Deciphering the language of Japanese book covers

[omk3]

Book covers are designed to attract the reader’s eye in a book store, but they’re also designed to convey information. You can usually tell if a book is YA, horror, mystery, romance, humorous, “serious” literature, historical fiction, etc, at a glance. But it seems to me like different countries use different cover design conventions, and I’m still struggling with Japanese book covers.

Examples from my bookshelf:

1. 

Judging from the cover only, would you say this book is…

• Children’s book?
• Mystery?
• Humorous?
• Literary fiction?
• Horror?
• Romance?
• Fantasy?

It’s a mystery with many touches of humour, but definitely not for younger audiences.

Judging from the cover only, would you say this book is…

• Children’s book?
• Mystery?
• Humorous?
• Literary fiction?
• Horror?
• Romance?
• Fantasy?

It’s supposed to be horror with humorous elements. (haven’t read it yet so I’m going by the blurb)

3. 

Judging from the cover only, would you say this book is…

• Children’s book?
• Mystery?
• Humorous?
• Literary fiction?
• Horror?
• Romance?
• Fantasy?

It’s supposed to be a straight, adult mystery (haven’t read it yet so I’m going by the blurb)

Not in my bookshelf (yet?), but I ran into this book today:

4. ,

Judging from the cover only, would you say this book is…

• Children’s book?
• Mystery?
• Humorous?
• Literary fiction?
• Horror?
• Romance?
• Fantasy?

I don’t know exactly, but judging from the description and reviews it’s dark, and has mystery elements? The blurb on Amazon even calls it ノワール・エンタテインメント.

Please share covers of your own that have perplexed you or seemed misleading to you, or ways you can tell what a book is about by its cover!

[Belthazar]

Well, I’m glad I voted with the majority for every book, but I definitely would have pegged the third one as being Sci-Fi.

(What, exactly, is “literary fiction”? It’s a bit subjective, innit?)

[omk3]

@Belthazar

(What, exactly, is “literary fiction”? It’s a bit subjective, innit?)

Definitely, but I don’t know how to describe it really. I’d say it’s books that don’t belong to any particular genre, the kind that are more likely to win an Akutagawa or Naoki prize. If you have a better word please let me know!

[MissDagger]

Literary fiction is definitely a genre; but I am not sure if I can describe it well. Tends to be intellectual exploration of things rather than emotional. Can be a character study/vignette style. Doesn’t actually need a story. A lot of literary prizes goes to these kinda of books. Can be more playing/deep diving into one technique.

If I had to pick one word I would say intellectual and not necessarily in a good way. Can you tell how I feel about the genre in general? Give me something a bit more exciting please xD

[omk3]

Here are covers from books I own that I consider literary fiction, or non-genre fiction, or general fiction, or whatever else you may call them. Not all of them are deeply intellectual

,, , , ,

[ekg]

From the sounds of it, this would be called just fiction, since fiction is any book containing a literatry story, as opposed to books about facts, like sciencentific treatises, encyclopedias, manuals etc.

Under the umbrella of fiction, we find the specific literary genres, for example science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, tragedy, horror, mystery, etc.

[omk3]

Yes. But how to refer to it in so as to differentiate it from genre fiction? Honest question, because I sometimes want to browse online bookstores for exactly such books, and I have no idea how to filter the results. You can filter by mystery, horror, romance, sci-fi, etc, but there seems to be no proper keyword for “general” fiction or “just” fiction.

[omk3]

More fun with covers.

Mystery, Horror, or Other? (Judging from the cover only)

1. 

• Mystery
• Horror
• Other

It’s labeled as mystery.

2. 

• Mystery
• Horror
• Other

It’s labeled as horror.

3. 

• Mystery
• Horror
• Other

It’s labeled as mystery.

4. 

• Mystery
• Horror
• Other

It’s labeled as mystery.

5. 

• Mystery
• Horror
• Other

It’s labeled as mystery.

6. 

• Mystery
• Horror
• Other

It’s labeled as horror.

7. 

• Mystery
• Horror
• Other

It’s labeled as horror. (If it were me I’d put it in general fiction)

8. 

• Mystery
• Horror
• Other

It’s literary fiction. Actually literary, I believe.

9. 

• Mystery
• Horror
• Other

It’s labeled as horror.

10. 

• Mystery
• Horror
• Other

It’s labeled as horror.

[windupbird]

@omk3

9. 

Me: Aww, cute animals
The description: horror

[Midnightblue]

That was an interesting selection. I started out misjudging the first three and from then decided to pick the opposite of what I was immediately thinking – and look at that, my guesses were right more often.

Those mystery and horror covers are weirdly close and yet different from each other: it may be almost necessary to read the book description somewhere before buying one of these to avoid being misled.

[pocketcat]

@omk3

It’s labeled as horror.

It’s actually both I feel bad voting, I’ve seen most of these covers in book review videos

[omk3]

And then there are these annoyingly similar covers:

Letters on black background:

non fiction? (based on true story at least), mystery, Naoki prize winner

labeled as horror (I have my reservations)

Police procedural, mystery

With added flowers:

mystery

mystery

Or lanterns:

mystery short stories

[pocketcat]

@omk3

Police procedural, mystery

It’s got a jail cell! They’re trying!

[ekg]

I’d say there’s a difference here between how books are defined by literary science and how they’re marketed by store chains and by publishers. I’m not sure I’m able to answer this one. ^^; It’s not very clear-cut, that’s for sure. Just as it isn’t for games, movies or music etc. either.

And I’m thinking about these things mostly in Swedish, so that’s also a bit different, though the general problem surely exists there as well. Hopefully others have something more enlightening to add.

[omk3]

I knew (about) all these books since I set up the polls and I still voted, because I voted based on the impression I got from the cover, not what I knew of the book.

[ekg]

Also wanted to add that this exercise was a lot of fun! Made you think for a bit, and get confused for a bit! XD

[pocketcat]

I thought this may be a fun game to play as well:

• Fantasy
• Romance
• Sci-Fi
• Mystery

It’s romance

• Sci-Fi
• Fantasy
• Suspense
• Heart warming

It’s suspense

• Fantasy
• Romance
• Mystery
• Heart warming

It’s mystery

• Coming of age
• Sci Fi
• War stories
• Heart warming

It’s war stories

[Kazzeon]

@omk3

This says horror in the circle, and ホラー on the left.

I guess 3 could be anything, but 殺人 is a very good indicator of a book being a mystery.

When you say “by the book cover only”, do you mean just the image or all the information in the cover? (Title, image, text)

I got a pretty good score overall, mostly based on title + image, if it wasn’t just stated in the cover.

A lot of the books I’ve read, from drama, to fantasy/mystery, aren’t particularly telling with their covers. I’ll share some later.

They’re usually either based on the title, even if the title doesn’t have a lot of impact in the story, or based on something that happens in the book, without a lot of context.

[omk3]

Yeah, I meant art only. It’s the choice of style of art that intrigues me. Usually art+title are a better indicator, but sometimes even the title doesn’t clear up things enough.

[MissDagger]

I was looking at art, the choice of font, and the arrangement of title and such. The way I see it, I should be able to figure out genre without having to read the title.

My result: Turns out Western style covers (mostly American) have a different way to show genre than Japanese style. I have not figured out how to tell genre from Japanese covers… (I did get some right, but it felt rather random.)