Remove ads

Japanese manga and novels - General Discussion

I mean, while those are issues with the American comics industry, they're not the problem. (Also the insulting their audience is the biggest comicsgate dogwhistle I've seen in a while, so kindly fuck off).

After all, there's plenty of independent comics that don't have the flaws of the big two that sell just as bad if not worse.

The problem was the pivot to the direct market which narrowed their audience to superfans's and collectors, after which the bottom fell out of the collector's market in the 90s and the whole industry never recovered.

Also for a long long time trades have outsold floppies and the big two never gave a shit or tried to change their business model at all, and series still live or die based on floppy sales in a time of digital comics.

Hell, it's not just manga that outsells American comics, there's a young adult graphic novel market supported by the big American publishers that outsells comics.

Comics have doubled and tripled down on a dead distribution model for decades, that's why they're in this mess.
 
Just finished reading Death is the Only Ending for the Villainess. The web novel seems to have been machine translated and cleaned up afterwards, so there were lots of grammatical errors and other small repeating flaws. Made it a bit difficult to follow at points, but the translation was good enough to stick with all the way through. I've been following the manga adaptation which is much better translated though, so my existing familiarity with the story might've helped in that regard.

The story's real good. Probably one of my favorite of the Reincarnated Villainess genre. I don't have too much to say about it at the moment, but the final chapter left such a... warm feeling in my chest that I feel like I should leave some sort of a record of my feelings that I can look back on later.

The main plot of the story concludes in chapter 231, but there's a series of side stories afterwards that effectively act as an extended epilogue. These side chapters are essentially the actual ending of the novel, capping off the various character arcs and wrapping up the overarching narrative with a much needed sense of closure. Originally, when I reached the first ending at 231 I was somewhat disappointed with the story. I didn't dislike how the story developed, but I also didn't have strong feelings about it's conclusion. Whenever I finish a game or book that I really care about, I always have a mixed feeling of satisfaction and sadness. Satisfaction at seeing the characters and narrative run their full course, but also sadness due to the fact that there isn't another chapter to move onto and that the world that engaged me so deeply will no longer move forward. That feeling is what makes a work stick with me, and Death is the Only Ending seemed like it could be one of them up until that point.

In hindsight, my dissatisfaction came from the lack of closure for the protagonist's personal narrative. The main plot was resolved, but her development hadn't reached it's conclusion yet. Thankfully, the side stories address just that, and the second ending carried the sense of conclusiveness that I needed to feel satisfied with the story as a whole.
 
Last edited:
I tried reaching some of the light novel version of ascendance of a bookworm and it is very, very, very cringe.

There's no real other way to put it. It's fucking cringe.

The weakest point of ascendance of a bookworm has always been its dialogue and the dialogue absolutely dominates the light novel. Myne has never really changed her speech patterns, ever, even though she's reincarnated into what is the medieval fantasy world and so you get someone who sounds like she's chatting on LINE in the middle of what is otherwise a medieval fantasy world with quite a bit of attention paid to how it functions. From the odd Eeeeh! or the Bwuah! as well it feels so much like someone trying to write down the screenplay to an anime instead of like actually writing an actual novel. There are quite beautiful light novels out even taking the prose alone without the story to back it up.

This isn't one of them.

Story's good. Plot's interesting and dynamic. Setting is properly cared for. Writing's cringe.
 
Jemnite said:
Story's good. Plot's interesting and dynamic. Setting is properly cared for. Writing's cringe.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I find Myne's utterly different dialogue and tone refreshing, contrasted to everyone else we see, personally. Later novels (and maybe the first? Been a while) feature scenes from other POV, and they tend to talk and 'think' differently to Myne, as you'd expect. The little booklover girl is a giant oddball already, anyway, so her weird dialogue just bounced right off me as far as 'stuff which I find annoying' goes.
 
Yeah I have my problems with Bookworm but the dialogue isn't one of them.

Man is the setting depressing though, I'm finding it harder and harder to read. (Finished Part 3 Chapter 5)
 
blast flame said:
Man is the setting depressing though
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Myne is slowly improving things! Kinda. She's limited by social conventions, money and her sickly body, but the girl tends to do stuff which improve the lives of those around her.

Like making a well, or stopping an entire village getting purged because of the corrupt leader.
 
Mizu said:
I find Myne's utterly different dialogue and tone refreshing, contrasted to everyone else we see, personally. Later novels (and maybe the first? Been a while) feature scenes from other POV, and they tend to talk and 'think' differently to Myne, as you'd expect. The little booklover girl is a giant oddball already, anyway, so her weird dialogue just bounced right off me as far as 'stuff which I find annoying' goes.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The problem isn't that she's different it's that she doesn't acclimate at all. You can try living in a place with someone for years on end and your behavioral patterns will most definitely change. Hell, people forget entire languages if they don't use them for a long time. Adapting and acclimating to isekai settings is one of the big signifiers that it is an actual living world and not just some fun romp that you're going through to have a power fantasy and while Myne certain shows her attachment in other ways like emotionally and through her relationships, her dialogue is just weird rejection of the other work going on to make you believe that.

