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Light novels (LNs) are a form of Japanese literature usually aimed at middle- and high-school students, and as the name suggests, are usually fairly short in length. Web novels are essentially freelance literature similar to LNs, but are not published and are usually hosted on the author's own website or blog. When a web novel becomes popular enough, it is not uncommon for it to get published as a bonafide LN. Most web novels originate from a Japanese web novel publishing portal called Shousetsuka ni Narou (Let's Become Authors), where amateurs get to post their fledgling works chapter by chapter, and visitors can read them for free. Readership is then collected into site-wide rankings, and a bunch of the top titles have become so popular that regular publishing houses like Kadokawa have made deals to print them as paper light novels. Curiously most still remain available online with regular updates. Popular works at the moment include: Mushoku Tensei: An otaku disowned by his family with nothing left to lose saves some schoolkids from a truck accident, and wakes up as a baby in a fantasy world. Determined to actually make something of himself in this second chance at life, our protagonist quickly becomes proficient in magic. One of the most popular web novels with about 21 volumes, with up-to-date translations. The turning-point chapters always throw a pretty considerable wrench in the works with the story, and a lot of them are completely unexpected developments entirely, which is pretty cool. The MC does get a bit creepy at times, you have been warned. [Reincarnation] [Harem] [Seinen] [Fantasy] [Action] [Adventure] Only Sense Online: Yun is a novice MMO player who equipped only unpopular skills labelled as garbage. However, soon after everyone started to notice the “Strongest” play style which made full use of Support Magic and Items——?! [Adventure] [Fantasy] [MMO] [Gender Bender] [Sci-fi] [Shounen] Overlord: In the last moments of once-popular VRMMO Yggdrasil, Momonga waits patiently in the halls of his guild hideout awaiting for the inevitable server shutdown. When the forced disconnect never happens, Momonga discovers that a lot has changed from the game he knew so well. [Fantasy] [MMO] [Seinen] [Action] [Adventure] [Supernatural] Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou: Among the class that was transported to another world, Nagumo Hajime is an ordinary male student who doesn't have ambition nor aspiration in life, called "Incompetent" by his classmates. The class is summoned to become heroes and save a country from destruction, students of the class are blessed with cheat specs and cool job classes, but that's not the case with Hajime, his job class is a "Synergist" and his stats are very normal (mediocre). "Synergist," to put it in another word is just the artisan class. Being the weakest, he then falls to the depth of the abyss when he and his classmates are exploring a dungeon. What did he find in the depth of the abyss and can he survive? [Action] [Adventure] [Fantasy] [Harem] [Seinen] [Comedy?] [Psychological?] Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari: Iwatani Naofumi is summoned to another world to become one of the four heroes, namely the Shield Hero. Starting out with poor popularity and labeled as the weakest, Naofumi found himself betrayed on the third day of his adventure. Broke, framed and ridiculed, all that's left is just his shield. Referred to as 'Shield Hero'. I haven't got around to reading the novels yet, but I follow the manga and that gets talked about a bit in the Seinen thread. If you've read the manga I'm sure you know what to expect from this. [Action] [Adventure] [Fantasy] [Seinen] [Romance?] Knights and Magic: After an unfortunate traffic accident, our mecha enthusiast and ace programmer MC is reincarnated into the world of his dreams; magic-powered mecha suits (called Silhouette Knights) are the main trump card for humans to fight back against demon beasts approaching their lands and settlements. This one only has one volume in English so far, I'm really hoping someone who can translate from Japanese picks this series up so we can get more great moments where the MC nerds it out mid-fight like "Only robots can destroy other robots!"  [Mecha] [Reincarnation] [Fantasy] [Action] [Adventure] [School life] [Romance?] There was a cute girl in the Hero Party, so I tried confessing: A boy, Youki, is reincarnated as a demon mini-boss in a fantasy world, but when the Hero Party comes to kill the Demon Lord, he falls in love with the cute cleric Cecilia. This love at first sight causes a problem as he is no longer a human, but part of the demon enemy she was sent to defeat. What on Earth will happen when he tries confessing to her? A simple premise with short chapters, a very light-hearted read about a guy who got reincarnated as a plain-looking demon who tries to win a girl's heart. [Action] [Adventure] [Reincarnation] [Romance] [Fantasy] [Shounen] [Chuunibyou] Souen no Historia: Souji dies, saves the life of a girl he's never met before, only wake up as a child of a maid in a world where magic exists. At a young age Souji is introduced to Yoyo, the daughter of an information broker, whom he will serve as a butler in years to come. Imagine if Ayasaki Hayate (Hayate no Gotoku) learnt magic and didn't forget the 'combat butler' part of the series' title. [Action] [Fantasy] [Reincarnation] [Harem] [Shounen] Credits to Darkgray for a bunch of stuff I recycled for the OP, hope you don't mind. As you can see, reincarnation/MMO-based stuff is really prevalent at the moment, but if there's anything different out there feel free to chat about it.  Tag your spoilers please Giving out a basic summary is fine, but anything super-important is a no-go. If it was something that surprised you when you first read it, it's probably a spoiler and should be tagged as such so others can stumble across it at their own leisure (or ruin it for themselves by mousing over it unknowingly). HiveCommander fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Jan 29, 2015 |
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Jan 14, 2015 07:27
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Desuwa posted:A lot of the web novels I've read are pretty similar in terms of the broad strokes. Also most of them are terrible. Out of the ones in the OP I'd at least strongly recommend not reading Arifureta, or dropping it as soon as they hit the bottom of the labyrinth. Souen's pace took a bit to pick up, but it's not too bad. Knights and Magic can't be translated soon enough, although the guy who did the first volume can only TL from Chinese, and even they haven't gone any further than vol1  Heibon Desu yo is the one about the girl who is reincarnated as a noble, right? I wasn't too sure about that one but I may give it a try once I'm up-to-date on Overlord. HorseRenoir posted:Are you sure that isn't just the same book with eight different titles?
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Jan 14, 2015 08:32
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Phobophilia posted:You laugh, but I've liked the Railgun series for a while. It's a spinoff from a LN harem thing featuring one of the harem members as the main character. But Misaka is fun to watch as a Problem Solving Teen with superpowers hanging out having superpowered adventures with her friends.  Desuwa posted:The main character becomes a massive edgelord, the series goes full harem, and it's just embarrassing to read. If it were a better written story just up to the end of the labyrinth with the same idea it might have been good.
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Jan 14, 2015 10:07
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Wait, you translate? That's pretty cool, I keep forgetting there's actual contributors amongst Goons since I stopped following the SWTOR thread. Serious post, I knew some stuff like SAO was getting official LN releases, but didn't expect Yen Press to have that much variety. I thought it'd only be big-name stuff like SAO, AoT etc. Good to know there is some official stuff out there.
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Jan 14, 2015 13:19
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I like that they aren't just focusing on the Next Big Thing, some less popular stuff being in their catalog is nice to see. Translating stuff that isn't on the radar for localization might not have that sort of effect, but that's just a guess. I'd rather read a poorly-phrased translation than spend an hour trying to piece together a page at a time through Google Translate or something, and I gave up on machine translators for VNs that haven't even been fan-TL'd since the things are so finnicky and the unintentionally hilarious Engrish that they can throw out isn't worth the effort. Basically I'm super appreciative of people who put in their own personal time and effort to translate for the rest of us that don't know the language. glomkettle posted:Are ebook versions of these available for purchase anywhere? I'd love to support the authors and publishers, but I just don't realistically see myself buying a bunch of physical books. If there are ebooks available I'm not seeing them, which is a shame.
