Giving Thanks with November Catchups
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We're thankful that so many J-Novel Club series have been adapted to anime, and we're here to share those thanks with our members in November's catchups! If you're enjoying these anime series this season, we hope you'll enjoy reading the source material just as much!
After being captured during a revolution, Princess Mia of the Tearmoon Empire is beheaded at the guillotine... then wakes up as a child again! Can she keep her head in her second stab at life, or will her selfish tendencies cut her efforts short?
After a divine mistake results in her grotesque death, Kaoru is sent to another world with the ability to create any potion she imagines! However, this medieval fantasy isn't quite what she predicted, so her modern sensibilities and fiery personality quickly attract attention, both good and bad. Regardless, she will confidently declare "I Shall Survive Using Potions!" And a new volume may start streaming soon!
The second season of The Faraway Paladin is now airing! Refresh yourselves on this story about a boy who grows up in isolation with three undead. How did he get there, and why are these undead raising him? And we had the light novel on catchup last month, but check out the manga for My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer as well!
If you're not into these anime series, we've got a couple other options too! In Isekai Tensei: Recruit to Another World, Tenma agrees to be reborn into a world of swords and fantasy, with amazing powers bestowed on him by the gods. However, his adventure only truly begins when he is kidnapped, plunging his tranquil village into turmoil... And ECHO is a short horror one-shot based on a popular Vocaloid song! A perfect wrap-up for Halloween!
Thank you for supporting J-Novel Club for all these years, and enjoy these 30 catchup volumes!
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Pinned by
myskaros
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Everyone please check out Tearmoon Empire
It is probably the best written series on JNC, with layered world building, genius word play and sentence construction, and actual character development.
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I read 2? volumes of Potions back some years ago, and I have one gripe with it: The title. It doesn't have anything at all to do with surviving. The protagonist is almost immediately very powerful and just does whatever she wants.
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Seconding Tearmoon, at least the first 2 volumes. After that I felt like it started getting samey, kind of like Bakarina did.
But those two are excellent.
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@83drew the later volumes do evolve but I can see how you would feel that way
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Faraway Paladin has one of the best portrayals of a paladin as devout but human, not a cardboard Force For Lawful Goodness. It and Elizabeth Moon’s Deed of Paksenarrion are my two favorites in novels.
It’s also a world in which the gods are present and active, but in an organic way not as in typical game world isekai.
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I'm another vote recommending Faraway Paladin. It reads more like high fantasy than a light novel and the reincarnation aspect is not a focus except as a motivator for the MC to lead a more fulfilling life this time. If you're a fan of Lord of the Rings, etc. I recommend it.
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Tempted to reread Faraway Paladin, with the secret hope that the anime will motivate the author to write the conclusion. Might try Echo,but is it needed to know the song to make sense of the story?
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@Lily-Garden said in Giving Thanks with November Catchups:
Everyone please check out Tearmoon Empire
I agree that Tearmoon Empire is very well written, it is one of my favorites. I discovered just last month that S-ranked daughter is another that is very well planned and written (well, as far as I got into reading it, haven't caught up with streaming).
Side thought: Bookworm is an outlier and should not be considered in this kind of discussion.
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Will start with ISSUP this month (as I am already up to date with the top choice, Teamroom). The manga was light and enjoyable. The anime that has opened this season mirrors the manga style but I can't call it anything more than "watchable, middle of the pack".
I'll try and give Isekai Tensei and Faraway Paladin a look this month.
Edit, so that I don't spam too many new posts ...
- I remembered there was an anime after Faraway Paladin - and I found in my Fall 2021 section the following "7/12 ok-ish. But do I care about it?" 7/12 means I have watched up to episode 7 and dropped it. But - as a good advice that I sometimes fail to follow - no assumptions should be made about the source light novel based on its anime.
On ISSUP - I like the LN illustrations much better than the style of the manga and the anime. However, do yourselves a favor and look at the statue of Celestine in either the anime or the manga. It is well worth it.
- I remembered there was an anime after Faraway Paladin - and I found in my Fall 2021 section the following "7/12 ok-ish. But do I care about it?" 7/12 means I have watched up to episode 7 and dropped it. But - as a good advice that I sometimes fail to follow - no assumptions should be made about the source light novel based on its anime.
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Isekai Tensei- volume 1 starts out with weak prose (often reading like a wikipedia summary to me) and a somewhat generic but serviceable story. 2-on the prose improves as the author learns their craft, but the storytelling remains generic and often predictable.
Aside from the prose in volume 1 it's never terrible, but to me the story is rarely exciting. Things happen, then more things happen. It has the blandness of a McDonalds hamburger or typical frozen dinner that's edible but nothing to care much about. I'm still reading it but the prepubs are at the bottom of my priority list.
The number of posts in the discussion topics offer a hint at how uninteresting the story can be -- the terrible LNs have many posts skewering their badness, the good LNs have many posts debating the finer points of the story. The meh LNs have 0-1 posts per week because the readers don't care enough to post any thoughts. That's what you'll see for the current volume of Tensei.
(As always, an LN being unexciting to me is not a comment about the JNC staff, who do good work with the material they've been given from the original author.)
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Tearmoon and Faraway Paladin are both well worth reading. I enjoy reading Tearmoon more, but that is simply taste -- going by objective quality, Faraway Paladin is near the top of what J-Novel Club has to offer.
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I guess I've now joined the cult of Mia Luna Tearmoon :)
The first two volumes are fun, with similar silly misunderstandings and warping of probability as in Me? A Genius? and Grieving Soul, though all 3 have distinct MCs.
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@HarmlessDave said in Giving Thanks with November Catchups:
I guess I've now joined the cult of Mia Luna Tearmoon :)
Welcome! Have a mushroom cookie 😊
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Of this month's selection...two I were already reading, two I'd tried and disliked, I don't do horror...
Which leaves The Faraway Paladin, which I started into today.
And have purchased.
The entire five volumes.
...I had to purchase the first volume so I could see if some errors I came across had been fixed in publication (they were.)
I'm now far enough into volume 1 that I don't foresee not wanting to finish the series; I'm 75% done with volume 1, so, yeah, taking a break before a certain climatic altercation (dinner and such first seems wise.)I hadn't taken a look at this series previously, I guess out of fear that it would be done poorly; the premise could go either way depending upon how it was handled.
The author (and the translation team) has done an outstanding job.Now for the aforementioned dinner and such to get my mind properly prepared for what's coming up...as I don't know how it will turn out, but have my hopes and fears.
Having had dinner, I've now completed Volume I, and am moving on to Volume II.
Hopes and fears, as I said.
Fairly close to spot-on, to the extent I'd articulated them in my mind.
Fairly close.
Which deity he'd hook up with had been a no-brainer for a very long time.
The ramifications of that...no great surprise there; sadness mixed with gladness, to misquote Tom Lehrer. -
@Geezer-Weasalopes - adding to my list of reasons why I love this series, it has one of the more nuanced and sympathetic portrayals of the dead, the undead, and their gods. Volume II has some moments that I can't recall reading anything like before, and I've been reading western fantasy for (mumble) decades.
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Robina Goodfellow?!
...a merry wanderer of the night, perhaps?
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so what's echo about? the synopsis doesn't actually say anything about it.
Or is it the kind of story where saying anything at all about it will spoil it? -
Unpinned by myskaros
