Is it just me?

Seandrake

OK so I'm not sure if I'm just getting old but the last few batches of novels have had little that interests me.

I original found JNC because of Sword Princess and the Infinite Stratos anime, I ended up reading most of the available catalogue no matter the genre.

Every new set of releases had something interesting no matter what and most of the time you only got the odd dud.

Fast forward to now and I have 37 unspent tokens and there seems to be less and less choice.

I am aware that LN's tend to have circles of whatever trope is currently popular, however a lot of the current releases seem even more derivative than normal.

MC's that are to stupid to live seem to have developed some serious staying power. Relationships that could be best described as toxic being written as some romantic ideal.

I personally like stories with female leads but half of them seem to have romance with an abusive asshole wedged in as a good thing.

That's not to say they aren't good stories being picked up it just seems there the exception rather than the rule.

Like I said I may just be getting old but I am finding myself spending less time on JNC specifically, but more on other publishers stories but even then I am probably reading less LN overall.

SomeOldGuy

JNC has widened their appeal since I joined several hundred volumes ago. Less and less new stuff (percentage-wise) appeals to ME, but that doesn't mean it doesn't appeal to others. If anything, my purchases have continued at the same rate as old, but the stuff that could be purchased is growing faster.

saskir

@Seandrake If you like stories with female leads but dislike bad male romance how about "Apothecary Diaries" (although there is one male which is interested in her which is not an asshole but the typical "everyone likes him as he is so hot" and "Death's Daughter and the Ebony Sword"?

HarmlessDave

@SomeOldGuy said in Is it just me?:

JNC has widened their appeal since I joined several hundred volumes ago. Less and less new stuff (percentage-wise) appeals to ME, but that doesn't mean it doesn't appeal to others. If anything, my purchases have continued at the same rate as old, but the stuff that could be purchased is growing faster.

This. Years back JNC was licensing fewer titles and no J-Heart at all. Expanding the licensing of all types of LNs means there may be more that you like, but also a lot more that are not your cup of tea.

It can feel like there are fewer new ones that you like, but part of that might be that liking 1 of 10 feels like less than 1 of 3 even though it's the same 1 new title in both cases.

geetop

As I get older I find that there are a lot of books in all my preferred genres that do not do it for me, that I am sure I would have loved when I was in my Teens/Early Twenties. I think it is harder for books to surprise me with a crazy plot twist and the more books I read a lot of them can get to feel samey. I think that is just based on how many books I consume and Plot/Character Types I have been exposed to.

Arcene

Yeah, usually there is at least one I'll follow with the intention of picking it up after a volume or two are out, and then a few 'maybes' that I'll keep an eye on, and maybe pick up as well if they seem to be doing well. This latest batch seemed full of duds, there were a couple of 'maybes' but even then I'm less hopeful than usual.

Still it's just one round, so I'm not really fussed, they've recently released series I was really hoping for, so I prefer this to only middling series, my backlog is large enough, already.

HarmlessDave

@Seandrake said in Is it just me?:

I personally like stories with female leads but half of them seem to have romance with an abusive asshole wedged in as a good thing.

If you're looking for an isekai romance that is 100% free of creepy possessive boyfriends, these are short, complete and cute:

I'd Rather Have a Cat than a Harem! Reincarnated into the World of an Otome Game as a Cat-loving Villainess
Making Jam in the Woods: My Relaxing Life Starts in Another World

I'm also fond of these from JNC, both also finished and complete:

The Reincarnated Princess Spends Another Day Skipping Story Routes
The Extraordinary, the Ordinary, and SOAP!

Stay far far away from JNC's The White Cat, even though I really enjoyed the first volume before the creepy love interests and brain-dead behavior took over.

Lily Garden

@Seandrake said in Is it just me?:

I personally like stories with female leads but half of them seem to have romance with an abusive asshole wedged in as a good thing.

If you like female leads then you may like the perennial JNC favorites Tearmoon Empire and Bookworm

I would also recommend

Deathbound Duke's Daughter
The Troubles of Miss Nicola
Tales of Marielle Clarac
Dalhia in Bloom and its spinoff Lucia and the Loom
Young Lady Albert

For non-JNC titles check out the Holy Grail of Eris

Travis Butler

@Lily-Garden said in Is it just me?:

@Seandrake said in Is it just me?:

I personally like stories with female leads but half of them seem to have romance with an abusive asshole wedged in as a good thing.

I would also recommend

Tales of Marielle Clarac

Marielle Clarac is also notable for the male romantic lead not being an abusive asshole (though admittedly she sometimes fangirls about him having a ruthless dominating image).

Dalhia in Bloom and its spinoff Lucia and the Loom

Dalhia, OTOH, bugged me in early volumes because the male lead came across as controlling. He's gotten much better, but I'm still not fond of the romantic aspect. I love the parts of the story dealing with her finding her own strength and independence after getting out of an abusive engagement, and being a genius magical inventor.

