A LN series had its first volume published last month and is now cancelled
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A few days ago, there was an AnimeNewsNetwork article called "Nyaruko Author's New Light Novel Fails to Make Waves". Last month, GA Bunko published the 1st vol. of a new LN series called "Hero Onii-chan to Last Boss Imōto Bakken! Seikenzer" (The Hero Big Brother and the Last Boss Little Sister Draw a Sword! Seikenzer)". Creators are writer Manta Aisora and an artist named Yū Kodama.
The article gives the story summary: it's a hero comedy starring Kanato Tsurugi and his younger twin sister, Minato. After Minato comes back from studying abroad, they go to a local event. Kanato pulls a holy sword and Blood Temple, a mysterious knight team, is summoned. Kanato seeks to get his sister under control as Minato appears to become an evil force. As Kanato doesn't want to yield in battle, these transformed siblings have a face-off.
It tanked in sales and thus GA Bunko decided to not continue the series. Aisora did a tweet explaining it didn't sell and apologized for her incompetence. Aisora-san explained the manuscript has enough for a trilogy. As she prepared to further the story, she considered the putting the rest on Kakuyomu, a free novel/shorts story publishing site.
As the print publishing deal has just closed, the writer isn't entirely sure if it's appropriate to upload the remaining parts. She also thinks that the submissions probably will get erased if she can't upload them.
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@Kadmos1 Yeah, this is why I refuse to get too attached to properties (video games) planned as ongoing / trilogies. Why I have a tough time deciding to play Xenogears. 😢
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Yeah, I hate when stories are left unfinished.
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Woah, rough...
Writing is never easy, but writing for mass-consumption ...
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I'm really curious about that novel now. It actually had some mechs and transforming heros in it? Now I'm interested.
@Terrence What are you talking about? Despite what they say, Xenogears was pretty self contained. It was a bit rough in the latter half, but the ending was really satisfying, you know. One of the most satisfying endings I ever got in a JRPG.
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This is going to be a bit of growing pains for Western LN fans inevitably.
Now that a lot more LNs are getting official english releases, there are sure to be cases where the original work is cancelled or stopped for some reason and stories will be left unfinished. The Japanese fans are used to it by now (think of the poor Haruhi readers!) but because releases have always used to be so late (or non-existent) in the west it's only now that they'll be exposed to this unfortunate reality of the situation.
On the other hand, unlike anime, if our sales are high enough I bet you that will actually make a real difference in whether a borderline series is cancelled or not. The profit margins for LNs in Japan are already pretty thin, so if western sales are good that could actually support a series and get them to not cancel it.
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@shrike_al said in A LN series had its first volume published last month and is now cancelled:
I'm really curious about that novel now. It actually had some mechs and transforming heros in it? Now I'm interested.
@Terrence What are you talking about? Despite what they say, Xenogears was pretty self contained. It was a bit rough in the latter half, but the ending was really satisfying, you know. One of the most satisfying endings I ever got in a JRPG.
Just the promise of more stuff that will never see the light of day will make me sad when I get to the game's end. Always want more of a good thing, especially when you know it was planned as something larger. =[
I got it sitting on my PS3 hard drive. Maybe I'll Let's Play it someday to motivate myself.
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While this does make me somewhat sad since i did enjoy the Nyuruko anime I don't see this as that big of a deal. Japan release a lot of light novels each month and some books even good ones will get lost in the shuffle and not sell. We don't tend to notice these since only series with something of a fanbase tend to get translated.
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What is the key to building a fanbase, I wonder? Proper marketing?
I guess I'm curious because we seemingly got the Smartphone anime coming from out of nowhere. It's not that I think it's bad. It's just that I never realized it had a strong fanbase to begin with.
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It is not really out of nowhere. The WN and the LN are quite popular in Japan.
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@Sam-Pinansky Right now, so long as Grimgar and Invaders continue till the stories are finished, I am happy. And if it means buying all the volumes that I've already read, then that's what I'm going to do.
