I haven't read very much of it but I'm willing to check out more authors if anyone wants to rec some. Mostly I've read a few Mishima works which I did enjoy.

I've also read Norwegian Wood which I thought was pretty bad and I abandoned I Am a Cat partway through. I've been meaning to check out Ishiguro though.

What's your opinion on Japanese literature, OP?

>>23592673
trite and boring, only for weabs. The west knows best.

Inferior to Chinese poetry.

An overview

Quick notes to Waka and Japanese aesthetics.

Fundamentally there are four primary roots of Japanese aesthetics (there are other works which go on to be immensely influential but ultimately they all derive from or owe much to these.)

These four are in order of influence

The Chinese classic of poetry, which defines and determines both in obedience and reaction the bulk of Japanese aesthetics. It is the head influence, though importing of further Chinese lit was a continual titanic influence, none can claim the supremacy that the book of odes has.

The Kokin Wakashū, a poetry collection, the first Consciously Japanese piece of literature, which has the first work of lit critique, concerning their origins in the Chinese classic of poetry, and where Japanese aesthetics differs in reaction.

The Man'yōshū (759 ad) the oldest and thus most archaic in aesthetic conception, neither consciously Japanese in a geographical ethnic/nationalist sense, nor having the added aesthetic regulations considered essential to latter ornamented Japanese works, while universally respected, conservative schools especially in the medieval period extol a return to its simplicity heavily. It and the next work are written in the earliest Japanese form called manyogana, named after, this work. Which is simply Japanese written using Chinese characters since Japanese didn’t yet develop a distinct alphabet. (Notice the common theme, Chinese as origin.)
The kojiki, which is the closest approximate to a unified Shinto Bible, containing history, documenting lineage, myths and collecting various worship hymns and rites, it is in fact the oldest piece of Japanese writing as a whole, only predating the manyo by 30-50 some years, its influence is gonna be felt above all else in contents of writing and mannerism, because it serves as the core document of what is Japan, what is the Japanese spirit in its most primitive available form.

These are the ultimate sources and prototypes for the core aesthetic types, to name various important aesthetic forms and discuss them a bit, we should begin with two very close almost twin conceptions.

Wabi sabi and mono no aware.

Mono no aware is the feeling of pathos, the deep melancholy feeling concerning the transience of things, but again, centered on specific transient objects, wabi sabi is identical but is this through the specific lens of the simplistic and rugged, seeing the transient simple garments, plain woods and other such, as being embodiments of the passing nature of things and the tenderness of these. The generation of pure mono no aware is broadly h the core of all great/deep Japanese aesthetics even as all of the other flavors of aesthetics and emotions may be used, the tale of genji is often the prototype of this but conjoint with the aristocratic sensibility, the manyo has many examples as well. This brings us to the question of our next aesthetic dichotomy.

Iki and miyabi,

>>23592732
Due to regulations set to regulate the merchant class and promote overall unity throughout Japan, various clothing and outer building regulations were put in place which opposed the merchants from flaunting their wealth and pretending to be nobility, this resulted in a sharp aesthetic contrast, where while at first glance the poor and rich merchants may look the same, in contrast to samurai and so forth in very rich and loud extravagant materials and buildings, upon closer inspection we find the merchants got around the restriction via subtle craftsmanship, refined materials but hidden, so that perhaps the robe you wear looks common, but its inside is made of the finest cloth and adorned with various images, a house that looks like a common shack, filled inside with all manner of precious and expensive materials and servants, this is the aesthetic known as “iki” which can be translated as “cool” “suave” “tasteful” (as contrasted to gaudy) and stylish/chic, such coolness slowly became an abstract ideal and non wealth related elements slowly were absorbed via association, so that the undying loyalty of a samurai is “iki” Drunken boxing for the spontaneous and seemingly mundane exterior is again “cool” in this conception. To use a modern piece to illustrate it, the character of Jack from samurai Jack is a constant hit over the head of iki ideals. So then if this is the aesthetics generated by commoners and merchants due to being unable to flaunt their wealth, in contrast miyabi was produced by those allowed to flaunt status, it is translated as courtliness, tenderness, or refined elegance, and the primary concern is the purgation of vulgar elements, vulgar not meaning gaudy, vulgar meaning lowly, rustic, common, or bitter/harshness. The stereotype of Japanese politeness and extreme adherence to social custom derives from this, to illustrate with a stereotypical image what it looks like and how it can still unify with mono no aware, consider a cherry blossom/Sakura, in itself is compared to other trees an image of delicate fineness, an image of rare clean beauty, the image of a cherry blossom dropping its petals is easily recognizable as an image of Japanese aesthetic embodied, and in it we see this rareness of high Value, and sadness in its passing, that it too is a dying thing, the pathos for the once-illustrious is a common tactic both in western and eastern art, such as poems concerning now abandoned temples, plays like king lear, or to illustrate the precise miyabi pathos in common media, the death scenes of O-Ren Ishii and bill from kill bill both present it pretty well. Fundamentally, if iki is the “suave-cool-stylish that is spontaneous” then miyabi is “baroque” the impulse towards mannered and ceremonial custom above all.

>>23592736
Iki being a down stream variant of wabi sabi ultimately, can be traced to Murata Juko the founder of the Japanese tea ceremony, and from his directly to his studies of variants of the Chinese tea ceremonies. So once again we may trace this to China, just as we can the ultimate concept of Japanese aesthetics.

Yugen

While not explicitly named until Study of Chinese materials, the center has always been this, the final brief glimpse of a mysteriousness, the brief grasp of a transcendental element hiding in the world, pervading everything if seen properly, if we conceptualize Japanese aesthetics as a material structure, the ground foundation is mono no aware, which reveals the myriad of things to be, the very roof of our structure, yugen. To define Yugen in itself is a complicated task, multiple aestheticians give the definition as “Magokoro” the true heart of man, the actual core experience qualia of a person, their actual identity, or the actual Buddha nature pervading reality as a whole, this yugen perception is contrasted to the highly ornamented surface of the rival Chinese poets, fundamentally whether you define it religiously or emotionally, the ultimate end is the experience of dark mystery pervading the common sphere of nature/life.

Now to speak briefly on forms,

The center most form of waka/Japanese poetry is Tanka, which is in a quantitative meter of

5 morae
7 morae
5 morae
7 morae
7 morae

Morae being equivalent to just syllables in English since we do not regulate quantity. These stanzas can be divided into two stanzas called the upper portion and the lower portion, the upper portion being

5
7
5

And being defined by its “cutting word” which is a dignified group of 18 syllables which range from various exclamations to grammatical structures, while not required in the most traditional and conservative forms, they are important in the more ornamented forms. This upper portion is also called a hokku.

