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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   25566 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 17, 2025

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Is NeZha 2 any good ?

NeZha2 is China's first big blockbuster. It's being heralded as a 'Deepseek moment' for Chinese cinema and I'm confused.

I saw NeZha 1 with my Chinese roommates and I didn't like it. The animation was expensive, but had a stock footage-ness to all of it. The jokes were Minions-esque slapstick and the core story was straight out a children's book. The movie felt miles behind nuanced works like InsideOut or Up. Ghibli is on a whole another planet. Minions is probably the analogy I would go for. Note - I saw it in Mandarin with subtitles, with a PRC Chinese person explaining any nuance I might've lost.

Now, the Minions movies made a ton of money and the west's block busters have been especially bad post-covid. I get it, it's kettle calling the pot black. Normies have terrible taste, so I'm going to avoid equating commercial success with quality. My comment is from the perspective of taste.

And I am a China optimist. My best friends are PRC Chinese and they're smart. I don't doubt that Chinese companies can compete in global entertainment or automobile markets. But why is everything that comes out of PRC China so tasteless ? There is clear absence of nuance, craft and love in every industrialized piece of crap that comes out of there. Deepseek is special because it feels inspired. DJI & Nothing also have a spark within them. But elsewhere it feels competently executed but empty. Nezha is no different. Great execution, no soul.

Is this hype organic ? Am I just a hater ?

I feel like the simplest answer to your question is that yes, NeZha 2 is a children's movie, with all the baggage that entails. If you asked a film critic about Chinese cinema in general, I don't think they would have any trouble naming plenty of great films and directors (even if you completely exclude Hong Kong). Mass market stuff remains mass market, regardless of where that market is. You bring up Studio Ghibli as a comparison, but 90% of anime remains "I can't believe I was reincarnated as my sister's tampon!" and other such garbage.

I think it is fair to say that, for its size and wealth, modern China punches well below its weight when it comes to cultural output. Music remains completely confined to the domestic market, TV is shockingly bad, and even where they've had some success of late like in video games it's still very much imitation rather than genuine originality.

And undoubtedly, part of this is down to the repressive government structure in place, relative to Korea or Japan. If AI wasn't going to completely upend things anyway, I'd still estimate that it would be less than a decade before Chinese media started to really penetrate international markets

I haven't seen that movie, but in general I feel the same was you about most modern Chinese media exports. It's shockingly bad. It almost seems like everything is made by an AI rather than by professional artists. And I say that as someone who likes China- I grew up loving the old Hong Kong kung fu movies, and I really respect their ability to do high-tech manufacturing. But the Hon Kong movie industry died once the PRC took over, and there just doesn't seem to be left to replace it. It's scary how the PRC just kills that kind of creative energy.

Then again, Hollywood movies are also mostly crap these days, so maybe it's a worldwide problem. Could be smarthpone addiction or something else.

This is going to be a split between a movie review for Ne Zha 2 and some of my thoughts on the state of culture from a China-born American. Unfortunately, you beat me to the punch while I was writing this, so I'll employ the angler fish method of reproduction and just attach my post to yours. If I need to move or remove it, just let me know.

NeZha 2 has been making the rounds as a cultural milestone in both China and abroad. Being the first (only) Chinese movie to have had a billion dollar gross before its foreign release, there has been some ink spilled on what this means for the movie industry as a whole. And I'm gonna spill a little more. First of all, is the movie good?

Short answer: Yes. Without a doubt an amazing kids movie by Chinese standards (not in terms of quality, but in terms of sensibility, I'll expand later).

Long answer: I'll break the movie down on different dimensions, and mark spoilers for the second movie only. I'd definitely recommend watching the movie first before reading any spoilers because the movie is truly worth a watch for everyone, not just kids.

1. Presentation

Extremely competent. Legitimately on par with some of the highest quality CG animation from the US and Japan. This shouldn't come as a surprise. Japan has increasingly been outsourcing its animation to China for cost reasons. Further, Tencent, being the multi-media colossus it is, is incredibly well versed in animation as the owner of League of Legends along with dozens of other IPs. Visually, the movie truly fantastic, with landscapes and backgrounds that come straight out of the Chinese paintings I'd seen as a kid. The action scenes are very well shot and animated. The action is fairly easy to follow and is on par with some of the best action from anime. I'll lump music in here as well because I'm not knowledgeable enough to speak at length. The music is a very interesting mix of Chinese and Western. The score is filled with traditional Chinese instruments and the sound is distinctly Chinese. Think Black Myth WuKong, if you want a comparable soundtrack. Based purely on the presentation, I'd say it's already one of the best animated movies of the year.

2. Story/Plot

The story starts directly after where the first movie ends. I won't give anything away here, but the plot centers around the physical resurrection of NeZha and his friend AoBing and the effects thereof. The story is quintessentially Chinese. Similar to the first movie, the story at its core is about family, specifically the relationship between a parent and child. This theme is covered extensively in Chinese works, and I'd say that a large amount of Chinese culture is centered on this theme. As a Chinese person myself, the story hit a particular emotional resonance. While Western, especially American audiences may not fully grasp the intended emotional effect, it should still hit home for almost all audiences. In the spoiler section, I'll talk about scenes of particular import. But as a wrap up, I'd say that while the story this movie tells is Chinese at its core, it will resonate with everyone,

3. Sensibilities

This is where it gets a little weird. If you asked me based purely on the above whether I'd recommend NeZha 2 as a family movie, I'd say absolutely 100% . However, there is a bit of culture shock when it comes to what a kids movie is in China and America. I'd say that while NeZha 2 is a PG movie, it's more akin to what PG used to be in the 80s and 90s than what it is now. On the humor side of things, the humor is much more crude than what you'd find in an American kids' movie. Toilet humor and slapstick are much more prevalent and acceptable in China than it is now in America. On the action side, it's also a lot more extreme than what you'd expect in a typical American Kid's movie. The movie does not shy away from some of the effects of the action that's shown. For example, a character is shown as being shot through with a mystical arrow, and the blood is clearly shown oozing out from the wound. In fact, afterwards, you can see a hole where the character was shot. Now we're not talking about Saving Private Ryan levels of blood and guts, but definitely more than what we would normally see in America. Death is also not shied away from. Outright death is not shown on screen, but there are definitely sanitized and implied scenes of death. The movie does get quite dark, especially toward the last third. I'll also discuss this as a spoiler as well. One good thing, however, is that some of the weirdness of the first movie has been toned down by a lot. If anyone's seen the first movie, there are just moments of strangeness that I can only chalk up to the movie being Chinese. Humor is cultural, and I can tell that certain jokes that should be funny to Chinese audiences would fall flat to American audiences. All in all, if you plan on watching this with children, do watch out for these items.

4. Spoilers

Here I'll talk about some memorable scenes with spoilers on. For anyone who hasn't seen the first or second movies, this section will probably not make any sense, as I will not be giving context or talking about everything in order. It should make sense if you've seen the movie.

  • The first scene follows the the first movie, with villagers creating new physical bodies for the now-bodyless souls of NeZha and AoBing. This is followed up by a very good action scene between NeZha's parents and the sea monsters. This first action scene is already giving a great representation of the action to come in the movie. Very cool, easy to follow, and just a joy to watch.

  • Afterwards, an emotional scene happens when NeZha is leaving to attain sainthood, where he becomes embarrassed when his mom tries to hug him. A little ham fisted in my opinion, but it gets paid off later in the movie. Afterwards, we find out about Shen Gongbao's backstory regarding Shen Gongbao and his brother and father, who are all yaoguai. Side note, "yaoguai" is generally translated as "demon," but that's not completely accurate. There's an inherent evil connotation related to "demons" that's not present with "yaoguai." While many are malevolent, there are many examples of benevolent yaoguai or yaoguai achieving sainthood after sufficient cultivation, similar to humans. The connotation is much more related to something that's "unnatural" or "strange." Therefore, Shen Gongbao being a "leopard demon" is not antithetical to him achieving sainthood in the way that it would be in a Western sense.

