Originality in cultural mediation: periodical adaptations of the classical Chinese novel Jin Ping Mei in postwar Japan

The sixteenth-century Chinese literary masterpiece Jin Ping Mei was marginalized in Japan until the post-World War II era, when the country’s rapidly shifting socio-cultural landscape enabled paraliterature to prosper, which witnessed Jin Ping Mei’s outreach to a broader readership through serialized translation. This paper critically examines the concept of originality within serialized translation through constructing a conceptual framework that explores the cult, duality, and origins of originality. The study posits that originality in serialized translation is neither fixed nor pure, but fluid, collaboratively generated, and continually evolving through the processes of repetition, imitation, and (re)imagination. Through an analysis of the serialized translations of Jin Ping Mei by Shinji Komada, Mariko Hayashi, and Mami Takezaki, this study reveals that their distinct forms of originality – scholarly, literary, and transmedial – are intricately crafted through serialization. In other words, serialization serves as a testbed for translators to experiment, refine, and assert their distinctive originality.