@paul-nebeling I’m more surprised about Smartphone being so low. It’s in the top 3 bestselling series for JNC, so I would think it would at least make the top 10. Maybe a majority of Smartphone sales come from Amazon Kindle, or perhaps the JNC premium, since we have bonus stories.

In one previous thread there were at least 3 Japanese publishers who would not consider licensing if print wasn't an option. One of them was supposed to be a hard no without simultaneous print and digital on day one while the other 2 wanted either print options available or wouldn't contract without Sam also getting the print rights.

This was before the announcement that JNC was starting to do some series in print so the 2 maybe's may have already changed their minds since then.

Having never read light novels in the original Japanese I can only speculate. I expect that generally speaking light novels are not designed to require deep textual analysis of the text to appreciate so only a minimal amount is lost in terms of change of how things are precisely worded.

However, novels that make a lot of cultural or pop culture references will have something lost in translation and we might not always appreciate the wordplay in character and book names.

I also expect that there will be information lost in terms of how characters refer to one another (first name? san? sama?) and their manner of speech (keigo?).

Some series recently ended/caught up so I've got a bit more spare time to read new parts but, yeah, I wasn't expecting all these new titles. And I'm actually interested in almost all the new licenses (except 3-4).

Though, at least half of the new licenses are only 2-3 volumes long so we'll catch up to JP rather quickly, which means the TLs will be free to work on even more series.

Anyway not complaining that we have more things to read, more like I'm complaining I won't have enough time to read all weekly parts if they keep adding new licenses so fast... lol

I want to see Nihonkoku Shoukan.

Whole of Japan gets isekai-ed.

Huge Monogatari ebook/audiobook sale going on right now on Humble Bundle. Get everything that's been released so far DRM free for $20. https://www.humblebundle.com/books/monogatari-kodansha-books

@gary-l-thompson The manga is not handled by J-Novel Club, that was licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment, so there should be no connection with any back end stuff.

@nosgoroth another thing of note for IOS, if you use TTS in the kindle app and close the iPhone/iPad the TTS stops at the end of the page and will not turn, the device must remain on.

However if you use the TTS from the iBooks app, the TTS will continue reading and turning pages even if the device is off, another point for premium editions that you can import into any reading app on any device.

@gprovida said in Genjitsushugi Yuusha no Oukoku Saikenki vol 11??:

However, cover art suggests a modern story versus “another world.”

No, it suggests we'll get to see a school setting, whether Ginger's or the royal academy or some other educational institution Souma's opened up, with the kids playing a bigger role this time around (I'm guessing from the images on Bookwalker). The cover art features Ichiha and a new girl (Lucy Evans). I say new cause I don't remember her appearing in previous volumes.

Yeah, I have to agree that the current site doesn't consider SEO at all. Every page contains a single wrapper that loads every other content on it with ajax. I sure hope the new site that's being worked on(?) is way better.

This kind of site might have been fine when they were just starting out, but now the UI is a nightmare the more content gets added.

@timmaaah

Wow... I’ve got a hearty load too but I don’t think I’ve got that many... I’ve got current reads, then short and long lists of stuff I want to get through. Most of it stuff that I’ve read the manga, watched an anime, or it sounds like something I’d like but know it’ll start to damn slow...

@bbqbabbq said in Question about The Magic in the Other World is Too Far Behind:

@village-idiot But later, doesn't he say that magick should work? "At any rate, that was Suimei’s theory. Because the demons had divine protection from their Evil God, fundamentally, only magic from this world that opposed such a thing would really work against it. However, as long as the Evil God itself resided on the astral plane, it would end up in the same category as gods and devils from the astral plane. Consequently, the demons were a bloodline of evil existences, and magicka would be effective against them too."

After realizing this, he is able to easily kill demons, but I'm confused why it didn't work before. It doesn't seem like his magick is any different than before later on in the seires.

Demons have damage reduction against the simple elemental spells he tried at first, so he changed his spells.

I can think of 3 approaches:

As mentioned, boosting the output so the small percentage not resisted adds up Change the damage type, for example "divine" instead of "fire" Change the cause / component / underlying powers or symbolism being called on to create an effect. For example instead of an "elemental" fireball maybe a fireball based on a ritual invoking Surtr from Norse mythology

I'm too lazy to re-read the series and pick out the exact details :)

This title is so good that I will probably rewatch the anime multiple times even thou it could end in a horrible adaptation. Practically I am satisfied just by the show featuring Kumoko all the rest is an extra.

@bob-bob-bob-bob said in in support of KyoAni:

@legitpancake i don't know all the ins and outs of this, but it seems unusual for a business to turn down a possibility of profit

It's not unusual at all. As you said, it's a possibility of profit; there's likewise a possibility they would just lose money in the end, which for a company in KyoAni's state would be very dangerous. Of course, business is all about taking risks, but again, KyoAni is first and foremost an animation company; they might not want to take big risks in side areas like light novels.

And even if somehow, profit could be guaranteed from licensing, there's also the question of whether or not the resources that would be required for licensing could be put elsewhere to gain more profit (again, KyoAni primarily being an animation company plays into this). There are other factors beyond raw profit margins that go into business decisions, too, which makes it hard to say for sure why any company does what they do. All we outsiders can really do is make our requests and not get too salty when they get ignored for reasons we might or might not know.

The premium membership is worth it just to get the DRM-free Premium Editions for $6 each that often include the bonus short stories that only were available at certain stores in Japan. Realist Hero in particular has a great collection of bonus stories that really add to it.

List of bonus content: https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/305/premium-e-book-bonus-contents-list/244

(Note: the versions you read online with a membership do not include this bonus content, you have to buy the premium editions of the books to read it.)

I could see Sam trying to work with them, them being new doesn't really matter since JNC has licensed several series with only 1 or 2 volumes out.