Wait, Kokoro Connect is really hated???
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@roland said in Wait, Kokoro Connect is really hated???:
I'm just not that big into body-swap stories so it's rather low on my to-read, I'll give it a shot eventually.
Someone write a bot to autorespond to these posts that the body swap is only volume one?
am I a weirdo to love KC and all the 'shitty escapism isekai'? Seems like most of the comments in this thread have people heavily either/or
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@smashman42 Yeah, I like kc and a lot of “crappy” Isekai too. Honestly right now I’m reading vol 2 of “Killing Slimes for 300 years” (extremely fluffy escapist fun) and Sebastian Jungers “Tribe” (brilliant but neither escapist or fluffy). Every day I cycle through a number of moods and like reading for all those moods.
That said I’m behind on KC and really need to read vol. 2 finally. Maybe after slime...
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@smashman42 I think it's a case that the anime actually "killed" the story. Most people, even if they know better, saw the body swap being the focus early on led everyone to believe it was the story. Those repelled by the arc aren't going to look past that for any further story.
For me at least, the story seems somewhere in the middle of too soft or too serious, so not really interested. Hyouka, which had a similar arc based method has a more serious feel (something I usually don't care for), but just enough tension to keep me interested without going overboard. This is also the reason I don't read/watch horror. Haruhi, also has the same arc based story type, but is a lighter read.
As for the body swap issue, it'll always continue. Because it's the opening, anyone giving the series a shot is going to be either drawn-in or repelled by the arc. What happens after is irrelevant if you don't like the beginning. In other terms, nobody is going to watch a movie if the first half hour (and all of the character introduction) is static.
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Like is body-swap a genre now?
Don't really get it lol -
@smashman42
Well, for me, it's more like I ain't that compatible with action and adventure series and need something else for a hook.
But I love gritty dark series through teen drama like KC, Monogatari, Oregairu and Seishun Buta to sweet or hilarious Romcoms. -
@bloodygaikotsu said in Wait, Kokoro Connect is really hated???:
Like is body-swap a genre now?
Don't really get it lolYour Name. Inside Mari. This.
That's all I got, unless you want to stretch it (Punch Line is a body swap because somebody hijacks the main character for the majority of it while he floats around as a ghost). I'm sure there's more though.
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@terrence
Still not genre like all these works have nothing to do with each other vibe-wise, audience-wise, genre-wise.I am just wondering why people are lumping them together as they have the same characteristics.
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@bloodygaikotsu It doesn't have to be a genre to be lumped as similar. Anyone could just as easily say they don't like cooking, mechs, or slaves in their reading material, and cover just as much variation. The fact that it includes it in the story line is going to be grounds for some people to not be interested. That is all personal preference.
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@pleco_breeder
If they ain't the same thing, I don't really get the logic behind it.
It's like saying I don't like a certain type of snacks even tho it has different flavors yet you may enjoy some of these flavors when they are associated with another type of snacks. -
@bloodygaikotsu said in Wait, Kokoro Connect is really hated???:
@pleco_breeder
If they ain't the same thing, I don't really get the logic behind it.
It's like saying I don't like a certain type of snacks even tho it has different flavors yet you may enjoy some of these flavors when they are associated with another type of snacks.Using that same logic, if you don't like peanuts (body swapping) you're not going to eat any of those snacks with peanuts.
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@pleco_breeder
You are aware that those ain't the same thing, right?
Peanuts have their own flavor wherever you put them, you can still taste themOK, forget analogies.
What I am saying is tropes are kinda flavorless on its own, it's how they are used that produces the flavor.
E.g. I hate plot armor in Battle Shounen manga, but I am OK with it in other works simply 'cuz of it is not used in the same way. -
@bloodygaikotsu I think the problem is most people don't think about finer details like that - same as isekai as a "genre" when it is just a trope used to start a story. People love to categorise & generalise, and often make up too many BS categories just because categories are ways to not have to think so hard. See the discussion about how shounen/seinen/shoujo/josei - same tendency to see categories where they don't really exist to assist lazy thinking.
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Oh how I wish light novel's isekai couldn't generally fit into a category. Alas.
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I mean, kokoro connect doesn't really even fall under the body swapping 'genre'. I guess you can call that a genre due to how popular it was for a while, but Kokoro Connect isn't really that kind of story. It is more like a series about how people deal with things that are out of their control. Hard to explain properly right now.
