Discussion Tropes in Asian Web Novel Literature - Beginner’s Guide

Just a general trend, not the entirety
These are some of the most overused ones.


Chinese

Protagonist:

Usually a hypocrite. Author always states he’s smart but he’s impulsive

Is awarded a special ability that makes him strong, but not strong enough

Provokes everyone in a 20 mile radius

Always angry and out for revenge

His goal is to be the very best, that no one ever was

Has a buddy that the author names “little fatty”- the side character worships the main character and is good for nothing but making enemies

World’s greatest punching bag


Story:

Main character has some tragic backstory, like he grows up a waste, his fiancé revokes his marriage, people make fun of him, his family is crippled, etc

Hides his abilities to avoid provoking others, but ends up having everyone go after him either way

Overall structure of the story:

The Mc punches one dude, who brings his dad, who the protagonist beats, and then the grandfather comes out, then the great grandfather, and so on

You didn’t expect there to be stronger enemies, but to even out the playing field and extend chapters, they exist indefinitely

It feels like rather than progressing, the Mc is just being mobbed

Everything is unresolved, and just has the feeling of chewing a mouth full of cotton.

Lots of face slapping: the “you didn’t think I was strong but secretly I am and you are wrong”

Story type: the Mc transmigrated and replaced someone else’s life, but with a system or a cheat to help. Cultivation type world.


Romance:

Most likely harem

Keeps a bunch of girls, who are all extremely beautiful. No other character traits. As far as I know, they all look the same and have the same personality

The Mc is usually aware the girls like him, but will leave them behind in the former region to catch more Pokémon in the new one.

All of them have some sort of love hate relationship, and will abandon the Mc at the drop of a dime

All play the damsel in distress trope, and are useless until the Mc jumps out to save them.



Japanese

Titles always having that annoying tone of voice and long length, like “I arrived at this new world and I’m secretly the strongest?!”

• it’s like a humble brag or something
• They slowly increase in length every year

Protagonist:

Strong usually because of a random power that hits them on the head, like infinite magic. It’s undeserved.

The personality of a wet soggy blanket. Character traits involve being “kind” and “nice” and not a terrible person

Easy mold for you to shove your personality in

Usually reserved to being in the corner of the novel volume while his love interests are in the front

Will always hide their abilities, often for reasons they could solve if they did use their abilities


Story:

Weaker enemies will always overstay their welcome. The protagonist should have the power to deal with them, but they just don’t. Usually harasses a harem member for a few chapters before the protagonist comes along to deal with them in an unsatisfying way.

There’s no solid goal or anything, it slowly becomes slice of life and repetitive

Most common story type is isekai- traveling to a fantasy world with elves and dragons


Romance:

99 percent harem. The main character acquires a group of girls that fulfills every niche the audience might like, such as the 500 year old little girl, the busty empty headed one, the one that likes to abuse him (tsundere) but he can’t get rid of, the one that’s raven haired, a demon, and treats him coldly, the childhood friend, etc, etc

He is dense, and unable to realize any of them like him

I guess they’re all just attracted because he’s such a nice guy

Every girl he saves from a problem finds him attractive, and the plot starts to revolve around the protagonist catching girls like they’re collectible Pokémon

Usually just ends with protagonist unable to decide which one he likes most because he’s afraid of offending them, so ends up marrying all of them


Korean

Protags:

Having no discernible personality other than being cold, appearing intimidating

Sharing the same quirks

-being bad at naming

-being good at cooking


Story-

Like watching gameplay without the commentary- dude goes and collects this, beats that, etc.

Describing things in detail is impossible

No visible obstacles to overcome, usual solution is to just punch harder or smth

Most common story type being regression, mainly going back in time to fix mistakes.

Mostly starts off overpowered, much more so than the Chinese protagonist, but feels more deserving of the power than Japanese protagonist since he earns it using past cheats over time

World usually has lots of gates, or dungeons, or towers. All have the same leveling up mechanic


Romance-

Girl likes him, he shows no sign of caring, and then boom, they’re together in the last 3 chapters

Does she have a personality? Maybe? She’s strong, intelligent, and capable, except for when the protagonist shows up. End up as a power couple


Overall self preference: Korean, it ends up fulfilling my desire to read a power fantasy. At least the protagonist gets things done.


Lol feel free to add or argue in the comments. wow is this post long.

 

Jp:Harem member or krillin explain MC training method or technique
Cn: Random Passerby recognize all moves even those lost for more than 10 generations
Kr: weebs watching the live feed through the internet comment everything in chat

 

Korean protag: Has no money at the beginning, so he needs money, wants money, dreams of money, loves money, makes earning money his life goal...

also has a usually sick younger sister/mother who he needs money, lots and lots of money, to treat.

No wonder I love money Korean protags.

 

This is just about the usual action/adventure/fantasy based ones with male MC, what about the other genres or the ones with female MC ?

 

Chinese- for story, don’t forget the Strongest in one area, moment they go to next area -> instantly become one of the weakest -> becomes strongest -> moves and becomes weaker -> and the cycle just repeats until he reaches the peak or something

 

CN: Face slap everyone and kill them because they look at me funny and I am the strongest and therefore righteous!!!

CN female: I don't like you. I will torture and kill you. I will face slap everyone and torture everyone else who goes against me! Everyone will love me anyways! The MC and all the hotties will love me because I am wild, new and can play hard-to-get.

JP: Pretend to be a good guy and convince myself that I can't do anything to the bad guys because reasons but kill them anyways because plot armor.

