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The two main stories I'm reading are ISSTH and Tales of Demons and Gods. If you haven't read any of Tales of Demons and Gods I would highly suggest it. The main character is more or less normal even if judged outside of the wuxia/xianxia genre standards. The basic premise is the main character dies fighting the world's bad guy and reincarnates into his younger self. The main character is also, of course, the best at everything. The bad stories I catch up on when stuck in an airport are Martial God Asura, Against The Gods, Sovereign of Three Realms (which in terms of the MC is probably the best). I'm waiting for Battle Through The Heavens to get further than the manga before I pick that back up.
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Jun 1, 2016 16:44
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I used to like SOTR a lot but then after chapter 120 or so it took a huge dive in quality and I lost all interest.
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Jun 1, 2016 16:48
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Tdg is hilarious because the mc solves all of his problems by bribing people until they swear their undying loyalty to him.
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Jun 1, 2016 16:52
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DeafAsianQT posted:I used to like SOTR a lot but then after chapter 120 or so it took a huge dive in quality and I lost all interest. Yeah. I was never very invested in whatever cultivation/fighting power levels the author made up for the story, so I just left once they became the main focus. It turns out that I really wanted to read about the guy's past life, where he was the wise old sage that knew everything, rather than the current one where he was generic punch wizard number whatever. Irisize fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 17:13
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Serious Frolicking posted:Tdg is hilarious because the mc solves all of his problems by bribing people until they swear their undying loyalty to him. Pretty much, which is a nice change of pace from most of these stories where people follow the main character because they love him even though he is constantly murdering people. Nie Lie's absurd knowledge of alchemy and inscription patterns allow him to make such obscene amounts of wealth that he wins over anyone he chooses. Also because of his previous life he knows who the dickheads are and who the cool people are so he has basically been screwing over all the jerks and helping out all the cool dudes who will help him win against the Sage Emperor.
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Jun 1, 2016 18:15
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He doesn't inconvenience himself in any way to get all these followers for life. He gives them things that mean nothing to him. When he meets a new group of people he pulls a new commodity that he has an infinite amount of out to bribe them. Nei Li is the rich, self-important chosen one that every other wuxia protagonist beats up.
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Jun 1, 2016 18:37
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I want a story about no-nonsense small town living in a xianxia world. "Ope, there goes another immortal battle again. Go inside, kids." Maybe the MC has no power except total immunity to xianxia bullshit powers.
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Jun 1, 2016 18:57
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TDG protag is creeeeeeepy. Skeeves on young girls constantly, relying on his hundreds of years of experience to play them like a fiddle. Isn't it the story where he smells the bathing water of a 14 year old and refuses to leave her bathroom? Xianxia ya'll.
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Jun 1, 2016 19:01
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Plus lately in tdg they pulled back from "this pubescent girl is Nei Li's one true love and he is uninterested in anyone else" for "oh yeah I guess he also hooked up with this other girl in his past life, time for a harem".
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Jun 1, 2016 19:32
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Webnovels in general seem to be a mix of good and bad ideas, that's what happens when you have little to no editing and are expected to publish X number of words per day. You can't go back at the end and say "This subplot turned out to be terrible, better rewrite it" because it's already been online for months. I think the trick to enjoying the format is to focus on the parts that are either good, or hilariously bad and just let the mediocre and creepy just fade from your memory. Good example from TDG: Nie Li meets a thousand year old ghost of one of the founding elders of his home country, who offers to take him as a disciple. Nie Li makes fun of his ancient "wisdom" and turns him into a bird. Now Nie Li is walking around with a talking bird who also happens to be the great great great grandfather of his future father-in-law and current king, a guy who absolutely loathes Nie Li for creeping on his daughter, but can't afford to kill him because they need his knowledge to save the kingdom. When the three of them finally end up in a room together, the results are hilarious.
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Jun 1, 2016 22:23
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Avulsion posted:Webnovels in general seem to be a mix of good and bad ideas, that's what happens when you have little to no editing and are expected to publish X number of words per day. You can't go back at the end and say "This subplot turned out to be terrible, better rewrite it" because it's already been online for months. ISSTH is a mixture of good and great ideas. 
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Jun 1, 2016 22:58
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I'm on chapter 98 of Emperor's Domination (or as I like to call it, Tyrant of Emperors). The biggest weakness I can find for this writer so far is that he really likes to dump world-building info sessions right in the middle of where you want to hear about the MC being awesome/a dickhead. As for how terrible the MC is, on a scale of 1 being My Disciple Died Again MC and 10 being Literally Hitler, he rates about a 3 for me. He lords his superiority over everyone else, even though it looks like he's an absolute weakling. He can certainly back his cockiness up, but when he takes action he's a bit too ruthless. He doesn't seem TOO hypocritical, but there's still 1500 chapters to go through.