The lower portion is

7
7

And serve as “punchlines” to the prior 3 syllables.

Most of the important other forms of verse in waka are fundamentally just modifications of Tanka, either making it longer or shorter in some regard, the core elements of the tanka are the nucleus regardless and have been prior to the manyo, and the division of it into two stanzas is likewise as old. Leading to our next primitive form,

Renga

>>23592739
From this division of two stanzas, inspired by the Chinese couplet games and basing themselves on what amounts to street freestyle competitions held in China called “renku” (played around 200 bc in China) we see from the kojiki the same sort of games played called renga (hundreds of years later with the earliest known example again being from the 700s) which by that period already had the common form of one writer writing the first 3 lines, and his friend writing the final two lines as a punchline, renga make no mistake were originally light hearted, fun, playful, not serious lit and even bawdy, the sexual and humorous and street elements of renga reach their highest level in the sub form of the Renku, which followed trends from the 1600-1700s of allowing slang, common mundane speech patterns and Chinese, in renku the common final lines would be all shock value, toilet humor, common mockery, eventually multiple authors tried to formulate serious renga and tried to elevate it to have dignity, the highest master of this is basho, who would often write the hokku while his friends write the final two lines, the common usage of the hokku alone without the final two lines began to appear commonly around this period, and basho capitalizing on this and finding he prefers only to write the opening 3 lines, more or less produces the haiku, which is simply the Hokku(starting verse) of the tanka with no follow up. To frame things properly time wise, Masaoka Shiki (born 1867) is the one who renamed the hokku to the name haiku, and basho who is basically the one who made dedicated focused serious haiku its own distinct art was born 1644, by 1600 samurai were already managers and largely no longer a strictly martial people, the image of traveling Ronin writing haiku is basically not real, they were however writing tanka. The renga continues to develop numerous linked structures even to the contemporary period. Before leaving this to say a final portion on haiku, its master basho considered his biggest influence and greatest master to be the Chinese poet dufu (born 712) Dufu being one of the three great representative poets of tang poetry, these three being Dufu, li bai and sang wei, for Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, though all three partake heavily of all three,
Basho’s high influence from Dufu is sensible due to dufu’s extreme influence over Zen Buddhism, “The first notable Japanese appreciator of Du Fu's poetry was Kokan Shiren (1278–1346), a Rinzai Zen patriarch and one of the most prominent authors of the literature of the Five Mountains;

>>23592673
>What's your opinion on Japanese literature, OP?
I've also read Mishima and Dazai for the memes. Also read Soseki's Kokoro and on the side tried with Yuko Tsusima (I think she's Dazai's daughter) and Hiroko Oyamada. The latter wrote an interesting but confusing magical realism novel "Hole" ("Ana") which I liked but can't remember very well. I did really like Tsushima's "Territory of Light"; it presents a pretty honest but rather melancholic picture of single motherhood. It's not presented as virtuous or honorable, but it doesn't delve in the misery or hardship, I found it very sad but also beautiful.
I ignore whether it's the translations I have read, or if Japanese just doesn't work well in Spanish (my mother tongue), but whenever I read Japanese novels their prose feels really amateurish. Like something a beginner would write, I've never been impressed by Japanese prose. However, the ideas and situations they tackle, the pacing and presentation is unique. Thankfully, that is something I enjoy which keeps me interested, but I must admit that it's not one of my favorite countries for literature, even if I do want to engage more with it. Maybe I should try with English translations.

>>23592673
Is this show good? I haven't watched animu in years but if this /lit/ cutie has a lot of screentime I might.

>>23592741
he highly praised Du Fu and made a commentary on some poems of Du Fu from the perspective of a Zen priest in Vol. 11 of Saihokushū.[74] His student Chūgan Engetsu composed many kanshi which were clearly stated to be "influenced by Du Fu" in their prefaces.[75] Chūgan's student Gidō Shūshin had close connection with the Court and Ashikaga Shogunate and propagated Du Fu's poetry in the mundane world; one day Nijō Yoshimoto, the Kampaku regent of the Court and the highest authority of renga poetry, asked Gidō, Should I learn the poetry of Du Fu and Li Bai?" Gidō dared to reply, "Yes if you do have enough capability. No if do not."[76] Since then, there had been many seminars on Du Fu's poetry both in Zen temples and in the aristocratic society, and as a result his poetry was often cited in Japanese literature in the Muromachi period, e.g., Taiheiki, a historical epic in the late 14th century, and some nohplays such as Hyakuman, Bashō, and Shunkan.”

Plays and extravagant displays of skill.

To beat the dead horse a final time, the oldest variant of these is “sangaku” imported from China, which included Normal plays, stunts, juggling and the like, these are then refined to the proper noh form via various now gone archaic dance, performance and public recitation genres which culminate in the fathers of Noh, Kan'ami Kiyotsugu (born 1336 )and his son Zeami Motokiyo, whose study of Zen Buddhism, Chinese poetry, Japanese history, waka and archaic performance arts are all well attested, he is both a central writer of their plays and the first writer on drama in Japanese, having Written 21 books fundamentally laying down the law on how to write drama and poetry, mostly drawn from his studies of renga, the extent of noh and eventually kabuki formal requirements is beyond the extent of this essay, however the origin of these plays being in content the kojiki, folk legends, other literature and primarily being derived from court entertainments ensured the high fixation upon Miyabi and the complicated balancing act of trying to simultaneously be iki and miyabi, through zeami this is manifest in character action and qualities, along with modification of prior lit in his plays, whereas In the latter lower class preferred kabuki, miyabi is taken to such an excess that it itself becomes iki, to give an example of excess looping back to street savvy coolness, perhaps the animes TTGT, Mononoke and utena are all good examples of this loop.
Another time I’ll continue this write up elaborating specifically on prose, etoki, haibun, with special attention to izumi and Kawabata as emblematic writers.

>>23592673
Some anon once compared it to jazz that's fun to listen to but not particularly catchy or memorable like a classical piece, and I think that rings true. It's pure mood and the ephemera of moments at times.

>>23592742
It renders better in English, but it's a very simple language on the whole. One unlike western languages, that has difficulty being technical. Much is implied that has to be written out in English and clear writing reads like an instruction manual. There's a distrust for prose in general with Japanese literature, but I think the real problem is we're missing any metre and cadence that may be there, as well as countless homophones.

