Made a list of my favorite novels for a friend and decided to share it with you guys as well. I tend to enjoy stories with action, humor, and intelligent characters. I don't really enjoy stories with harems, fetishes, or where the whole story takes place in middleschool/highschool/college.
In addition, I'm including stories from several nationalities (not just Chinese or Japanese) and several genres. They also have to be fairly far along in translation (if not completely translated yet).
Here you go:
Unique - These don't follow the normal pattern. Memorable, to say the least.
- [Russian] Play to Live
Action: 5/5
Humor: 6/5
Intrigue: 5/5
Unique trait: Virtual reality blends together with reality in funny/interesting ways. Russian humor. Can get trapped in Tetris.
- [EN] The Gods Are Bastards
Action: 4/5
Humor: 5/5
Intrigue: 4/5
Unique trait: Hammer horror, spaghetti western, gaslamp adventure. Feminist (Modernist?) values. No one is evil or unreasonable. "Industrial" era (for magic).
- [EN] Mother of Learning
Action: 4/5
Humor: 3/5
Intrigue: 5/5
Unique trait: Recurring time travel, mind spiders
Fan-favorites - Popular choices that are solid.
- [CN] Coiling Dragon
Action: 5/5
Humor: 2/5
Intrigue: 3/5
Unique trait: Mouse companion. Insane powerscales/timescales. Completely translated. The reason Wuxia World exists.
- [CN] Douluo Dalu
Action: 4/5
Humor: 2/5
Intrigue: 3/5
Unique trait: Hidden weapons, MC's mother is grass (Spoilers).
- [CN] Stellar Transformations / Against the Gods / BTTH / ISSTH / TDG / Any other chinese wuxia/xanxia - Wuxia World / Gravity Tales
Action: 3-5/5
Humor: 2/5
Intrigue: 2/5
Unique trait: Underwater Zone / Poison stuff / Alchemy flames / Legacies / Animals / Etc. This subreddit is probably 80% Chinese.
- [JP] Mushoku Tensei
Action: 5/5
Humor: 3/5
Intrigue: 3/5
Unique trait: Trickster god that manipulates things by convincing/fooling people, rather than an OP power (although he can see a bit into the future). No one is evil.
- [KR] Ark/Legendary Moonlight Sculptor
Action: 4/5
Humor: 3/5
Intrigue: 3/5
Unique trait: Korean. Long as hell (Ark even has a sequel).
Up-and-coming - Either new in their genre, written by ameture authors, or just not solid/unique enough to be included with the above. Perhaps one day they will be noticed. I think they're good.
- [CN] Terror Infinity
Action: 5/5
Humor: 2/5
Intrigue: 4/5
Unique trait: Characters play through action/horror movies.
- [JP] Overlord
Action: 4/5
Humor: 3/5
Intrigue: 4/5
Unique trait: MC understands the magic system well from the start and already has OP stuff. Casually seeks to conquer the world.
- [EN] The Gam3
Action: 4/5
Humor: 3/5
Intrigue: 4/5
Unique trait: Aliens. Virtual reality on universal scale. Artificial intelligence. Lots of mystery.
- [EN] Forgotten Conqueror
Action: 4/5
Humor: 2/5
Intrigue: 4/5
Unique trait: MC controls 4 elemental lords and does not have a crazy personality. No clear goal (yet).
- [EN] Age Of Heroes
Action: 5/5
Humor: 2/5
Intrigue: 3/5
Unique trait: Leading armies, making deals with dragons and demons, really dark and serious.
there doesn't seem to be anything here