Ascendance tries to accomplish a pretty down-to-earth and sobering high fantasy politics and technology improvement series, but its protagonist is tonally lifted from a slapstick comedy and the juxtaposition is incredibly jarring.
 
Bookworm mainly looks good in comparison with its genre cohort, where functional prose and a solid translation places you pretty high up the quality rankings. :V

Even just checking some of the other titles offered by J-Novel Club, you will be absolutely floored by how much better than them it is. It's pleasant enough as a weekly serial if you've gotten that far though, so I continue to enjoy it.

I haven't been reading a ton of unusual stuff recently, mostly sticking with the manga series that all the cool kids are reading like Sousou no Frieren, Oshi no Ko, Kaguya-sama, Jujutsu Kaisen, Blue Period...

Oh, I don't think I ever mentioned, but Asahinagu, the naginata sports manga I talked about here a while ago, ended! It was pretty good, though the real peak moments were mostly in the middle and late-middle parts of the series. I kinda wanted to see Asahi's third year, but I can understand that the author felt that 30+ volumes was already plenty long lol

If it ever gets a translation I do recommend it.

The other standout has been Otherside Picnic. The manga rocks some pretty incredible art, and the translated novel has been a ton of fun. It kinda sticks out weirdly on J-Novel Club because it's just such an inherently much better constructed work - it's shocking how much stuff happens per volume for one, and the prose and character relationships are very nice. Sorawo's flaws and background really helps a lot here. My personal favourite character is probably Kozakura though, unfortunate woman that she is.

Speaking of J-Novel Club, some other series I've casually checked out:
  • Holmes of Kyoto wants to be Hyouka but it's just kinda unconvincing. The mysteries aren't much fun, being both too low-stakes and too weird without being interestingly weird.
  • Reincarnated Price Herscherik is very similar to Bookworm but with a more serious take. It... just about manages to not collapse under its own premise, which is high praise given how weak most of these reincarnation stories typically are. I wouldn't recommend it going by what I read, but it's not bad.
  • Are You Okay With A Slightly Older Girlfriend? is, on the other hand, pure fluff, and is pretty bad.
  • Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf! is also pure fluff (so far) and is a little bad, but not unenjoyable for what it is.
The most unusual stuff I've picked up recently has probably been Meteor World Actor, an eroge a visual novel about the shittiest homicide detective (in multiple senses of the word) in a modern-ish urban fantasy setting and his newbie buddy the cute elf girl. It is carried pretty well by the protagonist being a very petty kind of scumbag without generally being actually vile, but overall it doesn't hold up very well. I got through the first three of four chapters (which are apparently followed by character routes) and it was pretty fun, but both the police procedural and murder mystery elements are weak, the police stuff ranges from amusing to kind of seriously tone-deaf or offensive in our wonderful modern world, and in general the idea of it is a lot stronger than the execution.

It's hard not to want to compare it to Cop Craft, which is probably a little more grounded and had a stronger sense of a main plot in the brief (and poorly made) anime we got, but overall honestly they're pretty similar in their flaws.

I wouldn't recommend it, but if my description catches anyone's interest I wouldn't say it's so bad it isn't worth checking out, just be ready to bail.

On the topic of visual novels, Summer Pockets REFLECTION BLUE is nearing a full fan translation apparently, so that might be interesting to pick up.

I've also been reading Tsukino Mito's essay book slowly, which is quite amusing as expected, but I don't think anyone has translated it so r i p.
 
Last edited:
Finally got around to reading "I'm a Spider" -- trawling through the Web Novel felt too much of a hassle, so I just bit the bullet, and went straight for the Light Novel. Currently just finished Volume 10, and planning to start going through Volume 11 in July when Volume 12 gets fully translated. And man, the manga's really selling the whole thing short, since that's how I initially started with the series.

Like, I found out about the whole "Interludes"/"Side Stories" from the Anime Clips, but you know, you never really expected them to be that interesting. Like when I saw the Table of Content, I thought "Whatever, I guess they might be important". We're all here for Kumoko, after all! But they're really really really good, and really really really interesting, and made me really-ize how muuuuch I was missing out! I was like "whoa, damn", hook, line, and sinker!

Anyway, end of Volume 10 was super hype. Can't wait until Volume 12 got released.
 
Last edited:
I am up to date on Noragami now. Incidentally, I am now deeply depressed. These two facts probably have nothing to do with each other.

Probably.
 
Anyone got a good Shoujo and/or some sort of city/business/civilization/territory building light novels? I'm kind of in the mood for more works like Accomplishments of the Duke's Daughter. So tha meant either shoujo or some sort of story with a good amount of 'resource' building themes on it. Ideally, it would be both, and involving some sort of interesting Isekai situation; so a girl reincarnated as a prince sounds cool, but a guy reincarnated into the antagonist and building his resource from there is cool as well.

