Hunker Down for the Holidays with December Catchups!
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Looking for some reading material this winter? We've got just the thing for you - new catchup series!
Accidentally killed by God? Not to worry! He'll send you to magical otherworld, and with your working smartphone to boot! That's what happens to Mochizuki Touya in the fan-favorite series In Another World With My Smartphone! There are 21 volumes for members to enjoy!
You can also check out the manga adapation of another hit series, Infinite Dendrogram, depicting the online adventures of Ray Starling in what might be more than just a game. Heart readers will be able to follow the adventures of a simple laundrymaid who might just be able to save the world with her cleaning magic in The Extraordinary, the Ordinary, and SOAP!, or Erika Aurelia diving into dungeons to prevent her foretold death in Deathbound Duke's Daughter.
Finally, we have the unique tale of a another gamer, a livestreamer, who somehow ends up possessing his character in Outer Ragna, which changes his fate forever.
Turn on that yule log video and settle in for some righteous reading!
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Yay, infinite dendrogram is on catch-up this time. I just finished the anime a few weeks ago and was thinking about checking out the LN.
Also everyone should read Deathbound dukes daughter if they haven't already because it is amazing and I need to share my love of this series with as many people as possible 😊
“There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.” ― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
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@Lily-Garden Sorry, but it looks like only the manga is on catchup this month.
Sorry but J-Novel Club does not publicly comment on any potential licensing decision or acquisitions.
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@Rahul-Balaggan I see, my mistake, I should have taken a closer look to see which one it was 😋
Well at least I will catch-up on the manga then 😊 -
Also all of y'all who are readers of Another world Smartphone, is the LN different from the anime? I remember seeing one episode of the anime and being completely lukewarm about it.
“There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.” ― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
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@Lily-Garden Smartphone is ok. It's entertaining enough.
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@Lily-Garden The LN's definitely better than the anime, but that's not too hard. ^^;;
A friend of mine called it 'Baby's first Isekai', and that's not too far off the map. It's very OP and wish-fulfillment, but there's an innocent fun and cleverness to it that carried me through the first few volumes. It started sliding for me around vol. 8, the way you get when you overeat candy, and I dropped out around vol. 10.
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No Master of Ragnarok again? Goes to sulk in the corner.
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@Lily-Garden Smartphone anime is kind of like the movie trailer for a film that has a strong story with scenes of action, comedy, and drama to move it along, but only the "action" parts make it to the trailer. And then the movie is thrown out, and only the trailer gets shown.
Example - Why were they heading to the capital? There was a reason, and it tied into events in the capital. But, since those events didn't happen in the anime, the reason was tossed out. And there was something Yae wanted to do in the capital, which involved her backstory... but the anime did away with it.
Once you read the novels, though, the anime could be thought of "illustrated vignettes".
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@Lily-Garden said in Hunker Down for the Holidays with December Catchups!:
Also all of y'all who are readers of Another world Smartphone, is the LN different from the anime? I remember seeing one episode of the anime and being completely lukewarm about it.
The novels are better than the anime, though you might get bored near the end of the 21-volume marathon.
The anime cuts out some of the world building, and some of the training and prep work by Touya that helps him earn his OP-ness. *
The anime also stops right before the main arc of the series (the Phrase).
- It seems typical for anime to focus on the "highlights" and miss the point. The Abilities Average anime is harmless fun but misses the clever humor of Mile trying and failing to be a "normal average girl." The Death March anime failed to convey that it was an OP tourist in a strange land story not a fighting the demon lord story.
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The only thing I haven't already dipped my toes into / lack interest in is Outer Ragna. Guess I'll try that out at some point.
I heartily recommend Deathbound Duke's Daughter to anyone unsure, so long as you're willing to sit around in Infinite Hiatus Hell with me and pray for more volumes down the line. Even so, it's worth the read!
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I'm joining on Deathbound Duke's Daughter recommendation. It is a novel that simply does a lot of things right. If you like some good writing with clever foreshadowing, great worldbuilding, interesting overarching mystery, and somewhat rare but well written action scenes, then go for it. (Of course, if you are okay with waiting indefinite amount of time for the third volume).
Sadly, doesn't seem like there's anything interesting for me that I haven't yet caught up with this time. Considering what people here say, I may try Smartphone, but, I don't know, the first episode of the anime was just too bland, and it honestly just doesn't seem like my type of novel.