>>23592707
Junichiro Tanizaki
Edogawa Rampo
Banana Yoshimoto

>>23592707
Okamoto Kido if you want some late 19th century detective stories in old Edo.

If you're going to read Murakami, get his short stories. Elephant Vanishes is excellent. Wild Sheep Chase, Hard Boiled Wonderland, Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Kafka on the Shore are all sound picks for novels, but I'd save Kafka for later because reasons.

Ishiguro is English, his Japanese counterpart would probably be Kobo Abe.

>>23592846
More on Kido, while Hanshichi comes off as a Sherlock ripoff (and it is, in a way), he was writing about a Japan that had already disappeared under modernization. He also has some excellent characterizations and Edo has a strong role in many stories, as more than a setting.

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Are we considering manga /lit/?

Because I do hold "Oyasumi Punpun" as one of the best pieces of literature I've read, not just one of the best manga.

I am a fan of murakami but generally do not go for pure fiction

You should all read Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino, it's a very interesting read. Her other books are all good too.

I also recently read The Makioka Sisters, which was a really interesting look into domestic feminine life in imperial Japan. Honestly, if anyone has any recommendations based off of those two books I would be really interested to read them.

I like the empty chapter from Tale of Genji.
It resonates with me, be it budist or nihilist themes. Form, empty, void.

>>23592744
I liked the first episode, it feels like a self-aware romantic comedy with the anesthetic sense of a romantic drama. The MC seems pretty bland but the main girl makes up for it with how energetic she is.

>>23592744
She's not /lit/, she's a fujoshi. She hides her BL novels between the pages of Mishima and Dazai novels, which is why she says not to touch them.

>>23592744
What a strange thing to think, much less to say, upon seeing a lazy cartoon drawing of a woman.

>>23593560
It really is the best place to hide them since you need to be a blatant homosexual to enjoy either one.

>>23592814
>t. coomer dilettante

>>23592673
Mishima keeps reigniting my love for reading when labour dull my mind

>>23592718
I'm a weeb and I'm gonna agree with you on that one.

>>23592707
Just like any other country's literature, there's some wonderful works and some others that are quite boring and prosaic imo
If you want to see how traditional japanese literature operates just to get a taste and see if you like it, ryuunosuke akutagawa is considered a master and has a few short stories you could check out. I'd recommend 'in a grove' and 'rashomon'.
If you're into proto-dadaist poetry, like arthur rimbaud, i'd recommend the works of nakahara chuuya. He translated western poets of his time to japanese and his style merged more modern western elements with traditional japanese structures.
Osamu Dazai is also quite good especially if you're a depressed NEET like most of /lit/ is. So far, I've read no longer human and the setting sun, but I've been meaning to read the rest of his works.
Personally i don't care at all for murakami, but that's just me. As far as i know, he's quite revered in most mainstream literary cycles.

>>23592673
LNs are ok slop on par with any given western YA novel on average, with the best being far better than their western counterparts. And if nothing else the nips can still into cover art.

The best Japanese literature can't beat the best western literature though.

>>23593809
>Mishima keeps reigniting my love for reading when labour dull my mind
Which ones do you recommend?

>>23593843
>The best Japanese literature can't beat the best western literature though.
I mean, that is comparing a single country to a tradition that spans several. I also don't get why we have to see it as a competition.

>>23593865
>>23593835

>>23592673
Oh, the pain of being an ESL and having to spend thousands of hours to just learn fucking English, which honestly doesn't even count as a foreign language, when I could've been spending those hours actually learning a foreign language such as Japanese. I'm now nearing thirties and although I could probably make decent progress in like five years I'm not sure I have it in me anymore.

>>23593897
Yeah, same. I have to admit that having English as a second language barely feels like an accomplishment nowadays because it is so ubiquitous. Still, a skill's a skill. Nevertheless, you are still in your late twenties, just try to learn Japanese if that's what you want. Those 5 years will pass, it's up to you whether you'll know some Japanese or none at all by then. Also, it's daily work that gets integrated into your daily life; after a while you will have integrated it into your routine so seamlessly that it'll be weird not to do it.

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>>23592673
The Japanese can't write (most likely due to their language).

Why do people make generalized, sweeping statements meant to sound controversial? Is it because it makes them feel smarter?

>>23594670
yous, updoots, retweets, likes etc

Well what I've read from Dazai and Mishima was garbage.

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>>23592673
Picked picrel recently. Easy to read and has some short stories that I couldn't find translated elsewhere. The Fox and The Garden were steeped in mono no aware sentiment, which resonated with me deeply. Invitation to Suicide also stood out, but all are very good. The translation is excellent and the description are evocative. It made me reminisce my own childhood.

>>23594792
That one seems interesting. Thanks for sharing.

not a lot happens
i would describe it as calm

I guess that's like an aesthetic ideal but its not for me

boring

Is there any good guide?

>>23592987
Stfu faggot.

>>23592987
Get out of here.

>>23592987
Genuinely leave this board forever and kill yourself

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>>23595892
>>23595903
>>23595956

>>23595892
>>23595903
>>23595956
Touchy

>>23592987
Based, by the way. There were some weaker plotlines, but the overall quality was pretty high, story and artwork both. I devoured the whole thing in a few nights when I was like ~19. Definitely wouldn't enjoy it as much if I read it today.

>>23593843
You could start with his shortest stories or read his first text, confessions of a mask
God phoneposting is awful

>>23596520
I already read Confessions of a Mask, really enjoyed it. Where do you recommend I go from there?

>>23596527
Well then it is time for his tetralogy. I re-read Spring snow every year and I often think about one particular moment.

>>23596919
The Sea of Fertility? Yeah, it's about time I got to read them. Are they a thematic tetralogy or do they tell a coherent, full story altogether?

>>23592673
What anime is this?

"Make Heroine ga Oosugiru!"

>>23596985
The less you know before you read them the better.
The answer is yes and no btw.
Mainly the rejection of naturalism and rationalism is at play through the series, and characters do return so you have to read them in order. But every book also has its own themes just quit stalling and read them asap.

Why is everything so sexual in post-meiji literature? Some authors like Tanizaki read like D. H. Lawrence cranked up to 11.

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Genji Monogatari is genuinely incredible, and you don't need any specific background for it. Modern Jap lit has been, in my experience, disappointing by comparison.

>>23597476
I have the two volumes lying around at home, they are pretty intimidating lengthwise.

