What makes a story feel Japanese? What elements of storytelling do in Japanese media that you like that western counterparts don't have?I am writing a story for my manga/comic and I'm looking for advice from you guys on how not to turn my story into Steven Universe or Star Wars sequels.The Japanese admire western history, myths and legends. I also do love western and mesopotamian history so there's that.
>>25393999>What makes a story feel Japanese?Over-the-top emotionsEEEEEEEH?HAAAAAAAAAAAA?WHOOOOOOH!
>>25393999anime sloppa is easy, your target are reddit dweebs who don't read at all, just read two Shakespear plays, one book of Baudrillard, skim through Scrolls of the Dead Sea, steal any idea that you find cool, and you will be ready to produce the hecking coolest manga ever, dweebs will call you genius
>>25394001Ah yes, and the internal monologues.
ching chongI eata liceeyes rike dis — —and teeth rike Ш
>>25394003Aye will do
>>25394011the "Berserk" is just re-telling of Macbeth and Hamlet
>>25393999Kyaa, hentai baka! Doki-doki kokoro!Neko-tan!Kami sama!
>>25393999Reiterate character motivations and emotions every 3 minutes or you risk confusing and alienating your 70iq audience. Make sure characters explicitly state their emotions and intentions or else you confuse your audience. Eliminate any subtleties that might frighten your audience.
>>25393999make sure to explain everything even remotely complicated, if your manga will have fighting remember to suspense the fight with vaguely philosophical dialogue on morality that justifies your villain, make sure the villain reveals his super secret plan before it's too late or you will lose readers, oh and make sure your protagonist is super intelligent and/or likeable by everyone
>>25394003But how many philosophers and religions do I have to do a google search and wikipedia skim on?
>>25393999Make your characters hot and fuckable.Extremely important
>>25394065Just a bunch really, don't even need thorough understanding, for starters choose the ones with some weird aesthetic quirks. Read Nick Land and write (draw?) manga about AI singularity demon from the future for example. In addition, for your characters to be "deep" and "sophisticated" read some Nicomachean Ethics (level hard) or something easier on ethics of your choice. For the religions, you might just go with some easy to grasp Perennialism, you don't want monotheism that's too boring, if you want many gods go with Sagas of Icelanders (ignore the Olympians)
>>25394040>>25394060>>25394028>>25394067I'll take these to heart
>>25394060>make sure the villain reveals his super secret plan before it's too lateRemind me of this guy who did the exact opposite.
>>25393999>What makes a story feel Japanese?Structurally their particular 4 act structure that I can't remember the name of comes to mind. I mean there is also the obvious Japanese stuff, or anime tropes, but since this is /lit/ I would really rather talk about actual story structure and particularities of the craft of writing from a different culture's approach as it's far more interesting than bickering over bullshit, trolling, and counter-trolling. Let's instead talk about substance. About the craft. About the actual writing from japan and how it differences from writing from America or the UK. Maybe explore the root of those differences.
>>25393999間
>>25394001N-NANI???
>>25393999I don't know about modern shit,but the wave of Japanese naturalism during the Meiji restoration was its own thing, because it wasn't reacting to any kind of romanticism.
It often is just way more sincere and deals with things like isolation, love, sadness, accountability, etc in much different ways than western novels or media.I like how introspective and honest they can be. Whereas in Western media pointing fingers and blaming others seems to be predominantly in style these days.(I only wish more normal Japanese novels were translated to English. It's pretty depressing how all 287 volumes of "Most Powerful Dark Lord (and I'm only 15!)" is somehow always available, but there're so many popular Japanese authors where I cant even get their most renowned book)
>>25394755Learn Japanese to dweeb even harder I guess? Also these themes are cliche, Japanese are slightly autistic socially
>>25393999Story structure, like what >>25394212 said.https://artofnarrative.com/2020/07/08/kishotenketsu-exploring-the-four-act-story-structure/Here’s a decent article on the topic.
