Discussion Anyone having the same problem as me? Trouble reading Japanese novels.

I only recently noticed this problems.
I never had any problem reading JP novels before. Afterwards I started switching to CN and KR novels for a breath of fresh air.
But later on when I tried to switch back to JP novels, I felt extremely off somehow.
Except for exeptional ones, other JP novels are extremely childish and the way they talk just annoy me, especially isekai novels.
Now that I think about it, KR novels has way more reasonable isekai settings, and their characters' dialogues usually flow well unlike the cheery and happy go luckly atmosphere of Isekais.
Yeah, that's just my rant, want to know about your experience in these situations.

 

I see, you have an awakenning...

Yeah, mostly these novel stick to their respective country craze, so its no wonder.

 

It is called "getting way too old for this shit". Don't worry, you will get sick of CN and KR soon as well. Then you have other things to worry about, like cars, interpersonal relations, going outside to get enough sun.

 

My problem is originally got into anime due to all the cyberpunk and dark sci fi I saw over 30 years ago and now look what anime is about. Fluff and fanservice only to perverts. Anime back then had fanservice but it was considered a bonus now that is all there is. What I'm trying to say is Japan seem so cool back then now it feels like it only cares about catering to pedos and perverts.

As for OP it just might be having your taste change as you discover new stuff. Like how I stopped liking anime/manga but getting into light novels etc.

 

I felt the same way too. Jp novels do feel like that. They are too wish fulfilment type for me especially the isekai ones.

Even when I am reading Jp novels with a serious setting, I am half expecting some gag comedy bs suddenly popping up. Just the other day I was reading a novel with serious setting, characters are serious when suddenly a tsundere trope thing bs happens where a character blushes because she was praised. Its almost like they want to break reader's immersion.

The dialogues too feel off most of the times. I feel jp novels, most of them, can't have a consistent tone when narrating. Like for example, its the climax, Mc is about to kill the villain but then the herione trips and flashes her panties and then people laugh. This is something I have seen in many jp novels, and these are not even parody novels.

 

The translator is also to blame, specifically those that refuses to translate chan san sensei and other stuff

 

If you think that is worse, try working with japanese who keep on use these suffixes, ffs kind of makes me hate watching anime.

 

Just wait until you read all the CN and KR because you can't read JP anymore, then you'll get tired of them too (I honestly can't read even the best of CN novels anymore and some of the more cliche KR too). At that point there's nothing to read so you start look for English LitRpgs for fresh air then you get tired of those too (I read way too many novels).

 

After reading lots of WNs I don't care about most of the small details. It's not like there are any novels with perfect world-building, logic etc. Most of them have some kind of issues and problems, even if you or someone else didn't find any problems with it, someone other definitely will. Take a look at the guy who is blaming 'my House of horrors' for not properly using video as advertisement on youtube and uploading it on mystery forum first instead. What a joke.
But yeah, most of the jp novels are really disgusting, but the main issue with them is that even an experienced middle-aged guy will be instantly transformed into some kind of beta retarded pushover with mentality of 13-yo shota.
As a good example of it will be Arafoo Kenja no Isekai Seikatsu Nikki that I've tried to read a week ago. Guy was a god level VR player but had a mental breakdown after seeing a group of fcking goblins. He wasn't playing VR games 10 years for nothing. There are also no less disgusting types of 'never kill even the most heinous villains' heroes who are promoting world piece and friendship.
Sometimes I actually wonder if japanese became a beta-race thanks to their culture of always bowing and using a shit-ton of all kinds of honorifics and 10 types of respectful speech which looks like a joke to me in most of the novels.
It's not like there are no good jp novels, but they are really rare amidst all this shit.

 

I find that most Japanese novels are geared towards the elementary school demographic. I assume so they'll appeal to the manga publishers and in turn, the anime studios. The "fluffiness" is cute for a while, but the low reading level and the narrator constantly repeating what the MC said gets to be really annoying once you realize it.

The Korean and Chinese novels cater to the young adult and older demographic so their stories are less fluff and are a bit more complex to set up the conflicts that dominates their themes.

 

I'm not a fans of first perspective POV, so yeah I don't read many JP novels nowadays too.
And sometimes the interaction and their way of thinking are a bit childish and naive, maybe it's because it was made towards a younger audience, like around teenager

 

Yup. Everyone would experience the same thing. I call it 'Breadth of mind growth'.
As a side effect, you would have this unending thirst to seek better quality book because ordinary book no longer satisfies you.

