Let's Talk about Japanese Books

GeneBWell

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Anyone here read Japanese novels?
One of the main reason I learned Japanese was so I could read the stuff they write. The Japanese YA market is just exploding right now, with each company desperate to find new authors to make new IPs so they can turn them into anime, games and other merchandise. It's great! Plus they have a very strong online novel community with several of my favorite authors publishing their stuff for free online.

It'd be fun to talk about industry trends and things that make Japanese writing unique, but I'll just start the thread off mentioning a few of the series I'm really enjoying recently:

HONZUKI NO GEKOKUJOU (Bookworm Revolution) - One of the 'reborn in an alternate world' fantasies that has been trending in recent years but with a big twist: there's no demon king to slay and no princess to save. Instead our main character is a female college graduate reborn into the body of a five-year-old in a fantasy kingdom. All she wants is to read, but how can a peasant girl get ahold of books (or even learn to read) in a world before the invention of the printing press? Luckily she has an encyclopedic knowledge of pretty much everything thanks to being such a bookworm in her previous life. The series is nerdy as all get-out but the worldbuilding is so incredible and the cast is very entertaining. A must-read for book fans.

KYOURAN KAZOKU NIKKI (Diary of a Chaotic Family) - Ouka will do anything to serve his country: hunt down monsters, fight off aliens, bust some ghosts, but now his country is asking him to get married and raise a bunch of 'kids' (a girl, a talking lion, a killer cyborg, a crossdressing playboy and a... jellyfish?) Because if these kids don't have a happy home life, one of them may turn into the reincarnation of a destructive God and wipe humanity off the face of the earth. The author has a gift for finding the absolute perfect mix of wacky comedy hijinks and tear-jerking family drama in this heartwarming series.

FATE/STRANGE FAKE - A spinoff of the popular Fate/Stay Night series which is about modern mages summoning ancient heroes in a magical fight for the Holy Grail. This time the stage is set in a small American town and the cast is more diverse than it's ever been. A girl in coma, the last chief of an ancient tribe, a goofball British mage, a... wolf? Many players are assembled, each backed by a hero from world lore. This time the Holy Grail War is going to be quite a mess. A very fun to read mess. The same author who wrote the stellar BACCANO series breathes new life into this franchise with a bizarre and creative cast and gripping writing that never fails to satisfy.

What Japanese books are you reading? What do you think of the current trends dominating their YA market? What do you think of the (few) translated books we get over Stateside?

Let's discuss!
 

Tocotin

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Hello,

This is a cool post and I have to thank you for it. I have friends and family members who are very much into light novels and manga, and I'm always at a loss when I want to buy them something new to read. Bookworm Revolution sounds particularly interesting.

As for me, I have read very few books of the BL variety and don't remember their titles, maybe apart from Ai-no Kusabi (which probably isn't YA). Right now, I'm writing a historical novel set in Japan, so I've been reading novels & short stories from and about my historical period (Meiji). I have tons of non-fiction books lying about, and I'm reading The Golden Demon ​now. My friend found one Meiji-set light novel for me, titled Stepbrother, or Meiji Mandala. It was published by Tiara Label and it's decidedly not YA either – I'm only going to start reading it.
 

Melanii

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I wish Light Novels were more of a thing here. Like I could write a book and have my illustrations accompany it. I mean, that would be awesome.

I haven't read any --

Wait, I take that back. I HAVE read Light Novels, and I even own some. They are mainly .hack though. I think I have a couple on my to-read list. I wish they were in the library though. D:
 

AW Admin

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I wish Light Novels were more of a thing here. Like I could write a book and have my illustrations accompany it. I mean, that would be awesome.

I haven't read any --

Wait, I take that back. I HAVE read Light Novels, and I even own some. They are mainly .hack though. I think I have a couple on my to-read list. I wish they were in the library though. D:

Two thoughts:

Find some you'd like to read, and request your local library either buy them or inter library loan them for you.

Your desire to write and illustrate your own light novel sounds like a self-publish project to me.
 