>>25394755>Japan invented isolation, love, sadness, accountability, etc
>>25393999Mono No Aware - the acceptance of the transience of thingsIn practice, the protagonist gets cucked by the indifferent passage of time
>>25393999>What makes a story feel Japanese?Undisguised pedophilia aka loli
The general population of Japan are godless pokemon cultists that literally need public fertility festivals to tell the young adult population to have children. They have no wars to fight, no god to pray to; only meaningless, endless office work. The only thing keeping them from internally collapsing is their public politeness and demographic homogeny.I truly feel bad for them, even though I admire their reverence for the United States. They simply don't know how bad they have it
>>25394755>>25395005Thanks. I appreciate the insights. -desu>>25395351They potray the people of the world in a too positive light, naive in a way. Unfortunately they have lost the capabilities to make the world think like they do to the United States.
>>25395351>The only thing keeping them from internally collapsing is their public politeness and demographic homogeny.It's funny because maintaining their demographic homogeny is like the leading cause of an internal collapse they are currently experiencing. No immigrants=no population growth
>>25395386bait used to be believable
>>25395351No one from a shithole country like the USA has any grounds to shittalk Japan>t. US citizen
>>25395351>>25395386counterargument
So is this thread just to be as ignorant and inflammatory as possible while saying nothing of value about the topic?
>>25395430Seething weeb
>>25393999>What makes a story feel Japanese?Not all stories with a crap ending are Japanese, but nearly all Japanese stories have one.
>>25395500A example of my point.
>>25395512Crap ending are a worldwide endemic, desu.
>>25395386I wonder what human societies did for all those millennia prior to an interconnected global world? I wonder what else might be responsible for people native to a region not having children?
>>25395614Ok so there are robots/mecha/cyborgs/devils and they can use their powers for great good but also there are bad guys called something like dark ghost shocker led by the evil Dr. Gillionous who are using those powers for evil. Our high school aged cyborg robot piloting demon protagonist will fight them until the world is saved or the magazine suddenly ends serialization so we have to kill him off in a tragic way or destroy the entire planet, sometimes both. Also the destruction caused by our heroes battles is suspiciously similar to the destruction caused by earthquakes.
>>25395627Meant for op >>25393999
>>25395627Alternatively it's the edo period where people just stab themselves because they looked at the shogun the wrong way. Our protagonist is a wandering one eyed ronin who used to be the shogun's executioner before he looked at him the wrong way and had to stab himself in the eye. He'll take on any dirty job and will fight hundreds of men at once but nobody can kill him because samurai are just that good. Get ready to learn more about rice merchants than you could ever wish to know.
>>25394003yep. look at the teen garbage that is Evangelion and these retards worship it like it's the Iliad or some shit. fucking spastic
>>25395631Otherwise a gook can always ripoff a western story and make a character like bond the 13th the third - an international Japanese superspy who takes on greedy crime boss CEOs and sleeps with all the women. This will go on for five TV shows and twenty direct to laserdisc ovas plus one movie by a semi famous director.
Remember to base your characters on existing archetypes like tsundere, kuudere, the feisty one with a snaggle tooth, the gregarious rural bumpkin with a heart of gold, the hot-headed one... You will immediately alienate the entire audience if your characters don't correspond to easily identifiable "types." The Japs don't understand it at all if you can't summarise your whole being in a few words--it's why they'll ask if you're an S or an M regarding dating, or "the serious type" in life. All that oversimplification you see in anime is an accurate reflection of the Japanese psyche.
>>25393999Some things I tend to identify with Japanese media specifically are arc based storytelling, characters taking precedent over plot, lack of subtlety, power scaling, and a flexible tone. How much of this is cultural I can't really say, but I have noticed similar trends in media from other East Asian countries.
>>25395642Trve. Also make their appearances corresponding to their archetype. Hot headed one with red hair etc.
The amount of hate in this thread is dumb given how basically none of y'all even picked up a Japanese made novel and probably couldn't name a single one without looking it up first. Instead just a bunch of whining about anime. This is lit. Read a book for once and stop acting like ignorant niggers.
>>25394212起承転結?Isn't it basic story structure in every other part of the world's literature.My Japanese teacher made me study this to prepare for post-grad entry test but I decided to get a job instead
>>25395351>>25395386Thanks Rabbi. Japan will be fine, worry about your country first. Declining birth rate doesn't happen only in Japan.
