I have been noticing trends of Korean nationalism and demonizing Japanese in Kr novels,Even Omniscient reader viewpoint. Which novels is the worst offender in your opinion?
I dunno about Korean nationalism, but demonizing Japan is quite comprehensible given that one of the things they leant from the US after WW2 was that the best way to make up for your crimes and mistakes is not apologizing, but denying that they ever happened whenever possible, stretch the lie when not, and reducing the importance of them when no amount of stretching is enough.
Nationalism is inevitable in any novel where it takes place in Modern Times hence I avoid any and all Modern Genre novels regardless of good reviews.
even in chinese novels, such stuff exist idk if its just me but when I see other countries being mentioned in the novel, whether a good or bad way, it suddenly loses its appeal to me, making the reading experience less enjoyable...
There is nothing wrong in series which have nationalism involved in them. These series are not for babies. Stories are set in nations, the context will demand certain things. If authoritarian stuff was glorified, that's wrong. But it happens more in ancient settings, with kingdoms and monarchs.
Good choice. Same. Even? Wrong word my friend. Especially! 9.9/10 modern Chinese novels have racism blatantly or disguised under cult like nationalism before clearly developing into racism. I don't know Korean novels too be as extreme as Chinese novels. Korean novels are similar to japanese novels, even with a modern theme of course they'll have the mc being stronger than people in other countries but usually other countries have strong contenders. But with china everyone else is trash. If the world ended only china would be left standing. Japanese novels even when the Isekai persons you won't see them dragging historical bs to other worlds but for china? Whew I can't count the number of times ham dynasty, lu but and other Chinese historical figures are some how stronger than otherworldly fantasy beings where the mc summons them or inherits their powers and steam rolls everyone. We commonly hear about white supremacy in the past historically speaking but chinese writers have a serious case of extreme patriotism and Chinese supremacy. Even a good novel like Yama rising was great without racism and traces of patriotism but eventually they starting shitting in everyone. Especially Japan. China's hell is numbawan!!!! Racism always spoils a novel for me personally. Of I didn't know any better I'd say the entire china is racist and supremacists. But the writers can't represent the population. However, they most certainly aren't painting a good picture.
@Nodeo Franvier I'm afraid to tell you that nationalism aka "X Country is Number One" is common even in other East-Asian countries like JP and CN. @Shiki Solo Leveling is already quite "tamed" in comparison to other KR novels. Try reading other KR novels like "Legendary Moonlight Sculptor", "Overgeared", "Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint", "The Overlord of Blood and Iron", "Level 1 Player", "Tomb Raider King" and etc. @dweenator I guess you haven't been reading all the JP light novels where even after being isekaied to a fantasy world of dragon and elves, MC still wants to conquer the land and proclaim the "virtues and glory of the great Yamato civilization", cough... Nationalism can appear anytime and anywhere for any novel written by a human author. @Emissary Nouvelle While I agree with you that the nationalism theme of endless chanting of patriotic mantras, mottos and slogans and "that the patriotic citizen should donate all wealth to the state", wear only "100 RMB worth of unbranded clothing from head to toe" and "All Hail the number one party chairman" are annoyingly prevalent in CN novels, especially those of the Soldier-King (兵王), Bodyguard, Isekai/Transmigration/Regression/Reincarnation, Modern xuanhuan cultivation genres. But to whitewash and claim that JP isekai novels are innocently devoid of their nationalism, historical bias, superiority complex and other BS, you must be joking or under-read. Try reading these JP isekai and/or fantasy novels https://www.novelupdates.com/series/wortenia-senki/ https://www.novelupdates.com/series/gate-jietai-kare-no-chi-nite-kaku-tatakeri/ Especially for Wortenia Senki, author spams paragraphs and paragraphs of unrelated narration of Sengoku period battles analysis. /sarcasm Would highly appreciate that author could include in stuff from Heian period, Tokugawa shogunate period or even post Meiji-restoration. Oh wait, author learnt his Sengoku period history from anime, manga and video games and neglected all the other time periods. @Nodeo Franvier Finally, so far KR novel authors have been writing about their MC idea of nationalism as the following: replacing or "doing-away" with the KR l@wmakers, Sen@te/C0ngress, Pr3s1dent, unite the north and south KR punish CN for territorial conflicts, dust storms and air pollution punish JP for WW2, territorial conflicts and the F* nuclear waste incident. punish all other countries that tried to assassinate MC. For JP novels, it's usually complaining about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_Japanese_Constitution For CN novels, the authors are too chicken to clamor about replacing their governing leaders.
Korean novel is as extreme as Chinese. The same with Japanese. You need to read more and accepting racism and love of your country are the same everywhere.