Melanii

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Two thoughts:

Find some you'd like to read, and request your local library either buy them or inter library loan them for you.

Inter library? O_O Must look this up.

Your desire to write and illustrate your own light novel sounds like a self-publish project to me.

Sadly I'd like to be traditionally published since my work would be on shelves and better potential to be in libraries. :D
 

S. Eli

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I didn't even think about this! I studied japanese for a long time, but they weren't exactly brought up. Maybe I'll look into it!

As it is, any recs for a beginner (in the genre, not the language)?
 

GeneBWell

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I didn't even think about this! I studied japanese for a long time, but they weren't exactly brought up. Maybe I'll look into it!

As it is, any recs for a beginner (in the genre, not the language)?

If I was going to point to a single series right now that pretty much sums up all the big market trends in Japanese YA right now it would be SWORD ART ONLINE. That is a good entry point since it is the basis of a lot of the genre standards that have been booming lately, such as kids getting sucked into alternate worlds or online RPG worlds becoming real. The trend is so powerful it's often joked about on the Japanese side of the internet that you have to have the word 'isekai' (alternate world) in the title of your book for it to sell these days.

Some slightly older stuff that is often held up as genre classics are KINO'S JOURNEY, which shows exactly how off the beaten path some popular series can get (it's A. not about high-schoolers B. no romantic comedy and C. doesn't have any Japanese characters... all of which are huge deviations from the norm) while still topping sales charts, and TORADORA which is one of the big classic high school dramas with no magical powers or alternate reality hijinks mixed in.
 

gtbun

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I sense this thread is about Japanese books IN Japanese. But translation of Japanese novels has been excellent for a good long while. Jay Rubin's Murakami translations are some of the best I've seen, and Ryu Murakami, whose tone is somewhat similar to Haruki's, is excellent too - In the miso soup and 69 being personal favourites. The penguin translations of Yasunari Kawabata, in particular The sound of the mountain, are also excellent. For fans of Raymond Chandler and crime novels in general there's Natsuo Kirino, especially Out, and I also enjoyed Strange weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami.

Incidentally, I've just started learning Japanese, and though many aspects of the written language, especially Kanji, is very gestural and thus not as hard as some Latin languages to pick up - I would still find reading a Japanese book fairly daunting even when I verged on fluent.
 

GeneBWell

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For YA readers I would also highly recommend picking up the translated version of Uehashi Naoko's MORIBITO. I believe the first two books of the series have been translated. No one in Japan does worldbuilding like Uehashi, and it's a tragedy more of her books haven't been brought over yet. She really is the Tolkein of Japan.
 

Melanii

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For YA readers I would also highly recommend picking up the translated version of Uehashi Naoko's MORIBITO. I believe the first two books of the series have been translated. No one in Japan does worldbuilding like Uehashi, and it's a tragedy more of her books haven't been brought over yet. She really is the Tolkein of Japan.

I really liked this book! I actually borrowed it from the library AFTER I had watched the anime. XD
 

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Did somebody say Japanese books? I have read a little bit of Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World when I was in college. I really hope that I can read more Japanese books soon.
 

gtbun

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Hardboiled was one of Murakami's more challenging novels for me, but do revisit them if you get the chance. His translations are top-notch.
 

kuwisdelu

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Did somebody say Japanese books? I have read a little bit of Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World when I was in college. I really hope that I can read more Japanese books soon.

Hardboiled was one of Murakami's more challenging novels for me, but do revisit them if you get the chance. His translations are top-notch.

Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World is my favorite Murakami novel.
 

gtbun

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It's probably the closest he's got to Chandler, but I find it hard to choose a favourite as I love all he has written - but if forced to choose it would probably be Dance Dance Dance or Wind-up Bird as it was my first Murakami, for me.
 

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I just got Silence and Woman in the Dunes from a local library sale. Japanese novels are something I've been wanting to get into for a while. It's a shame so few writers are available translated outside of big names like Murakami. At least manga gets a fair amount of good distribution in the West, either legitimately or by way of web uploads/fan translations.