Discussion Western Fantasy vs. Asian Fantasy

I find Western fantasy better overall.
Though i do like Asian fantasy, they ultimately fail to captivate me the same way Western fantasy stories do.

Which do you incline more towards as a reader?

 

The problem is that i wager most of the Asian fantasy's you've read have been amateur works with incentive to ramble on and most of the Western fantasy has been real books with editors. They are not really comparable in quality.

 

Asian, or a mix of Western and Eastern

 

While most of the works I've consumed had been Eastern Fantasy, if I were to ever write a novel, I'd still be way more comfortable to write a Western Fantasy novel. I'm Asian but I'm not Eastern Asian, so I'm not really familiar with all the legends, names, culture, and such.

Actually, I've been so accustomed to Eastern Novels that Western names cringe the hell out of me. That's pretty much the story of how I'll never be able to write a novel since it would cringe the hell out of me.

 

Western fantasy is way more fleshed out, Asian Fantasy is just FF and DQ rip-offs, never trying to develop things further than the surface. No real magic system, "it's magic GUYS". Too video-gamey, making it hard to be immersed.

 

Is this about the setting where Medieval like Setting = Western or Youkais and stuff = Asian?

 

No, I've read some astonishingly good (edited) Asian fantasy novels. Moribito, Bridge of Birds, Ze Tian Ji, The Grandmaster Strategist, I Shall Seal the Heavens, The Twelve Kingdoms, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and a few more.
If you know any Asian fantasy novels that are not "amateur works" then i would love to hear where i can find them.

 

I would say both have their merits. I just read what I feel like reading at the time.

 

No, both western and asian works use that setting. It's more about whether you prefer translated fantasy novels from Japan, China, Korea, etc or novels that are in English, German, etc. Or rather, the style they usually take on.

 

I'm about the same either way as far as the setting itself goes. The difference comes in the quantity vs. quality argument. Most of the 'eastern' fantasy novels I've read have been webnovels written by asian authors who churn out many pages after pages of shear word-count, no ending or plot structure outside of a story arc suggestion of an outline. Where as most of the 'western' fantasy novels have been released after an editing process with the intent to release a 'novel'.
But, either way, I've seen examples of good world building from both...

 

I'm assuming we're talking about Eastern and Western fantasy in novles and not myths and legends themselves.
I generally prefer novels with western settings. Eastern fantasy is nice and all, but the authors are basically just repeating the same things over and over with little to no difference between the different novels. You could throw the MC from any CN novel into a different CN novel and it would take hundreds of chapters before anyone spotted the difference.

JP fantasy novels are basically all set in a "western" setting still with little difference from novel to novel. They almost all have skill systems from games and the only differences are minor. Generally the difference between the skill systems is in how you learn skill/earn experience and this often has no effect on the MC since they're always given a cheat of some sort which allows them to level really fast or learn skills with no effort.

 

I've read a few of those and while I'll admit that I found them entertaining, the writing itself usually falls flat when compared to western novels. Character development, plot and world building are usually shoved to the side because the authors are too busy padding their word count. When compared to the works of an author like Brandon Sanderson their flaws are all too apparent.

 

Read Jin Yong..His works are very political and might not be grouped as fantasy depending on your definition but he is studied as a subject in Western Schools: Jinology.
That has to count for something right? @ToastedRossi
PS As many have pointed out. Most of the novels here are equivalent to an Asian Royalroadl in terms of quality

 

If only i can read western fantasy novels that revolves around being an Immortal...

 

What is western fantasy an Asian fantasy?

 

Right now Asian~ though I do like western novels more overall I think. Just haven’t been reading them for a while. I should pick up a few that I’ve not caught up on yet.

 

I definitely like the western style more but the eastern settings are more appealing to me.

 

western fantasy = epic
asian fantasy = cool
at least for me....

 

Asian fantasy isn't limited to the few listed in this site. There are some actual published ones as well...immortals of meluha comes to my mind. That author has written a couple of trilogies or so on Asian fantasy setting, and while not the best, they will give you an idea as to what an editor and a book setting rather than a web setting can do.

 

In general I would say western fantasy I guess, mostly because the more impressive cases of world building I've come across tend to be western, in terms of cohesiveness rather than scale that is.
I'm guessing that most of the asian fantasy I actually would want to read remain untranslated though.