JP female: Slice-of-life. And nothing else.

KR: I solo. I grind. Forever. I solo bosses. I solo armies! I am badass. I am unique because I am dedicated!

 

How most generic shounen are like:

 

1. Rather than trope 'rinse and repeated' more like feature that can be called a must have recipe for story
2. I think it happen in old WN, many I read now not have that
3. In Chinese culture, above said is stereotype, match they common sense, not the other country's sense OC
4. Have ton of chapters, had a rinse and repeated was normie
5. Other did it and popular BTTH, so copy plot, why not?....kind of mindset

 

These tropes really are eyeroll-inducing. The good thing is that now it’s easy to recognize them early so you can drop it like it’s hot. Bit of a non sequitur, I like that you added the accent for e in Pokemon. This post made me smile so kudos to you!

 

Oh don't forget.

CN "Tiger" MC being a "pig". Pisses me off mayne. Would it kill you to wear a decent shirt to a formal party, sir? You are a bagillionaire for f***s sake. Goodness gracious.

Comes under face slapping but...ugh. Male stream Counterattack novels just rub me the wrong way.

 

well it depend on genre so kinda various but lets try shall you?
me? nay too lazy to give~

take a look on trap, yes trap is trope mostly on jp associated story but you may see it on cn comedy as for kr meh they too stiff for that~

ambiguous love, this mean as long as MC somehow close or associated with other gender then da reader make harem~ on danmei or yuri it usually same gender while opposite gender may become villain or something~

All your food are belong to MC, mainly on jp~ journey to food ingredient, talk about food, experiment create food~

harem is full of trap, mainly on cn historical~ all harem member be it imperial, noble or whatever know how to scheme other to die~ just variation who can and cannot, some on full offense while other da defense or whatever~

Respect your elder and da noble one, jp cn and kr have plenty of way to calling someone~ blame their culture~

Drama, dorama, usual stuff~ on cn it called blood dog? basically slapping each other face (reputation), non non nonsense drama like da parent not like mc cuz poor or whatever, hmm basically obstacle on love but just drama~

Filler is just a word, many many many chappy but feel short~ well wn have no editor no? so yeah understandable~

Cat is supreme lord!
no question!

 

Adding to the Chinese section: insert a ton of nationalism and racism
Adding to the Korean section: make the Japanese characters all bad in some way. Sometimes blatantly be offensive.


Chinese female protagonist (doesn't cover all):

Usually transmigrates to an ancient setting

Usually ultra-capable and super vicious, like a female Hannibal Lector but without class and brains. Other times she's pretty much useless as a human being and it's hard to imagine how she had lived in society prior to transmigration

Somehow everybody and their mothers(very literally) hates her and calls her trash but rather than ignoring and isolating her, they pester her all the time with some kinds stupid plots that are evil for the love of it.

There's that one super unreasonable guy who's always rude and abusive but he loves mc and stalks her and even rapes her and somehow it's glorified, maybe because he looks hot (but in the cold as iceberg kinda way) and he's rich. He also looks very indifferent on the outside as if he doesn't care about anybody but everybody seems to love him anyway, sometimes because it's explicitly said by the author that he's some kind of child of God and the chosen one.

For some reason, the mc gets a huge debuff in terms of ability and intelligence when that unreasonable guy is around. Like, why?

Korean female protagonist:

Insert the entire Chinese female protagonist description but make it a western fantasy setting and water down on the viciousness of all characters. Sometimes make the cold psychopath the mc's dad.

Japanese female protagonist:

Very OP, basically take Hercules and give him magic and then turn him into a cute girl. Slice of life. Sometimes even without romance and is rather fun and relaxing. Sometimes, but rarer, the mc was a dude in her previous life but it has, like, no effect on the story. Also, lots and lots of Japanese food that everybody around mc seems to adore somehow. I like to imagine that the characters are secretly afraid of mc and pretend to love it which makes many stories so much more fun.

Oh, then there's also the villainess setting which is: take Korean description and water down on the viciousness and make the mc attend school. And make her a noble girl.

 

Except for when it's yuri. In those novels the MC can't stop fantasizing about himself and first thing they do is they always look in the mirror as they fondle themselves etc. and they love being girls cause that lets them get close to other girls without them suspecting anything... (Basically they're the wet dream of IRL perverts that try/want to sneak into female changing room)


thing is though that what you're describing is mostly a niche for female audience meanwhile the yuri ones are a male audience niche

 

I love how a lot of readers know what they're reading is trash, but continue to read it anyway.

 

My observations on most cnovels in historical setting with Female MCs

• MC is always a staggering mind-numbing beauty. Even if she is rumored to be ugly, she is still secretly a staggering mind-numbing beauty.
• She is suppressed, abused and sometimes killed by her own family or by her husband's family. Never by strangers.
• First life, MC is stupid enough not to notice bigass abusive red flags
• These female MCs will most likely have the same "I was naïve but not anymore #ruthless" personality.
• The prettiest female sister or cousin is always a fake white lotus.
• The matriarch of the family can be MC's ally or enemy. Either way all grandma does is faint whenever something big happens.
• MC's father will never believe her
• You get to learn all the titles of Chinese nobles, (the number of wives, concubines, and children for each male member of each family....even the hierarchies of their servants). You are forced to.
• R-pe is used as a weapon. Aphrodisiacs are everywhere too.
• Someone will always die due to Game of Thrones style maneuvers. It's more normal if everyone but MC dies. And MC usually watches the death scene on the side with a smile. She can never be not sadistic.