Light Novel Genre Tags or Other More Specific Markings/Identifiers
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Does J-Novel have a 'homosexuality' tag? Or other identifier that lets people know if homosexuality is a part of the novel or series?
It hasn't been evident in some of the light novels I have read, and some light novels start off with no homosexuality in the earlier volumes, only to include it within later volumes. For instance, "Full Clearing Another World under a Goddess with Zero Believers", starts off with no homosexuality, then introduces suggestive homosexuality with the little boy, and by volume 10, a sex changing character is included. "Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World" had the same series of events, starting off with no homosexuality and then slowly introducing it within the story. Not from this site, but just to provide an 'outside' example, "Trapped in a Dating Sim - The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs", is the same way, starting off without any homosexuality and then going into a full (so far 3 novel) homo-arc.
Those have full on stories, world building, etc. While others, like, "The Great Cleric", or "Reincarnated as a Sword", include a homosexual background character, or characters, which if edited out have no impact on the overall story. Like they were just thrown in there to be thrown in there.
Overall, I would like to avoid such stories and find it curious that a fan translation site like mangakalot can include homosexuality tags on their translated content to make readers aware of the homosexual content, but so far I haven't noticed any such tags on a much larger, more defined, site such as J-Novel to help avoid reading those stories if that type of content is not to your personal tastes.
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Hello,
We have a Yuri tag
https://j-novel.club/series?search=tag:"yuri"
And while we have no series that fall under Yaoi if we did we would add that tag. Those tags would be added if the premise of the story centered around Yuri or Yaoi. Not for minor story points. One reason is that adding a minor Yuri/Yaoi instance is a huge part of JP literature. Nearly all of our books (and other publishers) would have those tags added as eventually an author will allude to or insert a scene or character to go down that route.
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As someone who don't like yuri (and let's not even talk about yaoi...) if every series with a lesbian love rival gets a yuri tag I would have definitely missed a fair number of works I enjoyed, so I agree with adding it only when particularly relevant to the main plot. I saw sites where it was specified if a tag referred to the main plot or not, but I guess in that case there would be a concrete risk of an explosion of tags because with time people would ask for one fir every detail if yhe plot, no matter how small.
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I can understand wanting to avoid themes that keep you from enjoying a series. I've dropped series that included slavery as being a good thing, or that treated sexual assault as acceptable behavior. That's just my preferences, I try not to claim mine are more correct than anyone else's
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@Rahul-Balaggan said in Light Novel Genre Tags or Other More Specific Markings/Identifiers:
Hello,
We have a Yuri tag
https://j-novel.club/series?search=tag:"yuri"
And while we have no series that fall under Yaoi if we did we would add that tag. Those tags would be added if the premise of the story centered around Yuri or Yaoi. Not for minor story points. One reason is that adding a minor Yuri/Yaoi instance is a huge part of JP literature. Nearly all of our books (and other publishers) would have those tags added as eventually an author will allude to or insert a scene or character to go down that route.
I took some time to consider your response, which I appreciate. After some consideration, and reading the other members' responses, I have a couple of question:
- How much of the story needs homosexuality to be given one of those tags?
- Can the tag be given for a volume that centers on homosexuality while the entire series does not?
For instance, "The Great Cleric", has a homosexual character that plays an insignificant role in the entire story. So your provided reasoning is very fair with regards to how prevalent the homosexuality is.
But a story like, "Full Clearing Another Word Under a Goddess with Zero Believers", spans from insignificant / indirect homosexual behavior, to novel 10's character being directly 'transexual'.
I don't think the entire series should have a homosexual tag, but when you look up the series, maybe novel 10 should have that tag?
Going through 9 novels in a series, just to drop it when 10 comes because someone didn't know it had homosexuality in it is a huge waste of time. I know that is a personal sentiment, but I tend to read quickly enough that I generally look for series that have a lot of volumes before beginning. I know I am just testing the waters on this site still, but this is a big enough concern for me to ask this question.
Thanks for your earlier reply, hope everyone is having a Merry Christmas and looking forward to a Happy New Year.
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@igounfazed said in Light Novel Genre Tags or Other More Specific Markings/Identifiers:
Going through 9 novels in a series, just to drop it when 10 comes because someone didn't know it had homosexuality in it is a huge waste of time.
In that case, it might be better to look up spoilers before you decide to read the series. That way you can know whether the content is objectionable to you or not.
Season's Greetings!