>>25395430they pointed out the kishotenketsu and other tropes already. >>25394060 this one might be the best.
>>25395696Lmao dweeb getting angry somebody dare to talk condescendingly about his Japan. Op himself said he wants to write Manga not novel, tard. Japan is fucking lame, while Europeans had navy of hundreds ships and guns these retards were walking around in dresses. The only progress for them comes from copying western nations
>>25395696I would bet most people on this board who actively participate have read at least some Mishima and Dazai, if not eve Sousuke.
>>25395696Well a story is an essential part of any mangas or animesLiterature wise, especially for modern award-winning books, the themes are usually centered around some "I'm sad and looking for happiness" in job hunting, school life, worklife, marriage,... whatever. I skimmed through a lot of the award-winning on-the-shelf books and found their contents to be pretty similar, thus I never bothered to buy any of them and just pick up Mishima or any other classics.
>>25395642>>25395646>>25395627Thanks!
>>25395706There are other people that can't even do the copying but always cope about colonialism though
>>25395713In terms of plot, remember that emotion always trumps logic and consistency. The internal should always be reflected by the external, not the other way around; a great feeling of catharsis always happens in conjunction with dramatic events. Ideally something gets nuked in the emotional climax. Basically, follow the rule of cool always. The world and its causation are aesthetically determined.
>>25395706And now Europe and the USA are shitholes filled with fatties of all colors.
>>25395904I've seen that a lot, moments where the protagonists just overcome impossible threats with straight up no explanation at all, or beloved characters dying because of "that's just the way it is"
>>25395963>Sumo
>>25396071Not even Japan likes sumo.
>>25396071Isn't that a dedicated profession, and even then the aren't most of the sumos Mongolian?
>>25393999JJK is a parable of Mahayana Buddhism, you're just too low IQ to grasp that because you see the action and take it at face value
>>25396139There is definitely a lot of symbolism, but I wouldn't call it a parable anymore than I would call a western work a parable of Christianity.
>>25395531Well you're brown, so.
>>25395641And weebs will think this is an original character and whine whenever the real OG gets a movie and/or TV show, of course.
I've only read (translated) JVNs but thanks to you anons, I now know I like them only because they're primitive enough for me to understand! As a tourist from the /vn/ video general which is just awful lately and getting worse, I can say those works of literature often defy genre expectations of western audiences, mixing social drama with fantasy/supernatural elements. Supernatural beings however come with a transcendental perspective, meaning a "soul" can live on and challenge decisions made in life. Maybe this is somehow connected to Shinto reincarnation beliefs? Also, I've heard the Japanese have a word for talking to someone in your imagination; Christian religion may be regarded as a phenomenon of this kind by Buddhism-leaning Japanese people?And not leaving out sex as a major topic obviously, though personally I find it often cringe fan service, especially when it comes as a chauvinist pascha/harem fantasy that is very obviously not reflective of the protagonist's or reader's reality (or anyone else's really).