Young Lady Albert

Another one where the main male characters aren't assholes.

xdrfiredogx

Well, like I usually put it in the announcements threads when every single series seems to be copies of one another... good luck! Hope they sell well!

I may consider a lot of it dreck - just my personal option of course - but it obviously sells well... and if it sells well, then that opens the door to licensing stuff that ISN'T all cut from the same cloth. It's a simple calculus really... a healthy company can afford to take a few more risks, and it's often those series that live in the boundaries that interest me.

HarmlessDave

@Lily-Garden said in Is it just me?:

Tearmoon Empire*

Deathbound Duke's Daughter*

Tales of Marielle Clarac*

Young Lady Albert*

I agree with all of the above. Deathbound Duke's Daughter is at the top of my list of series I wish hadn't been canceled by the Japanese publisher.

I drifted away from Dahlia since drinking contests aren't my cup of tea, and I've bounced off of Bookworm volume 1 but I'll try again the next time it's on catch-up.

Valanduin

@HarmlessDave said in Is it just me?:

@Seandrake said in Is it just me?:

I personally like stories with female leads but half of them seem to have romance with an abusive asshole wedged in as a good thing.

If you're looking for an isekai romance that is 100% free of creepy possessive boyfriends, these are short, complete and cute:

I'd Rather Have a Cat than a Harem! Reincarnated into the World of an Otome Game as a Cat-loving Villainess

Making Jam in the Woods: My Relaxing Life Starts in Another World

I'm also fond of these from JNC, both also finished and complete:

The Reincarnated Princess Spends Another Day Skipping Story Routes

The Extraordinary, the Ordinary, and SOAP!

Stay far far away from JNC's The White Cat, even though I really enjoyed the first volume before the creepy love interests and brain-dead behavior took over.

As for the latest batch, Dagashi ya Yahagi doesn't have a creepy possessive boyfriend and has been entertaining so far. It does have a possessive girlfriend, although it has been depicting that as a negative and she has been making some effort to change.

Lily Garden

@HarmlessDave Lucia has far less heavy drinking than Dalhia

Bookworm Part one is a real slow burn but the world building and character work is really good. So if you can binge the beginning of Bookworm and get to the later parts the story shifts from slow burn to a bit of a quicker pace

xdrfiredogx

Yeah, I was kind of ehh on Bookworm at the start myself actually. The world building in that series is vastly beyond what you'll see in most novels, much less "light" novels and it has a massive cast of characters... but it grows all of that naturally, it doesn't drop a ton of exposition part 1, volume 1 so at first blush you wouldn't know what it's going to become.

HarmlessDave

@Lily-Garden said in Is it just me?:

@HarmlessDave Lucia has far less heavy drinking than Dalhia

Thanks. I don't drink but it's not that I'm bothered by others doing it, I just never picked up the habit. My parents were only social drinkers who'd maybe get a cocktail or one beer at a restaurant.

I guess it's supposed to be a fun part of the story but reading it over and over in the first couple of volumes just made me worry about their health and that Dahlia would end up like her dad.

Lily Garden

@HarmlessDave that’s perfectly understandable
Since Lucia has so far toned down the drinking and eating scenes compared to Dahlia I like recommending it to anyone who was turned off by those scenes in Dahlia

As for what happened to Dahlia’s dad…let’s just say that truth behind his death is revealed in a later side story to be little more complicated than what originally appeared

Seandrake

@HarmlessDave oh yeah I read soap when it released and it was really fun.
I also liked I will not be your enemy which was quite good.

Ahhh White Cat yeah I had the dubious distinction of reading the WN which is if anything even worse than the LN. I tried brain bleaching the memories so it's a little fuzzy but it invoked mind control and imprinting so the MC effectively had to fall in "love" and do as she was told. Not to mention the non consensual body/genetic modification, failure to mention permanent house arrest, etc. I think that's why it seems like her IQ drops in the LN because in the WN she just does as she's commanded.

xdrfiredogx

@Seandrake Yeah, there are only a couple series I've gotten through more than a volume and then ended up dropping. White Cat was one of them. (Potions Loli was another)

Seandrake

@xdrfiredogx which is a shame because even with the WN it stars of really well being an interesting take on the genre, then Jade arrives and things get a little rough but with each appearance he makes it gets worse until about the equivalent of the end of the 2nd vol.

Then it goes from a tail spin into a free fall nose dive with no engines or wings. I know the LN is better but I still find Jade a better antagonist than a love interest and the relationship is creepy as sin. It would have been more interesting watching her trying to escape from the overbearing stalker she is trapped with to be honest.

Zeteni

I don't know what your habits are with new batches but I've found more than a few times that if I try out everything (or at least close to it) I'll end up liking something I either had no particular interest in or even outright scorned based on the premise. There's no greater example of this for me than Finding Avalon, which I only tried because I'd been drinking one evening and wanted to share my reactions with some friends.

The horror that befell us when I told them, "Oh no. It's actually really good." was palpable.

Obviously things don't typically work out that way, but I've tended to find that there's at least one series per batch that I'll enjoy more than I assumed I would after giving it a shot.