  • The action scene with who we later find out is Shen Gongbao's father is another fantastic scene. The framing is fantastic, the action is impactful, and again, the whole thing is just a joy to watch. The animators really showed their craft with this fight. Finally, the ending of the fight with the father's arm being cut off and being shot through with a celestial arrow. Further, the bait and switch with the reveal that everything was orchestrated by WuLiang was done very well, with a motivation that's quite understandable to me. Along with that, the reveal of the destroyed ChengTang Pass was incredibly dark. They pull a few punches, but the aftermath is shown in vivid detail. In fact it reminded me of a toned down version of a scene from Spec Ops: The Line (IYKYK).

  • NeZha's mother's death scene legitimately almost made my cry. It's extremely emotional and really pays off the themes of the story. I honestly can't remember the last time that a movie, not just kid's movie, but movie, had such an impactful emotional scene. The final action scene is quite good, but one thing I don't like is the fact that they just turned WuLiang into a big monster, when for the whole movie, his power came from his sorcery. I would have much more preferred that he either fought the main characters magically or with kung fu. The fight between the dragon siblings and NeZha and AoBing was very good and creative. The use of the Spatial Claws was done in a very smart and creative way in the story.

  • The ending scene with AoBing and his father AoGuang also hit me particularly hard. A father letting his son go into the world as the ending to the story about family is quite the perfect ending.

  • The after credits scene is really funny. After the darkness of some of the story beats and the seriousness of the ending, it really brought the movie back into a lighter mood and lets you leave the movie with a more lighthearted feel.

5. Some Thoughts

As you can probably tell, I'm a pretty big fan of the movie, and the franchise as a whole (2 is definitely better than 1. If I had to rank them, 1 would be a 7, and 2 would be a 9.5). However, When I was watching NeZha 2, I kept thinking about how this movie could not be made by Hollywood. It's not just because of the different sensibilities between Chinese and American children's movies, but because of everything else. First of all, the action scenes in both movies are incredible. I can't remember the last time an American animated movie had action as good as this. This should come as no real surprise as the action comes in the tradition of Kung Fu movies, but the difference is really a little shocking. Second, is the theme. It might be because I haven't seen as many children's movies recently, but I honestly cannot remember the last time a kid's movie explored its theme with as much maturity and complexity as this movie. While it's a little heavy handed in certain parts, the emotional beats of the movie really resonated with me on a level that no movie has in a long time. To me, this movie serves as just another indication of the precipitous collapse of American soft power. The movie is undeniably and unapologetically Chinese. The story is based off of one of the stories from 封神演义, a sort of creation tale of many of the gods and saints in the Chinese folk pantheon. The music, while made with more Western sensibilities, utilizes Chinese instruments in a way that has a distinct Chinese sound. The theme of the story is familial in a way that can only really be appreciated with a Chinese upbringing. Yet, I think that these things resonate on a much deeper level than what's being pumped out by Hollywood these days. This movie, to me, represents China putting its best foot forward when it comes to its values. Its focus on family, parental love, and duty, in my opinion, would really resonate with a general audience, not just a Chinese one. This is coming at a time of historic drought for Hollywood. Disney, the former children's movie juggernaut has been sluggish, releasing remakes of their previous movies, many to little fanfare. It seems that China's (and East Asia's more generally) cultural ascent in recent years has come at the detriment of American soft power.

I really don't know if Ne Zha 2 is a flash in the pan or the beginning of the end. I think we'd have to see how things go in the next 5 years. Whereas America has enjoyed its place as the cultural Jupiter of the world for almost 50 years, it's now East Asia that has most of the spotlight culturally. Anime has been popular for decades, but with the recent rise of K-Pop, K-Dramas, and notable Chinese hits, it seems that America will soon run into the same soft power deficit that plagues China to this day. Supposedly Hollywood is starting to course correct, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we lived in a world 5 years from now where it's Chinese, Korean, or Japanese movies that are topping the charts.

This is such a thoughtful comment. Leaving a reminder to myself to come back and reply to it when I get the time. Thanks ! I should've waited for your top-post. So much more nuance.

At the highest level, your reaction to it reminds me of how I felt watching RRR. The cultural reaction is so visceral, that it can be hard to articulate. But, you know it when you see it.

You've convinced me to watch it, at the very least.

On the action side, it's also a lot more extreme than what you'd expect in a typical American Kid's movie. The movie does not shy away from some of the effects of the action that's shown.

I'd say it's a very American thing, and to a certain extent somewhat recent. While Disney has been known to sugar-coat and soft-pad stories for decades, even in the US more serious takes were not exactly out of question up to the edge of 00s probably. Which was accidentally (or not) about the time anime started taking off in the west.

Superb review by the way.

Death is also not shied away from. Outright death is not shown on screen, but there are definitely sanitized and implied scenes of death.

Don Bluth has entered the chat lol.

It might be because I haven't seen as many children's movies recently, but I honestly cannot remember the last time a kid's movie explored its theme with as much maturity and complexity as this movie.

Give puss in boots - last wish a chance.

The clueless people who made Last Wish really messed up. They were supposed to make a soulless by-the-numbers sequel to a forgettable spinoff of an overrated series. Instead they made one of the best animated films in years, better than anything Pixar's done since Coco. I sure hope somebody got fired for that.

an overrated series

Shrek 1 and 2 are classics for a reason. I almost cried during the first film Hallelujah and wanted to join the fight during the second's I need a hero.

I stand corrected. Puss in boots - last wish really was that good. I'd say that my point still stands.

Not everything that comes out of China is tasteless, they produce plenty of good stuff.

Wukong and Marvel Rivals are good, though they're not my kind of game. There's Genshin Impact which is pretty good though again, gacha isn't my thing. How is that not tasteful? They made up a huge original fantasy world that captivates millions of people just like Star Wars. Mechabellum and Dyson Sphere Program are quite strong in the strategy genre, which is my thing. There are a bunch of Chinese mods for even fairly obscure games like Star Sector that got translated back into English for people for people to play here. You can't make game mods without craftsmanship, nobody does that seeking a profit.

And there are plenty of good translated Chinese novels, as mentioned downthread. The Three body problem series for one, how is that not tasteful or sophisticated? It dares to break some conventions and says that treehugging and spiritualism isn't such a great idea, let's embrace technology. It points out that men are getting more effeminate and soft over time and projects this trend into the future in a mildly unsettling way. It has a wide range of original ideas in an expansive universe, truly alien aliens...

China is a very big country! You can't judge the entire output of such a huge country from a single film. It's like watching the highest grossing American movie Avatar, and concluding that all American culture is CGI moralist slop with no deeper meaning or value than 'empathetic scientists good, mining and military bad'. And maybe there are a few exceptions.

If someone came to that conclusion about the US you'd assume they had an axe to grind against America. There is more to American film than Avatar, there is horror, comedy, superheroes, romance, oscarbait... There is more to American culture than one Hollywood film, as we all know because America projects their entertainment all around the world. Plus a huge number of non-Americans speak English.

China doesn't project its culture all around the world, much of it is never translated (especially smaller, niche products). So you see a bunch of slop like Honour of Kings (Chinese DOTA) and some gems and think 'oh it's mostly slop with some exceptions' because you never see the niche products in the first place. They're not vomited out at you by a gigantic global media system. You don't look for them and they might not be in English (or have a lame sounding name like Honour of Kings). You get the equivalent of Chinese Avatar and Call of Duty, never see Chinese Homestuck or Worm or Factorio. And you hear about some Chinese gems but never see a gem in your own preferred areas.

I think this is probably the answer in the thread that best captures what I think about this. China does produce a fair bit of good media of its own, it's just that it is exceptionally insular and most of the media that gets made domestically also gets consumed domestically. And once you add some cultural unfamiliarity into the mix as well as a Place, China effect that creates a bit of an aversion to most native Chinese media, virtually none of their media ends up making it into the Western cultural consciousness. It's basically the opposite of Place, Japan.

The funny thing is that our attitudes towards China used to be the opposite of what they are today; Western countries had a fascination with everything Chinese for a long while. Sinophilia basically infected the entire western world throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, to the point where Louis XIV adopted Chinese-style ball attire and ordered the Trianon de Porcelaine to be built on the grounds of Versailles, a building that was meant to emulate the Tower of Nanjing. Chinoiserie spread throughout Europe and hugely influenced the development of the Rococo style. Granted, the influences it included were not limited to Chinese culture, but in the main Chinese styles were the trends Western artists and architects borrowed from when developing their syncretic fusion.