I'm not particularly picky, other than a good balance between focus on relationship and resource building, and a good balance of narration and dialogue that doesn't feel dogshit (official translation of Arifureta is my minimum bar).
 
I wanted to ask a question, but thought I might find the answer in the previous pages... But I've quickly realized I won't, because I'd be too busy checking out some of the superb stuff you've been recommending.

Anyway, the question. I've recently found a dialogue online (on Reddit specifically), which went like this:

"Yeah I'm a rabbit I have rabbit ears OwO. Can we get over it already?"

"I...I hate that I know what series you're referencing".

Which tells me there's a manga about people with rabbit ears, and one of the main cast is (probably) a girl, and she be sassin'. Naturally, I got curious. Did anyone hear of a manga like that?

Of course, I can also offer some recommendations. Let's start with...

"The Dragon, the Hero, and the Courier". It's absurd. It's historical. It's a riot. It is, approximately, "What if medieval fantasy was more like medieval, and less videogamey - but still very videogamey, with levels and fantasy monsters?" It's written by a person who very obviously enjoys digging through medieval history (of Europe, despite being Japanese), and I really like the artstyle. Also, despite sometimes absurd combinations, it all holds together with (relatively) strict logic.

"Goblin is Very Strong". A fluffy, light-hearted comedy... Until it's not, and cosmic matters are at stake. But even then, it still is. A goblin - soldier of the Demon King's army - is very strong. And she goes against Human Heroes. And they go against her. And sometimes they win. And sometimes they don't run away screaming despite losing several times to a Goblin. And then, somehow, it's a complicated(-ish) Shoujo Ai plural-angle whatsitcalled. The series is, apparenlty, complete, but I haven't reached the ending yet.

Do you know of the popular "My Hero Academia"? Of course you do. Do you know of it's prequel/spinoff "Vigilante: M.H.A. Illegals"? Now you do. It's fantastic. I enjoyed it, like, so much. Especially the big "That's probably the climax of the series" fight between The Flash (and/or the Flesh?) and the Spoiler. Not much of a spoiler, because y'all could guess that much, but man, it sure touched something. Maybe it was sleep deprivation, because I couldn't put it down even at 2 AM. I'll stop now, before my rant gets longer than the entire thread.

If I ever had to pick some absolute gems of any manga I have ever, ever read, I would put Retired Heroes into top five. But it's not Japanese, it's short, and the ending leaves the readers wanting for more. Maybe that's why it's so good.

Feng Lengshun said:
I'm not particularly picky, other than a good balance between focus on relationship and resource building, and a good balance of narration and dialogue that doesn't feel dogshit (official translation of Arifureta is my minimum bar).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Not sure how Shoujo it is, but there's "The Population of the Frontier Owner Starts With 0", or "Ryoumin 0-nin Start no Henkyou Ryoushusama". Or, simpler, '"Dias the Blue" and a Blue-Horned Girl'.
 
Not in Person said:
Which tells me there's a manga about people with rabbit ears, and one of the main cast is (probably) a girl, and she be sassin'. Naturally, I got curious. Did anyone hear of a manga like that?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Maybe it's Kumoko? As in, "Kumo Desuga, Nanika?" which is translated as "So I'm a Spider, So What?" although a more direct translation would be "Yes, I'm a spider, What of it?"
 
Yes, but the rabbit. Was the rabbit actually a herring? I have a fetish vested interest in rabbit ears.
 
QUOTE="Not in Person, post: 23933916, member: 6493"]
Yes, but the rabbit. Was the rabbit actually a herring? I have a fetish vested interest in rabbit ears.
[/QUOTE]
No rabbits in the spider one. For sassy rabbit girls, it was probably "How Not to Summon a Demon Lord", as both the "thief" archetype in the MC's party and the adventurer guildmaster are sassy rabbit girls.
 
That's more of a clue than I had before, so thank you. I'm guessing it's some sort of an Isekai... How trashy is it?
 
Not in Person said:
Aye, thank you. I remember you've been reading things in Japanese - how noob-friendly is this manga? Is there a furigana?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

For the most part, no furigana. In terms of vocabulary the sports and naginata vocab is the biggest challenge, but is also the easiest to glide over in a lot of cases. Since it has a very strong visual component, and most dialogue is connected to action, it's not the hardest manga to read out there by any means, but I wouldn't want to without a core familiarity with kanji. At the very least reliably recognizing the most common 500-1000 in flashcards, I think.
 
My recent treat for today was remembering the Reigen manga exists and then finding it's had an official english release. I'm a bit low on money, but I'll be getting that soon, along with more of Call of the Night. That's been a great read so far, which me getting to volume 3 through momentum in spite of that normally draining out of me quickly with literally anything fun.
 
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top