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

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.

TheGrimLich

@rsog412 Yeah, HMS strikes me as more an Overlord type of title. It's also seemingly designed off an RTS like Starcraft or Warcraft, which... well, there are occasionally villains in those, but more often than not the campaign mode of those games has you play at least a few missions as each side, so...

Like, in an otome game, you don't play as the rival, or if you do it's because there's a reveal that you've been playing as a rival this whole time. But that's not the case with an RTS.

About the only RTS I can think of where you don't have to play as the antagonist/villain faction is the Command & Conquer series.

Kalani

@folker46 said in Hate on what you Love. Let's air our grievances.:

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

I'll probably read it when its on catch up since its my favourite light novel series.

I just started getting physical manga of Apothecary Diaries in since there's no physical copies of the light novel. I haven't cracked them open yet though. (probably won't until I've got 4+)

GeorgeMTO

@kalani unfortunately it will never be on catchup, JNC don't do the manga for Apothecary.

Avatarian

Here goes yet another grievance: On the topic of Slave-buying in manga and LN, I kind of hate how it never get anything besides: "MC helped me so I am madly in love with him now". Not that it doesn't make sense as much as it is way too convenient (wish-fulfilling to the max). In reality, buying a slave means you really have to put some effort in keeping the contract airtight in case the slave(s) decide to rebel and/or seek their freedom (it doesn't have to go so far killing the MC/owner as much as running away or looking for a flaw in the contract to exploit).

I know, this is fantasy, but I still can't get why there is not even a small disagreement between the characters. "Whatever the slave owner says is right" without a second thought. I have yet to see an small argument or a reason for the slave to be their own character somehow.

kuali

@avatarian Yeah. It's kinda depressing when it shows up less as an important part of the plot and more as a shortcut to let the MC gather up a party without the charisma, authority or backing to do so.

Though I can at least think of a series that did make the slave a character in their own right - The Apothecary Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life. Unfortunately, Sieg blooms into his own character at about the same pace Marielle (his owner) devolves into a hybrid of comic relief and plot MacGuffin...

MaxWyght

Lolis.

Specifically, lolis that are depicted as temptresses.

I do not have a problem with flatchested girls.
Rem for example isn't really a loli, but Kreb definitely counts as one.
The rabbit eared guild master is...
Questionable.

I have like this part in my brain that goes "yeah, she's safe. She's not." and it's absolutely exhausting.

But really, the one novel where this trope REALLY hurts me, is TRPG.
Why?
Because Margit(and all jumping spider-type arachnes) are described as hitting their final molt around age 10, and stop growing from that point on.
In addition, they are also "blessed" with not showing signs of aging(Like the rabbit people in how not to summon a demon lord).
We're also shown this, when we see Margit's mom, and it's mentioned she could pass as her sister.
Disregarding the facts that all spider species never stop molting, since they all never stop growing(think like lobsters, except spiders don't have whatever gene lobsters have that renders them essentially immortal, with the only reason they die being that eventually they become too big to be able to get enough food, so they starve to death), WHY would you set it up like that?

kuali

@maxwyght Sadly, the answer to 'why' is pretty simple - 'loli' is a common enough fetish in Japan that many authors either hold it themselves or pander to those who do. And giving an excuse for why this looks-far-too-young person is actually a mature adult allows them to get on with the comedy without having to tackle any of the unfortunate implications you'd get if said LI was an actual young girl...

Lex

@maxwyght I truly understand your pain.
I can manage if there is a loli character in an harem, but if most of the heroines (or the sole heroine) are lolis this can be enough of a turn off for me to make me walk away from the series. Especially if there are well developed or voluptuous girls in the story who either aren't love interests or even are villains. Every time I read Arifureta and the author mentions that Yue has the body of a 12 years old it causes me pain.

Another thing that irritates me are super dense protagonists. I mean, I'm aware that sometimes you need a way for the main couple to not get together in the first volume or else the story will end too soon. I also think it's reasonable that unpopular guys with low self esteem may find hard to believe that a girl might be interested in them even of she sends them signals. But then you have series where the heroines the protagonist "I love you", everyone else tell him "She loves you", and he is like "I wonder what they are trying to tell me". Bonus points if the heroine is a violent tsundere who cannot be honest for the sake of her life but still abuses the protagonist when he fails to read her mind and act as she expect him to do. Yeah, I'm talking of you, Infinite Stratos.

I don't like yuri, so of course while I don't have a problem with those series existing I don't read them. Sadly this isn't enough to avoid the occasional gropey friend that spend most of her screen time squeezing the boobs of the heroine. But even that is nothing compared to the psycho lesbian love rival, one of the tropes I absolutely loathe the most. Every time I read Lazy dungeon master and Keima mentions that he won't do anything with Rokuko because "Haku would kill me" I feel the urge to drop the series (you may argue that Haku is more of a siscon than a lesbian, but in the end the result is the same). Do Jaoanese readers really find it fun?

poisonedbite

@lex ugh, When protagonists are denser than Issei is the worst. The lesbian rival never bothered me though, it's played to great effect in horimiya. But I like yuri so, eh? And you'll never escape loli's with japan. They've basically bred their women to be very small and petite. It's what they like. Neoteny is the term.

kuali

@lex It's probably accurate to think of characters like the psycho lesbian as being the Japanese equivalent to the flaming homosexual that dominated western portrayals of gay men a decade or two ago. It's a widely accepted stereotype that normal people can point and laugh at. Yuri fiction's still niche enough that the concept of characters who happen to be lesbian hasn't fully displaced the stereotypes yet.

I agree with you on the super dense protagonists, kind of. Tropes are tools, as they say - even the most 'negative' traits can be used to tell a good story if you use them right. But that means letting the characters develop, probably away from their original archetypes. The idiot who never gets a clue is just as frustrating as the tsundere who never faces their insecurities, or the shrinking violet that never finds their courage.

Oddly enough, the yuri romances I've read have been better written than the straight ones (on average). I suspect because a lot of the straight romances are being shoved into series in other genres for purposes of fanservice (resulting in a formulaic 'romance' with no progression or payoff and love interests chosen to tick fanservice boxes rather than for the sake of the narrative), while most of the yuri romances I've come across are from people who were actually trying to write love stories (and thus, put some actual effort into them).

If nothing else, yuri series avoids one of my least favorite tropes, the faux-action-girl treatment of 'capable' female leads to make the male lead look more awesome. In cases where you have, say, a male fighter and a female noncombatant (ex Marielle Clarac and her fiancee/husband Simeon Flaubert) I'm not too fussed - it's consistent to both their characters, and not everyone needs to be a badass. Marielle's an author, not a spy or a one-woman army. But then you go to The Sorcerer's Receptionist, and the number of times Nanalie (supposedly in the top 2 mages in her age bracket) ends up being beaten (or rescued) by Rockman really doesn't match the buildup she was given.

MaxWyght

@lex

The thing is, I can't walk away from TRPG.
Everything about the series is SO GOOD that while the loli irks me, it is overshadowed by everything else.

Hell, even the MC isn't dense at all.
He's like:
"Hey, this psuedo-loli likes me, and both my new family AND her family seem to be encouraging us to get together, but they work their machinations in ways that kids won't notice. I really have to make up my mind if I want to get with her or not."

This story would've been a perfect 10 if only he'd went with "the body of a 15 year old" instead of 10 year old.

And not just 10 compared to other isekai novels.
I'm talking right there with Dragonlance and Forgotten realms type stories.

You know, actual classic fantasy literature.

poisonedbite

@maxwyght
hot damn, I haven't heard a dragonlance reference in years. Not even a fizban meme.