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@saidahgilbert said in Light Novel Genre Tags or Other More Specific Markings/Identifiers:
In that case, it might be better to look up spoilers before you decide to read the series. That way you can know whether the content is objectionable to you or not.
Season's Greetings!
That's actually a bit difficult without knowing if homosexuality is already in the story and it isn't tagged as having homosexuality. It's something that tends to not provide that result when searching. "Min Maxing My TRPG Build...", was like that. When they intruduced the transexual character, before revealing it was transexual, the MC's text started giving that feeling that it may be going there. Google let me down in that instance.
I have tried going to fan translation sites, since they tend to have more pertinent tagging. But if the story isn't being fan translated...
If you give it a successful shot, let me know which story you searched for and what search term or phrase you used.
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@igounfazed - a longer series is probably going to have a little of everything at some point as a side story, supporting character arc, or incidental arc.
In my opinion the tags should cover major characters and persistent themes.
The Mixed Bathing series would clearly deserve a "bathing" tag, but a series with one "hot springs episode" (required for any series wishing to become an anime ;) ) would not.
Infinite Dendrogram has a possibly gay character as the teacher for one of the main cast. That came up in one volume out of 20. Should the series have an LGBT+ tag? That wouldn't make sense to me because it doesn't apply to 95+% of the content.
You could possibly suggest that every volume should have its own set of tags, but even then something that only appears in one chapter of that volume might not deserve a tag.
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@igounfazed I still wouldn't give a LGBT tag to Zero Believers since I don't think the character you allude to is meant to be seen as a contemporary trans person nor his/her introduction to the story serves to introduce LGBT themes, rather is a mean to add one more girl to the protagonist's harem.
I don't have a definitive answer for when it's appropriate to give a tag to a series. Rule of thumb could be use tag for things that pertain to the main story and the main characters, but I'm aware that it's still a generic concept. As you said, individual perception also matters a lot, something that is a deal breaker for you deserving a warning might not be for me and vice-versa, really hard to find the right compromise.
Probably the best advice I can give you is to ask on the forum if a series you are interested in reading has objectionable content. This isn't going to help if the content is added in future volumes but is still better than nothing. -
The exact metric is not broken down to a science. Just briefly if the main characters are not going down that route in the first few volumes it won’t be getting that tag. Even if there was a reoccurring side character that does.
If you do not wish to read that content your best bet is to wait until a series has multiple volumes out and then ask on the forums or Reddit if the story goes down that direction. Fair warning, the longer a series it is more likely than not going to go down that route in some way.
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EDIT: unnecessary mention of a missed example removed
But as far as the actual topic of this thread, I will side with those that say the tag isn't necessary if it's only incidental to the story. Tags are designed for telling us what the story itself is about, not random side occurences. And as has been pointed out already multiple times, almost everything JNC publishes is going to have at least a passing mention of one of these topics as it seems to be just part of the genre.
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Honestly the avoiding of any direct mention of other examples of different series (or series already mentioned) is a good thing.
I do not want this topic to become one where people argue over semantics over if something is or is not Yuri/BL based on each individuals own personal view on the matter.
This topic is an unlit box of explosives. I want to keep it unlit.
Sorry but J-Novel Club does not publicly comment on any potential licensing decision or acquisitions.
J-Novel Club, Future Volume Release Schedule
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@Rahul-Balaggan I think you're right, I removed that portion of my post.
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@Rahul-Balaggan said in Light Novel Genre Tags or Other More Specific Markings/Identifiers:
This topic is an unlit box of explosives. I want to keep it unlit.
I agree with this sentiment, and have been attempting to remain on topic to my concern without any inflammatory wording.
I take under consideration your ealier response, along with what some of the other members here have said. If you don't mind, could you please keep this thread open a bit longer while I think over the replies? I don't intend to beat a dead horse, but I would like a little time to properly consider all of your sentiments.
Thank you all thus far.
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As of right now I have no intention of locking this topic.
The topic will decide what happens.
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As a reader, I see this simply as a "buyer beware" issue. If you see a new flavor of potato chip at the grocery store you decide to buy, it's on you if you end up not liking the taste. Even if you've liked every other flavor of chip from that company, there's no guarantee you'll like this one, and that's just life.
The same goes for book series; the author is a human being who has their own views on life and other topics, and they may or may not decide to include what they know or believe or see or hear in their works. Readers like book series because you can "generally" expect that what you liked in the beginning will continue, and there will be new things to like moving forward. However, that isn't always the case, and it sucks to feel that you've wasted time or energy, but it happens.
