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2021

C.R.E.A.M

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I'm most interested in Heian Japan or Tang Dynasty China, but I'm open to anything. Rec me your historical Asian canons.

Would you be interested in being sold on Edo Japan? Because I have a lot of totally unanonymous Edo to sell you.

Sure!

Well, I'll try my best to be a little less biased first.

Tale of Tamamizu (Japanese Mythology) was recced last post as a kitsune trope inversion story - kitsune falls in love with a young lady, but chooses to become a lady in waiting and serves her instead of going all evil on her instead. Along the way the kitsune is somehow also a loyal daughter to adoptive human parents. Worldbuilding is nominated, so things to muck around with there! An otogizoshi, it's still nebulously Heianish. Available as a short translated piece at https://rmda.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/item/rb00013653/explanation/otogi_01

Good ole Heike Monogatari/Tale of Heike is back in the tagset this year, with only Taira no Shigemori ~~but who else do you need!!~~ If you want late Heian and Genpei War era stuff with a Still Good Heike Boy, then this is for you! Plenty to dig into here, especially with Shigemori's dad being the erstwhile Big Bad.

Veering back into China, there's the Chu-Han Contention RPF. Hoorah interregnums! You've got a peasant emperor who establishes the Han dynasty, opportunities for lots of strategic genius stuff and loyalty porn, and plenty of history to dig into. I'm very excited to see requests for this. GIVE US A REASON TO READ AND WRITE, NOMINATOR AND OTHERS!

Staying in the Chinese warring states veneer, you've got the pretty perennial Chi Bi/Red Cliff nomination and, this year, San Guo the 2010 TV AND San Guo Yan Yi. Nobody nominated San Guo Zi so we can't have a historiography-off, but hey, can't have everything. Zhuge Liang sells himself, so I won't shill for him here. The Yan Yi nominations look interesting, with a slightly larger cast!

For your moment of ~~zen~~ Dao, the Zhuangzi is back on the menu after a billion years hiatus. This one is super fascinating, as the nominator has posted a promo post with their favoured translation, one with localised names. So much potential for some witty stuff here, and the translations out there are fabulous. Here's a Wikipedia copypasta (with a different translator than the one the nominator chose, I believe) of a famous bit:

南海之帝為儵，北海之帝為忽，中央之帝為渾沌。儵與忽時相與遇於渾沌之地，渾沌待之甚善。儵與忽謀報渾沌之德，曰：人皆有七竅，以視聽食息，此獨無有，嘗試鑿之。日鑿一竅，七日而渾沌死。

The emperor of the Southern Seas was Lickety, the emperor of the Northern Sea was Split, and the emperor of the Center was Wonton. Lickety and Split often met each other in the land of Wonton, and Wonton treated them very well. Wanting to repay Wonton's kindness, Lickety and Split said, "All people have seven holes for seeing, hearing, eating, and breathing. Wonton alone lacks them. Let's try boring some holes for him." So every day they bored one hole [in him], and on the seventh day Wonton died.

— Zhuangzi, chapter 7 (Mair translation)

Alas, no Tang Dynasty Poets this year ): Or any RPF Asian poets, as far as I can see! Maybe the Manyoshu will come onboard next year or something.

BUT I can give you a 1% return on your Tang investment by shilling for Edo Era Japanese Intellectuals, copypastaing from the promo post: tl;dr: Shibukawa Shunkai/Yasui Santetsu REJECTS his family occupation of COURT GO PLAYER to go scramble around the whole of Japan as its first OFFICIAL ASTRONOMER! Along the way he pisses off SUPER GO GENIUS Dosaku, and intrigues SUPER MATHEMATICIAN GENIUS Seki Takakazu, underappreciated by modern mathematics but certainly appreciated by you. Somewhere along the way Tsuchimikado Yasutomi, whose name alone is worth a fic and whose title of DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU OF DIVINATION is just begging for fic, has to be convinced that the imported Senmyo calendar from Tang China ought to be replaced by the one Santetsu's coming up with.

There's also Edo Era Japanese Go Players RPF, which contains a set of very easily Google-able famous Go players with some fabulous opportunities for foe-yay and also just Edo worldbuilding. I lack the strength to shill for it in this comment, alas.

NOW BACK TO CHINA. There are a couple of Chinese TV series based around the Qing dynasty Qianlong Emperor's court, such as 如懿传 | Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace (WHAT an English translation) and 延禧攻略 | Story of Yanxi Palace. If you have the stomach for the episodes, I hear Ruyi's pretty good and has great costuming, but I haven't sat through one of these in a l o o n g time.

Alas, my knowledge of Korea and other bits of Asia is wildly lacking, so I can't help there.

My Country: The New Age sounds up your alley. It's Korean though. It's great and angsty (and a bit slashy if you're into that)

+1

And though this may not be a draw for everyone, it has Jang Hyuk (one of my favorite actors) being dangerous and hot in it.

How happy/sad is the ending?

Not everyone lives, not everyone dies? I'd probably classify it as bittersweet, I guess.

Pretty much every character I cared about died. (There is one exception, but he was never going to die because history is a spoiler.)

Of course, it was sold to me as a big gay tragedy, so I knew what I was getting.

The Long Ballad is in the Tang Dynasty, but while I like it a lot, it's not what I'd call historically accurate (if that matters to you.)

The Story of Minglan (Northern Song Dynasty) is really good too.

There’s also Chang Ge Xing/Legend of Li Changge, if you’re open to webcomics. (The Long Ballad is the TV adaptation of the web manhua).

Four Onmyoji adaptations in the tagset this year with a common source in the novels, only one of which is actually Heian-ish as the rest are Chinese canons

Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung is set in early 19th century (ish because the premise is ahistorical) Joseon and is a romcom about women being appointed as court annalist-historians. There's court intrigue, office drama, secret pasts, the usual het romance, but the (female) protagonist is really fun and there's a nice supporting cast; what makes it really stand out is that a good half of the time the plot is about the sanctity and independence of the historical record and how important it is to keep it from being censored or corrupted by people in power.

This show was a delight! I really enjoyed it.

seconded, the show was a lot of fun and the romance was actually charming!

You might like The Imperial Coroner. It's set in the Tang Dynasty-- though I cannot vouch for it's historical accuracy-- and is about young female coroner trying to get an official position who ends up dragged into mystery and political intrigue.

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C.R.E.A.M

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia

Re: Canon Recs - historical Asia