How are Koreans so good at writing fictional Martial Art?

Martial Arts has been a staple favorite of mine for power mechanic in Eastern Fictional Novel and to me no one does it better than the Koreans at writing Novel or drawing in Manwha them.

As Martial Art in Chinese novel beside their ridiculous name when describe or drawn in action just sounds and looks... Plain and uninspiring... with most Chinese martial art technique revolves around either a blurry attack that one can't tell heads or tail, a simple punch or kick with only more energy behind it then the opponent, a beam or energy attack that obliterates, and a rigid ranking system that you are screw against if you face someone one tier higher unless you are the MC.

While Koreans try to come with unique mechanic in how Martial Art is use from energy techniques that do more then just offensive attack like healing, defending, movement, and strange technique that perform a specific task like clot the blood, melee that aim to shatter or break specific part of the body to incapacitate their opponent, and lastly, a fluid martial art ranking system where the strong can be defeated by the weak if they have some strategy in fighting despite having less energy.

Now I know this isn't the case for every work of fiction between Chinese and Korean, but come on, tell me you think Chinese Novels Martial Art are better than the made up Korean one would be too flattering to my ears.

So is there some inspiration that Koreans uses for making their martial art novel or Manwha or are they just seeing some else do something cool and just add there own spin?

 

Hahahahahahaha

 

Could you recommend said korean martial arts series?

 

Breaker 1&2, Sword of the Emperor, Mujang, ID, God of High School, Four Cut Hero, Knight Run, to a lesser extent Red Storm, etc.

 

America Western countries in general don't have much of a webnovel base, so you don't see it, but in Korea and China the number of authors is absolutely massive. Something like a couple tens of thousands of authors each working on 2-3 works. The number that are translated to English is deceptively low, cuz translation's hard. In other words, if you're a translator, you look for the good works. That's why you may be only seeing the "good" Korean works. There's probably hundreds of others far worse.

Edit: Yes, you are also seeing the "good" Chinese works, yeah? Another difference: Chinese writers are paid per chapter by the site (e.g. Qidian) that owns their work. Korean writers own their work and are supported practically entirely on their fanbase, so a lot more basis on quality and making it fun to read rather than the word-grinding that Chinese authors are more prone to. Not that that's a bad thing. It only gets bad once the details are repeated over and over.

Now as for why you think that Korean fight scenes are better, that's a matter of personal preference really. Korean fight scenes are portrayed as real life fighting, give or take some additional attack power, sped up. Chinese fight scenes, unless it's a VRMMO(and even then it still happens), is shown as the fight of two super-humans whose every attack is a massive AOE. Basically, it's the difference between the fighting in, say, One Piece and Dragon Ball.

 

they even mastered weapon arts of "changing one face"

 

BLASPHEMY!!
Just like language which is based on Chinese language.
Taekwondo based on Japanese
I beg to differ.
Then again I should let an expert deal with this @ToastedRossi

 

If the Translator is already cherry picking from the best than the best of the Korean still beat the best of the Chinese to me.

Well, I guess the student surpass the master in this case and also their writing system and language has little similarity to the Japanese nor Chinese anymore due to that one King reinventing the wheel for the Korean language.

I can use Navar to traverse in their domain so I know plenty, but just couldn't read any of it, still.. Ohhh pretty pictures!

 

Personally, I have not seen an actual manhua. Just Chinese novels adapted into manga. There is a big difference. Basically they become Japanized for lack of a better word.
I think it is just the novelty.
From the manhwas you recommended. I think only one was moorim which is the Korean equivalent for wuxia.
Korean media is still in infancy and from what I can see, they are simply copying Seinen and wuxia(Moorim).
Modern Seinen has been for the most part by Shonen. And modern wuxia by xianxia/xuahuan.
It becomes an apple to oranges comparison.
Oh well, I have never been very much interested in consuming media. I rather create even if it's pseudo creation.

