Anyone here know any good Japanese Fantasy Novels? (Or to be honest, I'm interested if anyone knows any Chinese or Korean fantasy novels, as well). Sci-fi suggestions are also welcome.

The only one I can think of is 十二国記. Every other fantasy novel I've touched in Japanese has been an American or British one translated into Japanese. Don't get me wrong, I love re-reading books in Japanese (Looking to pick up 七王国の玉座 next!), but I really want some original Japanese fantasy.

By the way, in the terms of 七王国の玉座 (or A Game of Thrones (not literal)), and 十二国記, both are excellent and highly recommended.

*EDIT*

Just found this:

空色勾玉 by 荻原規子. Anyone have any info on it? Is it good? Apparently I can buy it in the NYC 紀伊国屋

There were a few Japanese F & SF suggestions mixed in with the English ones in this forum thread, plus Ryuujin27 pointed out this 教えて! goo thread.

For SF, I've been just picking things semi-randomly from the list of previous winners of the Seiun Award Best Japanese Novel category. (ja.wikipedia is probably more useful for grabbing author and title names.) So far I've read 太陽の簒奪者 (hard-sf all-ideas-not-characters, but good if you like that) and part of 敵は海賊・海賊版 (comic SF about space pirates and cats). Anything that managed to get voted 'best of the year' is unlikely to be a complete turkey and so is worth a punt if you like the sound of the plot.

Maybe there's an equivalent Japanese fantasy award?

[edit: fixed link]

I found fantasy and sci-fi light novel info on C-NOVEL's site. It seems to be down right now... Anyway, they have lists of the books they publish with summaries and excerpts. I ordered a couple of books I found there from bk1, but I've only read one of them so far (called 空の欠片, but I wasn't crazy about this one). That's just one example, I'm sure there are many book sites that have pictures and descriptions of themed light novels. If you look up a title you know on amazon, it'll suggest similar titles, so you can start there, and maybe find some publishers from that.

Try Guin Saga. It`s the longest running serialized novel in the world at 130 or so volumes and influenced lots of mangaka, most notably the Berserk series by Kentarou Miura. I read the first volume and enjoyed it. The unfortunate thing is the author died a few years ago, leaving it unfinished, but still worth a read.

They`ve also recently translated the first few volumes into English as well as making a manga and anime.

The Ring, Rasen, LOOP all by 鈴木光司.
Rasen is more fantasy/horror-SF than the ring.

If you've only seen the American version, you can definitely still enjoy the books because there's still a lot of differences which becomes really clear in rasen (it becomes sf-ish horror)

pm215 Wrote:There were a few Japanese F & SF suggestions mixed in with the English ones in this forum thread, plus Ryuujin27 pointed out this 教えて! goo thread.

For SF, I've been just picking things semi-randomly from the list of previous winners of the Seiun Award Best Japanese Novel category. (ja.wikipedia is probably more useful for grabbing author and title names.) So far I've read 太陽の簒奪者 (hard-sf all-ideas-not-characters, but good if you like that) and part of 敵は海賊・海賊版 (comic SF about space pirates and cats). Anything that managed to get voted 'best of the year' is unlikely to be a complete turkey and so is worth a punt if you like the sound of the plot.

Maybe there's an equivalent Japanese fantasy award?

I forgot about that thread. To update about the 教えてgoo thread, however: I went and checked out most of the novels listed in that thread, and unfortunately didn't find anything too interesting. That's why I'm back looking for more!

julianjalapeno Wrote:Try Guin Saga.

Quickly googled some stuff about it and it looks excellent. Thanks for the rec. I'll definitely be checking this out.

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:The Ring, Rasen, LOOP all by 鈴木光司.

I didn't know they were also books. Awesome. I'll look into those for sure.

To also recommend something else I forgot about: ブレイブ・ストーリー by 宮部みゆき. Very, very good.

[ファブリス]

pm215 Wrote:There were a few Japanese F & SF suggestions mixed in with the English ones in this forum thread (...)

I edited the topic title so that we can have two distinct threads. The Fantasy & SF thread is in Koohii Lounge and is not for Japanese novels.

ファブリス Wrote:

pm215 Wrote:There were a few Japanese F & SF suggestions mixed in with the English ones in this forum thread (...)

I edited the topic title so that we can have two distinct threads. The Fantasy & SF thread is in Koohii Lounge and is not for Japanese novels.

Thanks ファブリス

Does anyone know where I could find Japanese fantasy books (original or translated) in audio book form? The closest I've found is the first volume of Harry Potter.

Ryuujin27 Wrote:

pm215 Wrote:plus Ryuujin27 pointed out this 教えて! goo thread.

I forgot about that thread. To update about the 教えてgoo thread, however: I went and checked out most of the novels listed in that thread, and unfortunately didn't find anything too interesting. That's why I'm back looking for more!

Wow, that's embarrassing, I didn't even notice you were the OP in this thread :-)

*bump* does anyone else have any other fantasy book suggestions? The 教えて!goo thread is no longer available

pudding cat Wrote:*bump* does anyone else have any other fantasy book suggestions? The 教えて!goo thread is no longer available

Raising this thread from the dead to note that that's because I typoed the link -- it's still there at http://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/1062902.html .

Random extra content: I've nearly finished 新世界より by 貴志 祐介 (SF about a far future society where everybody basically has telekinesis, and the problems it causes and some of the mistakes they make as a society as a result), and I really liked it.

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西遊記 is a classic. It was written in Chinese, and I'm sure you could find a Korean translation as well. Here's a good Japanese one.