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Jan 14, 2015 14:09
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ultimatemegax posted:I used to be appreciative of the fan-translations, but the entitlement of fans (especially when Yen picks up a title that was fan-translated) has pushed me against them now just due to the fandom whining about stupid things like "why can't they catch up to the fan-translations faster?!" "why aren't they starting with the newest novel?!". Titles that aren't likely to come over (like FMP/Shana) are fine though. On the Yen Press discussion, here's to hoping they get the E-book format going sooner rather than later. Being Australian it's pretty hard to find less-mainstream stuff and shipping books here costs a fortune 
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Jan 14, 2015 14:45
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Oh well, it was worth a shot. Cheers for the link though, free shipping isn't something I'm used to seeing where books are involved. It's hard to call $15 unreasonable when I've paid more for manga before
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Jan 14, 2015 15:10
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Sinking Ship posted:I've been reading Mokushiroku Arisu recently (3 volumes released, all 3 translated). I picked it up mostly for it's protagonist who is kind of a huge dick to everyone and because it seems to be a tiny bit outside the norm for LNs. The plot starts out fairly dark (also sprinkled with Alice in Wonderland references) but by the end it gets decidedly more generic for better or worse. The setting is interesting, how it handles magic, how magic is acquired and applied is pretty cool, the strong point of the books is the setting in my opinion. Most people probably pick it up because it's edgelord click-bait with the whole 'Kill the girl, save the world' premise but I spent an hour or two reading it and it was good enough to keep me reading to the end and ultimately dropping like
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Jan 15, 2015 01:47
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on a physical copy from amazon.jp so take that however you like.
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I found myself legitimately hating the princess and spear hero. I've only read the manga so far, but it does a pretty good job of making you hate them as characters, and not that many series manage to make antagonists that you legitimately hate. Normally it's just "this is the bad dude who wants to destroy the world/kick over sandcastles/steal candy from children, we must stop them!", so it's a welcome change.
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Jan 15, 2015 05:52
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jellycat posted:This thread made me remember light novels were a thing that existed and so I'll probably check out a few of them eventually! I'm thinking probably Spice & Wolf and Durarara!!
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Jan 16, 2015 03:33
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Serious Frolicking posted:The funny thing about that one is that the skill system it uses actually seems kind of viable for a mmo. However, everyone acts as though skill points are some incredibly rare resource and that non-combat skills are worthless even though it all seems very much balanced around trying a bunch of things. You don't even have to keep the non-combat stuff equipped and leveling it provides more skill points. This results in there being absolutely no documentation on skills which are trivially easy to acquire and try out. Even the hilarious skill system from moonlight sculptor makes more sense, because the worst offenders are all locked behind a super secret quest line that Weed never explains to anyone. So many people ignore almost all the skills that aren't at least indirectly linked to pvp (suck as marketing, mining/industry, R&D, exploration etc). It's not that hard to believe, really. Sinking Ship posted:I've been reading Mokushiroku Arisu recently (3 volumes released, all 3 translated). I picked it up mostly for it's protagonist who is kind of a huge dick to everyone and because it seems to be a tiny bit outside the norm for LNs. The plot starts out fairly dark (also sprinkled with Alice in Wonderland references) but by the end it gets decidedly more generic for better or worse. The setting is interesting, how it handles magic, how magic is acquired and applied is pretty cool, the strong point of the books is the setting in my opinion. Most people probably pick it up because it's edgelord click-bait with the whole 'Kill the girl, save the world' premise but I spent an hour or two reading it and it was good enough to keep me reading to the end and ultimately dropping like
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Jan 18, 2015 07:00
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Srice posted:Just skimming the prose in that thing and I guess now I know what a novel written by someone who only consumes fan-translated light novels would look like, jeez. Epic will be going into my backlog, by the sounds of it.
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Jan 19, 2015 03:35
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Finished Mokushiroku Arisu. That cliffhanger at the end of vol3  I really want to find out what happens next. Also, is it just me or is it pretty obvious that the person Shiro is after is the genius that made Holy Sword?
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Jan 21, 2015 06:16
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R0ckfish posted:The prologue to Vol 2 of Knight's and Magic was translated:
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Jan 22, 2015 15:28
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Raenir Salazar posted:I'm trying to find Modern Magic Made Simple as I was reorganizing my Music collection and found the OP of it, which reminded me that this was a vastly underrated anime and now that I realize there's a light novel series behind it I want to read it now so bad. ConanThe3rd posted:Is Wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon worth a flick through? I'm a sucker for the Durarara illustrator and that caught my eye.
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Jan 25, 2015 03:30
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For those still in the sunk-cost train that is Mushoku Tensei, all of volume 23 has been translated (It's apparently been done for some time now, I didn't expect the author to put out a new volume over Christmas/New Years). DunMachi (otherwise known in English as Is it Wrong to Pick-up in a Dungeon?) arrived in the mail today  When I'm caught up on MT I'll give it a read and get a write-up posted.