Then the Opium Wars happened, disrupting trade, then after a brief resurgence in interest in Chinese culture, China became a Marxist state and self-mutilated a whole bunch during the Mao era. Meanwhile, the Perry Expedition (initially just meant to secure a safe harbour for America in the Pacific) opened up Japan and the Meiji Restoration propelled it at turbo speed into modernity. And now people seem to view everything Chinese as nothing but authoritarian PRC bullshit, whereas even after the stagnation of Japan's economy people seemingly can't get enough of Japanese culture, both traditional and modern - I mean, look at how many words for snow there are in Japan. And Korea, apart from a number of its pop culture exports, may as well not exist as a country in most people's minds - despite its recent modernisation, there's still this lingering idea of it as an insignificant Asian backwater in all other respects. Korean traditional culture? What is that? What are you even talking about?

It's fascinating to me how these fashion trends evolve overtime, and it seems like people's perceptions are very tenuously linked to the quality of that country's output at best. They reflect geopolitical relations more than they do any kind of impartial evaluation of quality. (It's not just media either, I've been on a bit of an East Asian travel kick recently and have visited some travel forums as a result, and it's this phenomenon on steroids; I could document some of the truly terrible takes I've heard but we'd be here for hours.)

I don't think this is really mysterious. The average Place, China is a dump. It's filled with ugly buildings, dirty streets and ramshackle infrastructure, and weathered, third world people with rotting teeth wearing tacky clothes. If you see a beautiful photo, it's either a place where nobody lives, a tourist destination kept clean by the government, an enclave for the very rich, or some combination. The "OMG cyberpunk!!" posts of China are mostly new construction covered in LED lights or monitors that, because TIC, will mostly be nonfunctional and/or falling apart in <5 years.

The average Place, Japan is mostly clean and recognizably first world. Its inhabitants dress in a minimal, classic style that is seen as sophisticated and somewhat retro by westerners (well, except the yanki, who dress like gopniks). The temples and shrines are real, living religious institutions. The buildings are small, quaint, but well-maintained, clearly cherished by the inhabitants. Photos of Place, Japan are of course posted selectively, there are ugly places in Japan, but the worst squalor in Japan is not even in the same league as average squalor in China.

As a kid I fell in love with Chinese history and culture. As a young adult, I moved to China only to find that Chinese culture had been killed in 1949 and some bleak, lower form of civilization which aped the worst impulses of the West was wearing "China" as a skinsuit. I found more of what I was looking for in Taiwan and HK (before the takeover), but by then I had made other life plans.

I always wish I could have visited China and seen it at its height. I can't imagine being proud of what the PRC has made of one of the richest, greatest civilizations humanity has produced.

I don't disagree that your average Place, China is almost certainly going to be more third-world than your average Place, Japan, and there are very real issues there, many of which are a result of the PRC's truly disastrous policies. But considering how many people go to Southeast Asia and absolutely love it, I'm not necessarily sure first world-ness is something people are generally looking for (as tourists, not as inhabitants). People travel en masse to places like Bali despite the fact that "real" Bali isn't something to look forward to; poverty is pretty rife in many parts of the island and Denpasar is packed full of slums. But travelling to Bali has effectively become something of a fashion trend, Bali is the buzzy tourist-friendly place you go to see the good side of Indonesian culture, and you can ignore as much of the mundane or the bad as you want. I grew up in Malaysia, a country people tout as a good place to visit, and what Malaysia is really like isn't necessarily what most tourists experience. In other words, people go to shitholes all the time, ignore the bits they don't want to see, and love it. There's nothing wrong with travelling like that, either; you're not obligated in the slightest to do things that'll make you feel miserable. But I'm not sure if China's third-world nature is the main factor here.

When I talk about finding "bad takes in travel forums", I mean the stuff I've seen is as bad as stumbling upon threads asking why it is that China has seemingly no truly historical sites, just hollow recreations and cash grabs. Then someone else says the Cultural Revolution destroyed absolutely everything in China, then someone else comments down in the thread "You know where the real historic stuff is? Japan." This despite the fact that many Japanese sites are also just recreations and reconstructions; places like Senso-ji or Osaka Castle were rebuilt in concrete in the 20th century. Kinkaku-ji is a new construction, Takkoku no Iwaya in Hiraizumi is a new construction, and so on. The majority of historical sites in Old Kyoto, despite it being spared bombing during WW2, don't predate 1788 due to a fire that ravaged the city. People still travel to these sites in Japan in spite of the fact that much of what's there isn't exactly original, and enjoy it, and that's fine, and of course there are also authentic historic sites in the country (Himeji Castle, Golden Hall of Chuson-ji, etc). But I'm wondering how in the world people forgot that there's an entire ancient walled city, Pingyao, in Shanxi province, that still houses 20,000+ people while retaining all of its traditional architecture and its urban planning from the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is not only the best preserved proper city in China, but all of East Asia. Then there are towns in Anhui like Xidi and Hongcun, which are representative of traditional non-urban settlements in China during the 14th to 20th centuries - many of the buildings there are very old, and a lot of these towns still have traditional economies and clan-based social structures. Then there are the old tea forests and ethnic minority villages of Jingmai Mountain, where the locals still cultivate tea using methods dating back to the 10th century and perform Tea Ancestor ceremonies and festivities. The thought that crosses my mind is disbelief in the vein of "you seriously couldn't find anything to your taste in all of China? What the fuck it's the size of ten countries how is that possible". There are many authentic places where old China can be found, they're just a bit farther out; you can't expect to visit Beijing and get that kind of experience. The CCP sucks, but they don't possess MCU powers; try as they might they can't snap their fingers and make literally thousands of years' worth of rich historical and cultural heritage vanish overnight.

Then there's the example of South Korea, which is basically a first-world economy comparable to Japan at this point (in fact, its GDP per capita overshot Japan a while back, and its self-reported happiness levels are comparable last I checked; granted, they do have an ongoing military draft which certainly isn't ideal). As a tourist I had a great time there, and was surprised at how well maintained it was and how much traditional culture there was. The density of UNESCO sites there is higher than anywhere else in East Asia, and two members of my family (one of whom went on that trip with me) have travelled both to Korea and to Japan, and both preferred Korea. But we were actually almost discouraged from travelling there after coming across many threads which followed the same pattern - invariably, a poster would ask whether they should choose Japan or Korea for an East Asian trip, and almost unanimously the comments on such threads would advocate Japan as a destination, and state South Korea was comparatively boring, soulless, lacking in historical sites and nothing special. Our friends and coworkers who had travelled to both places also offered up the same opinions, and the only reason why we ended up picking Korea as our destination of choice was because said family member had already travelled to Japan before, and wanted something different. Frankly, I'm flabbergasted by people's lukewarm reactions.

In other words, I'm not so sure if Place, Japan is based so much in the actual reality of how Japan is, or is basically a fashion trend driven by Japan's dominance in media and electronics exports for much of the late 20th century. And I like Japan! I think it's a country with a lot to offer. But the way people endorse it over virtually every other East Asian country gets ridiculous sometimes IMO.

I can't do your thoughtful comment justice with a reply, but I'll say that your points are well noted and that I can't disagree with the main thrust. I suppose I was subconsciously reacting to both a (perceived by me) recent meta-contrarian pooh-poohing of Japan (although the Place, Japan meme is not completely wrong either) and (IMO astroturfed or trolling) posts fawning over heckin' based glorious cyberpunk AI dragon-shaped drone swarm China!! (sorry for all the parentheses)()()

It's probably time to log off for a while. (なんてね～)

I blame Pinyin, you have to get certification to intuitively read that stuff. "Oh yes let's make 'q' represent the 'ch' sound" - statements made up by the absolutely DERANGED.

j/q/x and zh/ch/sh are different though. Any of those two pairs sound at least as different as say, "k" and "g" in English, and actually probably moreso.

Pinyin makes more sense than English orthography (likely among the worst in the world). At least it's almost 100% regular so taking a few hours to learn the rules will serve you faithfully for almost every case.

Also, "ch" already represents a different consonant sound.

Do you have a better system in mind? I don't like how it maps aspirated p and regular p to p and b myself, but I have no idea how to spell something like /ʈ͡ʂ/ (which exists in Polish and Slovak) and /ʈ͡ʂʰ/ legibly.

