D
What's the Appeal of Cultivation, Wuxia, and LitRPG stories?
- Thread starter dlamp
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A lot of people seem to forget why we ended up where we are. The explosion of the self-published novels and other online serials was a result of Mushoku Tensei, Shield Hero, (and to a lesser extent) Legendary Moonlight Sculptor, and a few other novels at the time. All three stories mentioned had protagonists which bucked the trend of being traditional anime protagonist with their neutron star levels of density and indecisiveness.
The mentioned stories were also inversions of the popular tropes. Mushoku Tensei is one of the best harem stories that plays it straight (which is different than the traditional anime "harem" which is just a love polygon of inaction and misunderstandings). Shield Hero did the whole edgy revenge story but had the protagonist change as the story progressed and that was a departure as the hero was actually mean and ruthless for a while. Meanwhile, LMS had a proactive anti-hero who was likable but a terrible person (which is not only hard to pull off but it was also done within a well executed story). While they have their issues (pacing for the first two and LMS starting to drag after a certain point), they all can be understood as propelling the community forward towards other self-published/online serials as people were hungry for such stories.
If you look at the stories that were translated from this point forward, they were broached more mature topics and had more proactive protagonists. For example, you would never see an anime protagonist have sex due to both target audience and cultural sensibilities which anime studios wouldn't want to deal with due to the financial risk involved. Online serials had no monetary incentive at the time and allowed for testing these waters. You also saw stories where the author actually worked towards building harems and the necessary character development to make them not break the suspension of disbelief of the setting. Additionally, we received stories that had definite goals that they worked towards unlike the longer running stories popular in weekly manga (eg. Naruto, Bleach, etc).
The stories being translated also had definite progression in terms of interpersonal relationships. This is more of a thing in non-Japanese novels, but there were notable exceptions even in the Japanese markets (High School DxD being one off the top of my head). The fact that stories that weren't western or Japanese were in high demand allowed for new tropes and cultural mannerisms to enter the collective consciousness of the audience.
This was huge for readers as this allowed revitalization in terms of styles of stories. Many readers that did understand the cultural nuances of Japanese culture (or western culture wrt. traditional western fantasy novels) could predict story progression from miles away which really made these stories boring and drab if they weren't expertly executed (eg. One Punch Man, Name of the Wind, or Stormlight Archive). These things combined with enterprising individuals (RWX, etvolare, and GG) launching community spaces with both high quality discussion and translations (wuxiaworld, etvo's site, and /r/noveltranslations). These enterprises led to the introduction and popularity of Cultivation, Wuxia/Xianxia/Xuanhuan, and litRPG stories into the community.
Overall, stories that provide wish fulfillment, are more proactive towards their goals, and are more true to themselves about their desires became more popular. The rise of cultivation, xianxia/wuxia/xuanhuan, and litpg all stem from the same factors. People were bored with the same tropes that you could see in other mediums (eg. neutron star protagonist that literally had to be raped before they would act on their feelings in anime and manga; the farm boy becoming king, or the gritty realism that plague western fantasy). The popularity and new flavor of these genres introduced meant that even sub-optimal executions in terms of storytelling were generally favorable. The fact was that people weren't translating sub-optimally executed stories either. Instead they cherry-picked stories that were professionally written (and professionally translated!). This influx of horrifically high quality executions of the tropes (with a lot of variety in their executions) had a warping effect on the self-published/online serials being published. Authors could use these new tropes and still have the story be unique and interesting from the perspective the audience.
It has been literally years from the start of this whole scene and the audience is now wise to the tropes and gimmicks used by authors. The execution of a story (whether it be transmigration, reincarnation, or regular fantasy) needs to be good now to stand out as it now competes with all anime, all manga, all western novels, all translated novels, and all other online serials. The ways that authors lower an audiences' expectations is by pandering to the audiences' desire. Sub-optimally executing a wish fulfillment story is still better than averagely executing a standard fantasy romp from the perspective of the audience. These genres allow for easy wish fulfillment which make it easier to create larger followings (which correlates *very* weakly to paetron donations for some authors). Each reader is different, but for most the appeal comes down to a different flavor of tropes which they are exposed to. Some stories are now even starting to invert those tropes to comedic effect which is great since it is a sign that people understand the trope well enough to identify it and how to invert it for best effect.
