Wait, Kokoro Connect is really hated???
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(does a google search on "the incident")
Wow, this is down there with Kadokawa's firing the Kemono Friends team for terrible mistreatment of people.
That doesn't change my feelings towards the light novels though. Still little to no interest :)
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I'm somewhat amused people can grow up from teenage drama but not from preschool isekai.
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@novurdim said in Wait, Kokoro Connect is really hated???:
I'm somewhat amused people can grow up from teenage drama but not from preschool isekai.
Another world is another world, so not what we see around us every day.
I'd much rather read a C.J. Cherryh or L.E. Modesitt Jr. novel about somewhere else than the NY Times bestsellers about midlife crises, long-buried child abuse, etc. all set in our own world. I can enjoy someone like Mark Twain mostly because the setting is a window back into a world before I was born.
Beverly Hills 90210? Boring. Buffy The Vampire Slayer? Fun. To me of course -- read what you enjoy, enjoy reading it, and don't let others not enjoying it make you feel threatened.
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@novurdim there's something about fantasy that just helps hold the suspension of disbelief, the fact that it's a different world where the rules of our own might not necessarily apply play a huge factor in this. Realistic drama on the other hand is much harder to do right because it can either strike too close to home and feel intrusive, or strike too far and reach no empathy, you walk a thin line when writing those. It's much easier to enjoy stupid isekai than a realistic drama that steps out of bounds.
That said, I really liked the KC anime, and will be picking up the novels once we get to volume 4. I really want to read Michi Random. This is one of those series where I felt the drama was well done.
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@alocervancouver Wait, what do you mean known issues for Orphen or Seirei?
Orphen's primary series of 20 books has long been completed. I mean, there are sequel series and arcs but that's like saying the Lord of the Rings isn't complete because Tolkien didn't finish "The Silmarillion" before his death.
And to my knowledge Seirei's web novel is still fine and there's plenty of content to go on the LN side. -
@sam-pinansky Sorry, I should have been more specific.
Yes, I actually asked when Orphen was coming out whether it was the first or second set. I heard about Orphen back in the day when Slayers was queen of the LN journey as something that "if you like Slayers, you'll love Orphen." (In case you're wondering, no I cannot read Japanese at all, but can read both traditional and simplified Chinese just fine and a good deal of LN's like Slayers and Orphen make it legitimately to the Chinese market.) And then the novels went on publication hiatus for two-three years, then while the series was resumed, the first four volumes were rereleased with major edits. There's a rumor out there that the series had some "help" as the author apparently wrote his way into a hole. I then saw the anime, then thought to myself, that irrespective of whether the rumor was true or not, the author obviously did not plan the series very well before starting. I'm just not interested in a series that shoots itself in the foot (like Haruhi). If you do end up publishing the gaiden series, I would be interested in that as it's significantly better planned (and I have read it).
For Seirei, I'm withholding judgment until they get past the reunion arc. Maybe there are some extensive rewrites, but this is one that will need significant rewrites.
In general, I'm not interested in series from authors who obviously write themselves into plot holes or go too far in terms of ambition without resolving the mess they made without ex machina involved (why I can't read George RR Martin, because any real fan of his knew the moment that GoT was announced as a TV series, there went any hope of him completing it as he made enough money to never need to complete another novel). I hold an extremely negative view toward ambitious series unless they get it done.
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I don't think comparing isekai to drama or LN to anime is fair on either count. I enjoyed the anime, but wouldn't call it a favorite. It was good for a three hour binge. However, not something I'm interested in making enough time to read the LN series.
As for comparing against isekai, I'll echo what has already been said. I get enough real life drama in my real life. Anime, manga, and LN are my escape from that. I don't think Kokoro Connect really classifies as a "real life" drama because it does have the supernatural aspect, but not really interested in reading about normal people doing normal things. IMO, series like "Haruhi Suzumiya" and "Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions" did a lot better service for the genre.
Not cutting down on "Kokoro Connect", but just really didn't catch my attention enough to place on a list of books I want to read.
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Kokoro Connect is easily among my favorite LNs on JNC right now. Granted, it has an advantage in that I had already seen and loved the anime, and I don't know if I would be loving the novels as much had I gone into them fresh--though I probably would still like them a lot. As someone whose tastes generally lean towards fluffy slice-of-life stuff, KC actually finds itself in a middle ground where the drama is definitely stronger but it's not actually all that dark or depressing, so it's "fluffy" in that "people have issues but we can totally work past them" way and... well, that is perfect for me.
Maybe other people find that "everyday high school drama" is uninteresting because they've "grown out of it" or something but personally, I do not agree at all with that view. Sure, maybe I personally do not struggle with the issues the kids in KC struggle with, but maybe those are issues my future children will struggle with, or something that someone I meet is struggling with, perhaps even as an adult. Plus, being interested in human psychology in general, I find nothing "ordinary" about these sorts of stories. Getting into the heads of people different from myself, understanding what makes them tick, seeing how their mental states react as they collide with each other... all that stuff is practically "another world" to me, and I am every bit as interested in it as I am in a fantasy world.
Well, I can understand why some people might not like it, or might not be interested in it. What I definitely do not understand are people who hate on the LNs because of the anime incident (it's completely outside of the influence of anyone involved in the writing of the source LNs), or those who feel like they must specifically say they hate KC in the JNC Curiouscat, especially those who say "please don't license more stuff like Kokoro Connect" as if all licensing decisions must be made specifically to tailor to their personal tastes. I mean, I definitely want Sam to license more stuff I am not interested in, because I know other people like that stuff and I want JNC to have something for everyone.
