At thirteen, while my peers played ninepins and studied the blade, I engaged in a vast survey of the Oriental literatures. This of course qualifies me completely to speak on the character and pathologies of entire nations. Epistemic status one thousand.
Now, some would try to convince you that Natsume Soseki captures the soul of Japan, or Lu Xun China. But we know better: to divine the soul of the mass, you must look to the literature of the masses, and read masses of it. Only the lowest brows will do, the vapid fantasies of the etiolated amateur unblemished by artistry.
Some structures don’t vary. Most common is a certain call and response, a two-tone motif: frustration, then release. The protagonist is wronged unjustly, then through craft or contrivance reverses the situation and basks in the admiration and fear of lessers. This can be repeated ad infinitum; eastern webnovel authors are paid by the word and write stories thousands of chapters long. They’re also expected to publish at least one chapter a day, resulting in a marked reliance on stock characters and situations — it’s madness to write, and greater madness to read. But then there are those who are mad enough…
Japan
The Japanese fantasy is essentially adolescent. It’s a fantasy of youth. There’s a reason why so many anime are set in high school; it’s the last time they get to be careless and free before submitting to the sentence of the crushing workforce.
The Japanese protagonist is strikingly herbivorous. He starts as a loser and doesn’t earn his escape. Instead, his rise is caused by a “cheat skill” or magic item. He will be powerful, but more importantly secretly powerful. He does nothing and the world falls at his feet. He is followed around by a huddle of cute girls who inevitably fall for him, but he will never explicitly flirt or take action to court them. Romantic attention and potential is more flattering than any progress or consummation could be; if any romance occurs it is only a childish parody.
Korea
The Korean fantasy is, at first glance, more matured. It is not fantastically escapist; more important than saving the world is real-world markers of success — status; style. Look like a supermodel, drive a sportscar, wear a luxury suit, and have a blue-eyed blonde by your side (preferably of the English aristocracy). Dragon-slaying is not as cool as hearing people whisper about how rich and attractive you are.
What’s more is an obsession with moral and psychological extremes. The Korean protagonist is a scumbag who becomes a paragon of virtue, or calls himself a scumbag while acting like a paragon of virtue, or has the reputation of a paragon of virtue while calling himself a scumbag, or some combination of the above. Twinned with this is a persistent fascination with insanity; the hero often has an unhinged tendency. Even a modicum of character writing is a giveaway that you are reading a Korean novel.
China
The Chinese fantasy is perhaps the most infantile, or honest — the closest to the id. Its hero is shatteringly powerful, but constantly beset by slights and small humiliations which demand repayment ninefold. Everything revolves around preserving his “face” and slapping others’. Despite his nuclear reaction to being wronged, he wrongs others with impunity, and this hypocrisy is never questioned. Indeed, it is reinforced as righteous; morality warps around him. The world is an ever-escalatory series of conflicts; it exists only as cardboard for the hero to tear through.
(They are of course all shamelessly nationalistic and racist; the Japanese especially get a bad rap from the others.)
Of interest is their differing applications of the isekai/transmigration trope. The Japanese flavor emphasizes escaping the life of the loser to become a fantasy hero. The Chinese are less rosy-eyed, and focus on the appeal of living like a murderhobo warlord. By contrast, Korean stories are too attached to real-world validation to dive fullthroatedly into a different world; instead, they often feature an incursion of Earth or a separate realm to be slipped in and out of.
Bonus Round: the West
In the West, the fundamental low-brow fantasy is not the isekai but the LitRPG (as seen on RoyalRoad). These stories feature a game-like system which governs effort and abilities. Where Japan is obsessed with youth, fantasy, and escapism; Korea with status, materialism, and psychological extremes; and China with power, ego-injury, and catharsis — the West is obsessed with deserved reward. In a LitRPG, the Western hero’s efforts are clearly, legibly, and justly rewarded. Numbers go up.
Comparisons to cultural flashpoints and geopolitical developments are left as an exercise to the reader. Join me next week for a psycholiterary deep-dive into the nations of Australia, Malawi, and Trinidad and Tobago…