The mentioned stories were also inversions of the popular tropes. Mushoku Tensei is one of the best harem stories that plays it straight (which is different than the traditional anime "harem" which is just a love polygon of inaction and misunderstandings). Shield Hero did the whole edgy revenge story but had the protagonist change as the story progressed and that was a departure as the hero was actually mean and ruthless for a while. Meanwhile, LMS had a proactive anti-hero who was likable but a terrible person (which is not only hard to pull off but it was also done within a well executed story). While they have their issues (pacing for the first two and LMS starting to drag after a certain point), they all can be understood as propelling the community forward towards other self-published/online serials as people were hungry for such stories.
If you look at the stories that were translated from this point forward, they were broached more mature topics and had more proactive protagonists. For example, you would never see an anime protagonist have sex due to both target audience and cultural sensibilities which anime studios wouldn't want to deal with due to the financial risk involved. Online serials had no monetary incentive at the time and allowed for testing these waters. You also saw stories where the author actually worked towards building harems and the necessary character development to make them not break the suspension of disbelief of the setting. Additionally, we received stories that had definite goals that they worked towards unlike the longer running stories popular in weekly manga (eg. Naruto, Bleach, etc).
The stories being translated also had definite progression in terms of interpersonal relationships. This is more of a thing in non-Japanese novels, but there were notable exceptions even in the Japanese markets (High School DxD being one off the top of my head). The fact that stories that weren't western or Japanese were in high demand allowed for new tropes and cultural mannerisms to enter the collective consciousness of the audience.
This was huge for readers as this allowed revitalization in terms of styles of stories. Many readers that did understand the cultural nuances of Japanese culture (or western culture wrt. traditional western fantasy novels) could predict story progression from miles away which really made these stories boring and drab if they weren't expertly executed (eg. One Punch Man, Name of the Wind, or Stormlight Archive). These things combined with enterprising individuals (RWX, etvolare, and GG) launching community spaces with both high quality discussion and translations (wuxiaworld, etvo's site, and /r/noveltranslations). These enterprises led to the introduction and popularity of Cultivation, Wuxia/Xianxia/Xuanhuan, and litRPG stories into the community.
Overall, stories that provide wish fulfillment, are more proactive towards their goals, and are more true to themselves about their desires became more popular. The rise of cultivation, xianxia/wuxia/xuanhuan, and litpg all stem from the same factors. People were bored with the same tropes that you could see in other mediums (eg. neutron star protagonist that literally had to be raped before they would act on their feelings in anime and manga; the farm boy becoming king, or the gritty realism that plague western fantasy). The popularity and new flavor of these genres introduced meant that even sub-optimal executions in terms of storytelling were generally favorable. The fact was that people weren't translating sub-optimally executed stories either. Instead they cherry-picked stories that were professionally written (and professionally translated!). This influx of horrifically high quality executions of the tropes (with a lot of variety in their executions) had a warping effect on the self-published/online serials being published. Authors could use these new tropes and still have the story be unique and interesting from the perspective the audience.
It has been literally years from the start of this whole scene and the audience is now wise to the tropes and gimmicks used by authors. The execution of a story (whether it be transmigration, reincarnation, or regular fantasy) needs to be good now to stand out as it now competes with all anime, all manga, all western novels, all translated novels, and all other online serials. The ways that authors lower an audiences' expectations is by pandering to the audiences' desire. Sub-optimally executing a wish fulfillment story is still better than averagely executing a standard fantasy romp from the perspective of the audience. These genres allow for easy wish fulfillment which make it easier to create larger followings (which correlates *very* weakly to paetron donations for some authors). Each reader is different, but for most the appeal comes down to a different flavor of tropes which they are exposed to. Some stories are now even starting to invert those tropes to comedic effect which is great since it is a sign that people understand the trope well enough to identify it and how to invert it for best effect.
PandaSempai
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Dude, I literally get asked by random reader about that almost everyday. I mean, they would always ask, "Will there be lemon scenes here?" and stuffs like that.
My only reply to them was, "What is lemon scenes? Is it called lemon scenes because it can male people cringe? If so, why should I write any?". I started my fanfic because I wanted to write about someone adventuring, meeting other races, and building his crystal palace on the way. However, I'm not that starved to actually write something that most fantasy reading geeks want. (You know, R-18 lemon stuffs)
D
Deleted member 29316
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Yeah, same as my point why I wrote my isekai. Just want to have a story about an adult being summoned to another world and goes about adventuring using his wits and not relying on cheat skills.
