/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15360978]

why can't japs write decent science fiction?

[Anonymous No.15360984]

>>15360978
Isn’t Gundam a pretty good anti-war piece

[Anonymous No.15360991]

>>15360978
just watch the anime

[Anonymous No.15361006]

Because you only read the meme shit

[Anonymous No.15361039]

>>15360978
Weebs and idiots (aka japs) will read that shit anyway.

[Anonymous No.15361065]

>>15360984
Gundam is pretty bad in terms of writing

[Anonymous No.15361122]

>>15360978
The anime is good. Never read teh novels.

[Anonymous No.15361239]

>>15360978
cultural experience of having to learn the ropes of an existing technological world rather than building it

[Anonymous No.15361673]

>>15360984
0080 and F97 are the only Gundam(s?) with a clear anti war message. The rest of the franchise regularly fetishizes the act of war and the weapons used to fight it to the point of absurdity.

[Anonymous No.15361972]

>>15360978
>>15361039
cope

[Anonymous No.15362008]

>>15361122
My favorite namefag said the LotGH novels feel like they were written by a genius.

[Anonymous No.15362029]

>>15362008
From what I recall, the first couple of volumes had a pretty bad English translation. They changed changed translators afterwards, but to what extent the quality improved, I do not know.
Also, to be on topic, has anyone read Project Itoh books?

[Anonymous No.15362251]

95% scifi is shit. Only a couple of decent writers are able to pull it off t. Wolfe/Lem etc

Why are there no decent sci-fi writers in countries with similar pops and dev to japan? It's just a rarer breed of author

[Anonymous No.15362296]

The anime is way better

[Anonymous No.15362317]

>>15360978
It's probably just not getting translated. The people with the skills and motivation to translate anything from Japanese to English are interested in either middle to high literature, or pop culture anime trash. If you're genuinely interested, just learn Japanese.

[Anonymous No.15362325]

Most Japanese novels are untranslated, anything niche but of good quality is going to remain unknown to the west, and they are more than happy for to stay that way. Japanese cultural production is incredibly inward looking, as it is wealthy and populace enough not to need to rely on a foreign market to make a profit.

[Anonymous No.15362402]

>>15360978
Excuse me, have you even read The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya?

[Anonymous No.15362420]

>>15362402
Gr8 b8

[Anonymous No.15362451]

>>15361673
That’s exactly what makes it good though. It’s really not glorifying of war to the point of absurdity for its own sake either.

[Anonymous No.15362464]

>>15362317
I'm learning, I'm embarrassed to admit that it took me 200 days to learn hiragana and katakana, plus a few words that go with it.

[Anonymous No.15362477]

Kobo Abe has a SF novel iirc (Inter Age something).
There's the dude from Paprika and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Yatsuya Tsutsui? idk). Those are gold old fashioned novels, not the Light variant for retarded teenagers.

[Anonymous No.15362513]

>>15360978
Japanese SF authors seem less concerned with being taken seriously than American ones. Every hack author here thinks they're the next Tolkien or Dick who's going to transcend the genre. Japanese genre authors, at least the ones who get any exposure overseas, don't care about anything beyond the limits of what's considered appropriate for nerds and SF fans.

[Anonymous No.15362577]

>>15362464
Kana should take you a single day, dude. Here's a post I made in an old thread:

1. Be prepared to devote your entire summer to studying Japanese. By that I mean that you should make it your main daily activity.
2. As far as studying goes, how much grammar do you know? Take a look at this book and see how you fare: https://archive.org/details/JapaneseATeachYourselfByC.J.DunnAndS.YanadaOfSoas/page/n4/mode/2up
If there's anything you don't know, go through as much of it as you feel you need to.
3. Once you know the basic grammar, you will need to combine reading with studying Japanese characters.
4. For characters: I recommend spending at least an hour writing out several characters and their meanings and readings at least five times each every single day. A good text to start with is Tuttle's Reading and Writing Japanese. Once you're through with that, I'd use P.G. O'Neill's Essential Kanji.
5. For reading: For your first reader, I recommend P.G. O'Neill's An Introduction to Written Japanese. You can find it online here: https://archive.org/details/ANINTRODUCTIONTOWRITTENJAPANESE/page/n15/mode/2up After that, I'd recommend using Gen Itasaka's Modern Japanese: A Basic Reader and then his Modern Japanese: An Advanced Reader. You can try the Routledge Intermediate to Advanced Japanese Reader as well, but I didn't find it very useful. Once you're done with these books, you're done. Go read whatever the hell you want with a dictionary.
4. Dictionaries: Buy an old copy of Kenkyusha's Japanese-English Dictionary. You can find them on Abebooks and elsewhere for less than $10. If you don't have one yet, buy a cheap copy of the New Nelson Kanji Dictionary.