 

Then again I could be wrong. @Mizura ..pengyo save me

 

I'll preface this by stating that I have never read a Korean martial arts novel so I'm not going to make any assumptions on what they are like or how good they are. I will say that I think that the OP's criticism of martial arts in Chinese novels seems to be misplaced.

I'm not necessarily surprised at this because while the books that best exemplify this kind of writing are very well known, they don't seem particularly popular on NU. All that matters is that they do exist and you can check them out if you're interested. As it stands, the OP feels like reading non-historical novels and then complaining that they're not based on history.

All of these things can be found in Chinese novels as well. These novels are very famous so it's quite possible that the Korean writings you're talking about were actually inspired by Chinese works to begin with.

 

I thought we were talking about novels, but I think the emphasis on martial arts is debatable for some of these series like 4 Cut Hero.

 

What? I didn't say anything about History or that they should be based on it, I said why are the Korean so much better at coming up with "fictional Martial Art" than the Chinese who possibly came up with them first. What I am asking is there a source of inspiration to how they create their universe Martial Art that allow to be so different and better written than the Chinese chosen here compare with their's? Now Korean Novels about a world that has a define martial art system is hard to come by with only King Shura, Red Storm, Dragon Maken War, etc being some examples. So that is why I mostly listed Manwha as my reply to one of the person here as some of them does have novels here. But is either discontinue or given up upon by Translators.

Plus if by famous you mean works like Jin Yong return of the condor heroes or its TV adaptation(after I realize that I watch some that were base on his work) if that is what you mean by very famous and yeah they do share a Good amount of similarity to what I am talking about to good martial art. But I will still be blasphemous in saying the Koreans are better with their fictional Martial Art than the Chinese with the two distinction that I made holding up. Sure there could be many works outside those distinction and they probably are so famous that I never heard about them here. However, if those work are so famous why does the other Chinese Author that makes Wuxia, Xianxia, and Xuanhuan better as in, I don't know, not have a plot dedicate to finding mysterious relic/medicine/book to boost only one Martial Art or a single against the heaven technique that will most likely be ditch later for the next great something. It could be sum up as the author being lazy as creativity after a thousand chapter isn't easy, but not all the most famous novel chosen by the Translator due to popularity in their homeland Author should be that lazy right?

I include 4 Cut Hero because it is stunningly good and have martial art using character to count it... Plus Sword of The Emperor, Red Storm(Shit for having the worst power scaling as how one go from being trouble by a dragon then absorbing some of its essence to a bunch of humans in a straight up fight?) and ID the greatest fusion fantasy have novels.

 

My point is that you're looking at books that aren't about martial arts and complaining that they're not very good at writing martial arts. Xianxia and xuanhuan books may be based on wuxia, but they're not about martial arts so the fact that you're bringing them up is a sign that your argument is disingenuous.

 

Wait, Xianxia and Xuanhuan isn't based on Martial Arts? Then what are they based on? Shamanistic magic from Asia?

 

They are based on wuxia, but wuxia is not the same thing as martial arts.

 

Really? As the translation of Wuxia is literally Martial Heroes, which I must had mistakenly assume to be heroes using martial arts, my bad then...

 

Yes, it's your fault.

 

Doesn't matter, I stick with my opinion on this.

 

Considering most Chinese martial arts in novels are basis of IRL ones, the ideas and actions scenes written for them becomes so overused because it is what's common and easy for them to do. Trying to do something that is unique in a sense in a martial arts is pretty hard, but you are right majority of the Koreans I see are much better than the ones I see on Chinese ones but overall that's just my opinion on the matter. I used to do martial arts myself back when I was younger and might be going for a new one this summer but nonetheless so far the ones I've read in comparison between Chinese and Korean ones, basically the system for the Chinese novels are as already said common and often overused. Even if they try making one aspect different, it ends up being meaningless as it is covered or overshadowed by the fact that either the MC is so OP they break the system and is therefore excused for it or some other reason other than that. The Korean ones at least make do what they think will fit and look realistic to a degree, and it makes it more enjoyable to read through.