Plus, my students read my stories, I can't put explicit scenes on those! (Well, they knew me as their teacher that hurls f*ck and sh*t words for jokes though)
PandaSempai
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That kinda... Sucks? I never recommended my book to any of my relative or acquaintance, except for someone who basically mentored me. (He's kinda annoying since he would come to my place and ask what's going to happen to my story and such. Well, it works for me since I can get some feedback before I could publish a chapter.)
D
Deleted member 29316
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Nah, my family knows I'm writing since I got offered by some companies before (though I rejected those since their contract is too binding). My (not so) little bro is a journalist, so he checks up my work for me, and our mum...well, she's the moral support.
As for my students, they're genuinely interested too, since they're fascinated about my illustrations for the story as well as I managed to inspire them to write themselves (they're in Wattpad though). The cuss words are added in so they know what it's like for a normal conversation outside their homes and classrooms.
It's kind of cool, though I could insert the lemon scenes...but I choose not to, not yet. Well, not before I managed to bond my characters well.
I think zamu provided an excellent external answer to the question of how we got where we are in terms of these genres, I’ll try and collate some of the more psychological appeals. All of this can be and has been summarised as “power fantasy“ and “wish fulfilment“, but there’s some specifics to these:
Isekai is a pretty old genre (Narnia is an isekai), but its explosion with novels like Mushoku Tensei might be related to its appeal to the depression crowd. The “tensei” (rebirth) part is actually important here, because what many of these novels focus on is a) a chance to redo your life with the knowledge of your past mistakes, b) a fresh start in a new environment which c) often is of a nature that all the things you already know are suddenly useful in contrast to wherever you came from before. Isekai specifically appeals to people who’re unhappy with their current lives, feel they’ve wasted their life, realise they missed many opportunities or didn’t take them for either stupid or sad (usually mental health related) reasons and don’t envision their actual reality changing any time soon. Novels about starting over and doing it right this time or about coming to a place where what they used their life for and isn’t valuable in their world (gaming is a typical example) is now suddenly valued. There’s a reason many of these protagonists are overweight, lonely, depressed, bullied at school, stressed at work, bored with reality etc. Now of course we have a lot of novels specifically trying to subvert these (by this point) clichés, but I believe that’s where the trend started.
Cultivation is more interesting in this regard, because it’s a culturally fascinating phenomenon. We see structures not unlike those in western fantasy applied to eastern mythology – Xianxia and Xuanhuan are fairly new genres compared to Wuxia, which serves at one of their bases in terms of tropes but isn’t actually that common anymore. Unfortunately the basis for its popularity is less interesting, as I believe a not insignificant part of it is just that it’s new and unfamiliar (one might say exotic) without straying too far from familiar story tropes and structures as to be hard to understand.
Cultivation novels are also very focused on growth in power and on having this growth formally fixed in a structure – something that sort of puts them on the halfway mark to LitRPGs. There is a constant sense of progression that’s easily measurable for the reader. In contrast to western novels, cultivation novels tend to place more of a focus on the process of attaining more power, some going into quite a bit of depth in terms of philosophical understanding of magic powers (World of Cultivation being a prime example). Personally (as a nerd) I also find the very concept of comprehending the mysteries of the natural world (i.e. doing natural philosophy, also called science) giving you the power to control said forces with your mind, i.e. studying not only making you smart but also strong, beautiful and immortal, quite appealing, but my main point is that these novels give the reader a feeling of constant upward progress, even if they’re sometimes just treading water and repeating the same clichés over and over. It’s a cheap way to generate satisfaction, but it works for a good long while. The better novels in this genre use this crutch to get you attached to the characters while the rush lasts and vary up the patterns a little.
LitRPGs are not all about people playing games, many are about worlds where the game-like system is part of the natural laws, becomes such or is a special power of the protagonist. What makes them unique is that the powers in it are codified in a set of rules like in a game – in this way they’re the descendants of gaming novels such as LMS and work in similar ways but incorporate other tropes – in fact they’re often isekai as well.
They have the same advantage as cultivation novels in that progress is formally and visibly codified, allowing the author to feed success to the reader with very little effort. This in-character awareness of the usually meta elements of power and progression rules plays again into the isekai tropes of gaming knowledge being valuable in the new world.
