Good Starts, Bad Continuations

Serah

Sorry, I could not come up with a better thread title.

I am feeling frustrated about some titles like Flung into a New World? Time to Lift the 200-Year Curse! and The Amazing Village Creator: Slow Living with the Village Building Cheat Skill.

Context: since I wanted to read the continuation of Pens Down, Swords Up: Throw Your Studies to the Wind so badly I started using Shosetsuka ni Narou more and more with Google Translator / DeepL Translator. I tried the same back then, 5-7 years ago and that was no good, but the technology has advanced so much that together with my little knowledge of Japanese culture it has become readable at the level closing in to fan translations.

As a result it was a little like "a whole new world opening up" where I could read nearly all of my favourite series as soon as new chapters gets released, years ahead of the translations.

With that knowledge I cannot understand why some series got translated which seems no good to me - or rather - I have seen better, but those better ones did not get licensed or are seemingly overlooked.

I wanted to like the two mentioned titles as well, but it gets so bad for my taste and I just keep wondering - why not the other stuff which are more fun?

Of course, of course... it is always a matter of personal taste and so on - and I could accept that with one or two titles which I "perceive bad" because of personal taste. But it does not feel that way and I rather get the impression something is wrong with the licensing or picking ups of what is supposed to be good.

I know not many else here reads at 小説家になろう like I do, but if some do maybe they can relate?

I keep thinking: is it really good to license series which might turn bad later on? I am not sure if there are good examples of such already, and I know it is still a matter of taste. Like when I dropped In Another World With My Smartphone after volume 28 I just thought "this again, and again and again - by now it is just stretching out things but the content feels soulless for many volumes already".

Maybe some fans of In Another World With My Smartphone can convince me that it gets much better again and I am missing out. But I just do not feel the sort of "hook" to continue like e.g. in Invaders of the Rokujouma!?

sigh

If you read this far - I thank you. Probably just want to "steam off" some frustration about why this or that series is somehow licensed/popular/pushed in the west why some other gems are seemingly tossed aside/ignored.

JNC has a good hand in picking good stuff early on - normally. But I cannot get away the feeling that something changed recently, where suddenly a lot of the picks feels like "mass produced mainstream content". And I feel somewhat triggered by content which have especially that Square Enix marker...

kuali

The first thing that comes to mind when people talk about how the selections used to be better is... well, were they? There's a thing called Survivorship Bias - basically, the tendency to judge entire populations by the ones the 'survive' long enough to be measured. So when you're judging the early series by which of them you remembered into the present day, well, there could have been a lot of early slop and you wouldn't exactly remember most of it, would you?

So, let's see if the early licenses actually were better. I've copied out three 25-series blocks of JNC's output. The first 25, 25 from near the middle of the series list, and a set from early this year (probably not fair to use the series that are still mid-first-volume for the comparison).