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I don't hate the series, or even know what this incident is that everyone keeps mentioning, but I have almost zero interest in reading slice of life drama series. There is enough real life drama to deal with, I read books to escape it.
In saying that I enjoy slice of life comedy's depending on the situation the book is written in and if i will enjoy that particular story. Otherwise 95% of what I read is fantasy.
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@alocervancouver From what I know, the anime diverges from the novels nearly after volume 1, and the second season of the anime is 100% original.
I'm not sure if the author really had trouble writing the series but it's pretty beloved in Japan. -
Well, I guess I underestimated people's thrive for escapism. I hope this stance won't hurt our chances of getting actually good novels and not just cheap wish-fulfillment fantasy, because from this discussion it feels like most of the crowd that JNC amassed wouldn't give a chance even to something like Seishun Buta not to mention thought out irl romance or drama. Which is honestly depressing and heavily limits JNC to the most juvenile series only.
@pleco_breeder said in Wait, Kokoro Connect is really hated???:
"Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions"
Oh no, my PTSD is kicking in from how bad the anime was. Nooooooooooooo D':
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I haven't read it because I'm not a big fan of the body-swapping gimmick, but what's this incident people are referring to?
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@pjthomas404 They treated a voice actor pretty poorly. See for instance this article for a summary.
Also, just as an aside, in case you weren't aware: The body swapping is limited to the first volume; there following volumes feature different phenomena.
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I can understand why some people wouldn't like it, I tried showing the anime to my sister and she just couldn't get into it and for months afterwards every time it came up she would tell me how much she hated it.
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@jaquobus said in Wait, Kokoro Connect is really hated???:
They treated a voice actor pretty poorly. See for instance this article for a summary.
sounds like the usual case of an intense overreaction by the crowd that hurt even the person in question but the crowd didn't really care because they simply want to be hysterical about something
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@novurdim said in Wait, Kokoro Connect is really hated???:
Well, I guess I underestimated people's thrive for escapism. I hope this stance won't hurt our chances of getting actually good novels and not just cheap wish-fulfillment fantasy.
I don't know if I'd categorize escapism or even blatant self-insert wish fulfillment as bad novels. Anything can be written well.
But this has been my fear for a while. It hasn't come to complete fruition yet though as we've gotten some novels that don't fit that mold even recently... But since a lot of them haven't sold amazingly, it makes me a bit worried, and it feels like JNC is kind of feeling through genres and potentially discarding some, like straight horror + mystery (I'm not really complaining that they should lose money on genres that don't sell, it just sucks personally as someone who wants some stuff in those spaces) and potentially light novels with heavily Shoujo looking covers.
The manga space will be something to watch as it all has elements of the fantastical so far. And we still haven't gotten a novel based in reality that doesn't have a fantastical element attached. I don't know if we have the audience for it (Rom Com maybe; drama, maybe no unfortunately). I'm very curious what the potential Yuri series Sam may be exploring turns out to be, and if that can bring in an audience too.
From a personal perspective, I like to challenge myself sometimes with reads about people that are different from myself (gender wise, sexual orientation wise, social status wise, even just hobby or work life wise) and different from the "self-insert / boy or girl next door" (and different from some of the fantasy based edge lord types who are only nice to the women in their lives as well). Some even small twist on the hero makes me happy (Suimei's desire to not get involved in the war of the fantasy world and just get the hell out, Haruhiro's introspective worried anxious thoughts that he has to work through to lead, Haru not taking any of the Otaku's BS in JK Haru + her being someone who had boyfriends + a social life in reality).
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Complex discussions aside, everyone just has different tastes. I don't hate Kokoro Connect, just not interested.
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@novurdim said in Wait, Kokoro Connect is really hated???:
Well, I guess I underestimated people's thrive for escapism. I hope this stance won't hurt our chances of getting actually good novels and not just cheap wish-fulfillment fantasy, because from this discussion it feels like most of the crowd that JNC amassed wouldn't give a chance even to something like Seishun Buta not to mention thought out irl romance or drama. Which is honestly depressing and heavily limits JNC to the most juvenile series only.
@pleco_breeder said in Wait, Kokoro Connect is really hated???:
"Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions"
Oh no, my PTSD is kicking in from how bad the anime was. Nooooooooooooo D':
This sentiment details the exact problem with the post question. That being differing tastes of the readers. At the same time as arguing in favor of what I assume is a favorite of yours, you had to take a stab at the entire JNC library ("cheap wish-fulfillment" and "most juvenile series only"). Everyone has a right to their taste in reading material.
I'm reading between the lines here, but the original post seemed to be looking for reasons that the book wasn't overwhelmingly popular. I think "hated", as stated in the title, is a bit extreme as I know several people that are rather fond of the series. However, making derogatory statements regarding the preference of other members is not going to put your suggestions, "Seishun Buta not to mention thought out irl romance or drama", in a better light. It only makes the overall suggestion appear argumentative.
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@novurdim well, how much sample did you did? also have you check the vote on license suggestion and still has the same conclusion? escapism is one thing and wish-fulfillment is another, but SOL series is still thriving imo.
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@pleco_breeder said in Wait, Kokoro Connect is really hated???:
However, making derogatory statements regarding the preference of other members is not going to put your suggestions, "Seishun Buta not to mention thought out irl romance or drama",
Yep, but the point was to make a derogatory statement, seishun buta is only an example of what's popular among non-isekai right now.
I'm also occasionally up for some cheap wish-fulfilment self-insert fantasy, but the insane and overwhelming number of those clones in the ln-market makes you want to be a jerk about it sometimes, doesn't it? I know it does.