If you already know kana, use the link in 2. or buy a physical copy of the book through Abebooks or a similar site. The book is in transliteration, but write everything in kana. If you still feel shaky on kana, go ahead and use the opening section of P.G. O'Neill's An Introduction to Written Japanese mentioned in 5. to help you along.

[Anonymous No.15362584]

>>15360978

>Implying

[Anonymous No.15362622]

Watch the first movie, Magnetic Rose

[Anonymous No.15362913]

>>15362577
>learning to write
Huge waste of time. Get an overview of the basic grammer, then start to read using a pop-up dictionary.

To make kanji easier, you might want to work through a mnemonics book like Heisig or Conning. Use anki to burn vocab into your long term memory if you have the discipline to do your reviews, but don't bother if you're just going to burn out or quit out of boredom. Depending on your tolerance level for looking stuff up while reading, you might want to pre-learn some vocab (there are pre-made anki decks for this purpose), but true understanding will only come from repeatedly seeing how things actually work in real content created by and for native speakers.

[Anonymous No.15363286]

>>15362577
>4. For characters: I recommend spending at least an hour writing out several characters and their meanings and readings at least five times each every single day. A good text to start with is Tuttle's Reading and Writing Japanese. Once you're through with that, I'd use P.G. O'Neill's Essential Kanji.
I have this book "Learn Japanese in 90 days part 1", that I haven't done anything with yet. Basically it's teaches Japanese vocabulary by asking you to make ten cards every day, drawing a specific kanji on one side of the page everyday, and writing the meaning to the backside, and memorizing those. The idea being that by the end of 90 days, you would know at least 900 words and their kanji.

[Anonymous No.15364670]

>>15360978
Akira is good, but as its a comicbook it probably doesn't count.

All you need is kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka was turned into a hollywood film called Edge of Tomorrow staring Tom Cruise

[Anonymous No.15365802]

What about Legends of The Galáctic Héroes

[Anonymous No.15365847]

>>15362464
It took me longer longer to learn katakana (nearly 2 years) than it did to get through KanjiDamage (3 months), but I think it doesn't matter how much you fuck up at the beginning as long as you later on find something you're willing to stick to because you enjoy. Eroge are good btw.

[Anonymous No.15365854]

All good Japanese sci-fi/fantasy is usually done as a video game, manga, anime, or VN. And yes, even within those mediums 95% of the time its bad.

[Anonymous No.15365857]

>>15365802
Legend of the Gay Lactating Homos

[Anonymous No.15365866]

Novels translation is so dry that even an ESL like me can notice it. Struggled to finish the fifth book, and it's been months since I did. Don't have plans of starting the sixth soon.

Loved the series anyways.

[Anonymous No.15365876]

>>15365854
UC Gundam (specifically Char's character arc) was pretty good, as far as I remember

[Anonymous No.15366056]

>why can't japs write decent science fiction?

Why can't you write decent science fiction OP?

[Anonymous No.15366618]

>le spears of light

[Anonymous No.15366629]

>>15365866
Pick not related? Are implying the subtitles of the anime poorly translated as well?

[Anonymous No.15366632]

>>15361065
Chars counterattack is all you need. Just stop the series after. It’s like disney beating a dead horse after for shekels

[Anonymous No.15366649]

>>15366629
that's not a scene from main ova/novels

[Anonymous No.15367107]

>>15366649
I know, it's from Starlabyrinth ep 4, I just watched it few weeks ago. Point stands, is the pic poorly translated?

