Sometimes the Japanese make books without pictures

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > Sometimes the Japanese make books without pictures

Do Japanese books exist?
	yes
	no
	chihayafuru is the closest the japanese will ever get to true art

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

I can't believe it!!! Did you know that the Japanese have written books? As in manga without pictures? Or light novels that don't suck? And that some are so famous that they won awards from some Swedish guys for good writing?

Either way, the good writers are Kenzaburo Oe, Ryunousuke Akutagawa, Junichiro Tanizaki, Ryo and Haruki Murakami, Yasunori Kawabata and of course everyone's favorite gay terrorist, Yukio Mishima.

Please talk about the good writers of Japanese descent

# ¿ Apr 10, 2015 03:14

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 06:37

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Butt Frosted Cake posted:

you ever read that japanese jesuit guy crow? seems like he'd be right up your alley

fun fact: it was trendy in 20s Japanese literary circles to become Christian

Akutagawa was deeply influenced by Christianity, for instance

# ¿ Apr 10, 2015 03:46

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Allarion posted:

I should probably read some Banana Yoshimoto. I think I lost my copy of Kitchen and never got around to reading it.

Any other authors who don't write completely depressing works? Not that that's bad, but it's a bit tiring to read, and the few Japanese authors I have read tend to write with a very oppressive atmosphere. Silence sounds interesting though so I might look that up.

Read The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi by Junichiro Tanizaki, it is about a samurai who becomes really good at killing people because he has a severed head fetish

# ¿ Apr 10, 2015 04:03

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Effectronica posted:

I can't loving believe you forgot Yoko Ogawa, Crow. You've made a powerful enemy today.

So you're mad at me for forgetting ogawa but not for forgetting murasaki or basho

# ¿ Apr 10, 2015 04:35

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Effectronica posted:

The Heian and Tokugawa eras loving sucked for Japanese literature. Kamakura/Ashikaga for lyfe.

Noh theater is one of my favorite theaters

# ¿ Apr 10, 2015 04:55

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

LORD OF BUTT posted:

Are the Gundam novels actually good reading, or are they mostly just for fans? I've been looking for decent military SF that isn't written by people with Heinlein-level war-boners so they sound like a good candidate.

Also is this as crazy bonkers badass as it sounds

Yes

# ¿ Apr 10, 2015 19:32

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Neeksy posted:

Seconding "Kitchen" by Banana Yoshimoto. It's a relatively quick read, but emotionally resonant.

I'm a big fan of the older Japanese horror lit, with Edogawa Ranpo coming up with some really interesting concepts. There's also "Out" by Kirino Natuso, which is kind of an urban horror without the supernatural elements.

I sound like a broken record, but read Junichiro Tanizaki, all of his stories are about sexually menacing women that want to gently caress you to death

Case in point, The Tattooer

# ¿ Apr 11, 2015 05:40

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Outer Science posted:

gonna start norwegian wood this week, let's see how many i hit

also random book rec: Kokoro by natsume soseki

http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=359

# ¿ Apr 11, 2015 07:16

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

K. Flaps posted:

I'm going to read that after I'm done with kitchen.

Read Arrowroot or Naomi

Arrowroot is about a boy getting a taste of real (read: mythological) Japan out in the country

Naomi is about a modern woman in the taisho period and by that i mean a woman who dresses western and fucks a lot of men while her husband watches

# ¿ Apr 11, 2015 08:29

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Butt Frosted Cake posted:

I've started reading journey to the west because I'm too poor to afford dragon ball xenoverse

That's Chinese doesn't count

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 17:00

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Have any of you read Parasite Eve? Is it good?

# ¿ May 5, 2015 00:17

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Endorph posted:

it's really bad

like, the plot is way worse than the game's

How

# ¿ May 5, 2015 00:19

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Davincie posted:

the all you need is kill manga was decent, but the western comic is incredibly ugly and manages to gently caress so much up. i've had anime haters seriously call it better looking that the manga though which was a serious lol. good 3/4ths of a movie though

wait i got confused on which thread this is, im talking about the manga here and not the ln

# ¿ May 5, 2015 00:46

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Endorph posted:

A) the translation is very bad. actual sentence: 'there were data on file'

B) tons of the book is just various medical explanations. like a five page diatribe on japan's attitudes towards kidney transplants. it's technobabble, the book. You know how in the game Eve would yell about mitochondria? imagine if that happened, but also the story stopped to explain what mitochondria were, in excruciating detail. it literally feels like a medical textbook at times. in spite of this, the story still feels completely disconnected from reality. there's no explanation of all the magic bullshit that actually makes any sense, so it's still just 'basically magic.' It's the worst of both worlds, basically.

like the dude explains mitochondria in an exact medical sense, and then has some lady make poo poo catch on fire and somehow these two things are supposed to be related.

I read that it's better in Japanese and that the medical references are easier to parse

# ¿ May 5, 2015 17:23

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Endorph posted:

i could see it being better in japanese, because like i said the translation is poo poo, but the 'tons of medical explanations that don't really relate to anything' problem seems like it'd be there either way.

It won awards in Japan so it has to be bettet

# ¿ May 5, 2015 17:27

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Namtab posted:

Teh japs love clitfingering, presumably

Hell, so do I.

# ¿ May 5, 2015 19:00

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Endorph posted:

you know what else won awards?

the fault in our stars

I like the guy who wrote that

# ¿ May 5, 2015 22:37

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Level Slide posted:

What japanese book is the Citizen Kane of japan?

I Am a Cat

# ¿ May 6, 2015 00:00

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Butt Frosted Cake posted:

Did Hakkenden ever get an english translation? Wanna read the Nip Odyssey. There was an anime adaptation but the fuckers changed the story.

Only parts of it are translated, just play that mission in Okami again

# ¿ May 12, 2015 17:36

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 06:37

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Is the Ian Hughes translation of Edogawa Ranpo's The Black Lizard any good

# ¿ Jul 4, 2015 22:20

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > Sometimes the Japanese make books without pictures