Is FF always this stupidly nonsensical? Not saying Kingdom Hearts is, but by god, the bird in XIII from Sazh's hair turns into a half naked woman? What?
Well....at least we know the name of the chocobo chick now, and it only took 2 games and 1 DLC to figure it out. Wonder how far I'm from that point too, because I don't think I'm that far from the end of the game
Most Japanese writing is terrible. It... I mean she, turns into it in the second game XII-2, apparently. Something to do with time travel? It's painful to try and read and make sense of. Who wrote this? The guys behind Lost?
are you being serious right now? if you are, holy shit i thought i was alone on that thank you for being another person that exists who agrees with me if not, psh w/e
As a part time writer, I can honestly say that this is true. The radioactive lizard continues to be a favorite though.
There are ~7 billion living humans in the world. In this day and age, I'd guess that roughly 80% (5,600,000,000) of those are able to read and write on some level. A lot of those are children and others who are just learning to write. Only a few of the rest can actually write well. So really, most writing is terrible regardless of where it came from.
That's true, but you're comparing apples to oranges. Baby's first story & middle school-grade fanfiction to officially published and/or produced works costing up to millions. People are saying that compared to products of the same caliber in other parts of the world (namely the West), Japanese writing is lacking. And I'm inclined to agree, except that I really think it's not helped by the fact that it just doesn't translate well. To me, the best examples of Japanese writing here come out of media with tongue planted firmly in cheek, and a carefully written localization.
Japanese writing (from my experience) is more concerned with tradition and archetypes than telling a good story. It's very formulaic. It's not an exaggeration to say that a lot of their stories regurgitate the same themes of friendship and dreams and NO WAR STOP WAR WHY MUST WE FIIIGHHHT over and over again, which coming from another culture and not knowing much about theirs is not something I completely understand, but regardless that does not make a story good. So often they wax philosophical without effectively exploring the ideas they're presenting. I'm not saying that every story needs to be pushing envelopes for your cultures writing to be generalized as good, but my god if I had a nickle for every Japanese story that at some point had a character in tears questioning the motivation of war... Obviously I have not read or watched every work of fiction to come out of the country, but from what I have read and given what I know is popular, I feel confident that these statements are more or less accurate. I also have a rant about male-targeted fiction over there largely being all about the conceit of how the characters are going to fight rather than exploring the characters in an intellectual way and it's something that bugs me but I haven't fully articulated my thoughts on that so and yes I'm generalizing pretty hard here but still...
I didn't think this was news. Then again, most people here are anime and JRPG fans, obviously, and many still defend them. I also know KH has become fairly terrible ish, with about 4-5 different writers over the course of the series that has basically made it quite mismatched at times. Time travel was the worst thing. Professional writing. I don't expect most of the world population to be writing anime and video game stories for money. But pretty much what Star said, compared to the western world, their writing is lacking. Often Japanese follow tropes, clichés, stock characters, regurgitated plots and conflicts. They have depth, but rarely too much of it, with characters who even though have a distinct personality, still end up being clichés. I don't think any culture's modern day writing can be so consistently described as 'convoluted'. It's not always a bad thing, I still think the craziness of Metal Gear Solid games lends to the more dramatic moments, and it has some of the best character relationships I can remember. And Persona of course, still has some clichés but it does challenge some clichés, having more depth and heart to it. I kind of think it comes down to Japan being a collectivist culture. The whole society is greater than the individual, sort of thing. More often than not, people will follow the group, meaning nothing really challenges that norm. Unlike in the West where we constantly change and challenge pre existing norms. From what I've seen of some anime, not much has really changed from the late 90s to todays standard. This is definitely true of some game stories. Compared to the West who dramatically changes identity about every decade. Yes, another generalising statement, but I find it true enough.
Not saying all. And definitely not saying Japanese people. Kazuo Ishiguro is a great writer. But I suppose that's what you get for a British education. I don't know what the actual education of creative writing is like out in Japan to really comment on whether that's the cause, but more often than not, that's the reason in other parts of the world. EDIT: Also just researched Murakami quick. Then onto other prominent modern Japanese writers. From what I can tell they all take inspiration from Western novelists, like Stephen King and so on. Though, their topics are frequently criticised, mainly for being quite experimental, at least by Japanese standards. Interesting.
