What are some books that are essential reading for weeaboos?

What are some books that are essential reading for weeaboos?

Journey to the west. Hands Fucking Down. maybe not japanese lore, but it's gonna hit the same notes.

been looking for a good translation of journey for a while. the ones I've been recommended cut out like 75% of the original story.

any ideas?

just get this one.

Shogun by James Clavell (because it's fun)
Speed Tribes by Greenfeld (non-fiction)

I heard The Japanese Mind by Davies & Ikeno is also good

Herkules Mirakulous

Musashi by Yoshikawa Eiji.

That's outdated, at this point the Yu translation is widely considered better.

More modern translation and also has a shite load of notes and annotations to help in reading.

Read the wiki.

Not "essential" but here are some good starting points:

A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe
The Sailer Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima
Kokoro by Natsume Soseki
Masks by Fumiko Enchi
Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami
The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanazaki
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

More than enough to get you started.

Don't listen to whoever recommended Shogun.

This. Don't read Shogun. It has a lot of incorrect Japanese, a lot of stuff that's really untypical for Japan, just a story from a westerner how he thinks Japan was at the time.

This, don't read shogun you fucking white piggu just watch them animes

Read Akutagawa's short fiction

>OP asks for weeblit
>Recommends chinklit

This board never fails to amuse me

Yakuza 5 was Veeky Forums

Has anyone here read Tale of the Heike? I've heard that it's the Japanese Iliad.

Bumping this for more recs.

Seconding this, I got all the volumes from this set and it's supposedly close to the original, but so far I'm following.

Yeah, cuz China, the largest economic and military superpower of the Asian continent for much of Ancient and pre-Modern history, has had no impact on Modern Japanese culture whatsoever.

I'm sure you'll tell me that the monkey boy in Journey to the West who flies around on a cloud made no impression upon anime?

I haven't heard that. I'm reading Tale of Genji right now, which is widely considered to be the world's first novel, and has influenced a ton of Japanese writers throughout history

Any books on the actual study of the material. There are a few good ones out there.

Dream of the Red Chamber

That's chinklit tho

>Missing the point this hard

I don't even know why you brought up anime

Bump.

I really liked this one back when I still read fiction, it also inspired me to get The Book of Five Rings, and Hagakure.

was the answer

>back when I read nonfiction
>The Book of Five Rings
>Hagakure

eeeeeeeeeeeedgyyy

Anyway all of Eiji Yoshikawa's books are great. Taiko is amazing if you like politics and warmongering. He also wrote a simpler retelling of The Tale Of Heike.


Another essential book is Natsume Soseki's I Am A Cat, mostly because every Japanese has to read it.

Kenzo Kitakata if you like Yakuza games.

My diary desu

>Musashi by Yoshikawa Eiji
>Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Murakami Haruki
>After the Quake by Murakami Haruki
>The haiku of Basho
>The haiku of Issa
>The tanka of Oshikochi Mitsune
>The Manyoshu
>The Kojiki
>The Nihon Shoki
>The Genji Monogatari
>The Heike Monogatari
>Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Lo-Kuan Chung (Yoshikawa Eiji has a translation as well if I'm not mistaken.)
>The Buddhist Canon

You should also watch Nippon Mukashi Banashi to familiarize yourself with Japanese folklore easily.

This list has quite a bit of what I would have added, actually. Good work user.

Yes, Go Rin no Sho and Hagakure are definitely worth a read. I would also recommend Fudochin Shinmyoroku (The Unfettered Mind) by Soho Takuan, and Heiho Kadensho (A Hereditary Book on the Art of War, commonly called "The Life-Giving Sword") by Yagyu Munenori.

How is it edgy to read a work written by the man who you just read a fiction about? How is it edgy to explore the mindset of the people whose time you are trying to comprehend?

Your attitude is pretentious and shallow.

>Not knowing what weeaboo means
I don't even know why you're on Veeky Forums

This is good. Also Taiko by him.
And The Water Margin, I know it's Chinese but it's pretty similar, and it's old so there was probably plenty of cultural cross-pollination between when it was written and now.

i would erase all japanese books for any Yakuza on PC

And that is what makes you a pleb.