I always thought Taiwan's Wade-Giles is okay, and the short-lived Tongyong Pinyin was mostly even better. (A few of its steps I found to be backward: W-G's hs is a creative and portable way of representing the sound that is pinyin x, while Tongyong Pinyin puts s, which hides the lispy quality it has for most of those Chinese speakers that don't pronounce it alveolar (sh-like), and fails to perfectly disambiguate it from Pinyin s, which it sometimes writes as ss?)

English's "let's make 'gh' represent the 'f' sound... sometimes" does not seem to deter people all over the world from enjoying English media, though.

Bough

Though

Cough

Only the English or madmen would make it so none of these words rhyme.

If you aren't already familiar with it, The Chaos is relevant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiHoYo

Every country's entertainment sub-industries will naturally have variations. Most Japanese live-action acting performances are unwatchable to me. I find the Korean music scene (and I'm not just talking about K-pop here) to be a barren wasteland ranging from awful to uninspired. On the other hand, Japanese rock is my favorite genre of music right now and Korean movies are frequently among my favorites.

I would also just add a possible contributing factor from my experience studying multiple languages: I find that Mandarin translates particularly poorly to other languages. None of the East Asian languages translate well to European ones, but works translated from Chinese feel especially uncanny valley to the point I can sometimes recognize them as such just by reading them in English. It feels like a language where a comparatively smaller proportion of meaning is expressed literally, such that connotations don't carry over properly. The structure of the language also means that these things get packed quite densely, so you can either try to awkwardly unpack them and become overly verbose or stay succinct and lose the meaning.

It’s hard (for me, in my limited experience) to imagine a language that translates worse to European languages than Japanese. Similar to what you said about Chinese, it’s heavily context-dependent and relies on a dense web of Japanese cultural associations to express meaning. And yet Japanese media is enthusiastically enjoyed in translation by westerners and people around the world (sometimes with appreciable liberties taken by translators; although I do think it’s basically always possible to find an acceptable translation that respects the original intent of the work).

I know almost nothing about Chinese, so if you’ve studied both Chinese and Japanese and you think Chinese translates even worse to English, I’d be very interested in hearing your perspective.

I think some of it is familiarity. Anime has been available in America since the 1990s for most people, so there’s a bit of exposure to Japanese idiom simply from watching those shows. This makes it somewhat easier both for translators who have had enough source material translated to know how best to approach the language and translate it into English, but because the audience itself is used to Japanese stories, they can pick up enough of the subtext to follow even if they aren’t directly translated. Everyone has seen the 10000 year old child, the demons and demon slayers, the school stories, and so Theres a common thematic vocabulary between Japanese and American fans that doesn’t exist for other countries. If I were to take an Israeli language cartoon and translate it, you don’t know the context and even a good translation would suffer because things the authors expect people to just get are not known in America.

Chinese culture isn’t well known.

Japanese culture wasn't well known in Sweden when me and my non-nerd friends started reading manga and watching anime in the 90s, the stories translated perfectly fine anyway. If anything, the cultural norms and peculiarities were novelties that made the stories stand out. Cultural familiarity has made the stories less attractive not more and to the extent there are cultural products of interests from China its because they are so different (see webnovels). Figuring out things like politeness levels and idioms is trivial and is mostly done in as little as a manga chapter. To the uninformed it mostly just comes off as a well realised fantasy setting.

There is something different going on with China, either it's much harder to translate or the output is just much worse. I would lean towards the latter especially seeing as there are good Chinese works, and sincerely hope they can improve.

There is something different going on with China, either it's much harder to translate or the output is just much worse

The chinese government was heavily censorious for a long time, maybe it still is. It doesn't necessarily have an effect on quality but in practice it does. Look at US cultural output, ever since the creative milieu has gone censorious, as a grass roots effort, the quality of its production has fallen off a cliff.

I would say that they still are and it's pretty obvious, though I suppose some of it is probably self enforced, especially in larger projects through the typical group think dynamics. It doesn't completely kill creativity/quality but it's like a massive wet blanket over everything.

My hot take is that the Japanese language is not quite as exotic as English-speaking Japanese learners make it out to be. It's still >4x as much work as picking up a Germanic or Romance language, but a lot of that additional work is front-loaded (hence an overwhelming number of people who never made it past the beginner stage and can only talk about how hard it is).

Yes, there is a lot of culturally-determined social subtext, but most of it is just using set phrases to express something you're already conveying with rather universal body, vocal tone, or facial expression cues. Also, a lot of this exists to an extent in English as well. "How are you?" is usually not an invitation to give a detailed update. "Next time, for sure" more often than not precedes a ghosting. We're plenty equipped to pick up on the analogous cues for Japanese with a little exposure or the right finessing of the translation wording.

The honorifics seem exotic and they give indications of the social dynamics in a conversation, but they are definitionally quite regular and rigid. Translations inevitably lose a lot of this, but you're just losing that particular feature uniformly across every text. If I were to hypothesize about why this isn't a huge impediment to foreign enjoyment, I'd posit that it has minimal role in the types of Japanese stories that foreigners find engaging, with most involving interactions between characters of shared social status. Japanese workplace dramas where these things may be more important have nearly zero attention from Western audiences. Shonen anime, one of the larger cultural exports, essentially throws honorifics out of the window. You don't need the specific Japanese first person pronoun used by an anime character to know if that person is fussy or tomboyish or rash or timid. 99/100 you'd guess correctly from their character design alone.

Regardless, a decent chunk of the features that make a given piece of Japanese prose "punchy" still seem to carry over into English. This seems less true for Mandarin. If I were to vaguely gesture at why, it would involve the idea that a larger percentage of Chinese speech feels idiomatic. After all, idioms are the extreme of densely-packed connotation. To explain the ways that hearing a character say "He kicked the bucket." differs from just "He died." would take an essay. To me, Chinese seems to use a greater variety and frequency of such idiomatic phrases in way that affects the visceral impact of more of its sentences, which cumulatively impacts the perception of a given work as a whole.

Right, a lot of people latch onto pronouns, honorifics, politeness levels, etc when talking about how exotic the language is. And those are legitimate differences that are prone to getting lost in translation. But I don't think those things are what makes Japanese difficult to translate.

It has a lot of grammatical constructions (topic/subject markers, verb forms to indicate oddly specific things like an action being done as a favor for someone else, an action being done in preparation for something else, etc) that simply don't exist in English, and thus get flattened out in any translation (this goes both ways of course -- Japanese lacks a future tense, and it lacks articles as well).

It's elliptical to the point that the translator often has to add multiple new words just to get a grammatically correct English sentence, and different translators won't always agree on these hidden context-dependent words.

It's funny that you mention the "punchiness" of Japanese prose, because I think it's actually a rather un-punchy language. The number of words and phrases that Japanese speakers use on a regular basis is simply more restricted than what we have in English, and a perfectly literal translation of Japanese text can come off as subdued, repetitive, and stilted to English ears; translators often feel it necessary to "spice up" the text a bit in order to reach the level of variety that's culturally expected in English writing.

None of this is to say that Japanese is "hard" per se, only that it is legitimately quite different from European languages and the text requires some massaging before you get something that reads naturally in English.

This line of reasoning kind of makes me think of an objection I always have to people wanting to use "safe"/garbage-collected programming languages like Javascript or Golang instead of C/C++, because "explicit memory management makes it hard to write correct code, and your program will crash with null pointer errors": bad programmers are going to write bad code, the only difference is that with C their bad code will crash right away, while in a GCed language their bad code will instead live to leak memory and contain subtle logic errors that you won't notice until it's too late.

As I see it, translating perfectly requires emulating the intention and mental state of the original author/speaker in full, and then leveraging your language skill in the target language to convey the intention as the author did in the source language. If you skip this step and translate by following the structure of the original text, be it word for word, idiom for idiom or sentence for sentence, your translation will actually be flawed - it's just that if the two languages were similar, the flaws will be less apparent, and you can go on for longer before the fraud (that the translator did not actually understand, but just chinese-roomed the translation) is detected.

The number of words and phrases that Japanese speakers use on a regular basis is simply more restricted than what we have in English, and a perfectly literal translation of Japanese text can come off as subdued, repetitive, and stilted to English ears

I think this goes both ways, too. The context-dropping nature of Japanese means that if you actually communicate the context in it that an English speaker would habitually want to convey, you also wind up with something repetitive and stilted - but if you drop the wrong piece of context, you also get something that is between jarring and incomprehensible. A big part of Japanese fluency is knowing what context to provide with what timing, and how to play the language's much greater (compared to English) dynamic range from absolute minimalism to byzantine circumscription.

