After Isekai / Fantasy, What Genre Do We Want Licensing Companies to Pursue?
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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.
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@melting-sky said in After Isekai / Fantasy, What Genre Do We Want Licensing Companies to Pursue?:
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.
They've...done that though. I can't think of a major genre that isn't at least represented, aside from maybe crime-solving mystery.
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@saffire said in After Isekai / Fantasy, What Genre Do We Want Licensing Companies to Pursue?:
They've...done that though. I can't think of a major genre that isn't at least represented, aside from maybe mystery.
Perhaps I just haven't looked deep enough into the selection, but I don't remember seeing any classic horror or mystery, serious dramas, hard science fiction or iyashikie. Although admittedly iyashikie isn't exactly a major genre.
Edit: After looking around a bit I did find Last and First Idol which is a collection of short stories that covers a couple of these genres I mentioned.
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Both Yume Nikki, and Ao Oni are Horror, I wouldn't classify either as a Physiological Horror, maybe Yume Nikki to an extent, Echo is kinda Horror, and a bit of mystery.
Serious Drama - To an extent Grimgar, but definitely Kokoro Connect should count.
They have sci-fi, cant say if it is hard sci-fi - Beatless, Otherside Picnic (This is also Horror) Last & First Idol, Crest of the Stars, Occultic;Nine
iyashikie - Hard to pin down too much, but Welcome to Japan Miss Elf, Campfire Cooking, Grace of The Gods
Lots of stories with mystery elements but no real mystery series
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I selected rom-com
many of the license suggestions I upvote seem to be tagged as such (and recent 'heart' titles are enjoyable but not really in this category) - RomCom in contemporary setting, with little/no: supernatural/fantasy/scifi elements (i.e. Gamers, Shomin Sample, etc) stuff like that- I'm also ok w/ RomCom's in a fantasy/Isekai/ sci-fi setting - but that would be a different category
Sitcom works for me as well (Working!- had some romance but was more of a straight workplace sitcom)
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Thanks for the suggestions. I think a lot of these titles have elements from the genres I listed but aren't really an example of the genres themselves.
For instance I love Grimgar and it certainly does have plenty of heavy dramatic elements, but I wouldn't list it as an example of a classic drama since it's first and foremost a fantasy isekai. I haven't read Kokkoro Connect, but as a paranormal body swap story it's not what I think of when I think of a classic drama story. These are both fantasy stories with strong dramatic elements.
Although I haven't read Beatless, I have watched it. I wouldn't call it hard science fiction but it certainly is solidly within the scifi genre since it explores concepts like the moral and philosophical implications of AI and other advanced technology as an integral part of the story rather than just using the future setting as a wacky excuse so some guy can shack up with his robot waifu. I think a good example of a hard scifi story that explores similar themes would be the oroginal Ghost in the Shell and Stand Alone Complex.
Anyway, I don't mean to nit pick the kind recommendations you went out of your way to give me. I haven't read any of these others so I will go check out the preview chapters on them.
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@saffire said in After Isekai / Fantasy, What Genre Do We Want Licensing Companies to Pursue?:
They've...done that though. I can't think of a major genre that isn't at least represented, aside from maybe crime-solving mystery.
I'd say they still could give us some horror that isn't just an adaptation / mixed media (First and Last Idol may count as that, but it has more of a SciFi genre mix), but it's not like you can keep going back to the drawing board for those without results. =(
Some mystery would be great, yeah. Besides crime solving, something more "trapped in a facility with 12 other people" Agatha Christie style locked room murder mystery would be nice.
Also, Death Game. If that's a horror subgenre they would try, I would love it.
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I was more interested in making sure it was clear that Sam and the JNC crew have done a good job in diversifying their offerings, at least in my opinion. My ongoing title reading list is over 15 titles and I think less than half of those are isekai. You're going to have a hard time finding light novels that don't have some sort of supernatural aspect though; that's just the kind of field it is.
I'd certainly take a death game.
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@saffire said in After Isekai / Fantasy, What Genre Do We Want Licensing Companies to Pursue?:
I was more interested in making sure it was clear that Sam and the JNC crew have done a good job in diversifying their offerings, at least in my opinion. My ongoing title reading list is over 15 titles and I think less than half of those are isekai. You're going to have a hard time finding light novels that don't have some sort of supernatural aspect though; that's just the kind of field it is.
I'd certainly take a death game.
That's a very good point. I have read western novels for decades but I am rather new to the LN scene and one thing I tend to forget is that this is a young adult printed medium from a completely different culture so the sorts of genres offered are actually very different from mainstream western literature.
It's a bit like if I went into a western movie theater and complained there aren't any 2D animated film offerings. They just don't exist here. Similarly I probably shouldn't be looking for Arthur C/ Clark and Isaac Azimov-esque hard Scifi and Agatha Christie style mysteries etc. in Japanese LN.
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@melting-sky said in After Isekai / Fantasy, What Genre Do We Want Licensing Companies to Pursue?:
Similarly I probably shouldn't be looking for Arthur C/ Clark and Isaac Azimov-esque hard Scifi and Agatha Christie style mysteries etc. in Japanese LN.
There are actually quite a bit, but I suspect that as far as English-language LN publishers are concerned, the customer-base for books like that is still very shaky.
Part of the reason so much of what gets translated is isekai is precisely because that's what built and continues to exploit the niche. Outside of it you're still largely going to run into the dark cloud of English-language chauvinism that hangs over translations in practically every genre and medium.
A lot of this stuff gets made, to put it somewhat unflatteringly, to fill up the shelves. Yes, people will still buy them, and sometimes they'll end up being successful, but the English-language market already has its own Clarks and Christies: if you're going outside your own native literature to find something to publish, you'd better be pretty confident that it will offer something new.
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A. Why do I have to choose one!?
Well, I went with romantic drama...but it doesn't have to be to be romantic.B. AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO CHOSE IT?
Well, I just want more drama, romcom, light bungei, mystery.
Also, state-wise, I think the most popular genres are Fantasy then SciFi.