If you're worried about "wasting time" then you can look for spoilers ahead of time or ask someone who's already read a book whether XYZ occurs in it. But sometimes you're just going to be dealt a bad hand; I spent a lot of hours/days reading stuff like A Sword of Ice and Fire and The Kingkiller Chronicles and it irritates me that those series will probably stay unfinished, but I don't expect publishers to add a sticker to the cover that says "WARNING: Series has not had a new book in X years" either.
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Unfortunately I think almost every novel I've seen out there has some form of lgbtq+ or at least some scenes that the parts of the fandom interpret as such once they reach a certain length. The problem is the longer a series goes on, the more likely you'll see such scenes enter the series in some way shape or form. The only way to avoid this is to effectively only read series that are both short, and complete.
While I have seen some fanTLs flag sexual scenes, extreme violence, etc, it's typically a warning on the specific chapter, not the series as a whole as most fanTLs are generally of the belief that if you're there reading the series, you already have some idea about what it's about. They're not trying to market to people randomly browsing for things to read like an actual publisher might, they're aiming at people who've seen the series in some other format (manga, anime, etc) and want to read the original source material that typically hasn't been licensed in English.
I guess the problem is everyone has a different level of tolerance to this stuff, so trying to tag everything would just be absurd, so I have to agree with the idea that the tags represent the primary plot for the series rather than every possible thing that occurs within. By far the majority of FanTLs I've seen don't mention the genres of their series in any great detail beyond a summary of the series which they may or may not update as the do more volumes. Tagging tends to be done more often by aggregation sites who are lifting both fan and official TLs and hosting them on their own sites to generate ad revenue because they want you to stay on their sites and in some cases they allow anyone with an account to add their own tags as they want, so can get series that have dozens of tags as readers add whatever they want to the series.
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@Lex said in Light Novel Genre Tags or Other More Specific Markings/Identifiers:
I still wouldn't give a LGBT tag to Zero Believers since I don't think the character you allude to is meant to be seen as a contemporary trans person nor his/her introduction to the story serves to introduce LGBT themes, rather is a mean to add one more girl to the protagonist's harem.
That is actually a bit contradictory, don't you think? How is it a 'girl' to be added to the MC's harem, if it is actually a man and actually a woman? More so if it is normalizing a love interest by a character that has otherwise been straight? With a character that has been immortalized through the story's history as male.
@HarmlessDave : I a little of everything is fine. I can actually read around something like that. The Great Cleric is a good example of that. The homosexual character is very limited, to like three volumes, and maybe a couple of paragraphs in each volume. I think we are saying, essentially, the same thing as far as tagging goes. I would not tag The Great Cleric as it stands now. Nor would I tag "Full Clearing Another World under a Goddess with Zero Believers", as a whole. I would tag Novel 10 though, as it becomes the crux of the character and the MC's involvement with that character.
@myskaros said in Light Novel Genre Tags or Other More Specific Markings/Identifiers:
If you see a new flavor of potato chip at the grocery store you decide to buy, it's on you if you end up not liking the taste.
I see what you are saying, but with your example, the flavored chips, you can read right on the packaging what you are getting into. At that point, after tasting them, it's definitely all on you. But with the book, there is no mention of it on the packaging. That's more like finding a gas engine in your brand new delivered tesla. To me at least.
@jpwong said in Light Novel Genre Tags or Other More Specific Markings/Identifiers:
The only way to avoid this is to effectively only read series that are both short, and complete.
I think I may have been spoiled with series such as bookworm, and another [not from this site so I wont mention it]. They are both long and have no homosexuality within them.
@Rahul-Balaggan said in Light Novel Genre Tags or Other More Specific Markings/Identifiers:
...wait until a series has multiple volumes out and then ask on the forums [...] if the story goes down that direction.
I think this is probably my only actionable course to take. It sucks that I am going to drop what is otherwise a good story, especially after reading 9 volumes. But there is nothing else to be done, if there is nothing else that can be done.
I take it your suggestion is saying it would be ok to ask on these forums whether or not a series has homosexuality within it or not?
Thank you all for the replies. I appreciate the honesty and open-mindedness had to my question.
Rahuul, as far as I am concerned, since I have come to a satisfactory answer, you can close this thread. I wont be following it any more for updates. If you feel others can further benefit from continuing this thread, that is fine as well. I just figure, as the person that initiated the thread, I should at least let you know that I have accepted a reasonable conclusion to it.
Thank you all, I hope your Christmas was splendid and that your New Year be the best you've ever had.
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Rahul Balaggan