It's funny that you mention the "punchiness" of Japanese prose, because I think it's actually a rather un-punchy language.

I'd overall agree with you here. I mainly meant that, when it is punchy (by which I meant vaguely emotionally resonant), the way it does so is more often translatable to English in a way that I don't find to be the case for many Chinese texts.

It might be my love/hate relationship with purple prose, but I think the Chinese language excels at flowery descriptions.

Are you a Number Girl enjoyer?

Absolutely.

Anyone that can comment on the claimed 1.6B USD box office? As per wikipedia. I find it absolutely impossible.

Given what I could find for Chinese movie theater ticket prices, it would mean around 200 million people saw it. Whether that’s unrealistic given the Chinese movie-going public, I wouldn’t know. Although it does seem like there were pretty big audiences in countries that have large numbers of Chinese expats like Australia too. I don’t know if that’s included in the 1.6 B figure.

NeZha2 is China's first big blockbuster. It's being heralded as a 'Deepseek moment' for Chinese cinema

By who? What is this supposed to mean?

With a few weeks of space between the initial marketing hype and observation, and Deepseek seems to be most notable for (a) claiming to have taken less money to develop (which is unclear given the nature of China subsidies), (b) being built off of other tech (which helps explain (a), and (c) being relatively cheap (which is partially explained by (a).

If someone feels it's inspired, okay- the vibe war for propaganda is what it is and anyone in a different set of contraints is liable to feel it's novel rather than just different- and it's not like it's impossible for good cinema to come out of a state censorship apparatus. But is 'Deepseek for cinema' supposed to imply 'Chinese government constraints, but cheaper'?

With a few weeks of space between the initial marketing hype and observation, and Deepseek seems to be most notable for (a) claiming to have taken less money to develop (which is unclear given the nature of China subsidies), (b) being built off of other tech (which helps explain (a), and (c) being relatively cheap (which is partially explained by (a).

Man, you're really committed to the bit of an old spook who disdains inspecting the object level because you can't trust nuthin' out of Red Choyna. I could just go watch this guy or his pal instead.

It wouln't be an exaggeration to say that the technical ML community has acknowledged DeepSeek as the most impressive lab currently active, pound for pound. What subsidies, there is nothing to subsidize, except perhaps sharashkas with hidden geniuses.

Deepseek is by far most notable for being state of the art reasoner model, out of China, released openly, with credible promises of more such releases to follow.

Secondary would be culture/vibe contrast to US labs, amount of cope and panic generated, widespread positive reaction and adoption in China, insight into actual costs and margins on US side, proof smaller players absolutely should not take American AI lab people at their word when they say not to bother trying to compete.

It implies - a discipline that the west was thought to dominate, but PRC China created a premier alternative out of nowhere.

Black Myth Wukong & Xiaomi SU7 are other examples.

The 'deepseek' moment is twitter sheeps trying to find a contrived analogy. But it gets the point across.

Deep Seek had its mainstream moment last month. But, it has been on the radar since early 2024 and the release of Deep Seek coder. While China has been competitive in the LLM space, their major players are massive organizations like Alibaba, Huawei or BAAI. Deep Seek was special because it reflects a cultural appetite for ambitious risk taking paired with technical excellence, all within a small upstart. It's a combination that has been missing from non-US startups, and for a long time was credited for China's inability to execute moonshots.

That aside, you're right. It is more that people are suddenly noticing what were well-funded efforts that were a long time coming. The outcomes themselves weren't sudden at all.

I generally agree with you. I deleted the above post because I realized that you were characterizing a view rather than advancing a claim, which upon realizing my mistake made my skepticism a non-helpful response that might have come off more aggressive than intended.

I have my doubts on the characterization of Deep Seek, since to me its corporate history reads less like a moonshot and more like a planned / choreographed emergence, but we agree on the general point that the change is people suddenly noticing pre-existing efforts.

Ayy no worries. I'm so used to people on TheMotte being skeptical, that the bar for aggressiveness is usually high.

The rate at which they're producing papers has me convinced that DeepSeek is operating at a much much larger scale than than the west realizes. (not taking anything away from them ofc. Deepmind is much larger, and seems to barely be keeping up with Deepseek)

Just today they released a sparse attention paper that makes some pretty bonkers claims - https://x.com/deepseek_ai/status/1891745487071609327

What gives them away is the especially mature way in which they write papers. There is maturity that only comes from writing a lot of them. These are the best ML PhDs China has. Not some trading geniuses who picked up LLMs on the side.

Conspiracy theories around DeepSeek are pretty funny, people twist themselves into pretzels to not acknowledge the most parsimonious hypothesis. Because it feels too wild, I guess. Maybe too scary as well, because it suggests that China can birth like a hundred more such companies if it finds a hundred such CEOs. I collect these stories. They've used all of Singapore's compute! They pay $1.3M to top researchers! It's a «choreographed emergence» to deceive the oh-so-important Dean (but he knows better than to trust ChiComs)! The scale is much bigger, there are hidden disciples in cloistered cultivation! It's all so very creative.

In any case I have the direct opposite impression about papers. They are kids, overwhelmingly under 30 and often 20, and they write very naturally and not academically. It's just raw intelligence and curiosity, not experience. It is known that roughly everyone at DeepSeek speaks fluent English – not normal for Chinese labs; they pay extreme attention to culture fit and aptitude in recruiting, and are severely ageist. Many core innovations come from undergrad interns; the first author on the NSA paper is an intern with anime pfp too. We have reports from competitors' employees who had rejected their offer because they perceived the company as too small and weak for the declared ambition. I don't know how to break it to you, but there's no Iron Curtain, things are fairly transparent.

These are the best ML PhDs China has.

Maybe. I'm not sure if DeepSeek has even 50 Ph.Ds though, and ByteDance has thousands.

If your hypothesis is correct, they will not significantly accelerate, now that they're acknowledged as national champions and are offered OOMs more resources than they had before. I think they will.

I see them as the Chinese equivalent to Mistral. They came out of no where, but they definitely weren't upstarts. Post that, they had sufficient resources that it couldn't be called a 'rag tag group of nobodies'. For a while, the media portrayed mistral as a bunch of nobodies fighting against the giants. That characterization was just as incorrect.

Same for Deepseek. None of this takes away from their achievement. They are all cracked, no doubt.

I have nothing useful to add, since I hadn't heard of the franchise till about 4 hours ago, when someone was lauding it as a resurgence in Chinese soft power in my Twitter feed.

That being said, it gives me hope that I'll see some proper high-budget Xianxia adaptations, and soon-ish. Hopefully adaptations of the good novels!

Are Xianxia and Wuxia the same ? Peerless Dad is a wuxia novel and the manwha adaptation is great. It's Korean.

The main difference between the two is power-scaling. Wuxia only strays to a limited extent from feats that a "peak human" could perform, though there's supernatural bullshit that has roots in Chinese herbalism, alchemy, traditional medicine and the like. Xianxia takes that and dials that to 9000, then keeps on cranking.

Wuxia: The protagonist punches someone and they break through a door or wall.

Xianxia: The protagonist punches someone and they break through a mountain.

Wuxia: The protagonist finds a pill that extends their lifespan by 20 years.

Xianxia: The protagonist finds a pill that lets them live for a length of time that requires scientific notation.

Wuxia: A sword-master who spent their life meditating on the Great Dao might be able to fight a hundred opponents and win.

Xianxia: Someone's 'sword-intent' chops your dick off from a parallel dimension away.

Wuxia: You've reached the peak. True immortality is probably out of your grasp, but now all of China will remember your name.

Xianxia: You've reached the peak of the mortal realm. Yet your tired eyes spot the hints of an even taller range beyond, and you rub them while muttering something about Mt. Tai. None dare challenge you, but you're not content, not yet. After years of preparation, you go all out and barely survive after facing the wrath of Heaven for your impudence. You've managed to breakthrough and become worthy of the next realm. Congratulations, your previous powers mean fuck-all, and you're barely worthy of joining a sect in the upper realm as a janitor. Time to start from the bottom now that you're here.