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>>23596996
Too Many Losing Heroines

>>23592673
Akutagawa is the best from the viewpoint of a Westerner. The truly Japanese things like the Kokinshu or even Genji can only be enjoyed by the Japanese. A Westerner can only understand what they mean from a scholastic standpoint, never enjoy them. Those who say otherwise are posers. You will never be Japanese. You will never wield the blade of the samurai. Nobody will ever call you "Anon-dono". Things that aren't truly Japanese are inherently a product of a dying culture (destroyed by American swine after WWII, just like everything else they polluted, like a disgusting virus).
>>23597322
>Why is everything so sexual in post-meiji literature?
burgerjew mind rot
>>23593897
>just learn fucking English, which honestly doesn't even count as a foreign language, when I could've been spending those hours actually learning a foreign language such as Japanese
These days I wish I could unlearn English. It's nothing but a vehicle for poison. You can tell how fucked a nation by how many borrowed English words its people use in everyday language (every other word in contemporary Japanese vocabulary is mangled English).

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>>23597915
>burgerjew mind rot
You sure about that, retard-kun?

>>23592987
Based, stay here.

>>23597476
Was it actually written by a woman?

My only contact with Mishima has been "Thirst for Love". It was an alright read but It left a bad aftertaste. The protagonist is an inept and vapid mistake of a woman that ruins everything and while I momentarily enjoyed her unapologetic "evil" in the early parts of the book, the fact that it's a result of trauma about her failed marriage (her fault btw) ruins even that for me. I can enjoy cartoonish evil for the sake of evil, "Just" evil for the sake of a greater cause but this pettiness disgusts me. I've seen this character trope many times in old japanese movies but making her the protagonist and letting her go through with everything, ended up with a meaningless ending that turns any prior buildup into empty shock value. I haven't felt this pissed at piece of media since watching the steaming pile of shit that "Devilman:Crybaby" ended up being.

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Has anyone read this? I enjoyed the movie and wondered if the source material was better.

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>>23592673
mishima is a fag

shusaku endo and osamu dazai rule though
For endo I always shill Wonderful Fool and another book by Dazai I really like that isn't no longer human (You've already read that, right anon?) is the setting sun.

>>23599740
yeah it's great, wonderful fool book I recommended above is him writing "comedy" but with a similar intensity.

>>23592987
as someone who reads manga on the regular, I find it too inferior to count as real literature.

>>23600089
It's on par with the peak of western comics and comparable to short and intermediate length written fiction. Very different goals and modes of expression, but I think they stand together. But we're talking higher orders of adult manga and very little direct comparison being available.

>>23597610
>they are pretty intimidating lengthwise
Yeah I'm hesitant to tell people "you have to read this" when it's such a big ordeal. Worth it though!

>>23599330
Seems that way but we don't know a ton about the writer. Like most of the characters in the story, she was borderline anonymous and goes by the name later agreed upon for her.

>>23600143
>western comics
not a high bar and also not literature

>>23600240
I didn't say American comics.

>>23592673
it's a shame they invested in mango and tranime instead.

>>23592673
It’s trash outside of Genji, Heike and Mishima.

>>23592732
How long would it take to learn Chinese to read the 4 classics?

>>23592987
It’s inferior to Monster, 20th Century Boys, Akagi, Kaiji and probably more than I’m forgetting right now.

>>23600344
Just two authors in that list.

>>23592987
Based

>>23600255
yeah, you meant French political caricatures. get the fuck out of here

I want to read Tale of the Heike

>>23602193
Do it fagget

>>23592987
Based /lit/ cuck purest are unable to see that the medium can stretch to other forms of entertainment that involve the reading of text.

Love most of Haruki Murakami's stuff. Didn't like IQ84 or Colorless Tsukuru. In facted hated both of them. I enjoy the slice of life and magical realism / weird stuff he writes as well as the sex stuff.

loved Mishima's Confessions of a Mask but couldn't get into his other stuff.

Really enjoyed Silence by Endo.

i've tried to read some of the "classics" like No Longer Human, Snow Country, etc. but didn't like any of 'em.

Would enjoy reading more Haruki Murakami - esque authors but can never seem to find any good recs.

>>23604149
You sound like me, but I liked No Longer Human and don't have a problem with the rest. You won't find more Murakami in Japan, I don't have any western novelists that hit the mark but Villa Incognito and If on a Winter's Night, a Traveller are the closest I got and led me to other things I also like.

If you're under 30 or just not broadly into the novel, the jap shit is both alien and too novelistic. I don't think the shit we're into, de facto, gets translated. Murakami and a depressed, unemployed 30something protag with a jazz record collection who goes and fucks weird bitches in an underworld inversion of normative society is oddly enough, popular among teenage boys. That's when I got into him. I think he hits the deepest part of a certain male psyche.

Are we considering Visual Novels /lit/? Their fans would like to insist that they surpass literature for sure.

>>23592673
I'm a fan. I've read most of Mishima, Soseki, Dazai, and Kawabata. Really like Kawabata. Sound of the Mountain and Snow Country are two of my favorites.

I think Kobo Abe and Shusako Endo go relatively unnoticed, but they're really good too. If you can find a copy of Inter Ice Age 4, I think that's the best from Abe. For Endo, foreign studies was my favorite, although Silence is also great.

As a general overview, I think there are a lot of great books published during the Meiji Restoration and the post-war period. These were periods of rapid social change with interesting analogs to contemporary times. Once you get closer to modern literature it flops. You get garbage like 'Diary of a Void' and 'Convenience Store Woman'.

>>23592987
Why do people who have barely read anything come on here and post about how manga and VNs are great literature all the time, the insecurity is real

You can enjoy things without applying the pretension to them

If I am wrong post your favorite 10 books and why

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>>23604388
Not that fag but I'll post this sick fukken hawk that came down and murdered the fuck out of something in lieu of my stack. Asano and his clique, along with a few other circles and movements in manga are alright. I'd pick Girl by the Seaside as on par with better short fiction. The format is closer to the aims and mood of shorter fiction when it comes to the contained stories worth a fuck.

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>>23592673
It can be good. Most of it I don't like. A lot of it isn't much better in Japanese, either, but if there's one Japanese author I'd recommend people learning Japanese for, it's Miyazawa Kenji. He's got some gorgeous alliterative prose that doesn't really come through in most the translations I've read, and his poetry is great, too. The opening sentence for "The First Deer Dance" was translated pretty well, though, and I think it does a good job at conveying that alliteration he always has going on.
>From a gap in the ragged, gleaming clouds to the west, the red rays of the setting sun slanted down on the mossy plain, and the swaying fronds of pampas grass shone like white fire.
Overall, I've found Japanese to be much more suited to poetry than prose. But as far as novelists go, other than Miyazawa Kenji, I also really like Yumeno Kyusaku, Shimazaki Toson, and Ihara Saikaku.

