Japanese Fiction I've seen a fair amount of Japanese fiction lately and I find it interesting they can cover somewhat different topics then we find in the USA or Europe.
As a good example in this is, is for instance how their spiritual views tend to be of a natural polygamist style as usually only seen by tribal people. This certainly tends to create some interesting effects as you tend to have gods for everything, like a god of the river a god of the tree, etc etc.
Another thing very typical of them is how they tend to meld magic and technology together in at least their computer games, into super high tech magically driven gadgets. I beleive they use this in other types of media as well occasionally though.
Hmm, so what did I want to say with this mmm, I guess what I wanted to say is, that different places have different interesting stories to tell. Though I wonder if this seen like this by everyone, or if it is maybe just me?
I've seen a fair amount of Japanese fiction lately and I find it interesting they can cover somewhat different topics then we find in the USA or Europe.
As a good example in this is, is for instance how their spiritual views tend to be of a natural polygamist style as usually only seen by tribal people. This certainly tends to create some interesting effects as you tend to have gods for everything, like a god of the river a god of the tree, etc etc.
They steal a LOT from various mythologies around the world. This is not limited to Japanese fiction. They just are more obvious because they pump out a lot of it in graphic form. Nothing new in pantheism, or tribes or polygamy.
The magic melded with Tech IS something very characteristic of that type of fiction.
I myself tend to avoid most things Japanese due to the rabid fandom that surrounds anything that could remotely be linked to Japan. (Yeah, I know there is some actual quality is some of the stuff, and I might be missing out, but oh well)
--- Reading: Mistborn
Writing: Eriadhin
"Life is like a book, except it takes longer to get to the climax."
Re: Japanese Fiction I tend to ignore the rabid fans and all that, I've always preferred to let things stand or fall based on their merits and not on what everyone is shouting about them. Still, I suppose it might just not be your cup of soup.
Re: Japanese Fiction One notable feature of late-20th-century Japanese fiction is its obsession with the apocalyptic end of the world. I read a theory that this was due to the cultural impact of Hiroshima, but I don't know if this is a fair assessment. Certainly you can see the fear and awe of anything "atomic" in 1950s movies like Gojira... but Western pop-SF was equally obsessed with the dangers of atomic power gone bad in the '50s, so I wonder if the Japanese case is unfairly overstated.
--- "No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, 'Good food at it's best', you deserve to be struck by lightning."
-- Lynne Truss