	Oldest Series (451-427)	Middle Age (215-191)	Recent Set (51-75)
1	Occultic;Nine	Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte (Manga)	Isekai Walking
2	My Little Sister Can Read Kanji	A Cave King’s Road to Paradise: Climbing to the Top with My Almighty Mining Skills! (Manga)	The Countess Is a Coward No More! This Reincarnated Witch Just Wants a Break
3	Brave Chronicle: The Ruinmaker	I Parry Everything: What Do You Mean I'm the Strongest? I'm Not Even an Adventurer Yet! (Manga)	Disowned but Not Disheartened! Life Is Good with Overpowered Magic
4	My Big Sister Lives in a Fantasy World	Reincarnated Mage with Inferior Eyes: Breezing through the Future as an Oppressed Ex-Hero	A Cozy Life in the Woods with the White Witch
5	Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash	A Cave King's Road to Paradise: Climbing to the Top with My Almighty Mining Skills!	Imperial Reincarnation: I Came, I Saw, I Survived (Manga)
6	I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse	Ascendance of a Bookworm: Short Story Collection(s)	Mercedes and the Waning Moon: The Dungeoneering Feats of a Discarded Vampire Aristocrat (Manga)
7	Mixed Bathing in Another Dimension	Survival Strategies of a Corrupt Aristocrat	Meals Made to Order: How to Domesticate Your Dragon with Delicacies!
8	The Faraway Paladin	I Only Have Six Months to Live, So I'm Gona Break the Curse with Light Magic or Die Trying	Shannon Wants to Die!
9	Paying to Win in a VRMMO	A Pale Moon Reverie	Knock Yourself Out! The Goddess Beat the Final Boss in the Tutorial, So Now I'm Free to Do Whatever
10	How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom	A Royal Rebound: Forget My Ex-Fiance, I'm Being Pampered by the Prince!	They Don’t Know I’m Too Young for the Adventurer’s Guild
11	In Another World With My Smartphone	The 100th Time's the Charm: She was Executed 99 Times, So How Did She Unlock "Super Love" Mode?!	From Villainess to Healer
12	Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest	The Apothecary Witch Turned Divorce Agent	Mercedes and the Waning Moon: The Dungeoneering Feats of a Discarded Vampire Aristocrat
13	Bluesteel Blasphemer	Young Lady Albert is Courting Disaster	Imperial Reincarnation: I Came, I Saw, I Survived
14	Invaders of the Rokujouma!?	Fake Saint of the Year: Toy Wanted the Perfect Saint? Too Bad!	The Hero-Killing Bride
15	If It's for My Daughter, I'd Even Defeat a Demon Lord	Dragon Daddy Diaries: A Girl Grows to Greatness (Manga)	Pens Down, Swords Up: Throw Your Studies to the Wind
16	Demon King Daimaou	Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I'm Not the Demon Lord	Ascendance of a Bookworm: Hannelore’s Fifth Year at the Royal Academy
17	Infinite Dendogram	Only the Villainous Lord Wields the Power to Level Up	Flung into a New World? Time to Lift the 200-Year Curse! (Manga)
18	Clockwork Planet	Magic Stone Gourmet: Eating Magical Power Made Me The Strongest	My Fiancé Cheated, But a New Love Rings! (Manga)
19	Outbreak Company	Earl and Fairy	The Tiny Witch from the Deep Woods
20	How Not to Summon a Demon Lord	Make it Stop! I'm Not Strong... It's Just My Sword!	Bullet Hellion: The Gunslinging Demon Prince Crushes Another World with Modern Arms
21	Walking My Second Path in Life	Accidentally in Love: The Witch, the Knight, and the Love Potion Slipup	Abducted Princess Running Rampant: Wielding Forbidden Magic in the Demon King's Castle
22	Yume Nikki: I Am Not in Your Dream	Safe & Sound in the Arms of an Elite Knight	The Villainess Is Dead! Long Live the Empress! Redoing the Story After a Poisonous End
23	Ao Oni	Thompson	Three Cheats from Three Goddesses: The Broke Baron’s Youngest Wants a Relaxing Life
24	Arifureta Zero	Monster and Parent	My Fiancé Cheated, But a New Love Rings!
25	The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar	The Magician Who Rose From Failure (Manga)	My Tiny Senpai

Now, I can't really answer how those lists compare (I've only read one series from the 'early' list - Walking My Second Path in Life - a once-good comedy that utterly ruined itself with its third book), but the presence of titles like Mixed Bathing in Another Dimension suggests JNC wasn't exactly free of mass produced mainstream content even in the beginning...

Serah

@kuali heh, while true that list only enhances my impression, considering I favour many more titles from the early dates than from the recent time.

Though, I never did take manga into consideration.

With manga the recent time does not look so bad, especially considering that a lot of manga based on light novels were made years after the initial release of a light novel.

The only defense for JNC I can imagine is, that the overall amount of "slop" has exponentially increased - but still - those early days picks where mostly good/better ones from an already large pool, while nowadays it feels like lack of quality control and a focus too strong on maybe cheap licenses or sale numbers or package discounts aka anime.

The bad about those "if an anime exists, the LN gets licensed" cases is often that the anime is often of horrendous quality in comparison to actual original anime, and that the anime often serve as a "prolonged trailer" for a LN series. Like, there have been anime for series where the actual LN has either been cancelled already or put on infinite hiatus. In addition to the already bad quality of those anime.