This cyclic nature is one of the hallmarks of Xianxia, though it's not always a given. The usual goal for any self-respecting protagonist is to first achieve immortality, then get bored and go for omnipotence. If you're not defying the Heavens and overturning the laws that restrict you, why even bother?

Batman might be a a typical Wuxia character. Superman would be a weak character in a Xianxia setting, especially in a novel that's managed to steadily creep up in both power and page count. There are of course novels that don't indulge in the power fantasy to the extent that universes are being blown up with every punch, but that's something that people familiar with the genre wouldn't be surprised by haha.

We often have pretty different taste in novels, but I also love the xianxia genre. I'm just usually of the opinion that like one mega novel every few years is enough for me.

I've read A Will Eternal, which I think is supposed to be one of the more lighthearted works by Er Gen.

The other book I read I can't even find the title of. I tried for a while with chatGPT and it was unable to find anything.

Its hard to read about total sociopaths for me. I still generally prefer the Western trope of caring for something being the reason to gain power.

I'd say its worth people trying it out, especially if they have read a bunch of western fantasy and find themselves going down increasingly weird subgenres and getting bored with the mainstream hits.

So, if J. R. R. Tolkien had been Chinese, Lord of the Rings would have been wuxia, and the Silmarillion would have been xianxia?

Nah, the Silmarillion is still closer to wuxia.

The strongest heroes are still credibly threatened by a sufficiently large pile of orcs. Their greatest deeds are fundamentally mortal achievements, not cosmic ones, with one exception: the creation of the Silmarils.

Uh.. I never read past a few pages of the Silmarillon, it struck me as somewhere between a dictionary and a novel. But speaking broadly, I guess that works?

What’s the thrill of this, though? It just satisfies some impulse toward viewing / reading / thinking about relentless upward progression, even if fictional and ridiculous?

Yes and no.

It’s a different approach to triggering the sense of “coolness” which underlies a lot of fiction genres.

It's cultural empowerment power fantasy, in the same way that a lot of anime is Peter Pan Syndrome, or how there's a significant undercurrent of classic Marvel in which X-Men is schoolage nerd oppression fantasies (we go to school, we're hated for what we are, but we're actually the super cool and powerful -n-e-r-d-s- mutants!).

Recognize that in the China cultural context, and thus a lot of the Wuxia/Xianxia, those 'heavenly' and 'god' allusions aren't the sort of Christian heaven or greco-roman gods where the gods are an anthromorophization of a concept (greek gods). It is often a literal government bureaucracy with the gods as much assigned to certain roles as 'naturally' holding them, and it's very hierarchical, and the gods have great power over mortals who are accountable to them, even though they are of course not accountable to the mortals in turn. And when you go that that 'next realm,' it is... yet another hierarchy of bureaucrats, each more powerful than the last realm, with more power, wealth, and beauty.

Which is to say- it is a cultural metaphor for Chinese government, and the strata upon strata of hierarchical positions of people with power over you.

And it's not referring to a specific government either. The mythological metaphor well, well predates the Chinese Communist Party, so it's not anti-CCP (unless it's trying to hard), and so it's a form of government commentary for which there's a bit of a cultural blindspot. After all, no one really believes the Chinese government is made of super-human magical power cases who are often arrogant, insufferable, flaunting their power (and mistresses), and deserving a punch in the face, each just a strata below the next level of even more powerful, more arrogant, and more beautiful mistresses...

So when Protagonist rises from nothing to soaring the heavens realms above where they started, punching arrogant pricks in the process and getting the babes that come with such power level, it's a pretty conventional metaphor for beating the petty-bureaucrats and the less petty-but-still-infuriating bureaucrats of the governmental hierarchy, which starts from local officials to provincial to party to national and so on. It's a 'rise to the top of your society' metaphor in the same way that the American anime sphere saw Naruto and quickly characterized it as 'Kid wants to grow up and be Ninja President.' And like Naruto, which was also at heart a mix of 'lonely kid wants to be popular with schoolmates' and 'dismissed loser finds his special skill and humiliates arrogant geniuses,' there's an element of not just rising in the system, but punishing the jerks who inhabit it.

The thrill- beyond the action and the babes- is beating the system that the reader intuitively understands, and the sort of pricks they've come to hate.

The majority of Xianxia is pure slop. Chapters rushed out on a near daily basis, both by the author and paid/volunteer translators who sometimes do a questionable job at translating them.

But that's true of any genre! Most novels are slop! Superhero novels, YA novels, romance novels. The majority of books are barely worth reading, and what people advocate for are cherry-picked examples.

That being said, there are excellent novels. I've name-dropped a few. Beyond the power fantasy, they have great plots, characters and world building. Chinese fantasy is also alien to Western sensibilities, or at least refreshingly different. Most Xianxia protagonists are refreshingly pragmatic, manifestations of Will to Power without the moping and navel-gazing of their western counterparts.

They get the girl. They get girls (consent is questionable). They are more than happy to slaughter their foes and exult in the lamentations of their women and children. They want to be powerful, exceed the limits of biology, ascend to godhood, and punishment for their hubris is something they prepare for and seek to overcome.

Western fantasy has gotten stale for me, but Xianxia hasn't. And when you find a good novel, you can probably spend half a year reading it, given how long they tend to be.

Would Journey to the West be Xianxia? Monkey is fairly constrained in it, but he is the equal of heaven (I know they give him the title as a joke, but it's accurate, they can't beat him and he can't beat them) but he isn't really a match for Buddha, dropping a mountain on him only traps him for 500 years, he can look like anyone or anything, and he can pluck hairs from his body and make them identical copies of himself. Monkey's goal though, having achieved immortality already, is to gain humanity, which he learns his burgeoning omnipotence is an impediment to. I've heard it described as wuxia before, after reading your description it seems like it could go either way.

I think it really ought to be Xianxia. And in fact, it's a strong inspiration for the genre as a whole.

When someone is slaying gods and leaving across the universe in a single jump, they're a proper Xianxia character. Though it's a shame he still gets trolled by the Buddha through literal sleight of hand.

Besides, Sun Wukong inspired Sun Goku, and DBZ has its own share of Xianxia tropes, especially when it comes to power scaling.

Wuxia is martial arts possibly with some fantasy elements. Xianxia is a genre where the characters are immortals with fantastic powers that escalate very heavily.

which xianxia would you consider one of the good ones? My faves are anything from Er Gen unironically.

I still don't know if people say Er Gen is good unironically or not, though your comment updates me towards the former.

I would say Reverend Insanity, even in its unfinished state, is a 10/10 novel. Contender for best novel I've ever read in fact. I'm trying to hold off re-reading it until my memory fades enough for it to feel fresh again.

Forty Millenniums of Cultivation is a good one, an 8/10 IMO. It was good enough for me to get frustrated reading awful MTL and then track down raws and translate them with modern SOTA LLMs that do a better job.

I never got very far into Lord of the Mysteries, but by all accounts it's supposed to be very good.

Maybe I should have mentioned what I have read so maybe we can get some wilder recommendations from everyone. My top tier list was pretty much mentioned by others but I'll put it here:

  1. 40 Millenium of Cultivation
  2. Lord of the Mysteries
  3. Kingdom's Bloodlines (lesser known, absolute gem btw)

Er Gen was my gateway xianxia so his writing and tropes are very dear to me personally. Also I think he does world-building descriptions so much better than other authors and the semi-philosophical discussions just hits the sweet spot for me. I would rank his works Pursuit of Truth (or Beseech the Devil) >= Renegade Immortal > I Shall Seal the Heavens > the others.

I think the best power systems are from Cuttlefish Loves Diving, and that Embers Ad Infinitum is a way more complete work than LotM. But I think LotM moments are way more hype and satisfy more of the power-fantasy.

I think the best Xianxia's I've read is without a doubt either Tales of Herding Gods or Ze Tian Ji. I felt like I was becoming a better person reading those two works. Maybe the most contemplative is Pivot of the Sky though I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Some other good ones are like World of Cultivation or Top Tier Providence.

I actually don't like I-Eat-Tomatoes works, I think they're too repetitive.

Is there an elevator pitch for Reverend Insanity, or is it one of the "anything would be a spoiler, just read 30 chapters" ones?