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Jun 2, 2016 12:27
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I really like that Xu Qing saved Meng Hao. It's really cute  And now he gets the chance to show his devotion to her. e: also the Black Sieve sect continues to be an awesome concept, and I love that Meng Hao's best power is now "mountains". brainwrinkle fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Jun 2, 2016 |
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Jun 2, 2016 16:04
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brainwrinkle posted:I really like that Xu Qing saved Meng Hao. It's really cute I like how the logical conclusion to that was apparently building a quaint log cabin and living a modest life together. At the foot of loving Mount Doom.
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Jun 4, 2016 05:49
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Man, some of these locations has way too many adjectives for it to be reasonably translated. They all end up sounding like a .hack location: Ancient Heavenly Graveyard, Demonic Spine Escarpment, etc. They're just missing the Greek letter to make it truly .hack.
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Jun 4, 2016 15:22
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In these dark times when there's nary a web novel worth reading, I've happily stumbled upon Live Dungeon!, which started just back in April, but is already some 500 pages long. As usual it's about a guy who gets sucked into his precious game, but there are distinct characters to be found, and an attention to detail in how battles develop, which makes it quite enjoyable. Also haven't spotted any slavery or rape yet, yay. The plot is primarily focused on the main character's ambition to convince the game world's population that white mages aren't worthless, and he works hard to introduce the "tank, healer, damage dealer" strategy to advance dungeon progression, so he can hopefully get back to the real world. It's currently ranked #1 on Narou's monthly popularity list, so a translator group is bound to pick it up any day now, if they haven't already. Probably unreadable garbage if you were never addicted to MMORPGs, though.
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Jun 4, 2016 17:22
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Yinlock posted:I like how the logical conclusion to that was apparently building a quaint log cabin and living a modest life together.
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Jun 4, 2016 18:39
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Good grief, the writer for Emperor's Domination truly is full of euphemisms for females. At least a paragraph is spent on every major female character, describing how jaw-dropping gorgeous each one is. When describing their assets, he brings out some really creative similes, analogies, and euphemisms. At least these female characters don't turn into absolute jobbers (for the most part, so far). It will be interesting to see how the translation teams deal with these descriptors later on. Also, Chinese insults can be really creative. "The one who's surname is Yan (燕)" is better translated as "Ball-less sack of poo poo," since it's actually an insult imply that the person you're directing it to to be lacking in testicular department. jwang fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Jun 5, 2016 |
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Jun 4, 2016 23:40
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I'm having trouble remembering a series I read a while back, and was wondering if anyone remembers it. I think it was a web novel, but it might have been a manga or a manhwa? The main character is an npc from one of the dragon quest games who spends his whole life sitting around in the village tending a small campfire. At some point, something happens to the hero, and he's kind of forced to step up and actually do stuff other than sit on his rear end and burn sticks all day.
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Jun 6, 2016 08:46
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Captain Bravo posted:I'm having trouble remembering a series I read a while back, and was wondering if anyone remembers it. I think it was a web novel, but it might have been a manga or a manhwa? The main character is an npc from one of the dragon quest games who spends his whole life sitting around in the village tending a small campfire. At some point, something happens to the hero, and he's kind of forced to step up and actually do stuff other than sit on his rear end and burn sticks all day. How I stalked some dude with an exposed nipple and stumbled upon the Zenithian Sword Also check out MonsterXMonster by the same author.
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Jun 6, 2016 08:50
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Man maybe I don't read a lot of translations, but chapter 2 of this has to be the worst I've ever read. Like, good on the guy for trying but if you're bad at both languages why bother?
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Jun 6, 2016 10:58
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Avulsion posted:How I stalked some dude with an exposed nipple and stumbled upon the Zenithian Sword This is it, perfect! And I didn't even know MxM was by the same dude, neat. Thanks! Edit: I finally gave Savage Divinity a chance, and holy hell this is probably the best-translated LN I've ever seen. quote:She's very nice about it, but all it does is make me cry harder. Live Free and Cry Hard: The Story of Rayne. It's kind of sad when you keep reading something based purely on how well-translated it is, rather than how good the plot or characters are, but I'm hoping it'll pick up in a few chapters and make it worth it.  Double Edit: quote:I'm going to be a Muscle Wizard Ok, I'm hooked. 