>>23604405
I like manga and read both manga and books ("Real" is one of my favorite series) but I don't get why people come here saying they're top literature

They aren't even literature, they have a completely different tradition and aesthetic aim so as to be incompatible, why conflate them

Nice pic!

>>23604388
Do you think Shakespeare's plays aren't literature? He meant for them to be experienced through the stage, not through the script.

>>23604322
Thanks anon I'll check those out. Glad to find a kindred spirit and that's a great way to describe what I like about Murakami. Funnily enough I got into him when I was like 18 but I'm in my 30s now and still chasing the feeling of reading Norwegian Wood for the first time

Is English as difficult for English speakers as Japanese is for us?

>>23605554
Wdym? Japanese is not a difficult language. Much much easier to get into as a Westerner than Chinese, say.

>>23606253
kek. it's the other way around. either way, both of them are ridiculously tough for speakers of indo-european languages compared to learning other indo-european languages.

>>23606329
Learning spoken Japanese is very easy. It's the written portion that westerners find hard.

>>23606329
>pronunciation is piss-easy
>grammar is mostly easy
>the only hard part (kanji) is also the most Chinese, and most young Japs barely bother with it anyway
Learning to use the language in the most socially adequate way also takes some getting used to, but that's more of a cultural thing.

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I am always amazed when searching these threads and finding not a single mention of Kenzaburo Oe. One of the best authors of the 20th century, no doubt, powerful and fearless themes, crude but poetic writing. Please stop talking in circles about the same artists again and again like fucking /mu/

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>>23606362
Please blast us with your amazing Japanese, please. I have been learning for years and every single "Japanese is easy duh" loser I've ever encountered was full of shit.

>>23606404
>>23606362
>>pronunciation is piss-easy
>>grammar is mostly easy
none of this makes any difference. i don't know why you're both ignoring the fact that these languages are wholly unrelated to ours. the (basic) grammar may relatively simple, but putting it into practice throws most people for a loop, coupled with the fact that they can't rely nearly as much on cognates for vocabulary.
>Learning to use the language in the most socially adequate way also takes some getting used to, but that's more of a cultural thing.
but why do people struggle with that? it's because their grammar is shit. understanding when to use which form of keigo is directly tied to an understanding of grammar, and even when JSLs grasp the culture, they still struggle with forming proper sentences on the spot. besides all that, there are very, very few expressions with cleanly map to ours, whereas it's certainly not hard to find ones that do among our own. things like 逆鱗に触れる, 羽振りがよい, and 神出鬼没 are not going to be understood intuitively by most westerners. now extend that to nearly every word occupying a vastly different spectrum of meaning from ours, and it all adds up to being quite hard. i don't know why people in the past few years have started to just brazenly lie about japanese actually being easy just because its the only language they've ever consciously learned, so they have nothing else to compare it with. and of course this isn't even diving into 古文.

>>23606425
>>23606444
>i'm bad at it therefore everyone is bad it and besides the language is stupid anyway so who cares!

Stop sperging out on 4channel.gov and go practice your kana

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>>23606472
Ur a retard

>>23604149
>doesn't like Dazai or most Mishima
>likes Murakami
Who is your favorite Western author, lassie? Collins or Meyer?

>>23604388
It's mostly bait anon.

>>23604406
I like that Miyazawa was mentioned. Here's a (you)

>>23608105
It's ya mama. Just kidding. Hard to pick a favorite-- for example, i wanted to say Houllebecq but I really only like the Elementary Particles (but it's one of my all time favorite books) , I might say Celine (but I only like journey to the end of the night), I really enjoy most of corncob mccarthys books but it's hard to say I love any of them as much as I love other books... I love Stoner by John Williams but hated butchers crossing. Love James Clavell's work but I know it's inferior to something like Lolita or Moby Dick. Gun to my head I will probably say Houllebecq. Just love the guy.

>>23592673
Samurai are pretty cool.
I read Eiji Yoshikawa's work, and the book of the five rings.
Musashi is one of my favourite book.
Any Samurai related books recomendations?
P.s.
The manga adaptation by inoue is one of the worst thing that grazed my eyes and i am still pissed when i think about it.

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>>23593835
>LNs are ok slop on par with any given western YA novel on average
I have to agree with this one. Just read Adachi and Shimamura. It was a very nice yuri. However, the amount of volumes LNs have is astounding and most of them are shit. You don't gain any literary value out of them, you read them only for the anime-tier story. That said, y/u/ri is special and can only be truly well done by nips.

>>23592673
Whats the name of the anime?

>>23593835
this is a fair assessment but it's kind of damning with faint praise, because the western YA scene is really bad right now
>>23592987
there's lots of good, even great manga but it's not /lit/. fundamentally different medium evaluated on fundamentally different criteria.

>>23609817
I think anon is on to something with the observation. LNs are closer to unlabeled western YA, so, most genre fantasy and some popular fiction, and while it's not doing great either, it isn't terrible for what it is. The labeled shit or anything with extensive furigana is almost all awful.

>>23593835
>The best Japanese literature can't beat the best western literature though.
Japanese mystery mogs the west's simply because the west refuses to change. It's been doing the same shit forever, while the nips have been taking the titillation pill exploding their creativity. The tops like dogura magura and disco wednesday show innovation you would never see in any western mystery because of our obsession with things being recognizable and grounded. Not to mention in terms of character writing and the humanized elements to a narrative, the whole shinhonkaku genre shits on everything hailed in western mystery. Though that's a given, considering japan's obsession with the characters-first approach.
>>23605554
It is. Language difficulty is determined primarily by distance from your native language, so it's literally the same for them as for us. There's only reason that there's a basic grasp of English among the majority of japs, or that there seem to be more japs who "made it" being fluent in English compared to us with japanese. And that reason is because of Japan's butthole being stretched by America, we're the dom in the relationship so they dick suck us but we don't need to blow them back. If America had english consist of a lot of their vocabulary, and had mandatory japanese language classes in the same vein as spanish; then we'd have a similar societal effect as they do for our language. Not that it's much, given how many nips still aren't fluent in english despite claiming to be. It's hard for them.

