The Maiden's Garden
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Don't forget about Ono Fuyumi's works. She is one of my favorite Japanese authors ^-^
Other than that novels by Uehashi Nahoko one of the best fantasy writers in Japan. Her works include "Kemono no Souja" which was released in English a few months ago under the title "The Beast Player". Link : https://www.amazon.com/dp/1782691677
Also Moribito series by her. Not all of it was released in English though.
SAO AGGO is pretty good too. Yen Press should release that soon.
Oh right Kieli too.
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@hakomari Moribito is one of my top five anime ever. I'd love those LNs to come to English legally. Kinda like how I pine for Maria-sama ga Miteru.
@Drone205 By things other than anime or light novels, do you mean other works translated from Japanese or stuff originally written in English?
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@dryurimom well the books I am reading that could work here are written in English, so I suppose in that case stuff written in English.
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@hakomari said in The Maiden's Garden:
Other than that novels by Uehashi Nahoko one of the best fantasy writers in Japan. Her works include "Kemono no Souja" which was released in English a few months ago under the title "The Beast Player". Link : https://www.amazon.com/dp/1782691677
I think I remember watching an anime that could have been translated in english as "The Beast Player" but was titled as Erin
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@drone205 That is it. The anime adapts the first 2 tankoubon volumes out of 4.
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Beast Singer Erin was written by the same person who wrote Moribito? OMG that's awesome. I'm not exactly surprised, though. Quality begets quality. :-)
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I assume this is supposed to go here Paul?
Just relocating this post from the Wild Game thread:
@paulnamida said in Cooking with Wild Game:
I'd reccomend I Reincarnated into an Otome Game as a Villainess With Only Destruction Flags…
Bakarina is such a great female lead, to the point I'm actually liking a reverse harem even though I usually abhor that setting.
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Along with Bakarina, it would be remiss not to mention Accomplishments of a Duke's Daughter/Koushaku Reijou no Tashinami, which is basically the same setting as Otome Flags without the comedy/idiot protagonist. Much closer to Realist Hero, but does go into some interesting political and social repercussions of the MC's specific situation, being a socially prominent female who's seen as having lost the good graces of the royal family.
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@terrence what the... I swear i was on this topic when I posted that!!!!
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Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm going to be that guy.
I think you're looking for a needle in a haystack. There's two reasons why I'm saying this. The first is that all of these stories are from and intended for a culture that's different than ours. Japan is a traditional country and gender roles are very much a thing. If you're looking for strong, independent women as thought of by progressive values, you probably won't find it.
The second and bigger reason is that otaku media, which I'm roughly defining as light novels, video games, visual novels, manga, doujins, and anime, is targeted at an audience that's loosely thought of as single nerdy men between the ages of 13 and 35. There are works targeted toward women, but they're a minority. Even then, I'm not sure that you'd enjoy them. The protagonists are often female versions of the generic harem leads and the focus of the show is on the men who are interested in them.
Still, if you don't mind non-light novel recommendations, try out World's End Economica published by Sekai Project. It's a visual novel trilogy written by Hasekura Isuna. I actually liked these more than Spice and Wolf, but the plot of the last two installments is a bit predictable if you've followed any of the business/economic scandals in the last 20 years.
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If you're ever looking for license requests, Bookwalker JP does have a whole section dedicated to female audience LN.
(LNs sorted by female audience)
https://bookwalker.jp/search/?order=rank&qcat=3&qtag=3Again, a lot of them are "one woman surrounded by 2-7 guys that protect her / court her" but the "villainess" is a popular trope right now too that can be more empowering.
Outside of those, there's a decent amount of one-shots that involve dealing with problems in highschool and there's a decent amount of female detective stuff too (some of this stuff you're probably more likely to find under literature). I'm sure there's more gems hidden among them, but I generally am looking at the male centric stuff.
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Not taken the wrong way at all. I'm the last person who would try and project my own world view on another culture. I consider it a bad American habit and one I reject in every venue where people will listen to me, which sadly isn't many. I would be very ready to accept your first reasoning if it wasn't demonstrably countered by many of the examples we've already seen provided here in this thread. Touko in Book Girl, Chise in Magus Bride and Dr Faust in Frau Faust, Kuroko in Spider, Maria in Zeroth- so many examples I can pull off the top of my head in light novels. Anime and Manga are drowning in strong, independent women. Balsa in Moribito and Erin in Beastsinger Erin, Madoka and Nanoha and their friends in the mahou shoujo properties of the same name, Ryoko and her sister and mother in Kill-la-Kill, Marika and Chiaki from Moretsu Space Pirates, Ellis and Nadie from El Cazador de la Bruja (heck, the entire Bee Train Girls with Guns trilogy!), all the women of Aria...the list of titles and genres seems endless.