[Anonymous No.15367111]

>>15367107
No idea I'm ESL

[Anonymous No.15367992]

>>15360978
I suspect because large majority of population are into manga type stuff, therefore proper scifi just doesnt sell

[Anonymous No.15368009]

>>15361972
Based

[Anonymous No.15368018]

>>15362622
The last one is good too. Stink Bomb has a good soundtrack but isn't as good narratively.

[Anonymous No.15368032]

>>15362622
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLthYw7epuo

[Anonymous No.15368040]

>>15362317
>just learn Japanese.

[Anonymous No.15368046]

>>15368040
Yes. Assuming you care about reading Japanese books. It's not as hard as you think.

[Anonymous No.15368050]

>>15362584
Was fucking garbage, I can't believe I even bothered watching five episodes of that.

[Anonymous No.15368065]

>>15368046
Why would I care about reading Japanese books? Literally the only things I could care about reading in Japanese would be Mishima or some traditional Japanese mythology/poetry/philosophy.

[Anonymous No.15368069]

>>15368065
That's why I said 'assuming'. I had the impression you weren't interested anyway. I don't blame you.

[Anonymous No.15368078]

>>15360978
I think this anime being in the top 3 best anime really shows how shit the anime industry is. Japs cant just write to save their lives.

While this show is good, it is still very surface level and lacking depth.

[Anonymous No.15368101]

>>15368069
>I don't blame you.
Thank you.

[Anonymous No.15368108]

>>15368078
Julian become ugly and dumb and annoying in season 4 and should have killed himself out of dispair.

[Anonymous No.15368210]

>>15368065
>Literally the only things I could care about reading in Japanese would be Mishima or some traditional Japanese mythology/poetry/philosophy.
Then either learn it and go do that or get out of this thread.

[Anonymous No.15368221]

>>15368078
I suspect that the problem is actually that cartoons are not art. Try watching Rashōmon if you're interested in Japanese writing (Akutagawa Ryūnosuke) and how that translates to good filmography (Kurosawa Akira).

[Anonymous No.15368242]

>>15368221
Exactly. Most cartoons are not going to be good art, though I think there are some exceptions. Japan has a lot of good live-action films which certainly qualify as art, though a lot of the newer films (last few decades) don't really live up to the pre-90s works.

[Anonymous No.15368748]

have been learning jap for a while

is logh worth reading?

[Anonymous No.15368756]

>>15368748
From what I have heard, no. Admittedly, I haven't read it though. From what I have gathered the anime is the best way to enjoy LoGH.

[Anonymous No.15368839]

Just got to Yang's death
He went away so gently. It was the others' reactions to it that really destroyed me. I probably liked Reinhard's the most. Why is everyone except Yang so fucking useless?

[Anonymous No.15368854]

>>15360978
https://medium.com/@ProjectRob/the-conservative-heart-of-legend-of-the-galactic-heroes-8d3d41d128fa

[Anonymous No.15368861]

>>15368748
>>15368756
As a sort of compromise: Watch the anime and see if you like it. If you do, and you'd like a challenge, maybe download the raw mangos from nyaa and read it for the purposes of both learning and enjoyment.
But if you're at a much more advanced stage, you should probably just do what the other guy said.

[Anonymous No.15368862]

>>15368839
It destroyed me as well. Actually i haven't continued watching after the following episodes.

I still get sad thinking about it. I looked up to him

[Anonymous No.15368873]

>>15368839
>>15368862
The shows biggest flaw is trying to replace him, too.

[Anonymous No.15368887]

>>15368854
Feels like he didnt really watch the show. Yang's entire arc is anti-militarism and his pount of doubt is that the everlasting war has infested the republic with militaristic populists.

[Anonymous No.15368949]

GOAT near future character driven hard scifi

Anime is better than the manga. Excellent production.

[Anonymous No.15368953]

>>15368949
Yeah, Planetes was enjoyable. The ninja episode was shitty but the rest is pretty good stuff.

[Anonymous No.15368954]

>>15368887
>Yang's entire arc is anti-militarism and his pount of doubt is that the everlasting war has infested the republic with militaristic populists.
Sounds similar to a certain period of Japanese history. Hmmm...