>>25393999There's a lot of things, but it mostly boils down to Buddhism and Shinto, kishotenketsu, the Japanese pop cultural zeitgeist (JRPGs, tokusatsu, VNs, manga, etc), and mythology and folklore and history. Not to mention the impact Chinese culture has had on Japan throughout the ages, the occult boom, the influence of American pulp fiction after WW2 (Lovecraft, REH, etc) and European fairy tales, and Japan's eternal love of the slice-of-life/sitcom genre.The best thing you can do is to not only be well-read on Japanese culture but tap into whatever it is that the Japanese already feel and like. Twin Peaks saw massive success in Japan not because David Lynch was deliberately trying to appeal to the Japanese or ape their ways of telling stories, but because of how he told stories and what the characters did and how they carried themselves struck a chord with Japanese audiences, who emotionally resonated with the throughlines of the series.Whenever Japan likes anything from overseas, it is because they go "literally me":>Dracula: the fall of the samurai crossed with the fall of the Japanese empire (Dracula is a warrior who speaks like a poet who longs for his empire to return) and the rise of industry overtaking the Old>Lovecraft: the world is changing and the outsider is victim to other outsiders and malevolent powers...also the ocean is scary>Fairy tales: life is sweet and wonderful but cruel and dark and it's right outside>Twin Peaks/Columbo: mysteries (the "spiraling" story structure of kishotenketsu) and dark secrets are right next door, even among the "best people" and when everyone puts on a happy warm face>Peanuts and other Sunday comics: haha funny animals and silly kids! so relatable!>Lewis Carroll: (muffled oingo boingo noises)>Russian literature: oh my God life is a fuck that's so true
>>25396869If we're being specific:>include a big mystery element: nearly all foreign media successful in Japan does this>make things Buddhist (Star Wars did this to great success) in terms of religious influence, or at the very least Gnostic >show occult symbols and themes and get some post-modern books in there for good measure>pull from your dreams>make it very pulpy and escapist (it should never feel boring even if things are mundane)>include magic and the supernatural and some kind of "hidden/invisible/obscured" world (Harry Potter did this to great success in Japan)>put a great deal of emphasis on "fluff" - downtime, character building, drama and romance and friendship, quiet moments, comedy, domestic and down-to-earth stuff!>there should always be an aspect of "invasion" that the characters grapple with: either an external force is attacking the setting, or civil war is something disrupting the harmony (regardless, the characters are in a fight for survival)>the characters are either working for an institution and/or are outsiders trying to root out corruption so that the institution can be healed>stick it in a school, a small town, the big city, or somewhere totally isolated>go "war bad" but also "war cool">stick cowboys in there>hot girls!>complex technology as a huge part of life>monsters being parallels for natural disasters or the Other
>>25396904>>25396869You can compare and contrast Hunger Games vs Battle Royale as a good example of what I mean:>Hunger Games: if you win the death game, you are uplifted in status and wealth and prosperity for the rest of your days (a very Greco-Roman/Abrahamic throughline: the monarchy-divine upgrades you to God status)>Battle Royale: you won the death game, now go home or run away and pray the government doesn't catch youHunger Games is very much a commentary on the for-profit lifestyle that America revolves around (the story was inspired by channel surfing between reality TV and Iraq war footage). Being in the Hunger Games is parallel to that of the hyper-competitive pipeline that befalls children with skills and passion trying to escape poverty. The games are a cross between the entertainment industry, the sports industry, and the military. But in Battle Royale, the commentary is firmly centered on the crushing top-down abuse that Japanese children suffer at the hands of authority as a whole. Participation in the death game = having to survive the overwhelming stress and workload from school and work and competing with your friends and neighbors (but not for anything substantial, just that you're "alive" and they're not).In Hunger Games, nobody really can stop the Capitol because the authorities have a monopoly on hard power (violence) and the common people are too spread out and atomized. It takes other authority figures allying themselves with the districts (who have nothing left to lose) in order for the rebellion to overthrow the Capitol. In Battle Royale, the people of Japan can overthrow the fascist government if they tried hard enough (after all, they almost did), but everyone is too demoralized to do so, preferring to pass the buck to someone else in hopes that it might happen one day. Hard power is within everyone's reach, but the government is successful with soft power (shame) as they are with hard power.
>>25396792>>25396869>>25396904>>25396968
are you good at drawing though? let us see your work. and what are your influences in terms of manga?
>>25398374I has never grind fundamentals or tried environment drawing. I just skim over popular webtoons/webcomics, cool manga panels to decide what to cut back on in term of art.My favourite works are JJK, Soul Eater, Nausicaa (the manga ver), Girls und Panzer Ribbon Warrior, Umamusume Cinderella Gray. I'm currently reading Witch Hat Atelier because the people online go crazy for it.
>>25393999read more hentai, trust
First rule is no niggers or browns in general. Second is to make all the girls cute nice and feminine. For the men have them follow the standard hero’s journey. Basically take an any typical goyslop western media you can find, then do the opposite of that, and you have a nice Japanese story.
>>25399717Some of the hottest anime women are brown though?
