@LeavesCat Who are you, V4 Alicia?

@rkkn said in The Faraway Paladin Vol. 1 Parts 1-4 Discussion:

wows, I didn't know discussion topics used to be split up by part before

I wanted to comment on how long the afterword is, but this very old discussion is split across many threads, it seems

Ah yes I'd almost forgotten this phase.

My guess is that per part comments came about because the JNC part model was inspired (as per my interpretation of comments by Sam Pinansky such as those in this interview), at least in part, by fan translations that were written in chunks that each had their own comment space.

I think it got a bit unmanageable and people were responding in the wrong thread and there were too many series so by popular demand (or at least without any pushback that I can recall) the per part threads were dropped. It was probably also a lot of work having to create and link each part to a thread.

The reason it failed for JNC is probably because while fan translations had comment sections right below the translation, JNC had them on a separate forum.

And two more points:
First, it's a rare to see the first volume past the original cutoff start to get things going once again so fast. I had some suspicions in the early parts of the book, but by the time I read the afterword I've long forgotten that.

Second, it's really great that the series didn't in the slightest go back to Sieg treating Nicola like he did in the early parts of the first volume, but instead kept the wonderful respectful Sieg of the later parts.

I don't blame Carina at all for not stopping the reverse harem. Sure, part of her reason was to take a shot at Patrick, but I think the main reason is that fighting the protagonist on this would be scary. She's a rival character; if she resists the protagonist's actions, the game mechanics are likely to doom her. Instead, she did the logical thing; let the protagonist do what she wants, and aim for a victory after the end credits where the game is no longer influencing reality. In fact you could say that she did stop the reverse harem, as she protected all the girls and even provided a way for some of the guys to reform their engagements.

Lilianne however is just an asshole and an idiot. She could have had a perfectly fine marriage with any one of several guys that are designed to love her, but got greedy and threw it all away on the chance that she could steal the lover of a princess. She didn't even have a fallback plan.

@MrMonday said in Private Tutor Vol. 10 Discussion!:

@bobbyX2 said in Private Tutor Vol. 10 Discussion!:

Perhaps most importantly, we're 10 volumes deep into this thing- 15 volumes in Japan- and none of the other romance options have evolved past puppy love. Realistically there can't be that much story left.

It wouldn't be all that unusual either, assuming the publisher is willing to put up with it -- Bookworm is at 29 volumes right now in EN, Spirit Chronicles is 23 with no ending in sight, and I'm sure there are other things that I'm not currently reading that are quite long.

Eh, I guess I can see what you're saying. You're right, there are exceptions where some books manage to pump out 25+ volumes (Rokujouma is at 44).

That said, most of those other series are more popular. I'd be surprised if the author manages to drag this out to 25 volumes, personally. I know it's getting an anime soon...so maybe that'll boost it a lot. We'll see.

I suppose that's where my headspace is. Lydia has been built up since the first volume, and there has been 10 consecutive volumes of varying degrees of romantic development there. I don't expect that to suddenly change for the next 10 volumes.

But perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe the first ten volumes were a red herring. Maybe it really will last 40 volumes and we're about to embark on an epic Lynne arc.

@LeavesCat said in Private Tutor Vol. 10 Discussion!:

Like, why is Lynne making eyes at Allen when she supports his relationship with Lydia and is fully aware that Lydia would go completely nuts if she stole him? The harem shouldn't exist in the first place, but the author is writing it anyway, so I don't have much confidence that he won't contrive some bullshit excuse to make everyone magically happy with this. It doesn't help that he writes stuff in the afterword about giving Lydia a "turn" as if it isn't her turn forever.

Mainly he just wants to write "cute girls", and his definition of cute girls is "fawning over a guy".

Oh, I mostly agree with what you're saying.

I feel like, what probably happened was that the series was first introduced as a harem in Volume 1. But as it went along, Lydia emerged as significantly more popular than the others and got the focus...OR, maybe it's the opposite. The series wanted to focus on Lydia as the main love interest at the start, but the plot was considered mediocre by the masses, so it insists on continuing the low-hanging fruit of shallow harem antics in order to keep more people engaged.

I don't know, and I suppose it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, Lydia as a love interest has been written significantly better than the others (Stella is the best individual character right now though, IMO), and her dynamic with Allen is the main reason I'm continuing the series. I hope the story keeps doubling-down on Lydia as the main love interest. Because I'd much rather read about the two of them and their adventures than to listen to these 13-15-year-old girls spending twenty pages arguing over who deserves to sit next to Allen at the dinner table.

i liked that little short story. They don't give extra endings like that very often.

