Happy 2024! New Catchups for Members!

myskaros

We hope you had a wonderful 2023 and look forward to bringing you even more new series and exciting stories in 2024!

Amagi Brilliant Park follows a boy genius who strives to revive a dying amusement park... at gunpoint?! You'll find more than just business acumen in this story, though...

Death's Daughter and the Ebony Blade is what happens when your gritty medieval war epic stars a manic pixie girl. Oh, and the girl is also extremely deadly with a sword.

DUNGEON DIVE: Aim for the Deepest Level is a more serious and grim take on isekai dungeon adventures. A boy ends up in another world and only wishes to return to his sick sister. He must conquer a hundred-floor dungeon in order to get his wish granted.

Ever wonder why heroes only ever get summoned once? That's not the case in Oversummoned, Overpowered, and Over It!, where Takafuji is summoned to new worlds back to back, gaining powers each time! See what he does with all his abilities in the manga!

Astrid is reincarnated as the villainess of a story, but she won't take it lying down. In the manga adaptation of Villainess: Reloaded! Blowing Away Bad Ends with Modern Weapons, see what a military fanatic with powerful magic will do to defy the story!

Finally, Young Lady Albert Is Courting Disaster is the exact opposite; Mary Albert knows exactly how her story is supposed to go, and she welcomes it with open arms! She just doesn't realize how quirky she is, and how that's already changed her ending...

J-Novel Club members have over 30 volumes to read this January, a perfect activity to recuperate from all the recent celebrating! Happy New Year!

kuali

So, this month, I can recommend two of the series on catchup:

Death's Daughter and the Ebony Blade: I'm a big fan of this one. You can never have too many cake-powered killing machines on your reading list.

That said, I will suggest that anyone reading this on catchup stop at the end of Volume 6. Volume 7 is more or less a prelude to the series' climax, and makes for an unsatisfying experience if read by itself - since it is basically all setup for a volume or volumes that aren't even in pre-pub yet. Better to save that one for when the series is finished.

Young Lady Albert is Courting Disaster: Mary doesn't kill nearly as many people as Olivia does, but she's hits an even higher density of jokes... Plus, for an Otome-Villainess series, it doesn't suffer all that badly from passing the end of the plot of the original game.

Incidentally, Volume 3 is a Short Stories collection, so if you reach it and can't spot what the main plot is... yeah, there isn't one. Regular stories resume in Volume 4.

Other than those... I haven't tried Amagi or Dungeon Dive, and while I tried Reloaded's Light Novel, it really failed to draw me in. The MC and her gun fetish just didn't strike a chord with me.

HarmlessDave

@kuali - I'll second both of those. Lady Albert and the Drills of Destiny is a lot of fun and Olivia is a good egg.

I started reading Dungeon Dive but drifted away when the MC was about to buy his first slave. Maybe I'll give it another chance but I was starting to dislike the MC and the grimdark world.

I haven't read the manga, but the Villainess Reloaded LN started off amusing then became less interesting to me.

The Oversummoned LN (not manga) had an interesting premise that turned into a dumpster fire with an unlikeable MC who seemed to randomly change his mind while engaging in edgelord cruelty.

unknownmat

@myskaros said in Happy 2024! New Catchups for Members!:

Villainess: Reloaded! Blowing Away Bad Ends with Modern Weapons,

This series got cancelled didn't it?

I can't say I'm a huge fan of the currently published volumes, but I remain very interested in the setup. Unlike similar stories like Bakarina where the villainess averts her bad ending by being unfailingly kind and caring (who'd have thought that people liked being treated nicely?), Villainess: Reloaded! seems to be heading down a path where every action she takes to avert the disaster just seems to make the inevitable showdown more and more likely - just with really big guns this time. It's too bad that we'll likely never know how it might have turned out.

saffire

My opinions:

AmaBri is really good, but sadly it's been on hiatus for years. I think it's still worth if you're at all interested though.
Death's Daughter is also really good, if you're into military stuff.
Lady Albert's first volume is a hilarious send-up of the isekai otome villainess genre, and each successive volume is a little bit worse than the first as the jokes get worn out. It's still an entertaining read though.
Dungeon Dive is a title I've been waiting to be on catchup. The early volumes had some promise but I had to drop it due to an overloaded schedule at the time.
Oversummoned is...kinda eh.
Villainess Reloaded is dumb fun, but I don't think it's a must-read.

Geezer Weasalopes

Lady Albert. Read this if you read no other this month. Although that's based upon your sharing my sense of humor; it's very much a case of needing the proper sense of humor.

Villainess Reloaded...let's just say I'm not fond of anything I've come across by the 616th Special Information Battalion and leave it at that.

Dungeon Dive I drifted away from after the first volume; it's grimdark but still some interesting world building, hopefully I'll give it a second look now. There was something of the "too many books on the burner" at the time, not that it'll be any better now; too many books is life.