At least that is the impression I am getting considering a lot of "newer" series. As if the licensing only look on the first initial sales but do not care about what comes after.

HarmlessDave

I like a lot of music that isn't very popular - not in the meme sense of "unsigned band you've probably never heard of" just artists that aren't Taylor Swift or Bad Bunny.

My point is what is popular and sells the most isn't what I would call the best music. As you said, that's just my personal taste.

The translation publishers are all going to pick what they hope will sell the best first. JNC has a history of also picking some titles that staff like so there's a mix.

Also, the translation publishers license light novels not web novel chapters which rules out anything not published in Japan.

I'd be happy to see William Topley selling as well as Bad Bunny, but I'm one of the old folks out of touch with the music of "the kids today" :)

unknownmat

@HarmlessDave You said it better than I could. This is where I am, too.

@Serah To directly respond to your prompt. It doesn't really matter to me that the average quality of novels is fairly low. If they are commercially successful, then it's obvious why JNC would want to carry them. Nobody is forcing you to read something you don't like.

JNC also puts out some riskier volumes. Like the Slayers and Knights & Magic rescue, which I strongly support. If they have to put out ten Smartphones to justify taking a gamble on one Bookworm, then I can't begrudge them that.

As far as series where the quality goes downhill, I have a few thoughts:

Just because you like a series doesn't mean that it will actually sell well enough. Although it's understandably frustrating when you know that there are series out there that you would love, but JNC keeps picking up things you hate.
JNC sells LN translations, not WN translations. A random WN may not have been published, even in Japan. Nothing JNC can do about this.
Nobody can know the future. Just because the LN is great so far doesn't mean the author will stick the landing. Also, many treat the WN like a first draft. It's possible that the LN turns out to be much better when it finally gets published.
I'm an outlier (and I know for a fact that this opinion pisses people off), but I don't think the author owes us anything. They write a novel that was good enough that we are salivating for part two. That's the end of their obligation to us. Of course we'll be disappointed if there is no sequel, or if it isn't very good. But the author doesn't owe us anything. So perhaps you could shift you perspective a bit. If you can find a series where the first N volumes are very good, then just be happy that you got to read those. Anything after that is a nice bonus, but not required or expected. This perspective might take the sting out of a series with declining quality in later volumes.

myskaros

@unknownmat said in Good Starts, Bad Continuations:

I'm an outlier (and I know for a fact that this opinion pisses people off), but I don't think the author owes us anything. They write a novel that was good enough that we are salivating for part two. That's the end of their obligation to us. Of course we'll be disappointed if there is no sequel, or if it isn't very good. But the author doesn't owe us anything.

I wouldn't call this exactly an outlier opinion; I think it's a good perspective to have with anything in the creative realm. A good movie doesn't mean the next movie by the same studio/director/writer will be just as good. A good painting doesn't mean the next painting by the same artist will be as good. A good album doesn't mean the next album by the same band will be good.

The same logic should apply to books and authors. Authors have a certain creative vision, and their ability to execute it in a way that readers like is a talent in and of itself. Maybe not all authors should write series, but as an anonymous outsider (i.e. not someone that the author trusts for feedback), the only way to really communicate that is by voting with your wallet.

At the end of the day, JNC is a business, and we need our business to turn a profit in order to continue. It's unfortunate if you're not a fan of the series that JNC announces, but if you notice any trends in genres or story elements over time, you could probably conclude that those trends are us acting upon what has been selling well for us.

unknownmat

@myskaros said in Good Starts, Bad Continuations:

I wouldn't call this exactly an outlier opinion

Fair enough. I'm probably overly influenced by forum posters. All I will say is that expressing this opinion in any A Song Of Ice And Fire thread is guaranteed to make very vocal and very vehement enemies.

myskaros

@unknownmat I think GRRM constantly declaring his own estimates and documenting his progress is a separate issue that does create a constant setting of and knocking down of expectations, so while the vast majority of authors just come out with a book on their own schedule, or not, and consumers don't think twice about it, Winds of Winter is its own beast and should probably not be discussed as though it were "just any other book by any other author."