@Leon_97
Maybe some of it is that the series was originally written in Japanese for a Japanese audience? So the names are written in a way that may have seemed broadly identifiable (and non-Japanese) to the Japanese ear?
Equestrians as sort of like Mongols—which are sort of tied to China—so they just went with Chinese names. Perujin sort of Persian or Indian. And Lulus are more of generic stand-in for any of the world’s indegineous tribes that have been encroached on. And names that just seem generic to the western ear, were meant to seem genericly European to the Japanese audience.

@jcochran
Years late to this discussion and without having read further into the story... but I'd assume that the palace knows this happens, knows it can be investigated, and also doesn't care enough to put the resources into actually investigating it.

I'd assume if Maomao was more actively vindictive, as she gains more power/influence, she'd be able to make the investigation happen to punish her kidnappers. I'm only partway through vol 1 at the moment, but this also doesn't strike me as the kind of thing she'd go out of her way to do. And no one else would have the motivation to do so either.

Volume 3 (Premium Edition): A Bonus Short Story, & Textless color illustrations A Little Ride with Akiha

Wow, what a way to wrap up this arc. Mana finally manifests her wish and is happily in a relationship with Majima. She has come a long, long way from that hut in the woods. Eagerly awaiting the next (last) volume, though a bit disappointed it seems to end the series one volume prematurely.

Part 2:
"I would like to give birth at least once."
"Because you want a child?"
"No, because I want to eat a placenta."

Interesting to have a Male Lead who refuses to confess to the girl not due to fear of rejection, but rather because of the knowledge that rejection is impossible. Now that he's told her, Maomao cannot marry someone else (or even casually impregnate herself for science). The marriage itself could be delayed indefinitely for as long as Jinshi doesn't declare it publicly, but Maomao can no longer do anything that would make a future marriage impossible. Though, she did know what he wanted and made him say it anyway. Even used an example that said "you'll lose me if you don't."

@LeavesCat said in The Apothecary Diaries Vol. 6 Discussion!:

If her background was known at the start, she would have entered the palace as a high consort.

Probably not; While being an official member of the La family might give her the rank for it (we don't know exactly how the various families stack up, but Loulan is probably the only High Consort whose family would have straight up outranked Maomao's at the start of the series), she doesn't have the temperament or the looks for it.

Maomao is relatively plain (and very unfriendly) by in-universe standards, and bloodline is only one factor of several that go into the selection.

The core idea of a programmer and a mecha otaku being reborn into a fantasy world, only to find it has magical mecha, and throwing himself into the subject with all the seriousness of an otaku who can finally get close to his obsession in real life, is pretty fun, and the enthusiasm of the main character really carries the reader along... But I find that when one character is the best at fighting, and magic, and inventing, and tactics, and is extremely handsome, and a natural leader, and utterly fearless, and and and, and that's all before we even get to his main specialty... it actively takes away from the story being interesting. Unless you play it up for humour, I guess, and even then it might get old fast. And this book plays it completely straight.

Last JP volume was over 2 years ago so this is probably all there's going to be.

The old woman watching Jinshi eat grasshoppers like "holy shit this guy's down bad."

That afterword was hilarious. Getting sucked in to Excel programming for tracking character stats, and having so many next steps that snowball into a much bigger project felt relatable.

@MMOSimca-ddm6ono said in Gag Character Vol. 1 Discussion!:

@Terabyte said in Gag Character Vol. 1 Discussion!:

@MalukuSeito said in Gag Character Vol. 1 Discussion!:

I actually dig this, what are the chances to get physical book?

I don't think there's any chance. The LN was canceled after 2 volumes. 🙄

Ah, so that's why JNC never translated a volume 3 of the LN.

Bummer, I really liked this. There are 10 novels about male protagonists for every novel about female protagonists. Probably changes to 20:1 if you exclude females under the age of 12, too.

And half of them are from FUNA :)

Not really, but they are rare outside of Villainess stories. At least we just got a Secret Saint volume and there's another Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear coming out this year.

Author, FYI you can use Chat GPT4 to do a lot of the excell work for you.

This was a good ending to a good series. Could have continued, if not for the cancellation, but was also self-contained enough that the cut-off doesn't hurt the story.

Alterisse is an amazing character! Her part of the story was great, and I kinda wish we could have gotten an Alterisse novel besides a Herscherik novel.

One of the rare LNs that deal with slavery (mostly) right - both in having the modern person repeatedly mention how disgusting and creepy the whole institution is for them, and for having sympathetic "local" characters fighting for the recognition of slaves as actual people against the status quo.

@jpwong
Thank you for the info
So the author is the one doing the re-write.They must have not liked the original story line as this version is sooooo much different to the WN