Death's Daughter and the Ebony Blade. You have to keep the backstory in mind at all times, otherwise it's not going to make any sense. The constant contrast between extreme competency in one field and absolute cluelessness outside of that provides the comedy in an otherwise rather depressing setting; I didn't finish the first volume? Check it out, but don't be surprised if it isn't your cup of tea; if it is your cup of tea it's probably good fare.

Amagi Brilliant Park I'd picked up the first volume, but I can't recall if I finished it. A case of so many books so little time and it not grabbing hold of me enough at the time? The premise seemed interesting.

Oversummoned has an interesting premise, and much of the first volume of the LN was interesting, and then there's a sudden shift in our perception of the MC that could have just been our having blinded ourselves to the reality and we couldn't do so any longer? The second volume is on my list of things to try just to see where it went. Haven't read any of the manga, but "free is a good price" holds true and it's worth getting the initial concept at least and you might enjoy it.

topgnu

Loved the first volume of Lady Albert and enjoyed the second one quite a bit, even as it descended more and more as it progressed into a cruder kind of comedy I don't align well with. I suffered through the first four parts of the third volume and decided that to me it is a funny, lovable novel that ends with the second volume. I took a peek at the fourth volume and I think I won't be back for more.

Dungeon Dive started very promising but then mutated into a nightmare of pain. Not my cup of poison.

I keep a list of titles that I decided not to follow and a brief note why. The entry for Death's Daughter is one word: "useless". I have no recollection how, when, or why I thought so but I'll trust that past me.

Will give Amagi a try.

saidahgilbert

So the consensus seems to be that Dungeon Dive is grimdark so I'll avoid that one. Monster Tamer is back in pre-pub so my grimdark slot is full.

I remember hearing about Amagi Brilliant Park and the reviews were good so I'll give it a try.

I've been meaning to read Villainess Reloaded for a while now. I even downloaded a sample of the light novel. I read and liked Her Majesty's Swarm and apparently, it's the same author. Usually, military fantasy is not my go-to genre but my slots for that genre are empty so I may have time to get to it this month.

I only have the last translated volume of Death's Daughter to read so I don't have to rush to read this one.

I tried reading the manga for Lady Albert and cringed so hard that I stopped reading it. Maybe it was the illustrations... I said that I would try the novel if it becomes available. And lo and behold! The novel is free this month. Let's see if the novel is more to my taste.

Lex

I stopped reading Dungeon dive after volume 2, making a mental note if resuming it after a certain plot line was resolved. This might be the occasion but...I'm currently playing Baldur's Gate 3 and this month my time for reading will be severely reduced.
I also have some morbid curiosity for the second volume if Oversummoned but again, probably not the right month to catch up on things.
Amazing is a fun series, but people need to be aware it might never be concluded. If that's not a deal breaker it's worth a try.

GeorgeMTO

Amagi Brilliant Park is one I've quite enjoyed what I've read, and it's also interesting comparing it to the anime, as Kyoto Animation's adaptation changed a fair few details about the series, and it's interesting to look at the decisions they chose to make.

PuckGoodfellow00 0

Not much for me this month, but that's been the case for a few months now. However, it's for the best reason. The catch-up series have been ones that I've eather been following, and have all the volumes of. Or series that I've already dropped for one reason or another.

I've been wanting to read the amusement park series for a while now. So great opportunity.

HarmlessDave

@Lex said in Happy 2024! New Catchups for Members!:

This might be the occasion but...I'm currently playing Baldur's Gate 3

We accept Lex--one of us--gooble, gobble--we accept Lex--one of us--gooble, gobble!

I also have some morbid curiosity for the second volume if Oversummoned

This month it's the manga, but volume 2 of the LN is terrible in so many ways. The only redeeming feature is its terribleness isn't dull like for example Isekai Tensei.

Now back to BG3 act 3....

xdrfiredogx

Amagi Brilliant Park getting licensed is what got me to finally join J-Novel, long ago. It's a great modern world + fantasy series, mostly comic with a little romance dusted in but when it does decide to pull it drama tag from the wall, man does it do it well! Same writer that created Full Metal Panic, so if you are a FMP fan and haven't read ABP... now is your chance.

So far as I know the series isn't cancelled or anything... Shoji Gatoh is just prone to putting stuff aside for years before picking them back up again. There's a new FMP novel due out this month actually.

pcj

@kuali said in Happy 2024! New Catchups for Members!:

Death's Daughter and the Ebony Blade: I'm a big fan of this one. You can never have too many cake-powered killing machines on your reading list.
That said, I will suggest that anyone reading this on catchup stop at the end of Volume 6. Volume 7 is more or less a prelude to the series' climax, and makes for an unsatisfying experience if read by itself - since it is basically all setup for a volume or volumes that aren't even in pre-pub yet. Better to save that one for when the series is finished.

Or at least until volume 7b comes out. Note that the latest to pre-pub was only the first half of volume 7. Volume 7 spans 2 books. (That's why the "Exordium" suffix on it, that's basically a really fancy way to say "part 1" without using the word "part" since JNC uses "part" for something else)

Parity

This post is deleted!