After Isekai / Fantasy, What Genre Do We Want Licensing Companies to Pursue?
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Yeah, I voted mystery too, but realistically, I'd be very happy with some Rom-Com + Drama + Slice of Life with some emotion to it too, some kind of thinking involved for the hero and the reader about what they should do. Commentary on Japan or meta commentary on fiction would be interesting too.
I just feel like mystery is so underserved based on how many books are out there, the pedigree of the authors, and the good length of some of these series (Sakurako is at 14+ volumes; Subete Ga No F's series is 10 volumes long, both got anime). If a longer commitment is an issue, there are series just starting out, like aforementioned Sakurako-san author's "I'll Be Killed By Yesterday's Me", which is only 2 volumes.
The slower release cycle for mysteries presents a challenge, but also an opportunity to fill in gaps cheaply with early series or pick up a longer series that you don't have to worry about getting much longer while you're releasing it (one volume a year often for these writers, sometimes less; Sakurako's latest volumes were over 14 months apart).
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Rom-coms! Although well, I don't really mind the setting, school, fantasy, isekai, etc. Although I'm more on the light-hearted camp.
Mystery would be an interesting one. Haven't read many (any?) of these.
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I voted sci-fi (though preferably non-mecha). If I could vote for multiple ones, I'd also go rom-com and mystery.
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A tough decision but I had to go with rom-com. Historical fiction, mystery, and sci-fi would be great too.
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I dont know maybe its me but except "horror" genre , i dont really care spesific genre for read. Writing , writer's abilty etc much important for me. There are so many isekai novels here but i only read maybe 10 of them and kept reading 5 of them. Although my view and popular view must be different because there are so many x genre novels but i dont like to keep reading. Same as anime etc. So , for sake of JNC and its popularity , i would like to pick the most popular genre. With that , at least time to time , i can find "good" novel to read(my personal opinion ofc).
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@legitpancake said in After Isekai / Fantasy, What Genre Do We Want Licensing Companies to Pursue?:
I voted sci-fi (though preferably non-mecha). If I could vote for multiple ones, I'd also go rom-com and mystery.
I would love some SciFi. One of my most wanted early licenses is SciFi.
Going to other planets, viral contagions, crazy tech, even just seeing future civilizations + the breakdown of society (It's a shame Clockwork Planet never continued). You can go to a lot of places with SciFi, it's a very broad genre category, and I like them all.
They frequently speak to the human condition, what it means to be human (robots, cloning tech, and prosthetics / brain transference tech making that distinction more murky) or where we as a species are going.
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Sci-fi definitely (not mecha). There must be some good sci-fi in Japan.
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I'd love me more sci-fi... But, unfortunately, there's not much to choose from in the first place, so I went with romcoms - mostly because there are enough of them published and they have the best chances to be popular and actually sell.
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I have to go with rom-com. Please give me GAMERS!
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What JNC lacks right now are series that occur in the modern world with no fantasy or sci-fi. Just pure ordinary modern world.
Most series like these are rom-com or drama.
JNC LN Ranking:
1st - Rokujouma
2nd - Realist Hero
3rd - Bookworm -
I voted for Sci-Fi (that doesn't involve mechas) but I like Sci-Fi mixed in with other genres, Romance (or rom-com) being one of the top choices, then Mystery or a mix of all three.
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@bartzbb Well we do have Kokoro Connect and SisKan, though KoCo does have paranormal stuff.
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@bartzbb said in After Isekai / Fantasy, What Genre Do We Want Licensing Companies to Pursue?:
What JNC lacks right now are series that occur in the modern world with no fantasy or sci-fi. Just pure ordinary modern world.
Most series like these are rom-com or drama.
I agree that this is a gap in JNC's line-up for non-paranormal/fantasy stories set in the present day, which as you say tend to be romantic comedy / drama.
Not sure how much this relates to which Japanese publishers the English publishers have a relationship with. For example, both Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki and My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected are fun romantic comedies, but both are Gagaga Bunko (Shogakukan) novels which all went to Yen Press. Similarly I Want to Eat Your Pancreas is a good drama (not read LN, but liked the movie), but it was from Futabasha and all their LNs went to Seven Seas Entertainment (SSE).
Another potential explanation is that whilst manga might have a fair number of present day non-paranormal romantic comedies they are generally less prevalent in light novels.
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There is actually a ton of real life rom-com popular right now in Japan. Frog-Kun / Kim Morrissey did a column on how light novels are going back to school.
There are definitely issues with licensing though. Particularly some branches of Kadokawa that JNC doesn't have stuff from and Gagaga holding many of the popular licenses afaik.
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I personally hope for titles that are more like Boogiepop or Durarara. So, I guess I'm hoping for more supernatural?
I'm the kind of person who REALLY judges a book by its cover. So I was really surprised by how good Boogiepop was despite me finding the cover not that engaging.
I think JNC's serialization format really works for niche titles like these.
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@terrence said in After Isekai / Fantasy, What Genre Do We Want Licensing Companies to Pursue?:
There is actually a ton of real life rom-com popular right now in Japan. Frog-Kun / Kim Morrissey did a column on how light novels are going back to school.
There are definitely issues with licensing though. Particularly some branches of Kadokawa that JNC doesn't have stuff from and Gagaga holding many of the popular licenses afaik.
Interesting article. Also, just found that 3 months ago
@LegitPancake said in My Friend's Little Sister Is Only Annoying to Me (Tomodachi no Imouto ga Ore ni Dake Uzai):@theloo Sam said at the ANYC panel that he is interested in getting school romcoms, but the publishers he has connections with don’t usually publish stuff like that. JNC has never licensed from GA Bunko, and Kadokawa as a whole sounded like it is difficult and expensive to get brand new stuff like this, which just came out in April 2019.
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I'd love mystery and slice of life but chose Rom-Com because my two favorite series at the moment are A Sisters All You Need and ToraDora! So I want more like those (and yes, Bottom Tier is in my "to read" pile).
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I'd like to see more mystery, horror, slice of life or historical fiction. As much as I love fantasy, variety is always good.
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I would love to see even just a single iyashikei manga translated here. Something along the lines of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou or Mokke would be amazing. Of the genre suggested I would most like to see some hard science fiction, fantasy slice of life and mystery.
One thing I think JNovel should consider is branching out from its rather narrow genre focus and including even just one or two solid series from each of the major genres. Variety is the spice of life and I think it would help them retain some subscribers that come here for a single stand out series they really enjoy like Bookworm, but who otherwise aren't big isekai fans. It also provides a great outlet for isekai fans who are getting burned out and want to either take a break or branch out into something new.
