@isekaitruckdriver Sorry for the late reply. First read-through of the series and I have to agree with like 98% of what you said. I understand the "moral high ground" argument of not murdering your opponents, but I think to be a "realistic" MC, you need to set aside absolutes and weigh it like "hey, these villains I keep let go instead of kill keep coming back and hurting the people I care about." It's like Batman/Joker, and why I hate that whole dynamic. He knows that Joker will always come back and hurt/kill people he cares about or random citizens, but refuses to kill him based on his morals. I agree with that concept about 1/100 times.
Also, even having binged the series in the past week or so, I doubt I'll remember most of the key plot points by the time volume 14 releases. The "drip feed" of history is so rough to memorize if you read literally anything else. I JUST read volume 8 a day or two ago and I had to pull it back up because I had completely forgotten the other elemental names that were mentioned. And yeah, the whole "oh Anna and Duchess Lebu (the fact that I can't remember her name despite being a pivotal character should be an indication, but the 'Comet') were all around during the dark war and instead of him just like....idk.....sitting down for 20 minutes and asking them questions, he's like "I MUST READ AN ENTIRE LIBRARY AND DECRYPT AN ANCIENT LANGUAGE FOR CLUES," so it gets to be....questionable and frustrating after a while. Alice also CLEARLY knows SO much about what's going on, but despite her and Allen's friendship, just is like "eh figure it out in the next 5 or so books, dude."
Rant for rant matched lol.

@saidahgilbert I read the first 20 odd vol of that and while I enjoyed it at first the mc and his non relationships with pretty much ever character that wasn't his annoying little sister just sucked all the enjoyment out of it.

I will give full marks to the Author though as apparently he didn't want any romance in the story, but he was writing to spec so when the publishers asked him to include it he made the MC an emotionless card board cut out and went the incest route out of spite. I suspect he found it less funny 20+ vol later when he's still writing it and having to deal with it due to the series being successful.

@Rahul-Balaggan said in Finding Avalon Vol. 4 Discussion!:

@thomasce10

Our releases match the "basic" Jp releases. If a store gives out a premium bonus in additional to the base product that would not count as "base".

If there was some side story that is present in the BookWalker edition (that is not a store exclusive) that we do not have in our release. Please email support@j-novel.club and we will investigate.

Thank you

Bookwalker has two side stories, one that comes with the regular ebook and the other that's store exclusive to it.

Information from the author's blog. (Akito Narusawa)
Books and comics come with purchase bonuses. There are many types and different ways to get them, so we've put them in a list.

Regular e-book bonus SS　
Hayase Kaoru Edition "Recommended Reference Books"

When Souta goes to buy a reference book, he bumps into Kaoru and Pink-chan. What will happen to Souta!?

The store exclusive ones are these here:
● Book Walker bonus SS
Tenma Akira Edition "The Scene of the Adventurer School's School Entrance"

A rather unusual scene of Tenma-san's school entrance. She wasn't riding in the usual black limousine...!? This is a bonus SS exclusive to Book Walker.

● Paper book bonus SS
Kuga Kotone Edition "Kuga Kotone's Specialty Dishes"

As Souta-kun is eating his lunch, Kuga-san comes over with interest. What is her special dish that is revealed there... but can she even make it!?

● SS for the sponsored store,
Narumi Family Edition, "Snacks brought home"

Delicious snacks brought back from that place. A commotion breaks out at the Narumi family because of them! ?

If he had least have something planned for the ending, he should just give us a short summary. But probably he has no idea of how to conclude the series.

I don't read LNs because I expect them to be perfectly written tomes full of high literature, but even then, it's rare to find a work which manages to stumble into so, so many unforced errors at once as this one.

For starters, it somehow manages to combine three of the most tired tropes of three different LN genres - the "technically weak but actually super strong" of fantasy, the "technically just a commoner but there's a crowd of devoted nobles and officials willing to use their power for my benefit" of historical novels, and the "technically a loving man who's so possessive he's hostile to any other man in the vicinity of his daughter/sister/other relative/fiancée/wife" of romance.

Then there's the writing style, which has it's share of peculiarities, like attempting to add a mystery by omiting from the reader information obvious to everybody present (like names of characters or any hints of their status or identity) in a way which makes it painfully obvious what is being omited, thus paradoxically robbing it of any mystery.

There's characters exhibiting curious behaviours, like people with all the powers of royalty at their disposal who, over the course of several years, couldn't find a way to deliver a message saying "sorry fam, can't see you right now because of reasons", making for a completely unnecessary drama.

There's bringing up huge plot developments and then completely resolving them in the same scene, before the reader even manages to find a reason to care. Notably, there's a several pages long scene of unnamed and previously unmentioned nobles being arrested for previously unmentioned crimes against previously barely mentioned characters...