I see you read a lot of xianxia, so actually it would be interesting to get a pitch on the whole genre. From what I heard of it, it's... I wouldn't like to say "powerslop", but it has the reputation, you know? "Ascending through universes" this, "ruthless MC that"... isekai so you don't have to figure out an in-universe backstory for the MC, "ruthless MC" so you don't have to write the struggle between personal scruples and the next tasty powerup, 100 gorillion chapters because the author didn't bother thinking of any containable scale in favor of numbers going ever up... along with the Jumpchain genre, it feels like not so much "literature" as "concentrated trope fentanyl to inject directly into storyteller brain". (I wonder if the Chinese who were brought up on xianxia think Western fantasy is just "herojourneyslop".)

Of course, the above is all an impression gathered by osmosis rather than reading one of those doorstoppers that make Worm look like a leaflet. But I did play Tale of Immortal. Please tell me how wrong or how correct I am.

Here's my elevator pitch for reading xianxia: If one is going to read fantasy why not read stories of the ubermensch fantasy?

self_made_human already touched on this with Reverend Insanity, that the protagonist of that story is not a good person by Western moral standards. But I want to convey the sense that the whole genre is touched with a hint of this everywhere. What this means is a very refreshing way of looking at humans and society and power-level. Chinese xianxia protagonists don't shy away from doing "bad" things to get ahead. They lie, they cheat, they steal. Chinese protags are refreshingly candid that they only care about the people around them and the people they can reach. But they won't go out of their way to solve other people's problems if it's too hard or too costly. There isn't much drama of self-guilt or shame. Chinese protags don't have time to wallow in regret cause they always are either in the next danger or are preparing for the next advancement. This is not to say the Chinese protags don't have a moral system, they do, they are just more utilitarian, more cleared-eye (imo) about the dog-eat-dog world they are in. When the time comes though, balls to the walls, desperation, loved ones in danger, the Chinese protag can be just as hot-blooded and idealistic as a Shonen protag. And they follow through. No bullshit talk-no-jutsu, no everyone becomes friends with the next arc. We've got family annihilation, torture in body and soul, punishment that follows reincarnation, etc.. In a world where characters are always being revisioned or subverted or re-thought or "live long enough to become the villain" and back again, the directness and forcefulness of Chinese protagonists is surprisingly Nietzschean when they say "I hate you, I will never let go of grudges, I will transcends the heavens to then come back and get what I think is due".

Of course, the genre isn't entirely like this. There are some really noblebright stories out there such as the 40 Millennium of Cultivation mentioned before. There are some quite feelgood power-fantasy slop out there as well. For me, when I just started out, I was only excited that there is an entire new "medium" of stories I can now consume, and only slowly came to realize the differences between Western works and Chinese works.

Perhaps I'm just not fed up on Western works enough, then. When I see an amoral protagonist, they bore me. There is no wondering what they'd choose to do, just pick the most effective option and author willing they'll do it, or fail and come back 100 chapters later. If everyone can only be evil or stupid (or stupidly evil), they all blend together and can only be indeed differentiated by cultivation ranks and sect hierarchy position.

On the other side in Pale which I shilled a few times, there are various evil characters - some more successful than protagonists, some less, some get their comeuppance and others don't, but the facets of evil make them interesting. Although I concur that the protagonists of Pale are probably way too saccharinely self-righteous by the standards of the average ruthless MC enjoyer. But then again, they're regular teens, not ones isekaied into by their 500 year old variants (another Reverend Insanity cheat that already begins to grate on me in the first chapters).

Right right, but that's the thing with the Chinese protagonists, they are moral and have their own moral system, they're just not Western morals.

Yes. Sometimes also there are Western works where protagonists have a moral system that's not the modern Western morals. I'm specifically dissing the explicitly amoral sociopath protagonists like the one Reverend Insanity is advertized for.

Is there an elevator pitch for Reverend Insanity, or is it one of the "anything would be a spoiler, just read 30 chapters" ones?

Imagine being a Pokémon trainer. Except your body is the pokeball.

"Gu" are mystical creatures, often resembling bugs of some description, that can be captured and tamed, then put to use. They range in power from something you'd find in tall grass outside the starter town to godlike entities that control physics and metaphysics.

(This is a highly unusual setup for Xianxia)

The protagonist is evil. That's not a word I use lightly, he's sociopathic, and even before the story began, he had painstakingly amassed a respectable degree of power, a lot of it through skullduggery, deceit and violence.

Then, through a combination of sheer luck and grit, he managed to catch a Legendary Pokémon, a one-of-a-kind rarity. This attracted the attention of his enemies, who launched an attack on him, while citing minor petty crimes such as the murder of several million innocent people. He was outnumbered, overpowered, and forced to commit suicide while using the Pokémon.

Which turns out to be Time Travel-mon. It brings him back in time to when he was just a teenager, but with the knowledge he had before if not the power. He takes this an opportunity to start over from scratch, but making full use of the knowledge he came in with.

(It's a long elevator ride)

The protagonist is one of a kind. An absolute sociopath, but charming. Intelligent, ruthless and more shameless than words than do justice to. And hilarious, for what it's worth.

The levels of utter shamelessness and depravity he dares plumb will shock both other characters and you, the reader. Think a genocidal warlord nominating himself for the Nobel Peace prize on the grounds there's nobody left to make war levels. He's not psychopathic, just a sociopath with none of the internal flinches that keep normal humans in check. He won't go out of his way to kill you, unless he has something to gain from it. I suppose "amoral" is a better term than evil.

The author is a mad-man. The levels of plotting, counter-plotting and recursive escalation he can hold in his head will astound you. Not a single Chekov's gun will remain unfired on the mantle. You will never find yourself screaming at the characters, wondering why they don't use an obvious ability or trick when apt. And you'll be blind-sided by what they come up with, but never in hindsight will you think it's an ass-pull. That's difficult enough in any novel, let alone Xianxia.

And don't worry about the time travel. It's a power not used lightly, and fickle. The author never uses it as a get out of jail free card.

I see you read a lot of xianxia, so actually it would be interesting to get a pitch on the whole genre. From what I heard of it, it's... I wouldn't like to say "powerslop", but it has the reputation, you know? "Ascending through universes" this, "ruthless MC that"... isekai so you don't have to figure out an in-universe backstory for the MC, "ruthless MC" so you don't have to write the struggle between personal scruples and the next tasty powerup, 100 gorillion chapters because the author didn't bother thinking of any containable scale in favor of numbers going ever up... along with the Jumpchain genre, it feels like not so much "literature" as "concentrated trope fentanyl to inject directly into storyteller brain". (I wonder if the Chinese who were brought up on xianxia think Western fantasy is just "herojourneyslop".)

Of course, the above is all an impression gathered by osmosis rather than reading one of those doorstoppers that make Worm look like a leaflet. But I did play Tale of Immortal. Please tell me how wrong or how correct I am.

You are correct. Most of Xianxia is slop with no redeeming qualities, for the reasons you've mentioned.

But as I say elsewhere, most novels in any genre are barely worth reading. If you randomly search all Kindle titles, good luck in finding good novels.

That being said, the ones I recommended are diamonds in a pile of shit. Some combination of world building, character writing and respect for the reader's intelligence elevate them to soaring heights compared to their peers.

Don't pick a random novel in the genre and throw yourself in. That way lies pain and insanity. But look at English-speaking fan recommendations, and you'll fare much better. And when you do find a novel, you'll have a chonker that keeps you busy for months even if you read as fast as I do. That's always a perk in my books!

I'm giving it a whirl. I must say, so far the repetitive exposition and tell-don't-show doesn't feel like it respects my intelligence as a reader.

I want to once again shill Pale if you don't mind that the shameless will-shock-you villains are not the main characters of that story.

Added to the list of works I promise to get around to reading, though I've already worked up a backlog from reccs here haha.

I've only learned about xianxia through this thread, and I'm intrigued. Have you read "Cradle" by Will Wight? Is that "western xianxia"? How does it compare to Reverend Insanity?

I'd call Cradle "power fantasy slop", but reading stuff like that is my guilty pleasure. Maybe I should give the "eastern OGs" a try...

Cradle is kind of xianxia but it doesn't capture the full essence of it. It feels like the characters are white, only pretending to be Asian. It's an emulation, a later Cradle scene give me a certain Marvel vibe as the good guys all portal in for a really big fight. That's appropriate, it's a Western book for Western audiences. Wight couldn't get away with race wars, sexism and what would surely be considered transphobia/homophobia like authors can in China.