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Might as well give my 2 cents on everything I've read seeing as people are asking for opinions on various series. If you want a plot synopsis you can just read the j-novel club summary of it, I'll be commenting more on whether it's worth your time reading if you find the premise interesting.
The Extraordinary, the Ordinary, and SOAP is a complete adaptation that neatly resolves everything after only 3 volumes; this may be attractive to some as it allows for a story that's a bit more complex than what you could fit into a single oneshot volume but also not too long that it overstays its welcome by dragging things out with nothing interesting to do. And I have to say... any more than 3 volumes and this probably would have overstayed its welcome. Has some good cliffhangers but I can't say I was particularly compelled by the narrative, though it's not awful either. Has an interesting narrative structure, insofar as it follows the traditional isekai "save the world" storyline from the perspective of what normally would have been a side character.
Outer Ragna has insufferably pretentious and obtuse prose and I honestly don't envy whoever had to translate it. Instead of narration that describes what is happening succinctly, the narration reads more like a POV stream of consciousness, as if you're listening to the narrators surface thoughts. Put simply, you are basically never told what is happening, but rather how characters react and feel in response to vague, nondescript events, and you are left trying to piece together through vague contextual clues what might be happening. You could be like three paragraphs into a character talking about some shocking event they can see and still have absolutely zero idea what they are seeing, and you might only get a partial picture once that character starts narrating their reactions to a conversation they're having with the person next to them. It's impossible to truly understate how insufferable this is while reading it, and it does this with pretty much anything and everything, constantly. It also doesn't help that the series is on haitus in Japan. All that being said, the premise and plot are compelling enough to make it worth a read even if you find the actual delivery of it as insufferable as I did.
Deathbound Duke's Daughter is the highlight of the set in my opinion but unfortunately also on indefinite hiatus in Japan. The pacing is tight and manages to make each volume an enjoyable arc in and of itself; meanwhile, the fantasy world is complex and interesting without being overdeveloped. However it feels like it went on hiatus two volumes into a story that seems like it would have spanned a dozen volumes, before even the opening act was even finished setting things up; while each volume is a satisfying blend of episodic narrative combined with an overall continuous plot thread, the fact that such a promising story may never see a continuation has left me quite unsatisfied.
The other two I haven't read, though I can say as far as the anime adaptations went, Smartphone was wish fulfillment isekai junk food and I dropped Dendrogram a few episodes in due to a few instances of shoddy writing, but that may have been an issue related to the adaptation itself rather than the source material and so I'm still waiting on an opportunity to give the LNs a chance in catchup. I might check the manga out to see if it shows that the adaptation was just mediocre.
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Where are the hard copies? I came here hoping to buy paper back copies of ascendance of a book worm considering amazon's site format is atrocious.
Its hard to filter the novel from the manga for one thing and most volumes of the novel are only being offered in digital/kindle, saw that novel club was the publisher for bookworm but appears the only thing I get from this website is links to e-books... the heck?
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Hello!
I noticed you replied here as well, I have answer your question in the topic I opened, which can be found at the following: https://forums.j-novel.club/post/108681
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This website only sells the ebooks. I'm pretty sure most of the books on this website do not get a hardcopy release, and it is only the particularly popular that will ever see a physical release. These physical releases are then distributed through other online retailers.
In any case, I suggest referencing this reddit post as it has links to each amazon paperback listing in the comments.
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I hope Outer Ragna is on catch up because the next volume is about to be announced.
The author fid says that they were resuming writings quite recently after all https://mypage.syosetu.com/mypageblog/view/userid/321597/blogkey/2648416/ -
@Raitoiro thanks that explains a bit, part 3 vol 1 paperback copy wont even be available till 3 months after vol 3 is available digitally /sigh
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@Sven-Stevenson-9cpdcgz I'm glad it was useful to you but take it with a grain of salt, Legend Novel didn't announce anything, the author just said that he was resuming writings and didn't mention Outer Ragna.
It does seems unlikely that the series was drop since there's only 1 volume left, it was reprinted, and the publisher mention the series from time to time, but unfortunately we never known for sure. -
@Raitoiro Hmm? i'm kind of off topic in this thread I mostly posted here as I was looking for hard copies/paperback copies of Acendance of a Bookworm.
Think you meant to reply to some one else?