>>23592673
The modern Japanese literature I know of is just some wish fullfillment slop.
It doesn't hurt to read it in-between but only reading this slop will damage you mentally.

>>23592987
Punpun is pretentious slop.

>>23592673
Other /lit/core anime to enjoy?

>>23592987
I personally separate my life to pre-Oyasumi Punpun and post-Oyausmi Punpun periods, as reading it has completely changed how I view the world. It taught me to appreciate life much more (or rather in a different way) than I used to and also be more honest with myself. It may have a similar effect on you, or it may do nothing if it’s not your kind of thing, but one thing is clear — you’ve got to read it even if it’s the last thing you do.

>>23611509
My life has been an ongoing quest to discover life-changing works of fiction, and despite having gone through thousands of books, movies, games and the like, I have yet to find anything to even rival Oyasumi Punpun. I’m honestly getting goosebumps just remembering it.

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>>23592673
Is there a Japanese writer that’s significantly influenced by Dostoevsky?

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>>23611522

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>>23611554
Apparenly Murakami.

>>23611569
I know I posted that image and I agree with a lot of the options there but
>Wicked City
is not one I'd think of as /lit/.

>>23611577
Weird, because Murakami is very much westernised degeneracy.

>>23611569
Seems like a collection of "deep" anime instead of /lit/core.

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>>23611569
>no r.o.d
>but serial experiments lain an ghost in the shell
Looks too human to be ai-generated but it might as well be.

>>23611602
There's a few literary adaptations in there: Aoi Bungaku, Genji Monogatari, A Country Doctor, Count of Monte Cristo, Jin-Roh, (technically BoogiePop, it's a LN before they went to hell), Kino's Journey, I think Night on the Galactic Railroad, Shigurui is based on a manga that's based on a novel, Tatami Galazy, Welcome to the NHK too, and of course World Masterpiece Theater.
Not a bad selection, in my opinion.

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>>23611605
>Looks too human to be ai-generated but it might as well be.
That picture is much older than AI.
R. O.D is more about a girl who loves literature rather than a /lit/ anime. Now, Bernard-jou Iwaku is a real /lit/ anime. Not /lit/ as in "literature", but as this board.
Pic related.

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>>23611554
Setoguchi Renya.
>>23604327
>Are we considering Visual Novels /lit/?
Yes.

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>>23604327
>Their fans would like to insist that they surpass literature for sure.
Does /lit/ even have a cursory understanding of the themes and meta-fictional elements in Subarashiki Hibi? I doubt most /lit/izens have attainted more than a bird''s-eye view of how masterfully SCA-JI deals with Being and Nonbeing.

>>23611613
Newfag here

What qualifies anime/manga as /lit/?

Does the content just have to be good and thoughtful?

>>23611723
It has to be connected to literature or feature literature/writers or literary themes. I would say most anime on that list aren't /lit/ because just being an adaption isn't enough, because by that reasoning all book-based movies are automatically /lit/.

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>>23611569
Is Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei lit?

>>23611770
Genuinely yes.

>>23611554
No one else can replicate the discourse on the mansion

>>23611997
Are you talking about Faulkner?

>>23592673
japanese is really interesting when English is your first lanuage. the writing style is totally different. i enjoy their dialogue writing style more. i hate he said she said in english novels

>>23612265
You read Japanese?

>>23592673
I really liked Haruhi Suzumiya, reccomend.

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>>23612265
Japanese literature isn't really all that different in that respect, and there certainly isn't a lack of novels written in English which do away with the "he said she said" stuff.

>>23612265
I noticed in Japanese because speaking style varies so heavily based on gender, age, and positions relative to the people speaking that authors did away with "said/言った" far more. Made it really difficult my first few Japanese novels to know who was speaking. At least, in literary fiction. Genre fiction may be different.

>>23613450
I read the first novel, the second one was out of other and I got angry so I quit.

>>23608105
what kinda basic booktok pseud are you to fall for the meme that murakami is japan's collins, and to also care if he was?

It seems like shitting on Murakami is in fashion.

>>23592673
Boring and depressing

For me, it's SCA-JI

>>23611696
Well, at least you don’t sound as insufferable as Umineko fans.

>>23604327
>Their fans would like to insist that they surpass literature for sure.
Compared to modern genre fiction for sure.

>>23611509
>pretentious slop
Then I'm sure the regulars here will love it!

>>23592673
This is every piece of Japanese literature I have read.
>Mobile Suit Gundam by Tomino Yoshiyuki
>Mobile Suit Gundam: Beltorchika's Children by Tomino Yoshiyuki
>Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash by Tomino Yoshiyuki
>Danganronpa Kirigiri by Takekuni Kitayama
Pretty good.

>>23611569
The vast majority of these are not /lit/ and seem to have only been chosen due to being an adaptation or perceived as 'artsy' / 'mature', denoting this chart as made by illiterates.
Like, you may as well have included the entirety of WMT for how much it matters here (which they fucking did lol).
ACTUAL /lit/ anime from this list:
>the works of Leiji Matsumoto (not just one film)
>Jin-Roh
>Kaiba
>Mononoke
>Ping Pong
>Texhnolyze
>Royal Space Force (calling it 'Wings of Honneamise' outs you as a faggot by the way)
>a SELECTION of World Masterpiece Theatre
Even deeper irony being played on the manga side, where half the entire list is either adaptations or listed on the anime side.
Junji Ito is not /lit/. Osamu Tezuka is not OFTEN /lit/. They would be /co/. If you require more reasoning to understand this, you are clearly not that invested in thinking very deeply on what you read.
Just because something adapts a novel (or often in the case of this chart, a light novel) does not automatically make them /lit/. Do you consider the Harry Potter films /lit/?
If you want genuine, REAL /lit/ anime, here is an abbreviated list of a few. The reasoning for why should be evident if you have seen them.
>Ace wo Nerae
>Ashita no Joe 1 and 2 (the TV anime in specific, primarily Joe 2, not the manga)
>the works of Yoshiyuki Tomino (i.e., his Gundam anime, Ideon, Xabungle, etc.)
>Devilman Lady
>FLAG
>Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)
>Fist of the North Star
>Hunter x Hunter (1999) to an EXTENT
>Initial D
>Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei
>Urusei Yatsura
And even then some of these are a stretch. Tomino is included because he approaches most things with the conceit of an author because he literally is a published author. While I include Devilman Lady, its lead writer also did Lain and the two share similarly /tv/ focused presentation and motifs.