Reverend Insanity is a different beast, you can tell that they're actually Chinese, playing these weird-to-us mindgames, reciting poems and so on. There's a certain level of sincerity in what happens. It feels a bit more like an open-world game in contrast to Cradle, where our MC is going through set-piece after set-piece, clearing chapter after chapter to reach his goals. For example:

In Cradle the tournament arc takes a whole book, as our heroes march on through to get the mcguffin, training and powering up, developing their character as necessary. They might cheat a little but the other side cheats harder and still loses, they are the bad guys after all.

In RI there are two tournament arcs. In the latter our MC is called in as back-up for his partner-of-convenience, ignores the call for a few weeks and only shows up (on his 4th fake identity) with a sneaky, devious, obnoxiously dishonourable plan to kill this one guy and make off with his soul and looted corpse, even if he has to get kicked out of the sect to execute the plan. The tournament wasn't over a mcguffin, it was about relieving political tensions from an earlier crisis and the big players giving lip service to Longevity Heaven's Edict. Our MC is not developing his character and heroically trusting in the power of friendship, he's an assassin ruthlessly optimizing his chance at success. Then he decides to strike while the iron is hot and ambush a few more people elsewhere before heading off to kill and impersonate someone on the other side of the world.

There's also a thematic level too with the Ren Zu interludes, it's not without literary merit IMO. Later on there's a big struggle over fate, whether the natural order decreed by fate is good, whether it inhibits freedom or protects humanity/the world, what sacrifices are needed to uphold it... It's a reflection of Cradle in that respect, though our MC takes the matter into his own hands.

I haven't read Cradle myself, but I have heard a range of opinions on it. If it was a video game on Steam, I reckon it would be "mostly positive". On the other hand, RI has rave reviews, and I am vociferous in my endorsement.

I do expect that authentic Chinese Xianxia would probably be better, a lot of Western homages don't quite have the same charm.

I am vociferous in my endorsement

That's enough for me to give it a try! After 15 minutes of research and several false starts, I've now settled on the Zelsky translation. I found an ePub with 2334 chapters. Does that sound about right, or do you recommend something different?

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Do you know where I can read such an updated 40MC translation?

I started it ages ago and was enjoying the premise, but wow.

I'm afraid there isn't a site with updated translations out there.

What I personally did was find Chinese raws:

https://www.piaotia.com/html/7/7095/6107291.html

When you notice the default English translation that's on most sites goes to shit, start copying and pasting from here to to any decent LLM and ask for a translation. I'd love to share mine, but I never actually saved them, just threw chapter after chapter in there as I went along.

I tried Reverend Insanity, and even allowing for a rough translation, the writing was crap.

But this has been my experience with almost every progression fantasy/wuxia novel I've tried. I didn't like Cradle either. I think they're just not for me. But I don't understand how people aren't bothered by tedious exposition about Gu levels written in head-hopping inconsistent tense.

I just took a look and read the first chapter... oof. You're not wrong.

As he said this, memories of his previous life on Earth emerged before his eyes.

He was originally a Chinese scholar on Earth who chanced upon this world. He endured a hard life for 300 years and went through another 200 years; about 500 years of his life flew by in the blink of an eye.

So many memories that were buried deen inside the heart begun to relive themselves, sprouting into life before his eyes.

"I failed in the end." Fang Huan sighed in his heart emotionally, yet there were no regrets.

I'm not a literary snob, I can appreciate trashy webnovels or light novels. But this is breaking so many rules of good writing it's just impossible to enjoy. Telling instead of showing, inconsistent tense, too many adverbs, group dialogue where it's not clear who's speaking, no paragraphs, passive voice, and some parts just seem to contradict the other parts. It reads like the author was just brainstorming ideas for cool powers and fight scenes and never got around to actually writing the novel.

That's a bit harsh, given that it was a translation. I presume it flows better in Chinese. As people have elaborated on above, it's a hard language to translate and a lot of nuance doesn't carry over.

Part of the reason for a (small) info-dump is that most of it isn't really relevant to the story. Even though he was isekai'd from Earth, it doesn't make a difference in his life beyond his ability to plagiarise classic Chinese literature and make people mistake him for a precocious genius.

To be fair, it could have been dispensed with entirely, but it merits as much verbiage as it has plot-relevance.

Well, the translation is all we've got to judge it by. But it doesn't read like someone struggling with translation, it just reads like a fanfic.

It is possible to translate Chinese to English and have it sound good. "the Art of War" got popular because many people thought it sounded cool. A British guy in the 40s won a literary prize for translating (and abridging) Journey to the West. And those are written in Classical Chinese, which is even more difficult to translate than modern Mandarin!

I didn't really like the 3 body problem either, but at least I could tell it had a professional author and editing.

I didn't really like the 3 body problem either, but at least I could tell it had a professional author and editing.

Yeah, I thought it was bad sci-fi (if you judge it fairly, not putting your thumb on the scale because it's basically the only breakout Chinese sci-fi novel that exists). But it wasn't badly written, at least by the standards of English sci-fi.

Mother of learning has better writing than Cradle, though I dont know if I would consider it a proper progression fantasy.

Give Shadowslave a try as well. I think its better because the author is actually writing in English instead of it being a translation.

I tried Reverend Insanity, and even allowing for a rough translation, the writing was crap.

Junior, you dare? Kowtow and break all your limbs, and I will leave you with an intact corpse.

Ahem. There's no accounting for taste, but I still think you missed out, or just didn't hold on long enough for the story to get its claws in you. It's an unfortunate Xianxia meme that people will tell you to stick to a story for a hundred chapters because then it gets good, but if memory serves it was around 30 in that RI had me leaning forward. I really can't recommend it enough.

I dunno, maybe I'll try again, but I hate books/series where the fans say "Oh, the first few hundred pages are mediocre but then it gets good." Any other Wuxia/progression fantasies to recommend?

Had the same experience with Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. I read the first two books and was underwhelmed. People say it gets good around book four, and my reaction is "So I have to read 2-3 crappy books before I start enjoying it?"

Actually, for Dresden Files don't bother reading books 1 through 6. Just pick up book 7 and read in order from there. I did this by accident (it was what the library had at the time) and it's what the author recommends. If you fall in love with the series, then you can go back and read the first books if you want to know what happens.

I recommend "Beware of Chicken", here's a royal road link. It's kind of a parody of the genre, so should be a lot easier to get into.

Edit: Nvm, the author had the brilliant idea to hide the novel behind a paywall. You can use the wayback machine to view the old chapters but it's a huge pain in the ass and probably not worth overall.

BoC is now stubbed. Chapter 4 up to book 5 are gone from Royal Road.

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Haven't read BoC, but a LitRPG parody I quite enjoyed was "This Quest is Bullshit!".

I have mixed opinions of BOC. It has a strong start, but ends up becoming repetitive once it keeps playing up its core shtick. Not great, not terrible.

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Dresden's writing and series as a whole gets much better from book 3-4. You could just start from there; its not like you are gonna miss much.

I read the first two books and was underwhelmed.

I paused for a month around book 2. Mostly because I guessed who the big bad is from the beginning.

Third starts better. I would strongly recommend you the repairman jack series as something in similar vein, but better executed. It starts as a thrillers with some supernatural elements and then moves on.

The Wikipedia page says the repairman jack series restarted with Legacies - should I read The Tomb first or just start at Legacies?

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Already suggested Forty Millenniums of Cultivation somewhere in the thread, which I'd say is a pretty solid novel and one that combines sci-fi with Cultivation in a manner that few stories tackle. There's a bit of Warhammer 40k influence, if the name doesn't make it obvious, but it runs only skin deep.

I don't really read much progression fantasy in general, but probably the best I've read would be Worth The Candle.

Isn't the hype is almost entirely a domestic Chinese thing? To what degree it's an organic expression of nationalistic enthusiasm over a competently made product or more engineered is unclear. What is clear however is that the movie isn't very good.

I don't think you're just a hater. I've actively tried to consume mainland media for the past half decade and it's almost without fail bland slop. This goes for all mediums. I have no doubt that the Chinese could make decent media if the party got out of the way, seeing what Hongkong produced and to a lesser degree what Taiwan produces. It's a bit uncanny when things are so technically well produced but universally bland. It's as if blandness is the goal (which I guess it kind of is).

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