How to spot a trash novel

Yeah god, that's a good list and it's bad that most of that list has been normalised in Japanese culture. Its unfortunate that it's so prevelent, the effect its had on people who have been exposed to certain parts of it growing up is terrible.

 

I think part of the problem with japanese LN's is that they dont know how to end, they can bee too episodic in nature, I think maybe is because they in all likelihood are a mining for them to become manga or anime.

 

I think that the bigger problem is that a lot of the Japanese web novelists have no idea how to write, and that they don't care about improving their craft. It's shocking how many of them seem to not even know what descriptive writing is.

 

Invisible Dragon for you. This novel has rating 4.2/5

 

- Male MC interaction only with female, no male. There isn't a male there?!
- 'Collecting Girls'

 

God yeah exactly, but luckily for them most of the readers are young enough to enjoy the power fantasies.

 

When a Mc uses a secret technique important from a sect/clan right in front of the sect/clan members.

When mc's think acting like you are the weakest equals to being low-key even though everyone in the sect knows him and thinks he is thrash. If you want to be low-key being pure average is the best so not the weakest or the strongest.

When titles are so long they explain the entire story. The longer the title the thrashier the story.

 

It has nothing to do with youth. What happens is that Japanese otaku only read and watch otaku material. They don't have exposure to the kind of books that actually do a good job at things like descriptive writing so they don't care. Another big problem is that manga and anime are visual media and these have pictures to do a lot of the heavy lifting. But when an author tries to write a book in the same way, there aren't any visuals to help out so the book ends up being ridiculously bland. Hell, I've read writers who think that calling his setting "a Medieval like world" is a good substitute for describing anything!

 

Well put it's rare but there are novels out there that do a decent job of descriptive writing, though from what I've read it's either a rare wuxia or something from royal road.

 

I pretty much only read romance novels lololol but here's mine

- If the ML is a CEO it's just one big red flag to me, dont think i need to elaborate for that one

- Bonus points for "ight imma head out" if the novel is called something like "Rich CEO's Contract Wife for 100 Days" or something​

- Those novels where the ML is a general in modern days

- MLs of those novels treat FL and crap and she just sits there like heehee my hubby is so cute
- I cant stand ML, FL or the whole dang plot LOL​

- If a skill is mentioned in the title i run away too, those novels read like a fever dream to me
- Harems are a big no for me too, i dont want to read about MC getting 5 spouses
- Also avoid novels with long titles because i have 0 good experience with those

 

When you realise that the MC is a doormat. I hated Death march because of this.This is the reason i love emperors domination [ Even though i have to read it without considering the plot]

 

I got tired of finding these gems, even if I found something new that's actually readable it's usually 7/10 so not anything special.
That's why I stick to fanfics these years, no word count fillers or fanservice be that harem or edgelording(a lot of authors don't care what readers want, which is good coz what most readers want is trash). Ofcourse there is still way too much harem, but not because readers demand author to ruin their story with it.
The only thing I still read that's technically here is The Great Game - The Young Master which sounds like trash but is actually written by a veteran Nuffian and is actually good.

My list on ff.net if you wanna follow and read some of the best fics there or even have a recommendation to add.
https://www.fanfiction.net/u/9071421/
https://www.fanfiction.net/~zhawarudo

 

Most improtant give away for me is JP tag. I dont care like CN fast food novels, I can read them 100 times even though i know it is fast food and not good one but i cant stand JP novels which focus on character development by making the mc retarded at the begginning. And then comes whole truckload of cliches and overdone beta cock jap mc.

Yea JP tag is usually extreme turn off for me. I can stand teenage hotblooded, Hypocrite, Racist,Genocidal, Sociapathical CN mc but cant stand beta pussy JP mc. Absolutely not, There are less than 1% jp novels that i enjoy like overlord,youjo senki,Girl who ate death god. Kr novels are rather enjoyable short and sweet but CN novels are mostly wholesome. I feel sociopathic CN mc more humane than JP beta pussy mc, it maybe due to historical influence as i love reading history.

 

Haha

Loli.. Underaged love interest.

Last time I checked the authors are not 13.
Except for maybe this guy and Guo Jingming of Novoland/Ice Fantasy fame

CALL FBI!!!

 

As a whole the one thing that makes most stories a failure is the lack of male -female friendships.

I love the drama I Need Romance 3 because the male lead has a female friend who isn't hots for him and he isn't hots for her.
Their relationship is so close that the female lead is jealous.
That is so rare.

 

To be fair, there are Japanese web novels which are good, and there are a lot more of these in regular Japanese literature. The problem though is that the people who read and write Japanese web novels don't really care about this quality, so the books on NU in general don't learn any lessons from them. A prime example of this is "Kenkyo, Kenjitsu". This is one of the first popular Villainess novels on Syosetu and it has obviously been a prime influencer in this genre. However, I've read a lot of books in this genre and I'm always on the lookout for more good ones. And none of them come close. It's not a matter or anything like that, but that "Kenkyo" seems to be written by someone who knows what good writing is while the others are not. It's as if they like the original book but they have no idea why and therefore are completely unable to replicate its success.

That's actually a really good point. There are several different kinds of books that commit this sin and they're pretty much all problematic.

 

Most of the cultivation novels.

 

Yes, they are many great Japanese novels. I usually watch the movie adaptations eg
https://asianwiki.com/Forget_Me_Not
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Many_Faces_of_Ito

On friendships, it gets disturbing when readers in comments ask for female characters who reject male lead to be gang-raped.
It is either worship the male lead or be vilified.
And people wonder why males do not respect women.
Even a Western novel : Hero Forged We Were Married had a review on Goodreads that pointed out that as a female reader the book was hard to read since every female character is just tits and ass. Albeit with the story being good.
It is simply pointless but I am sure it has a large audience.

 

Novel quality is proportional to title length and punctuation.

Premium quality novels have titles like: "Other world reincarnation as a soup bowl ~ using my absurd skill <moderate temperature changes> to build a slave harem, defeat the demon lord and live a slow life while ascending as the new creator god ~"

 

Unanimously positive review.
If theres no critical reviews It probably mean nobody with a critical mind bother to read it/review it. Even a masterpiece will have people criticize it, but a novel with absolutely no redeeming features will get nothing but praises.

Also if its like number 1 most popular thing. Maybe not absolute trash but probly not very good still.