@RobD - the author's Ringer series is fun too, but in a different way. In that one the MC is a total badass not a fool. There's humor but more from the nutty side characters and just how over-the-top the MC is.

@LordoftheNight No announced plans for prints, so at present it'll be ebook only. It could change in the future as it did for these series announced to get prints at the end of last week: https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/8916/january-2025-new-print-announcements, as they haven't ruled out prints for Chivalry, but that could be years away

Tsukimichi 5 was released on January 30.

Hanashi still has not been able to renew their licenses for Fruit of Evolution and Another World Survival, so Fruit is stalled at volume 10. Worse yet, Fruit 1-10 and AWS will disappear from stores on February 19. That only affects new buyers, existing owners will still be able to download their books.

You can buy DRM-free versions from the Hanashi store or DRM-versions from everyone else.

https://over-lap.co.jp/Form/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?shop=0&pid=9784824010322&vid=&cat=NVL&swrd=

https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/3478/future-volume-release-schedule

https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/3478/future-volume-release-schedule

It's not a j-novel but I've surprisingly loved 'Beware of Chicken' just as much is I've loved ascendance of a bookworm.

From what I have seen ill health tends to be the biggest cause of LN delays more than other adaptations.

Closely followed by issues with publishers, although I have seen a couple of honest authors admit to delays caused by the release of there favourite gaming franchise.

@n33k5 said in Shogakukan's Novelous to use AI translations:

they are seeming to also plan to change names to more westernized forms because "Japanese names are hard."

The MC is named Steve Jones, Yen to dollars, ramen to cheeseburgers. Back to the dark ages of over-localized translations :(

Some stories might survive this but part of why I read LNs is the different culture. It's the same reason why I watch "foreign" movies and TV shows.

Plus, AI LLMs have only short-term "memory" for their token set with no knowledge of anything outside of that small window into the story. No memory of past chapters, characters, or the overall plot to bring to the translation just predicting what an equivalent sentence would be in English.

@kuali as mentioned, these are in the Isekai Villainess Otome Game list too:

Lady Rose Just Wants to be a Commoner Lady Albert is Courting Disaster

@Korppi Their statement on their discord mentioned

We regret to inform you that Hanashi Media is currently facing challenges in renewing the licenses for The Fruit of Evolution and Another World Survival. Despite submitting a renewal offer to Futabasha several months ago, we have yet to receive a response regarding the continuation of these titles.

As much as we value these stories and the community of readers who support them, the lack of a renewed agreement from Futabasha may result in these titles being unavailable on our retail partners’ platforms—including Amazon, Google Books, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo—as well as on our own store by next year.

So unclear if they can get new volumes, but they might also have to unlist the previous volumes, which will definitely hurt sales long term.

@RobD said in The year fizzles out:

I take it all back! Grieving Souls and Dorky Space Mercenary are continuing with a whole new volume!

A Christmas miracle!