Captain Bravo fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Jun 7, 2016 |
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Jun 6, 2016 11:46
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Captain Bravo posted:Edit: I finally gave Savage Divinity a chance, and holy hell this is probably the best-translated LN I've ever seen. 
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Jun 7, 2016 04:11
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Captain Bravo posted:This is it, perfect! And I didn't even know MxM was by the same dude, neat. Thanks! Original English work. Author now posts his story here. http://www.fictiongrill.com/ Here is another original English web novel . Practical Guide to Evil. Also very good. Fantasy theme (orcs, sword and board). https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/ Oh, look, another one. Worm. It is complete and very good. Super hero theme. https://parahumans.wordpress.com/ There are a handful of good English web novels out there that would make excellent YA novels if they were published.
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Jun 7, 2016 04:52
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Deadly Ham Sandwich posted:Original English work. Author now posts his story here. http://www.fictiongrill.com/ If we're talking about good English web novels one shouldn't forget Mother of Learning. Which is basically Harry Potter in Edge of Tomorrow.
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Jun 7, 2016 05:35
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I also wanna throw some love towards Sevens, as it seems to kind of get lost in the flood of ISSTH-mania. It's really, really good. It definitely has a fair share of rough spots, the "harem" bullshit is explained but still annoying, the translation is better than Machine Translation, but still has hiccups, the overarching story is kind of inimaginative and the world is pretty cookie-cutter, but holy poo poo I loving love the main plot device. Someone mentioned, a while back, that it's fun to have a peanut gallery in the story itself making fun of the main character for the reader, but the author takes it so much further than that and it's great. Every best scene either takes place in the jewel, is about the jewel, or just in some way involves the jewel and its inhabitants. It can get really grating reading chapter after chapter of lampshaded genre bullshit from the fourth-wall breaking robot maid, but the scenes with his ancestors make it all worth it. It's one of the few things people have linked in here that's been good enough to bring tears to my eyes. I can't recommend it enough. That being said, I have only just hit the prologue of the seventh chapter, and there are quite a few ways this could tailspin into a burning wreck. 
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Jun 7, 2016 07:39
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Man this week's honzuki chapter 
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Jun 7, 2016 09:42
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Captain Bravo posted:I also wanna throw some love towards Sevens, as it seems to kind of get lost in the flood of ISSTH-mania. It's really, really good. It definitely has a fair share of rough spots, the "harem" bullshit is explained but still annoying, the translation is better than Machine Translation, but still has hiccups, the overarching story is kind of inimaginative and the world is pretty cookie-cutter, but holy poo poo I loving love the main plot device. Someone mentioned, a while back, that it's fun to have a peanut gallery in the story itself making fun of the main character for the reader, but the author takes it so much further than that and it's great. Every best scene either takes place in the jewel, is about the jewel, or just in some way involves the jewel and its inhabitants. It can get really grating reading chapter after chapter of lampshaded genre bullshit from the fourth-wall breaking robot maid, but the scenes with his ancestors make it all worth it. It's one of the few things people have linked in here that's been good enough to bring tears to my eyes. I can't recommend it enough. Just a warning, while Sevens is very good at times, I eventually gave up at about ch 250, when I literally couldn't keep count of all his harem girls. The work is completed now, though, so maybe I'll drag myself through the last quarter eventually.
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Jun 7, 2016 12:22
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darkgray posted:Just a warning, while Sevens is very good at times, I eventually gave up at about ch 250, when I literally couldn't keep count of all his harem girls. The work is completed now, though, so maybe I'll drag myself through the last quarter eventually. That's already happened to me and I'm not even close. I literally have to stop three or four times a page, and try to remember who the person talking is.
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Jun 7, 2016 12:29
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Captain Bravo posted:That's already happened to me and I'm not even close. I literally have to stop three or four times a page, and try to remember who the person talking is. We're talking every extremity required for counting levels of harem here.
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Jun 7, 2016 12:34
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Maybe I've just gotten good at keeping track of characters or something, but I've never had any trouble. The only real problem with Sevens in my opinion is that it's just too mediocre for its own good. It does some things great, it does some things not so great. It probably could've been much improved if the author really went for it, but at the same time it could've turned out awful like so many other WNs so maybe it's better they didn't. I seriously would put it as the 5.0 standard all RPG Settings should be rated by.
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Jun 7, 2016 12:47
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BlitzBlast posted:I seriously would put it as the 5.0 standard all RPG Settings should be rated by. I think you'll have to read more web novels and readjust your scale, because Sevens tragically ends up as a 4 out of 5, compared to the rest of the garbage out there.
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Jun 7, 2016 12:58
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I said should be!