Agree to disagree, I've watched anime, read manga and novels for jp and I can dayywith absolute certainly among the hundreds of content I've seen from them even if nationalism is a thing it's never extreme as CN that shit in otjer.countries going out of their way to humilate them extensively and proving that china numbawan. So you're wrong in the japanese front because I've been sticking to jp content for 10 years until I was exposed to light novels and novels which have a lot of.CN. so I would know. I've also read 100s of cn novels plus 100s of mtl (not to completion usually but at least halfway) I could see where I could be wrong for Korea since I don't read a lot of different genres and entries for them although I'd say I've read a solid 50+ with mostly fantasy aka not on earth and others with modern fantasy on earth. Whatever the case, as with every trope, china takes it wayyy to far. Even with the common brotherhood/best friends from young. They overuse it like some law of physics or algorithm where: you acknowledge this person as brother= Do everything for them and go out if your way for them. Childhood friends vs Friends that were strangers 5 secs ago get the same treatment. Same for family members, it's so cheap you could buy one off the road and poof we are close family and let's act as if this was always the case. Everything is exaggerated.
this has nothing to do in nationalism in cn novels anymore but well, adding my take on cn novels, I've read lots of novels but the kind where nationalism is strong and shittalking other countries is the minority. it may be due to the types of novels I read, I read lesser action novels. however, something common in some stories (horror supernatural type) is the characters reciting some core values of socialism thing. apparently its to make them less afraid of the ghosts but I dont find that to be particularly nationalistic, just comedic
I alone level up/ solo leveling. You can see how much it reeks of racism (not nationalism) Well the one that have most racism according to what I have read was Other worldly evil monarch. And I do agree that 90% of Chinese novel shows extreme nationalism if not racism
Solo Leveling. As for racism in general I think it was this Chinese novel called God and Devil World.
I feel like Korean novels are the most subtle. Chinese novels are the worst even bordering on racism and imperialism (like conquering other countries and that China and Chinese people are superior). For example is this novel Fenglin Tianxia – Queen with a Thousand Pets where the MC literally colonized a part of my country even though in real life history that part of our country is the only one that hasn't been colonized by the west lmao. They didn't even bother using alternative names like Country Y, Country M, etc. And JP is more on "our culture is superior" and wants to influence other countries with their culture. It's a common trope for JP isekai MCs when they reincarnate to other world to spread Japanese culture, traditions and beliefs. Even the author sometimes uses Japan culture to countries that have western settings, like adding honorifics at the end of their names (Example: Mary-chan, John-san, etc.) even though western countries don't have those.
For "demonizing" Japan, I think The Novel's Villain takes the cake. Why would they have to learn it from the US, when they could just look at their closer Chinese neighbors? Or they could have learned it from their Nazi allies in WW2. Or they could have just been practicing similar policies already for a long time, because, well, pretty much every country does that sort of thing. No country will admit it did something bad unless it was forced to admit it, or there's a new regime using that admission of guilt to deal with political rivals.
Japan stopped learning from China long ago. Nazi Germany's strategy to deal with problems was selecting a proper scapegoat, which was also how Imperial Japan dealt with their problems during WWII. The reason why I pinpointed the US is not only because they use that same strategy, but because when Japan learned to do it, literally their only influx of foreign culture was the US (and to their credit, they even learned lessons from the US that the US didn't learn despite coming up with them themselves).
On the opposite side it's nice to see positive representations of other countries in a novel. While they absolutely still follow the "Korea is #1 and the most awesome and strongest" trope, a couple of Toika's novels at least acknowledge strong characters from other countries. Not all of them, and definitely not that great in terms of characters from China, but I'll give half a point of credit. Other nationalism issues still exist though. It's the absolute bare minimum, of course, but I was at least surprised. Not saying Toika's the best example of this, just one I happen to kinda be familiar with. I'm sure there are PLENTY better authors or series that do a better job of breaking the "extreme nationalism" stereotypes.
Exactly, Ive read so many cn novels in which they show such extreme patriotism that it just ruins everything, "China is the best, the strongest country in the world bla bla bla, chinese government is the best government, etc and not only this in some novels theres blatant racism especially against Africa for some reason, and every foreigner in many cn novels are always brain ded, this is the reason why i dont prefer to read cn novels anymore.
You certain they did not already know that? refusing to admit is largely a matter of pride and face, both of which were already part of Asian culture (well most cultures in the world, not just Asia, to some degree) long before WW2. It is inevitable whenever the country of the story is a stand in for the author's own country, or a part of its past that is currently glorified by the people. Not just modern. Unfortunately. Those 2 do not go together. Patriotism and Nationalism are not really the same thing, what keeps being described for Chinese authors/stories is Nationalism not Patriotism. Well to be fair Nationalism is a more aggressive form of patriotism, but a Patriot will see his countries flaws and work to correct them to make the country better, a Nationalist will ignore those flaws, or worse claim they are actually benefits. If Patriotism is Love and support, then Nationalism is blind love and support. I think i have seen a few of those, Japanese authors definitely have a tendency to be Nationalistic about food. To many stories have the Mc recreate a simple traditional Japanese dish and have everyone raving about how it is the best things ever. (which is extremely unrealistic, because of how our likes are developed from what we eat growing up)