Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.

salientmind

@endoftheline I mean, it's a first volume and she actually had history and motive. The bar wasn't high.

kuali

@salientmind I'd say it's a pretty common fate of Japanese 'ensemble' series (whether harem or non-harem) - the author starts by building the cast up bit by bit, and after a while, they suddenly find themselves with a bunch more main characters then they actually needed... And they're struggling to do anything interesting with them, because their planning notes were basically 'Wouldn't it be great if the MC had a catgirl and a dwarf and an elf - two elfs! - and a lamia and a centaur and a harpy and a dullahan and a vampire and an elegant noble lady and a brainless-but-cute bruiser and a shy bookworm and a girl who can't talk to strangers and a girl who might not be a girl and a couple of delinquent lesbian schoolgirls and a bad angel and a good demon and..."

If there's more than one character that seemed interesting in their introductory arc and then fades immediately into the chorus despite still being in the main cast, that's the kind of series I'm thinking of. Sounds like World's Strongest Rearguard is one of them.

Even the best of those series just leave me wondering what could have been done with all those characters if the author spent a little more time on them (or less time on them, and more on plot). Makes them all a touch unsatisfying, I think.

In case you're wondering, the list was made by mashing together bits of the casts of:

spoiler

To be clear, not all the series listed suffer from this specific issue.

Folker46

@kuali said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:

Everyday Life with Monster Girls

It's why I gave up on the series, to many girls and the MC is in full on Sir Galahad mode. Just him and Mia would have been enough, if you want to show other girls and their problems, just have them marry his friends or something. The humor of his harem ran out pretty quick.

kuali

@folker46 I think what really killed that one for me was when they kept on introducing new Monster Girls after Lala completed the core harem, most of which became one-arc wonders. Not around long enough for you to get attached to, but still sucking lots of screen time away from the actual cast (except Darling).

Personally, I actually found the monsters-in-human-society plots and the interactions between the monster girls more interesting than any of their individual relationships with Darling. So if I was going to cut someone from that series, it wouldn't be Cerea or Papi or the others; I'd cut 'Darling'. Make the implausibly-large house that Smith keeps remodelling into a government-run boarding house for the girls who can't - or won't - be placed with regular families. (Or possibly keep him, but have him as the person hired to manage the boarding house, rather than as everyone's communal love interest.)

poisonedbite

@kuali personally, I'd have preferred just miia and papi myself. Anything past 2 or 3 girls is just redundant.

HarmlessDave

@salientmind - Strongest Rearguard has some good powers-based battles and a decent handling of the power creep, and the labyrinth country is an interesting setting.

I agree that the harem members don't get much character development though they do get some. Each novel has only covered a few days so there hasn't been a lot of time for major changes with the non-stop battles.

As for them all thinking the MC is awesome, that's pretty typical for LNs and he is the strongest (most OP) rearguard not a "zero to hero" style weakest rearguard.

I'm still enjoying it as of volume 6, but that's just me.

endoftheline

@harmlessdave I agree on the power creep being done well, as long as we're talking about time in units of volumes. But in terms of in-universe time, I wouldn't really call the present power curve a "creep" given that only three-ish weeks passed in the first 5 volumes and everyone else thinks of growth in terms of months and years.

I think the author really shot themselves in the foot by starting the cast off in district 8, but then required them to blitz their way to district 5 to rescue Elitia's friend. So regardless of the MC's view on their current behavior, they pretty much have to rush around to gain power and friends to make it there; there simply isn't time available to simply stop and smell the roses.

P.S. I'm waiting for volume 6 to arrive in the mail, so I'm currently limited by my knowledge through volume 5. But I'm also not expecting volume 6 to affect any of the criticism I wrote.

saidahgilbert

@folker46 Yeah, I was going to say that I like the Seven Seas editions as well. Thick books feel nicer to me than thin books. When reading, I can just flip the pages and see a whole thick book still to read so I know that there are hours and hours to read.

saidahgilbert

@kuali So the monster version of Love Hina?

Folker46

This post is deleted!

Rahul Balaggan

Hello,

As I said earlier in the topic, let’s avoid going down the real world politics route in this topic.

The topic has been (for the most part) very on point, and a great way to discuss things that frustrate us about something we all really enjoy.

A win win, for discussing what we enjoy, while admitting that we know they can be better.

If we continue to steer down the real world politics discussion, where it is less about the books and more about real world politics, then I will lock the topic.

Please, let us all avoid the topic being locked down.

Thank you
(I removed 1 post)

Avatarian

TBH, I hate how many titles with almost exactly the same premise over and over are translated. It's like listening to the same song on repeat with only one or two words changed on each repetition.

Since i opened the can of worms, if they are going to just hunt the same tropes time and time again, I wish the good translators at least pick the LN I am interested in so MTL doesn't become mandatory.

kuali

@avatarian Well, the forum does have a 'licensing suggestions' section, so you can at least make some suggestions for some more original future licences...

I mean, it won't make the problem go away (jumping on the bandwagon is pretty common in entertainment in general, rather than being a problem specific to JNC), but at least you might be able to jump the stuff you're interested in to the top of the queue.

HarmlessDave

@avatarian - yes, for example there are stacks of "game villainess attempts to escape her fate" stories right now and JNC is publishing several of them. But they can still be distinct enough from each other to be worth reading.

A one-sentence description of the plot doesn't tell you whether it's a generic trope-fest or is fun like Forget Being the Villainess, I Want to Be an Adventurer! It also feels very different from I Refuse To Be Your Enemy, or Villainess Reloaded, or (not from JNC) I’d Rather Have a Cat than a Harem!

kuali

@harmlessdave I have to at least give I Refuse To Be Your Enemy props for using the villainess from a non-Otome game. I think that's the only time I've actually seen a series use a game from a different genre...

Folker46

@kalani You're missing out, the manga for The Apothecary Diaries is really good and funny.

TheGrimLich

@kuali said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:

@harmlessdave I have to at least give I Refuse To Be Your Enemy props for using the villainess from a non-Otome game. I think that's the only time I've actually seen a series use a game from a different genre...

I loved the fact that that one had the game be not-Fire-Emblem. The other twist the series pulled on the formula was also interesting.

salientmind

@kuali is Her Majesty's Swarm another example? Since it's an RTS, she isn't exactly in the role of the villain. But the bugger do eat people.

kuali

@salientmind Maybe? Sorry, I haven't read that one.

rsog412

@salientmind - I don't think the protagonist of that story cares much about not being a villainess. I'd put it closer to Overlord than to any of the villainess titles.