But there’s also an element in LitRPGs that the other novels don’t have as much: system exploration. Trying to work out the kinks of a new ruleset and finding out what cool abilities are hidden in there is fun in and of itself, it’s the gaming part of role-playing games, the interaction with and mastery of game mechanics. Early MMORPG novels often had this effect of “wow that’s cool, I wanna play that game!”(despite many of the systems in novels being terribly designed as games). A system that the reader has some understanding of invites thoughts of “how would I build my character” or “what powers would I have” or “what class would I be” and a character finding a cool combo that the reader didn’t anticipate is a good recipe for awesome moments. It’s essentially a hard magic system with a high meta-awareness in the characters.
These rule systems being real in the world also allows additional societal mechanisms for worldbuilding, i.e. if there’s character classes in this world, how are they assigned, how do they influence social standing etc, creating additional avenues for conflict and storytelling.
Isekai is a pretty old genre (Narnia is an isekai), but its explosion with novels like Mushoku Tensei might be related to its appeal to the depression crowd. The “tensei” (rebirth) part is actually important here, because what many of these novels focus on is a) a chance to redo your life with the knowledge of your past mistakes, b) a fresh start in a new environment which c) often is of a nature that all the things you already know are suddenly useful in contrast to wherever you came from before. Isekai specifically appeals to people who’re unhappy with their current lives, feel they’ve wasted their life, realise they missed many opportunities or didn’t take them for either stupid or sad (usually mental health related) reasons and don’t envision their actual reality changing any time soon. Novels about starting over and doing it right this time or about coming to a place where what they used their life for and isn’t valuable in their world (gaming is a typical example) is now suddenly valued. There’s a reason many of these protagonists are overweight, lonely, depressed, bullied at school, stressed at work, bored with reality etc. Now of course we have a lot of novels specifically trying to subvert these (by this point) clichés, but I believe that’s where the trend started.
Cultivation is more interesting in this regard, because it’s a culturally fascinating phenomenon. We see structures not unlike those in western fantasy applied to eastern mythology – Xianxia and Xuanhuan are fairly new genres compared to Wuxia, which serves at one of their bases in terms of tropes but isn’t actually that common anymore. Unfortunately the basis for its popularity is less interesting, as I believe a not insignificant part of it is just that it’s new and unfamiliar (one might say exotic) without straying too far from familiar story tropes and structures as to be hard to understand.
Cultivation novels are also very focused on growth in power and on having this growth formally fixed in a structure – something that sort of puts them on the halfway mark to LitRPGs. There is a constant sense of progression that’s easily measurable for the reader. In contrast to western novels, cultivation novels tend to place more of a focus on the process of attaining more power, some going into quite a bit of depth in terms of philosophical understanding of magic powers (World of Cultivation being a prime example). Personally (as a nerd) I also find the very concept of comprehending the mysteries of the natural world (i.e. doing natural philosophy, also called science) giving you the power to control said forces with your mind, i.e. studying not only making you smart but also strong, beautiful and immortal, quite appealing, but my main point is that these novels give the reader a feeling of constant upward progress, even if they’re sometimes just treading water and repeating the same clichés over and over. It’s a cheap way to generate satisfaction, but it works for a good long while. The better novels in this genre use this crutch to get you attached to the characters while the rush lasts and vary up the patterns a little.
LitRPGs are not all about people playing games, many are about worlds where the game-like system is part of the natural laws, becomes such or is a special power of the protagonist. What makes them unique is that the powers in it are codified in a set of rules like in a game – in this way they’re the descendants of gaming novels such as LMS and work in similar ways but incorporate other tropes – in fact they’re often isekai as well.
They have the same advantage as cultivation novels in that progress is formally and visibly codified, allowing the author to feed success to the reader with very little effort. This in-character awareness of the usually meta elements of power and progression rules plays again into the isekai tropes of gaming knowledge being valuable in the new world.
But there’s also an element in LitRPGs that the other novels don’t have as much: system exploration. Trying to work out the kinks of a new ruleset and finding out what cool abilities are hidden in there is fun in and of itself, it’s the gaming part of role-playing games, the interaction with and mastery of game mechanics. Early MMORPG novels often had this effect of “wow that’s cool, I wanna play that game!”(despite many of the systems in novels being terribly designed as games). A system that the reader has some understanding of invites thoughts of “how would I build my character” or “what powers would I have” or “what class would I be” and a character finding a cool combo that the reader didn’t anticipate is a good recipe for awesome moments. It’s essentially a hard magic system with a high meta-awareness in the characters.
These rule systems being real in the world also allows additional societal mechanisms for worldbuilding, i.e. if there’s character classes in this world, how are they assigned, how do they influence social standing etc, creating additional avenues for conflict and storytelling.