Well said, Andrea! "Asian Fantasy" labels are not just reductive, but toxic and tokenizing. It often comes from a lack of reading broadly, and we hope those readers will read wider and learn and grow. (Ironically, for years my friends and I used to call many books "European Fantasy"--always meaning the shallow derivations of Tolkien and Camelot. That term obviously got challenged eventually.)

Well said, and one of the things you brought up that drives me right up the wall is when I'm reading a book review of a fantasy book by an Asian author and it only gets compared to other fantasy books by other Asian authors. It's just...ugh, no. Don't do that!

The comp thing really grinds ny gears. They do it with Black forward books as well. I have heard agents tell writers that if they are writing a "Black" fantasy book and can't find other Black fantasy books to try movies. And I always want to know why they can't just comp based on thematic similarities (I know the answer but it exhauts me 😂). These racialized categories are tokenizing.

Love it! If I get tossed in the World Fantasy panel about 'Asian fanrasy', stealing a lot of your points. Just so you know. ;)

I'm finishing my first fantasy novel, and the setting is inspired by the Joseon empire and surrounding countries - the setting was exactly for the reasons you said - I just wanted something familiar that wasn't 'medieval tolkeinish england" - as a newbie this video blew my mind, I learned a lot!

Nice video! It's very frustrating because it's racist for them to complain about fantasy books with Asain characters (which is so non-specific because it's a continent.) All of your points were spot on! I especially like the bit where you said if someone complains about "Asian fantasy", ask them what about it bothers them so much? ( other than the fact that "Asain fantasy" isn't a freaking genre.)