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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2789 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 3, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I'm not sure how to word this, but I have a poor impression of Japanese people's intellect that contradicts their reported mean IQ, which is supposed to be among the highest. Trying to find counterexamples among translated works seems futile, it's all swill for the masses. Even the old stuff, like the tale of genji, or esoteric buddhist writings, don't seem worth diving into. There seems to be no demand for heavier intellectual content beyond cheap existentialism. For instance, the 3-body problem would have never been published in Japan. Am I the only one puzzled by their stunted level of content production? I get reminded of this contradiction every time I read comments from Japanese people on quora or elsewhere. Maybe something is lost in translation, but they commonly come across as substantially and consistently dumber than other ESLs.

Describing the Japanese (at least the Yamato) as a distinct ethnic group isn’t really correct, is it? All the relevant DNA analysis suggests they’re well over 90% ethnically Korean in terms of ancestry. There hasn’t been the same ethnogenesis one sees in some Western European populations because there really wasn’t much mixing. They’re pretty much Koreans.

As regards cultural production I think Japanese film and literature has been in a dark age since at least 1970, for whatever reason. And as other users have said, the Japanese have a reputation for being more parochial and inward-focused than other East Asians.

What I'm trying to scratch at is why a big country of ostensibly smart people who are industrious and diligent in everything they pursue, with a large publishing market and average age of 48, so easily satiated with low ceiling entertainment? Are they so burnt out they want nothing more than to read light novels on the train, wage-slave the day away, pick up some takeout from 7-11, put on the latest CGDCT anime and veg out? I don't find that explanation satisfactory because the same applies to their neighbors. Some say they are not living to their full potential because of linguistic determinism. It could also be kawaii culture* that dictates everything must be dumbed down and stylized for aesthetics, which explains why their actors are so bad compared to korean ones. But if they're so smart, why do they willingly submit to the self-infantilization, wouldn't they be bored of it already?

*On a side note I think American culture definitely veers in the opposite way resulting in every tom, dick and harry to enthusiastically offer his original thoughts, before aping what he heard on a podcast one time. But fraudulent intellectualism at least provides enough pushback to prevent the 1000th isekai power fantasy from being written.

Is it fair to compare the culture of middle Japan to the highest culture of the West? No doubt, their high brow intellectuals also sneer at American superhero movies. Indeed, even that comparison flatters the Japanese, since anime, low or highbrow, at least has some sense of creative energy to it, in comparison to Western capeshit which is utterly bankrupt creatively.

What I'm trying to scratch at is why a big country of ostensibly smart people who are industrious and diligent in everything they pursue, with a large publishing market and average age of 48, so easily satiated with low ceiling entertainment?

I mean, what percentage of American readers regularly read high quality literary fiction (modern or classical)? 2%? It doesn’t seem like we’re much more advanced than the Japanese, a Colleen Hoover, Stephanie Meyer, Nicholas Sparks, John Grisham, Clive Cussler doesn’t seem more highbrow than most anime, and I say that as someone who doesn’t watch any anime (or read any of the above), so it’s not a defense per se.

Well compare nerds with nerds. What are the premier otaku-traps in Japanese fiction? Fate? Eva? Time has not been kind to those franchises. Gwern's review recording his disenchantment with later Eva summed it up nicely, and Fate these days is a waifu gacha game before all else. Western nerd franchises like 40k or mtg or game of thrones take themselves more seriously. I believe even in pokemon, it was the western fandom that developed the competitive scene and made nuzlocke (where pokemon being beaten = perma-death) playthrus a thing. You wouldn't think it with their famous otaku and people who spend decades mastering a craft, but Japanese nerd fandoms are surprisingly casual. It's not that western appetite for gritty realism is more high-brow per se, but that does retard the rate franchises are dumbed down.

A collection of somewhat disassociated thoughts in the matter:

Fate these days is a waifu gacha game before all else.

it's between a gacha game and a visual novel (as was the original). Being a gacha game doesn't preclude it from good writing either, even though I must admit the first part of the story is rough (explained I think by being a project that wasn't expected to be as successful as it was). Shimousa, Camelot, Babylonia and the lostbelts are worth it to slog through the Orleans (even if it had the Mozart speech to Mash) and Oceanus of the game.

As for Eva, yeah, it's a shame that the movies weren't as iconic as the original works, but considering the story, it would be difficult to follow up on it after EoE. It would be difficult to gauge the interest of the fandom in side stories in the same universe, considering the apparent totality of Seele.

And something more appropriate to compare 40K or MTG to, would be to gundam, where there is a physical and collecting aspect to it.

On the topic of western franchises for every Eva over there, we have to contend with our own star wars and Marvel/DC shenanigans. It's a fact of life that greed seeps in and properties can be mismanaged (the Final A Song of Fire and Ice book will have Sanderson in the cover, mark my words) or corpos can Virtue Signal and toss under the bus iconic artists that worked for them.

(the Final A Song of Fire and Ice book will have Sanderson in the cover, mark my words)

There's NO WAY. ASOIAF fans would revolt. Sanderson's style is just too different, not to mention he has his own empire to build now.

Is that or no final book (and the publisher won't leave money in the table, I bet they already have the eulogy written and the contract with Sanderson drafted). Your choice nerds.

I think they'd just pick someone else. It does seem pretty unlikely Martin finishes at this point, but I'll bet he has quite a lot of notes written, enough that somebody could string together a pretty good book without too much work.

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I'm glad you brought up gundam to compare with 40k because despite gundam having the clearly better designed robot toys, 40k runs circles around gundam in every other aspect. The fact that there's no definitive gundam series and only a score of unrelated kids anime that range from bad to okay (I haven't watched but reviews and spoilers indicate none of the shows get more complex than navel-gazing on the pilot vs robot relationship) aligns with my view. The franchise begins and ends with the robot, and there's probably halo spin off novels or fanfiction with more ambitious scope than gundam writing. Maybe all the hardcore fan talent is being tied up by highly detailed model building, which would be very stereotypical.

You sound weirdly confident for someone that just admitted to not knowing about the franchise. But to each their own I guess.

Gundam is about the psychic Newtypes, and the fate of empathy which transcends the factions of war.

If you're short on time, Char's Counterattack is the quickest way to get the flavour of it, however, you will be spoiling the original series. I don't know if it would meet your standards of intellectual, anyways.

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