Regarding the second reasoning, yes, there is a definite focus on that demographic. But again, look at Anime. Progressive Animation (PA) Works has created incredible stories like Red Data Girl, Angel Beats, Tari Tari, Shirobako, and A Lull in the Sea - all with amazing female and male characters each playing their parts in wonderful stories. I mentioned Bee Train and their Girls with Guns series. These stories speak to women and men equally, perhaps in different ways but they still speak to everyone. Yeah, there are stories targeted to women and I like those too - Maria Sama ga Miteru being one I've mentioned here before. I adore non-pandering yuri. And yes, I have a little fujoshi in me and can appreciate Free as much as the next girl. :-)
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@eins IMO, you're selling the shoujo genre short. There's plenty of series outside of the reverse harem setting. Though I do agree that it'd be really hard to find strong female characters by today's progressive standards, the point is you DON'T have to meet these standards to create a good character. If anything, these standards end up in horribly portrayed characters and subpar stories that push political agendas instead of trying to actually tell a story (looking at you, Marvel).
As OP said, you can make strong female characters that ALSO pander to the otaku fandom such as Tsubasa and Hitagi from the Monogatari series, them being fanservice prone doesn't make them any less of a good character. Which is something I think should be appreciated more from the anime/manga medium: a strong female character can be hot too. (Else, the femdom tag wouldn't exist). Take Fairy Tail for example, with all its flaws, it had one of the most OP and gorgeous female character ever in Erza. Or the Grisaia series, where they subverted the damsel in distress trope by making the heroines go and save the captured MC. It was brilliant.
TL;DR I get where you're coming from, but from reading the OP's post, it strikes as her not trying to find "far left politically correct" series, but well protrayed strong female characters, which are certainly a thing in this media.
EDIT: typo
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@paulnamida Word. I am not a SJW and I can appreciate boobs as much as you dudes can. I just have my own to play with so I am more likely to look up and appreciate a pretty pair of eyes...and the mind behind them...before you do. :-)
"Good girls go the heaven. Bad girls go everywhere."
~Mae WestAn irredeemably rotten,
~DYM -
It's good that you're open minded. The part about Japanese culture was a warning for the progressives who get triggered by anything that doesn't conform to their ideals. I haven't read/seen everything you've mentioned, but one stood out was Chise from The Ancient Magus's Bride. I've only seen 5 or 6 episodes, up until the end of the Fairy Queen part with the cats, but I would've pegged her as a weak character. She's just pulled around by the main guy and seemingly has no desires of her own. From what you've written, I'm assuming that changes.
My point with demographics wasn't that the stories you like don't exist, but that they tend not to. You pointed out several works that have what you want, but in the sea of everything that's produced, how much is that? Is it worth your time to wade through all of that to find what you want? For example, I like about 75% of the series that JNC offers and feel like I'm getting my money and time's worth. However, your post made me think that you only enjoyed less than 10% of what was offered.
Although, it seems like I misjudged your character and taste.
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It's all good. My goal with the OP was to hopefully get directions to other likely stories of interest. Although I'm not some kinda feminazi I do like my sex to be treated as human rather than ornamentation. Although I've tried a small sample so far, I seem to be running about 50%. For every (redacted) there is an Outbreak Company. I just wanted to avoid having to groan over the (redacted)s more than necessary.
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@dryurimom Do we get to start a contest to see what titles are in the redacted columns? :-P
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@paul-nebeling Lol. That could be fun, I suppose. I'll give a hint for one of them. It's a story that presumed women in general would go full-on feminazi on the entire male half of humanity if given the power to lord over them. It then proceeded to reduce women to tropes to give the male POV protagonist the opportunity to be awesome. The morale of the story (to me at least) is that women can't be trusted with power because obviously they'll abuse it and if they get said power some man will still have to come in at some point to save the day because women clearly can't save themselves even if they have awesome power.
But I'd never name names of course. ;-)
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I mean I am as anti-PC as someone can be but I get everything OP meant with her post. I am looking for the same type of stories as well when I read a light novel. And J-Novel Club definitely doesn't have a lot of that. And it is not really necessary either. I am obviously not the target audience.
The female characters in most harem stories in general have less personality than a piece of paper. Well, not like male characters have any more personality. They are supposed to be self-insert in so many cases so they gotta be as bland as possible. The female characters just need to suit the male fantasy and be "waifu material". They don't have to be well written for that.
Not all light novels are like this. I wouldn't be here, reading them otherwise. I actually usually don't like stories that are marketed towards females either. I can't relate to a story where the whole cast consists of girls. It is however fine as long as there is some male characters in the story. Like I watch RWBY, and the character I route for most is Jaune.
Edit : Although I read fan-translations and untranslated LNs too so I have so much more to choose from. The type of stories that get licensed are usually very different.
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@hakomari said in The Maiden's Garden:
I actually usually don't like stories that are marketed towards females either. I can't relate to a story where the whole cast consists of girls. It is however fine as long as there is some male characters in the story. Like I watch RWBY, and the character I route for most is Jaune.
You can be a male and relate to a Female and vice-versa. To me, it is more important that a character is written well and not that they are male or female. I am male and I personally relate to Blake in RWBY, obviously not in every aspect but I still relate to her. Imagine as a kid in school, you just moved and now you are in a new school, in a new city, you do not know anyone. You watch a show where the main character goes through this exact thing, It does not matter whether this character is male or female, you can relate to them.