>>23618353
As the anon who posted that image I appreciate your input.

>>23618353
Why include Ping Pong but not Monster

>>23618456
What is particularly /lit/ about Monster beyond the misconception that all literature is set within mundane realism?

>>23618490
Are you not thinking of SoL?

>>23592673
At some point they stopped copying the Chinese and started copying the West, there's a significant drop in quality around that time.

>>23618490
Being heavily dialogue and character focused and exploring its theme?

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>>23593835
>btfos you

>>23618512
Ah yes, the tenants of literature.
Having themes and lots of dialogue.

>>23608786
Yeah, nips (and asians in general) are leagues better at doing gay shit than the west. Make of that what you will.

>>23618456
thank you for outing yourself as a midwit for everybody in the thread

>>23619099
>Hating Yuasa is midwittery
I'm fine with this.

>>23618327
That's a very low bar.

>>23592673
Cartoonish porn is not literature.

>>23619456
Exactly

>>23618353
>HxH
>Urusei Yatsura
>Initial D
>Fist of the North Star
Yikes. Pure slop, on par with Harry Potter and your average genre fiction.

>>23620590
If you'd actually seen all of them you'd know why.

>>23620598
I've watched, and that's why i specifically mentioned them. They're enjoyable, but slop nonethless. Their strenghts aren't related with their literary qualities.

>>23620605
The height of your experience with literature likely concludes with Plato or Dostoevsky.

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>>23592673
Good in the 20th century, but it has nothing on Chinese literature

>>23620645
Both of which are leagues more intelligent than all 4 of those anime.

Thinking fucking Initial D is /lit/. You are fucking retarded.

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>>23592673
>And so we can see what happens when a woman interferes and tries to act too clever. What had looked like horses and various goods had just been animals’ bones and skulls. Everyone who heard the story agreed, “It’s stupid to argue about useless matters like that and lose your life over it,” and they all blamed the man for what happened.
>It is said that after that happened, the people offered various prayers and the demon has been banished and things are now safe at Agi Bridge. Such then is the story as it has been handed down to u
>...
>This all happened because of the woman’s foolishness. No matter how eagerly Priest Jozo may have tried to approach her, she should have ignored him and not accepted him. Amidst all the people’s gossip, the conclusion that was reached was, “She wasted her life because of her own thoughtlessness.” And such then is the story that has been handed down to us.
Pic-related has some bangers.

>>23620455
Clearing modern genreslop is not a challenge for anyone. What the fans do is equate it with The Brothers Karamazov and other works of great philosophical literature.

>>23592673
Their language and logographic script is too impoverished to do anything great in.

>>23620991
>it's /lit/ if it's intelligent, so these things CANNOT be /lit/!
See, this is why you're a pseud who likely only reads (or "reads") books on the basis of them making you seem like an intellectual, if only to hide how much of a dullard you truly are. I'd like to know if your reasoning for Initial D's lack of intelligence just ends at "It's about fucking street racing dude!!"

>>23620991
>>23622108
You're both adults that watch cartoons and lust after cartoon characters.

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>>23622167
And proudly!

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>>23622167

>>23622108
>If you don't enjoy slop made for the lowest common denominator and if you don't think these are comparable to great literature you're a pseud
Lmao, ok dude, whatever makes you sleep soundly at night.

>>23622967
Struck a nerve?
Pray tell, what do you think excludes Initial D, and what do you think is more befitting in its spot?

Murakami = trash entertaintment
Mishima = a whole 20th century of basedness

>>23623024
Murakami is shit but only an incel could openly and virulenty hate that jap.
Being slightly familiar with his ouevre is a great icebreaker to fuck dumb arthoes.

>>23623034
maybe stop being a goblin manlet?

>>23593833
>>23597915
Akutgawa is excellent. As short stories go Haguruma/spinning gears is one of the best in any language.

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>>23623034
>"i'm sorry i can't read the classics or philosophy, i have to spend all my time reading twilight and murakami because i am 5'8 manlet loser who can't get pussy without memorizing copious amounts of twilight lore"

>>23611577
>Japs love Dostoevsky but don't consider his works as religious
>Japs love TBK but completely gloss over the religious themes of faith and salvation vs. nihilism
how can an entire nation miss the point at such a massive scale

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>>23623511
Japs have a weird relationship with russia. It's very tsundere.

>>23623537
I think the Japs are simply unable to conceive of religion and theology in any similar way to how the "west" sees these things. Like, this goes beyond the simple 'pagan vs. xtian' dichotomy, because even the Japanese pantheon of shinto dieties never had a "creator god above all the other gods" until the idea was retconned in from Chinese influence. Things like moral agency and how metaphysical beliefs tie into human action is completely underdeveloped in Japanese thought that I can't help but think their ethnogenesis simply precludes the discussion of these things above the elementary level of the simple animism of "thousands of gods everywhere".

>>23623639
Must be nice desu.

I like the most modern stuff like Murakami, but the traditional for me is meh, the Kojiki and Nihonshoki are interesting but are the exception.

>>23623736
Try reading Hizakurige.

>>23618353
>If you want genuine, REAL /lit/ anime
>Urusei Yatsura

Anon, never in a million years would I consider that a /lit/ anime.

>>23592673
Never read any, but if it's anything at all like their 'lit approved' mangas and animes it's probably garbage.

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>>23625099
>Never read any
>it's probably garbage.

I don't see what's good about Mishima at all. He seems to thrive on a central element of Japanese culture where exposing himself to risk of humiliation seems to be at the forefront of his entire pathos.
>But it's fascinating as fuark
I see too many retards lapse in this kind of behavior for it to be a novelty stfu.

>>23625146
>guesstimating.... LE BAD

>>23625172
I don't need to guess you're a faggot

>>23618273
Umineko superior in both its philosophy and execution though.

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>>23611569
Tanaka Romeo is /lit/core.

>>23625355
>>23611569
ehat does it mean for anime to be /lit/? i've always thought that planetes shows clear marls of being influenced by dostoevsky but i've never seen anyone else say so and other than that i can't see how any of these relate at all. aoi bungaku is a series of famous pieces of japanese literature adapted as anime and it didn't make the list.

>>23625146
>skips the reasoning
>ignores the word probably
kys

>>23625354
Maybe if it didn't meander through padding and melodrama for 100 hours first.

>>23626450
The melodrama is core to what it has to say about epistemology. It could just namedrop philosophers or state its point logically but it's not an academic work.