To me, I'm less worried about the 'genre' and more interested in how they make use of things. There are many series about people being reincarnated as objects or locations, but in general, each one deals with different problems or have different methods of dealing with issues that come up.
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@bloodygaikotsu said in Wait, Kokoro Connect is really hated???:
@pleco_breeder
You are aware that those ain't the same thing, right?
Peanuts have their own flavor wherever you put them, you can still taste themOK, forget analogies.
What I am saying is tropes are kinda flavorless on its own, it's how they are used that produces the flavor.
E.g. I hate plot armor in Battle Shounen manga, but I am OK with it in other works simply 'cuz of it is not used in the same way.The point is that there will always be people avoiding because it's used. It doesn't matter if it's the entire story or only a portion of the story. Even within a group that would normally be interested in the overall story, there will be a group which will refuse it based upon the use of that.
Using your own example, I'm going to assume that you avoid reading stories which make use of plot armor, but ok with other battle shounen manga. Same applies to other readers. They may be interested in the rest of the series, but would be repulsed by the idea of body swapping to the extent that they would avoid the series. The simple use of it as a literary tool is all it takes to change the flavor for them.
I personally think this is one of the main drawbacks of these types of stories which are generally arc-based. Although a large portion of the book/series may be of interest, because they're required to confront multiple different types of problems in order to maintain the continuity of the story, they're more likely to run into aspects which are going to repulse a portion of the readers.
As already mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I enjoyed Hyouka (another arc-based growing up story). However, the later portions were bordering on being too serious for my tastes. It made it a challenge to maintain interest, and I really only finished because I refused to stop after going so far. In the case of KC, it puts the most commonly disliked literary tool used in the series (body swapping) in the first arc, so anyone that doesn't have an interest in that type of story is never going to go any further.
The same applies for issekai. If someone isn't interested in it, they're not going to read anything which uses some form of literary tool to place someone in a different world. There are a lot of stories which use it, but could just as easily be written as a fantasy series beginning in the different world with no real background. The only ones that really seem to make use of it consistently are those which require some form of memory or connection to the prior life. A large portion don't even do that and really only use it as an introduction because it's the current trend, and publishers are more likely to pay for the currently hot issekai than a fantasy novel. Regardless, there are going to be people avoiding those whether it's a major plot point or just an introduction.
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@pleco_breeder said in Wait, Kokoro Connect is really hated???:
The same applies for issekai. If someone isn't interested in it, they're not going to read anything which uses some form of literary tool to place someone in a different world. There are a lot of stories which use it, but could just as easily be written as a fantasy series beginning in the different world with no real background. The only ones that really seem to make use of it consistently are those which require some form of memory or connection to the prior life. A large portion don't even do that and really only use it as an introduction because it's the current trend, and publishers are more likely to pay for the currently hot issekai than a fantasy novel. Regardless, there are going to be people avoiding those whether it's a major plot point or just an introduction.
Der Werewolf is a good JNC example. It's a minor part of the story where the memories supply useful information and insight now and then. In Seirei Gensouki it's an even smaller part, at least in the first couple of volumes.
Someone who refuses to read isekai will miss out on two decent series just because of it.
In my case, I'm not that interested in coming-of-age stories, so that plus body-swapping is a double negative for me. I enjoyed the Hyouka anime but don't have much interest in reading the novels.
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The only other prominent thing I know that starts with body swap is Yamada kun and the Witches. But that was only the starter arc, much like KC.
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@sam-pinansky
Yeah, JC Staff's Orphen anime was pretty much original content from the start since they only loosely based the entire first season around the first volume, while mildly adapting elements of the second and fourth volumes. Otherwise, they virtually ignored all of the other arcs in the main series, along with a majority of the lore, plot and characters and basically made up their own story. As for Akita Yoshinobu, he didn't fall into a creative slump and left the main series incomplete for years. That old rumor was based on him first talking about making the Teshitahen sequel starring Orphen and Cleao's daughters and Mayor(sp?) on his personal website, so you got people crowing "Orphen isn't finished!" when the main story was done years ago.As for the re-edits, he condensed the main series into an omnibus, going from the initial 20 paperback volumes into 10. He's also done the same for the prequel gaiden and sequel series for Orphen. He's now re-editing the Muhouhen compilation again into two book series: Pre-Journey and Rogue (Pre-Journey covers Orphen's time as a student while Rogue details his travels before the events of Volume 1).