>>25399717Uhh U-Understood
>>25395351>need public fertility festivals to tell the young adult population to have childrenThat's a delusion. Birthrates in European countries are on par or below Japan's when you factor out Asyls.
>>25399535i see. that's nice. perhaps the art needs a little polishing but we'll all get better with timebtw, do you have discord? would you add me, if you wouldn't mind? i'm making a manga as well, you see. i haven't any fellow mangaka as friends and i think we'd benefit from having someone to exchange ideas and insight on the craft
>>25393999One thing I rarely see outside of manga and sometimes japanese light novels is authors who create a game that the characters play that's totally fleshed out in its rules, and the section where the characters play it follows a dramatic storyline.I'm thinking of Liar Game, Real Account, As the Gods Will, etcetera.They create a game for the character to play, and a story which revolves around the rules of the game and follows a satisfying dramatic structure. For instance, the antagonist comes up with a seemingly unstoppable plan to win the game, and then at the climax the protagonist's secret strategy for winning is revealed.It's a very "rules based" storytelling style which I don't see in the west very often.And I think I see this skill even when the protagonist isn't playing a "game". The battle of wits the protagonist is involved in often feels more rules based in Japanese fiction than in the West.For instance, the city they go to in LOSTEND has rules (judicial laws) which make it impossible to overthrow, and the afterlife it's inside has further rules (physical laws). And then the insurgency has a genius running it who combines the rules of the city and the physical laws of the afterlife into a single plot to overthrow the city.
>>25395386Japan has been letting in immigrants since the 90s.
>>25393999>What elements of storytelling do in Japanese media that you like that western counterparts don't have?I liked that Drifting Dragons was just a comfy fantasy whaling story. If it was Western it would’ve gone 2 episodes tops before it became a full throated “WHALING IS BAD!!!” show with the crew now actively hunting other whaling ships. So I guess I like Japanese media because, while it often does have messages and themes, doesn’t beat me over the head with them nearly as often as western shows do
>>25399926I hate to disappoint but i'm a doctor-in-training and a hyper procrastinator. The last time a draw was half a year ago, but I still dream about bringing my personal project to life, starting with making a fleshed out story first (with some "assistance" of LLMs).But here's my discord anyways: "collector_bot_0073" I'll gladly discuss and exchange things if possible. I'll wait for the DM.
>>25399938Games, rules, institutions,.... I do see them as important things, even a sports manga like BLUE LOCK has a "magic system" of its own.
>>25399955I think it's called "Men's hobby but with cute girls"? The first thing that comes to mind is this anime about rock hunting.
>>25393999Guy joins organization to fight supernatural/otherworldly villainous threats
>>25393999Just avoid preachy objective morality. Most Japanese series generally have morally gray protagonists vs pure evil antagonists, OR morally good protagonists vs morally gray antagonists.Pure good vs pure evil almost never exists in anime
Japanese stories always need to have a faint touch of melancholy, as if you caught a fleeting glimpse of something beautiful but it disappeared right after you saw it.
>>25393999>make suffering as main plot >make the protagonist resort to life of acceptance, servitude, and being grateful for his suffering instead of doing bataillean escape or living an ascetic-nihilist life There: a japanese manga formula, both seinen and shonen, postivism all over the place, good won evil lost yadda yadda
>>25393999A lot of things
>>25401350>make the protagonist resort to life of acceptance, servitude, and being grateful for his suffering instead of doing bataillean escape or living an ascetic-nihilist lifelollmao even
passive voicestart every fifth sentence with "it can't be helped"use ridiculous french or german sounding names like "Sipain Zugleich"it can't be helped that more passive voice has to be used by the authorkeigo everywhere, especially in medieval europe
>>25393999think of what you imagine a Kabuki show is like. It's like that
>>25400884>>25401291>>25401297>>25401350>>25401454>>25401465>>25401695>>25401703i appreciated it
>>25393999>>>/co/
>>25395351>They have no wars to fight, no god to pray to; only meaningless, endless office workIs there a single country in the western world that this doesn’t apply to?
>>25396139Manga fans are so low IQ that they view using symbolism and imagery makes the story about said thing. JJK is about superpowered exorcists flying around shooting each other with energy blasts, anything else is secondary.