[Anonymous No.15368961]

>>15368954
Which denies the point of the article that the show is reactionary. The strongest character on a philosophical/historical level is directly critisizing post-war japan

[Anonymous No.15368963]

>>15368953
exactly which episode came into my mind when that anon said "hard scifi" lol

would you like that as an .ogg file? cringe

[Anonymous No.15368964]

>>15368954
LOGH is directly based on different historical events and periods

[Anonymous No.15368993]

>>15368963
>>15368953

the harder the scifi the greater the autism. Planetes is a nice balance. One episode of comic relief can be permitted.

[Anonymous No.15369079]

>>15360978
Back onto the subject of Japanese science fiction in book form, Hoshi Shinichi's work is pretty good and accessible even for people who don't know Japanese that well as he wrote a number of very short stories that can be finished in an hour or less.

[Anonymous No.15369391]

>>15368964
Reinhard has like Napoleon's origin story—coming from impoverished gentry and rising to prominence via military skill—and Alexander's conquest and death.
I also think his marshals are based on Napoleon's marshals.
>Mittermeyer might be Louis-Gabriel Suchet, the exceptionally competent marshal who had an obsession with keeping his men on the line
>Reuenthal might be Jean Bernadotte, who turned against Napoleon

[Anonymous No.15369759]

>>15362029
I've read Genocidal Organ. To put it a little crudely, I got a lot of Metal Gear Solid vibes from it. It has an interesting plot with global war on terror/surveillance state themes that are now familiar in fiction, but the fact that Itoh did it in 2006 is impressive, for what it's worth.
Also the many references to real science and literature make it worthwhile in my opinion. Like one of those speculative fiction books with a long notes/further reading section (e.g. Ghost Fleet, Daemon). I would recommend it.
The anime adaptation is also good but mostly for the action scenes. Watching the high tech SOCOM soldiers of the future take down two-bit murderous paramilitaries with such prejudice and brutality you actually feel bad for them is something you have to see on screen.

[Anonymous No.15369796]

>>15362451
You are overthinking it.
>>15360984
First gundam is pretty decent. But the very medium and format of the series kind of invalidates a lot of that strict message.

>>15360978
I think in large part because it doesn’t seem like they spend the same amount of time on the world and setting westerners do. It’s almost always a focus on individual people to the detriment to the world which is kind of what separates a sci-fic from a regular read.

[Anonymous No.15369862]

>>15369759
only saw the film and it gave me highly dilettantish and similar cringe manchild vibes as mgs
>Also the many references to real science and literature make it worthwhile in my opinion
got this impression from the wikipedia page tho and it was on my reading list. ghost fleet too. tho only interested in the science and military tech as far as these authors are concerned so maybe just ghost fleet would be worth reading if genocidal organ has too much shit wrapped around it

[Anonymous No.15370019]

>>15369862
I enjoyed reading Genocidal Organ more than I did Ghost Fleet. The latter is pretty clearly just supposed to be Neuromancer meets Red Storm Rising, and I found it kind of unimaginative. However it does have a substantial notes section. The former has a more original premise but no notes section. It kind of just goes deeper on linguistics like an MGS game would with genetics or information manipulation or whatever other theme. I like the camp of MGS games though so take my endorsement with a grain of salt.

[Anonymous No.15370350]

>>15360978
you just posted the best sci-fi ever written. Yang a cute.
>>15362325
post good shit, then. i'm getting to the point where i can read comfortably now. i'm now forsaking scanlations on manga entirely in favor of raws and can even read big boy books. feels good man.

i got the pack of like 4000 LN from cornucopia, but it's all unsorted, you open the grade and it's like 500 different titles and i have no idea which to pick. not even in english can I casually read 4000 books.
>>15362464
>200 days to learn hiragana and katakana
wtf even. if it takes you more than a few days you have a learning disability.
>>15362577
>learning kanji
it's better to learn it in vocabulary
>buying a dictionary
i use yomichan's alt+insert dictionary lookup engine or google translate's handwriting input. if you're reading on your laptop digitally you can copy+paste text into yomichan/google translate.
>>15362913
>Huge waste of time.
bullshit. i copy down any vocab i come across and don't know, by hand, to help memorize it. before studying handwriting my notes were hard to read. now they're perfectly formed and clear. dont' spend a huge amount of time but handwriting IS a useful skill.