>>23623639
Yeah, for how extremely developed their culture is, it's really weird how unphilosophical they are.

>>23626468
Pacing is important for a work. I'm not going to spend 150+ hours on something that says "life is worth living because you have le power of friendship and the love of the heroine" when every other JRPG ever made says the exact same thing.

>thread: japan
>300 replies

>>23626563
I'm not saying its pacing is perfect, just that most things in it are important for the themes.
>life is worth living because you have le power of friendship and the love of the heroine
It doesn't say this, but rather critiques rationalism through its mystery and meta aspects and argues for the necessity of love in obtaining epistemic certainty.
If anything that is Subahibi's message - "Le live happily".

>>23611609
What is the Shigurui novel?

>>23624910
Look beyond the exterior of Urusei Yatsura's anime.
Keep in mind, I mean the original TV anime, not the remake or the original manga.

>>23626553
I'm glad I'm not the only one that notices.
I'd chalk it up to being merely one or two generations removed from worshiping the emperor as literal god incarnate to embracing all the materialist priors of the "modern" western neoliberal order without the requisite development in between, but that's not exactly a satisfying explanation.

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>>23626553
What? I think you're just ignorant. Give these guys a go:
Kukai
Dogen
Soga Ryojin
Kamo no Chomei
Kaibara Ekken
Hayashi Razan
Abe Masao
Nishida Kitaro
Nishitani Keiji
Hase Shoto
Abi Jiro
Izutsu Toyoko
Daisaku Ikeda
Ango Sakaguchi
Nitobe Inazo
Shinran

>>23627158
>>23626553
I, enligthened by my own intelligence, have concluded that we are indeed the superior people of intellectuals.

>>23627186
Come on, dude. Even the kyoto school guys said "well, we have never had "philosophy" in the western sense, but if we are willing to read all these buddhist guys in the right Heideggerian light suddenly we find that we were sitting on a philosophical goldmine all along." Which kinda has the same tone to it as people going "well Aquinas retroactively BTFO'd (insert philosopher from 600 years later here)" or "buddhism predicted this super advanced concept from theoretical physics because some guy in the pali canon once used a metaphor that kinda-sorta sounds like what is happening in this super advanced physics shit!"

>>23597322
To be fair Tanizaki is in a class of his own when it comes to silly perverted books, and I dont mean that in a positive way

>>23599637
Reading this take on Thirst for Love is interesting because it could only be written by someone who has no prior experience with Mishima.
One of his favorite things to do is to give a protagonist that doesnt understand themselves a powerful obsession and then let everything burn to the ground slowly from there (sometimes literally as in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion). Another very frequent theme is obsession with youth and the revolting nature of aging.
The protagonist is not "cartoonishly evil", although she is very selfish and out of touch with herself. Her obsession with the servant is a way to try to recover her past youth which is dissapearing both literally but also in an accelerated manner by more or less accepting her place as her dead husbands wife and matron of the household in spite of not even being the oldest woman. At first glance she submits to the older man passively but throughout the story she takes control over him and by the final scene he is the one that is being dominated by her. This kind of layered powerplay is another frequent feature of Mishimas writing.
But to get back to the main part of the story, her obsession with the servant, if say, he had understood that she was obsessed with him and forcefully approached her she might have welcomed it and let her bitterness and thirst for youth play out in a more stereotypical way, but as the story goes on it becomes clear he only sees her as a stiff older person to be waited on, not as a woman in any way. When it becomes clear he has a physical relationship with the other servant it fully cements that and she moves on to play the role of the family matron demanding proper protcol from her servants, him being nonchalant ony further infuriates her as it makes him seem less vital than she has been building him up to be and denies her the satisfaction of power at the same time. Like the scene where she scratches him at the festival shows, she is clawing at him and his youth but in a desperate and aimless way that only makes her more frustrated. When she forces him approaching her into happening at the end she uses the event to get her fury with everything thats happened throughout the story, both towards the servant and her "husband" but also perhaps most of all though the lost youth that she will never recover no matter what she does.

Ive read everything hes written thats available in english and this one is not among my favorites or generally considered among his best but as with all his works you do get a lot more out of it if you understand where hes coming from.

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>>23592753
this was an awesome read, thanks for the breakdown, fatter assman

>>23626768
Suruga-jō Gozen Jiai by Norio Nanjō.

>>23626303
Dismissing an entire literary tradition as garbage without reading any is what a retarded faggot would do. Since that anon did that, he's *probably* a retarded faggot.

>>23627253
It's not just Tanizaki though. Ogai is a pervert, Mishima is a pervert, Kawabata is also kind of a pervert, anything from the last thirty years is full of perversion, the Tale of Genji is full of weird sexual shit, Saikaku made a career out of writing smutty fiction for perverts, etc.

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>>23627707
Don't forget Santo Kyoden.
>anything from the last thirty years is full of perversion
Japanese literature has always been perverted. Always.

>>23627537
This
>If it's like manga or anime it's probably garbage
is not equal to
>Dismissing an entire literary tradition
for two reasons, the first of which is
>because it might not be like to manga or anime
and the second is
>the word probably is not the same as certainly
You're a total retard who doesn't know how to fucking read (which is PROBABLY why you like Japanese literature lmfao).

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>>23627773
I have never seen someone so vehemently defend themselves for spouting an unfounded opinion.
>Never read any
Complete lack of experience
>but if
Hypothetical non-sequitur
>probably
Poor attempt to shield yourself with plausible deniability from being outed as judgmental retard trying to appear smart by being edgy and then doubling down on semantics to safeguard his pride.
You ain't fooling no one, kid.

>>23592836
What's good from yoshimoto? I thought Kitchen was really lacking. Amrita had some good elements but was also spliced with some of the most superficial and shallow 2deep4u musings on life I've ever read.

>>23627707
I said he was in a class of his own, and he certainly is, his entire thing was using the newfound freedom of censorship to write as sexualised as possible while still being actual novels, although the vast majority of his writing reads more like smut than anything else.
Ogai and Kawabata are both relatively subdued, its not really a main feature of their works.
Mishima is obviously perverted but it always has clear direction and purpose and never hardly, if ever descends into the 'heres my fetish bro do u like it' shit Tanizaki is so notorious for (Feet and male submissiveness).
My personal opinion of him is quite low as you can probably tell but even if I were to disregard that its just not comparable to any of the authors you mentioned or others like Abe and Dazai even though they dealt with sexuality on occasion. I find the only work by Tanizaki that isnt completely doused in that cheap air is Makioka Sisters.