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Jun 7, 2016 13:00
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I liked Sevens but dropped it because of the constant harem nonsense. It seems to be my general experience with a lot of the Japanese novels I tried reading. First I get intrigued by the story, the world and the adventuring. Then the first girl enters into the harem and I think, yeah ok, gotta have a party member and perhaps some romance I guess. Some sort of weird animal gets picked up and inevitably turns into a little girl, a shitton of other girls flock to the party, they talk and fawn over the MC, none of them are interesting. The story disappears beneath a deluge of harem interaction, everything grinds to a glacial pace, and I drop it wondering why the hell I expected this one to turn out differently. As soon as there's enough girls in a harem, every novel seems to end up getting bogged down with monotonous waffle about trite topics, minor social conventions like dropping honorifics, meaningless misunderstandings, and the usual gratingly repetitive language like "Is that so...", "Is that how it is.", "So that's how it is.", "It is as you say.", or outright repeating entire sentence and paragraphs but with a question mark attached. Shield Hero, Sevens, The New Gate, and a bunch of others I can’t remember. If it wasn’t for the drat harems that inevitably progressed into a quagmire of tedium I'd have probably continued to read them. Edit: That said, Sevens was great especially at the start, and if it goes back to old form I might finish it. Dropped it around the volume they ended up getting the robo girl. Fleve fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Jun 7, 2016 |
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Jun 7, 2016 13:09
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I will say that Sevens never particularly felt like the plot was getting buried under harem interactions. That stuff was explicitly The B Plot, and it actually ends up turning into practically full on faction warfare. Sevens mostly seems to operate under the rule that girls are far scarier than guys ever can be. There's even a bonus chapter exploring what would've happened if the ancestors' wives had been stored in the jewel too.
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Jun 7, 2016 13:23
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Fleve posted:I liked Sevens but dropped it because of the constant harem nonsense. It seems to be my general experience with a lot of the Japanese novels I tried reading. First I get intrigued by the story, the world and the adventuring. Then the first girl enters into the harem and I think, yeah ok, gotta have a party member and perhaps some romance I guess. Some sort of weird animal gets picked up and inevitably turns into a little girl, a shitton of other girls flock to the party, they talk and fawn over the MC, none of them are interesting. The story disappears beneath a deluge of harem interaction, everything grinds to a glacial pace, and I drop it wondering why the hell I expected this one to turn out differently. You might like Youmuin-san. Lots of adventuring in different parts of the world, no bickering.
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Jun 7, 2016 13:24
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Oh look, someone's picked up Live Dungeon!
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Jun 7, 2016 13:31
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Fleve posted:I liked Sevens but dropped it because of the constant harem nonsense. It seems to be my general experience with a lot of the Japanese novels I tried reading. First I get intrigued by the story, the world and the adventuring. Then the first girl enters into the harem and I think, yeah ok, gotta have a party member and perhaps some romance I guess. Some sort of weird animal gets picked up and inevitably turns into a little girl, a shitton of other girls flock to the party, they talk and fawn over the MC, none of them are interesting. The story disappears beneath a deluge of harem interaction, everything grinds to a glacial pace, and I drop it wondering why the hell I expected this one to turn out differently. Well, I'm just past the point where they reveal that the comical "misunderstanding" which lead to the push for a harem is actually a calculated move by the girl he actually likes to try and gather women who can't be swayed by the evil sister, and I was impressed by the way that all the characters had to step back when that bombshell dropped and go "Wait a minute, what the gently caress?" I'm going to be extremely disappointed if they don't build on that and stop trying to make sparks happen between the MC and every woman he meets. The fact that that same chapter introduces a female character, gives her a lot of motivation, backstory, and screen time, then doesn't toss her in the harem pit bodes well for that, I think. I'm... going to be incredibly disappointed, aren't I? 
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Jun 7, 2016 14:00
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Sevens is a harem romance. It does some neat things with the concept, but it is still a harem romance. I keep saying this, but Sevens is like the definition of genre fiction. Don't expect the impossible from it and you'll be able to better appreciate what's actually there.
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Jun 7, 2016 15:15
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darkgray posted:Oh look, someone's picked up Live Dungeon! quote:Hi guys, decided on a whim to translate this work as a teaser for maybe 2-3 chapters. More of a game-like story with a lot of game/MMORPG terms in Japanese that I had to look up for >.< haha but the writing is excellent, on par or even slightly better than Invincible Saint from first impressions but that also meant it was even harder to translate than Invincible Saint >.< Enjoy and let me know what you think about the novel! Also invincible saint is the most boring goddamn thing imaginable.
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Jun 7, 2016 15:22
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