So far, Gash, Patie, and Clear note all have spells with “ou” that summon a living entity. From the top of my head, Kido, Zaruchim, and Wonrei also have ou spells. Their summons likely have some sort of independent will as well. I wonder if there are demons that don’t have any innate powers, instead all of their spells are possible through family pacts with other entities. Of course, there are demons like Zofis and Gorm, who have abilities separate from their spells
>>25402142This is kinda the problem with shonen at least. There's only so much you can do when 90% of the story is driven by superhumans fighting. Western comics kinda have the same problem tbf.
>>25402479Shonen is kino when it embraces how simple it is. It's cringe when it tries to be deep and complex (like JJK, which is garbage). It's also cringe when the characters try to be even a tiny bit complex or nuanced (e.g., Kimetsu no Yaiba). It literally should just be guys punching each other, and them thinking about why they're punching each other with their conclusion being that "it's the right thing to do".
>>25393999for purely japanese stuff they like the combination of a really dumb plot done with the upmost sincerity for comedyI don't see this in the west too often but lots of battle harems and isekai do this
>>25402696This is why Bleach has aged the best out of the "big 3". It's just cool guys killing the fuck out of each other, no retarded moralizing didactic bullshit.
>>25393999>checked Omission of the personal pronoun/subject wherever we possible. There's no need. We know you are speaking, get on with it. And tentacles.
>>25402696Akutami's profound philosophical erudition is admirable. Fun fight scenes and deep poetic symbolism aren't mutually exclusive. You should be embarrassed of how limited your sensibilities are.Since you love disposable writing so much, you'd eat up actual garbage like chainsawman, i presume. Altogether devoid of anything other than indulgence in fetishism and pornographic violence. On the other hand, all the Guenonian symbolism in Katekyo Hitman Reborn would be too tasteful for you, would it not, garbage eating boy?
>>25402869>Katekyo Hitman RebornLiterally only women and homos like that manga. Which are you?
>>25402479Except a large chunk of shonen doesn't feature any fantastical elements whatsoeverReally superpowers/magic are not a defining element of shonen at all
>>25403210Plenty of sports and romcom targeted at boys, sure, but everyone knows the colloquial usage of the term 'shounen', at least in the west, is pretty much always in reference to a very specific sub-subgenre. Why be pedantic about it, you prick.
>>25402031Mangas don't belong on /co/, newfag.
>>25393999Passion and drive. Western stories are all characterized by aimless navel-gazing and rambling about personal feelings. Japanese works are all about fun and coolness, things actually happening.
>Japanese names>moralfags who never kill>protagonist is a high schooler >uniforms >bathhouse/onsen chapter >completely asexual main character is regularly abused by women >weird tangent about nuclear weapons, or setting is a city rebuilt after a nuke destroyed it>everyone dies but then is reborn for no reason
>>25403260Hell yeah.
>>25393999China sux
>>25402869I watched some of JJK, and I have no idea how Akutami's allegedly "profound philosophical erudition" comes through in it. Don't think any aspect of the show managed to engage me at all. Actually, there was one point, where the girl who was bred to be sacrificed instead chooses to live, and her bodyguard, who's there to lead her to her death, decided that he actually wants to protect her instead. Then like 2 seconds later she gets killed by a guy from off-screen, and I'm just like "oh, ok". Who or what am I supposed to care about in this show? It's just people carelessly getting mass murdered and eaten with no apparently goal or purpose in mind for anyone, beyond some powerfaggotry. The powerfaggotry being like something straight out of Hellsing Ultimate. Remember that scene, where the nazis trick Alucard into crashing himself into a warship, which, since he can't cross water unaided, means that England is now exposed since he alone was the only thing keeping this entire country safe? Same shit with that blindfolded faggot. But at least Hellsing didn't pretend to be anything other than what it was.Anyway, that's all that stuck with me from when I watched it 5 years ago or something.
>>25393999>What makes a story feel Japanese? sex with little girls and girls peeing themselves.
>>25393999ps2 rock band guitar hero algorithm