And it just piles on and on. And overall, the book totally undermines itself by trying to have a cake and eat it too, in many different ways. Is the protagonist's abusive home a thing nothing could be done about, or is she close friends with people who could apply so much pressure even on a noble? Is she a target for bullies because of her weakness, or obvious prodigy? Is she mild-mannered, or always ready to apply violence? Somehow, it's all of the above and more.

And finally, the less said about Yui's adoptive father intending to take her out on regular dates, the better.

I made it through a third of the book and just couldn't find the strength to go on.

@karasutengu said in Six Months to Live Vol. 3 Discussion:

I hope JNC can advise us

JNC will never do that. Their policy is clear and linked all over the forum.
https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/3478/future-volume-release-schedule

I love how the fae are perfectly amoral but still understandably, well, human. It makes for very intriguing characters. The very mysterious Ermine currently being my favourite among them.

“Yep. For example, the luck provided by this bonus will change injuries like taking an arrow to the knee to taking an arrow to the thigh instead, and it’ll also help you avoid catching a cold even if you get soaked in the rain,” said Advastlis.

"I used to be an Adventurer like you until I took an arrow to the thigh."

I think Estelle and Haruka would get along just fine, don't you?

Oof. Longer break than Usual. I need my fix

I'm usually not interested in JNC Hearts series but I gave this a try out of curiosity since the synopsis made it look like it had a male protagonist. It wasn't bad, and makes me wonder if I should pay more attention to these kind of novels if they are more likely to have a strong male lead compared to the harem series I usually read.

I'm sure that Roxanne will be just as effective of a villainess as her mother was!

"Get results or die" isn't conducive to being overly concerned about details.
The ends justify the means.
As The Evil Overlord's List points out, your ends had better justify your means.
In this case, selling those above you that the end justified the means is their standard operating procedure.

I don't like these guys, OK?

@CosmicTempest said in Min-Maxing My TRPG Build Vol. 9 Canto I Discussion!:

Also I thought Erich’s name was pronounced as Erik this whole time, is it pronounced differently?

Essentially yes. The names of a lot of places and people are German and I guess translators often used German spelling. But Erich in German pretty much sounds like Eric/erik

Oh my, a twofer with start of next volume.

@UrchinStar47 said in Duchess in the Attic Vol. 1 Discussion!:

@yzh4rjdzob6 I don't recall Stella having any significant money to her name. She grew up freeloading on Hubert, more or less. Not that I've seen her have much options either.

As I quoted in my original post, in 1-8, Hubert says:

I’ll use the funds that I’ve given to Stella and begin my investments once more to build up money again.

He has been giving Stella money to live off of, and plans on taking it back.

I really have to remember to stop waiting until close to the expiry date to read this novel. It's so light and fluffy but sometimes I'm not in the mood for a light snack and then it's boring to me. But I really like how it tastes and when it comes to reading, I'm greedy so I still want to read it. If I ever miss it on membership, I may just have to buy it. In fact, I should probably start collecting it when my budget allows. This series looks like a snack I should always have available in my snack cupboard.

Volume 9 was published July 1 in Japan, so ... we'll be able to order it here REAL SOON NOW (to quote a person I had an argument with eons ago).

What? We have to wait for negotiations to finish, and announcements to be made? ARGH!

@abernan

Hi,

There is no set date for when Volume 14 will start pre-publication on the site, at this time.

For a general overview of how new volume starts are handled at J-Novel Club. Please see the following topic, https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/3478/future-volume-release-schedule

Thank you

@SalmonJones said in Tearmoon Empire Vol. 13 Discussion!:

I am curious what they're getting at with Yanna and Kiryl. They haven't really done anything yet. Not sure how they fit in. After this many stellar books in a row I trust this author, I'm sure it'll be something clever.

There's a pirate serpent from the same culture as them that got a brief cameo recently. Likely there's something with that serpent and their people coming up that Yanna and Kiryl will be important for...

@Travis-Butler said in I Parry Everything Vol. 6 Discussion!:

Something that came to me as I was re-reading this volume…

Lynne needs to complete an “exceptional deed” to obtain the right of succession. That was her cover story for going to Sarenza.

Um.

WTF was her leadership in the fight against Holy Mithra? Chopped liver? O.o

I think that one might count as politically inconvenient exceptional deed as nobody wants to dig too deep into what exactly happened there. Conquering a dungeon, much less complicated.

Just binge read the whole series on catchup.
I'll admit it, it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. And Lud made me mad in multiple occasions, midway through the series he was among my least favorite characters. If volumes were longer, I would've likely dropped it. Still, I decided to stick until I reached the conclusion, and the ending almost made me cry. I'm of the opinion that a bad ending can ruin an entire work, at least for me that's the case. For this series, this last volume saved it.