What are some books that are essential reading for weeaboos?

>>9846695
Journey to the west. Hands Fucking Down. maybe not japanese lore, but it's gonna hit the same notes.

>>9846699
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?

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>>9846816
just get this one.

>>9846695
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.

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>>9846816
>>9846820
That's outdated, at this point the Yu translation is widely considered better.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.

>>9847827
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.

>>9847852
This, don't read shogun you fucking white piggu just watch them animes

>>9846695
Read Akutagawa's short fiction

>>9846699
>OP asks for weeblit
>Recommends chinklit

This board never fails to amuse me

>>9846695
Yakuza 5 was /lit/

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

Bumping this for more recs.

>>9847820
Seconding this, I got all the volumes from this set and it's supposedly close to the original, but so far I'm following.

>>9848062
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?

>>9848078
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.

>>9846695
Dream of the Red Chamber

>>9850140
That's chinklit tho

>>9849492
>Missing the point this hard

I don't even know why you brought up anime

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

>>9852173

>>9847889 was the answer

>>9852188
>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.

>>9846695
Kenzo Kitakata if you like Yakuza games.

>>9846695
My diary desu

>>9846695
>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.

>>9847827
This list has quite a bit of what I would have added, actually. Good work anon.

>>9852188
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.

>>9852331
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.

>>9850551
>Not knowing what weeaboo means
I don't even know why you're on 4chan

>>9847262
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.

>>9846695
i would erase all japanese books for any Yakuza on PC

>>9853215
And that is what makes you a pleb.