 

You'll find the flaws in CN and KR stuff too if you keep reading. But yea, you're right. Seems like you're growing. Your tastes have matured. But does that mean JP novels are shit compared to the others? No, those have their own charms too that the others do not have.

 

Honestly...nope. But it's probably because I purchase and read Japanese Light Novels more often than I read web novels. Instead of chapter after chapter of diary entries, you get actual story.

It's actually why I look down on CN stories actually, they kind of lose relevancy by the 300th chapter usually.

 

Welcome to the world of Novel Readers, the more you read the more it get hard to find something refreshing.

The only way to get out of it, is to lower your 'likeness' to a particular settings and genres

 

I feel almost exactly the same way. I mostly read Chinese novels and Japanese web novels are far worse in general. I haven't read many Korean novels but the ones I checked out are quite good by comparison as well. And it's not that Chinese and Korean novels are that special; they're mostly just competent. The reason for the disparity is that Japanese web novels tend to have terrible writing and are written by terrible writers. Everything from characterization, to plot, to descriptive writing, to world building, to dialogue, to regular prose, are just awful. You know that a book is going to be bad when the writer doesn't even bother to name their kingdoms and the rulers of these kingdoms, and this kind of thing happens all the time!

So if you compare books that are competently written with ones that aren't and yeah, the former are just going to look a lot better. Maybe even better than they deserve, but that's for a different discussion. Yeah, I see comments that readers will get tired of Chinese and Korean writers as well, but I think these comments miss the point. Even bad books in these languages are bad for different reasons than their Japanese counterparts. Let's use an example: SFACG is a web publisher that specializes in the same kinds of books that you'd find on Syosetu. These are some weakest Chinese books you'll find but they still tend to be significantly better. I think the biggest reason is that even at their worst, Chinese otaku writers just read better material than Japanese otaku writers do.

All that said, I still like reading Japanese isekai novels. Yeah, they're almost all terrible but I don't mind. Mostly. At least I won't mind until the book runs out of momentum and I drop them. Oh, and if you just want to read better books, just read published Japanese novels - proper Japanese novelists are some of the best in the world and their books are rightfully lauded. Older, non-otaku light novels can be pretty good too. It's just otaku ones that are really bad; unfortunately this is what the vast majority of the web novels are (and they're the ones that are popular on NU).

 

As far isekai is concerned I tend to be more annoyed at chinese or korean ones than japanese, not because they are worse written but because they often "try" to be more serious or slightly better written, but still be full of problems that annoy the heck out of me.
With japanese webnovels I tend to be more forgiving in that regard since when they don't even try to be more serious in the first place I know not to expect more out of them.

I do prefer chinese web novels aside for that though, although the trash novels outnumber the good ones in any language.

 

I stopped reading Japanese Isekai LNs because even if the protagonist is over 25, they always talk/sound just like a teenager.

 

The problem with JP novels are they come from a site that do not encourage giving money to authors thus the writers do whatever the heck they want. To me the JP webnovels have more variations than the CN and KR novels since they are not trying to pander for money, if you check the site theres a lot of off the wall stories there. but its also full of middle schoolers not caring about money writing about their self insert stories. You see more of these self insert terribly written stories in novelupdates simply because newb translators that also love self insert stories the one that mostly translate these novels for free. The ones that specifically want to pander to people want to pander to otakus so their novels could be turn to manga and anime where the real money is thus the writing don't need to be that good, just that the plot and characters need to be interesting.

Another reason why I reduce my JP novel reading is because of the wierd way the novel is written and translated that do not really work for English language. Theres too many first person POV and too many pauses when the characters speak.

I recommend you to read manga for the superior Japanese literature, if you cut out all the loli shit you could find great literature that actually expend your mind.

 

I too have found that the manga version of a Japanese novel is sometimes way better, like WAY BETTER, than the novel itself because the mangaka masterfully adds to the very lacking world building through their detailed background and character visuals. In addition, they tighten up the author's inane dialog and narration to just the gist of it all. For some novels, I would much rather read the manga. Unfortunately, scanlations is the bottleneck.

For Chinese stuff, I find their manhwa are usually crap. Their manhwas can condense 3 novel chapters into 1 manhwa chapter because they leave out so much stuff. Sometimes, I'm bewildered by how anyone could understand the manhwa without already knowing the story so they could subconsciously fill in the gaps.

Korean manhuas are usually pretty faithful to their novels and their art is sometimes absolutely fantastic. There are exceptions to the other extreme though, and I really can't fathom how those crap artists were able to get paid, let alone be published.