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Jan 27, 2015 16:00
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Desuwa posted:Knights and magic volume 2 chapter 1 is up. In other news I started DunMachi and it's harem-y as expected, but the setting is actually quite interesting. Essentially gods got bored of sitting in the overworld and started watching the people of the lower-world like it was some sort of reality TV show, then decided that going down there to join them would be much more fun than watching (and a lot better than sitting around doing nothing!). They themselves don't have their crazy powers as a self-imposed rule, but instead give their 'blessings' to the other races and form 'guilds', more or less, full of adventurers they have bestowed the blessings upon them. I like it so far, we'll see how the rest of it goes, I've only gone through a chapter and a bit thus far. EDIT: Just a reminder to keep your spoilers tagged, I've received a PM about it already so just be a bit more careful in future. Basic overview stuff is fine (the sort you'd see in a blurb, for instance), just make sure to cover up anything you wouldn't have wanted to see when you first started reading through a series. Keep in mind that LNs take a fair bit longer than watching the latest episode of whatever it is you're watching this season, so it's better to be cautious with stuff you think might be spoilers. HiveCommander fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Jan 29, 2015 |
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Jan 29, 2015 01:23
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I agree, Despite the creeper moments, holy poo poo I do not expect those Turning Point chapters to play out like they do. It's also cool that the author managed to mess around with time travel without completely screwing the story with plot holes. EDIT: Also, that side-story in the latest volume gave me diabetes
HiveCommander fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Jan 30, 2015 |
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Jan 30, 2015 04:06
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Serious Frolicking posted:the mahouka-shaped hole in my heart.
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Jan 30, 2015 14:56
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Gearhead posted:I think I would've been happier if he'd just stuck with a monster-eating man roaming around the countryside looking for new meals with his vampire queen sidekick.
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Jan 31, 2015 05:27
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ssmagus posted:I have found this great list which has the current state of web/light novel English translations + easy links.
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Jan 31, 2015 07:30
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New chapter of Knights and Magic!
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Feb 4, 2015 15:51
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Yet another K&M chapter is out, I'm glad that Sky's managed to get hold of something he can translate from.
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Feb 11, 2015 16:27
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Endorph posted:there's only two
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Feb 19, 2015 02:41
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Sinking Ship posted:Yea you can't say the author didn't lay out bright flashing warning signs but I figured(hoped) it would just turn out to be Momo being paranoid forever. In any case I'm glad this thread turned me on to Overlord, no matter how it shakes out it's bound to be interesting. Personally I'm hoping Shalltear gets rescued and Momonga lays down some serious lich lord smackdown on the puny humans who dared to cross The Great Tomb.
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Feb 21, 2015 02:10
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Desuwa posted:Two novels that haven't even been mentioned in this thread, as far as I can tell.
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Feb 25, 2015 07:11
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I just finished the second volume of Rokka no Yuusha and it didn't seem as interesting as the first one, probably because it was centered around a character I didn't really care about. The first one was pretty good though, and really kept me wondering who the seventh was the entire time.
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Mar 5, 2015 00:03
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Finally caught up on Rokka no Yuusha, and vol3 was much better than vol2 was. It's probably because it was more similar to the first novel where details and clues are presented over time so I was actually trying to think of what the overarching schemes at play were, compared to the second book's method of telling you the ending and then simply showing how the story gets to that point.
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Mar 12, 2015 12:50
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Knights and Magic is great, and more people should read it. Hopefully the Chinese translations for vol3 aren't too far away.
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Mar 31, 2015 16:00
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The way you're talking about world-breaking fist spells, it's like you've never played D&D 3/3.5
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Apr 8, 2015 14:32
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ConanThe3rd posted:Isn't like one of the "Things" with D&D Is some so and so casting his fist as a magic spell or somethng to that effect?
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Apr 13, 2015 02:37
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Hagop posted:I thought this as well, but then some goons where going on about it being the best show in some unrelated thread. So I powered through the first 3 or 4 eps and it gets good, maybe that's to strong of a word, but I ended up enjoying watching it. If you stop trying to parse the whole world setting and just focus on the story presented it gets a lot less confusing. That's... actually a pretty interesting way of putting it, and kinda makes me want to finish watching the show.
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Jun 26, 2015 16:11
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