statements based on a small sample size. Like @Kurotsubaki wrote about how CNs likes to mix romance with political intrigue, which holds true for only some types of CNs (mainly historical), not all of them; I would know cuz I also avoid them. I hv no problem with readers complaining about rapey MLs, but something like "all CNs hv rapey MLs" is what gets my goat. @zloi medved Only restricted to romance genre, so most cultivation is out. I'm not going to bring in Chinese culture or their treatment of women. And by male non-readers being a vocal chunk, you can start a thread on this and see for yourself what I feel. Doesn't say that a lot of female readers aren't complaining, but I think there's many who just like join in the fun and echo, even tho they might not even like/read the genre. Even if u ask me, I'll say that there's not many decent CN romances around, but at least, I never say all of them are bad. Also, this was merely my "impression" (I did write it's only "what I feel"); I never tried to pass it off as a fact. Impression, as in an idea, feeling, or opinion about something or someone, especially one formed without conscious thought or on the basis of little evidence.
I simply don't trust CN romances anymore since the few I've had any exposure to have been decent at first, but then turn into either NTR drama crap, or the female lead dies for some reason and a new one shows up. I'm no longer willing to put up with that anymore, so I'll stick to the healing romances I can identify easily in the JP section.
I don't know about CN with male protagonist, but at least for CN with female protagonist, most of ML kinda rapey. Like they didn't understand the meaning of NO. And the MC in the end always accept them, no matter how much worst they start their relationship. At this point, I think CN female protagonist author and Indian soap drama writer learn from same teacher, lol.
I was talking about (chiefly) romance with female MC. I agree. I even admitted as much when I said "flooded with sub-par CN romance". IMO, most are abusive but surely not all of them. That's the point I've been trying to make all along.
I agree, it's unfair. But also, the majority of romances on the webnovel site are this harlequin type that is greatly annoying. So if male readers get to experience them only on that site, it's understandable why they think all CN romances are trash lol. I've read enough to know there's different genres of romance. That annoying type is usually called a sadistic romance, because it tortures the MC and the readers lol. There's the doting romance I love, and there's a tragic heroine romance where she'll never be happy, and the dog blood (melodrama) romance with lots of twists and turns and secret lineages and amnesia lol. So, pick wisely what you read, I guess.
Japanese and Korean novels tend to be translated by independent translators/groups not affiliated with companies, so they are a bit more diverse than TLed Chinese novels which are usually systematically translated (By that, I mean webnovel/qidian). Furthermore, independent TLers won't want to TL good novels from the publisher since they would eventually be removed. This leaves the translating pool to be limited to breadcrumbs. Browsing each novels individually till one finds a gem is not a task many would be willing to undertake.
blame translator pick such story to translate but it mainstream on community and some translator like that kind of story, beside there possibility there many such story on source aka popular on a big segment of cn site this cat dunno should laugh or cry let see do media influence culture or culture influence media? imo it goes both way up to certain extend is that mean generalization is da truth? yes to certain extend cuz there many factor lead such thing social system, what we see know is result of such thing source, translator and reader now back to this cat time to watch cats and dogs raining
Wall of text.... But i agree with the content. Also CN novels have too many chapters that each series could represent CN novels as their own ...And i read every CH as chapter.
No matter how much you try to denounce the minority over the majority, it's going to be futile except if you're promoting a specific novel like "so what if it's an RPG world is a CN novel that more JP than CN" People judge something based on the group that thing belongs to and that also apply to JP and KR novels. If you defend only a portion of minority within majority and didn't try including other minority like "JP non-beta MC" then this thread is a mere rant
True. Xianxia novels are so long and dreary that I eventually just lost mood to read further after I pause reading for a toilet break. The 1st xianxia is good, 2nd is a repeat, 3rd is also a repeat, after that I kinda stop CN xianxia...