Question: How JNC license novels?
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@DoubleMangekyo @paul-nebeling I may be mistaken, I just looked at the release schedule. I was under the impression that Alicization was the end of the web novel adaptation and there was not any more planned content afterwards.
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@myskaros it was, but the author had started writing another arc called "Cradle of the Moon" though it was stated to be sort of a spin-off of SAO, but it stopped after a few chapters. Lots of years later, when the last parts of Alicization were being officially released, Kawahara updated Cradle of the Moon on his website and added a few more chapters, and then announced that SAO's official release would continue with that arc. Alicization finished on vol 18, vols 19 and 20 were released as "Moon Cradle" following the events in Cradle of the Moon, but they were now a side story to be taken to happen before the finale of Alicization. According to the author's twitter, vol 21 is in the works, and when his editor was interviewed, he implied it will be about a new game, so SAO is far from finished.
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@paulnamida so is the publisher pulling a Boruto?
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@legitpancake well, you could think of Accel World as SAO's Boruto. When AW was picked up by the publisher it went something like "I heard you also had another crazy popular web novel series" "ah, yeah, there was that" "we'll publish it as well" "eehhh??!!". Later on, there's been quite a few hints that they occur in the same world, with AW being basically quite some time in the future of SAO's timeline. Haven't been up to date with AW (only got up to Vol. 7) so I'm not sure if these hints were debunked or confirmed as canon by the author though, but the Nerve Gear certainly existed in AW's universe as the first true full-price VR system, and the Neurolinkers are basically quantum computers, which is as well the system behind the developing of the Soul Translator featured on the Alicization arc on SAO.
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@paulnamida said in Question: How JNC license novels?:
Haven't been up to date with AW (only got up to Vol. 7) so I'm not sure if these hints were debunked or confirmed as canon by the author though
While this isn't an explicit confirm or deny from the author, you should skip ahead to volume 10. It's a short story collection, 2 of the stories take place during the first 4 books (so no spoilers, and they were also already animated in the anime if you've seen it) while the last short story is... shall we say, pure fanservice, and I mean that more in the 'fan' sense and less in the 'service' sense.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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@paulnamida Thanks for verifying that.
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@myskaros @paulnamida Boy, has this thread veered off topic. Anyways, about Volume 10 of AW, Kawahara seems to write/publish stuff like that frequently. I've heard that there's a planned collection of the Sugary Days/Material Editions that fill in more of those two weeks on the 22nd floor. Some of that stuff dates back to the original web novel days.
I did hope they edit it well. Kawahara's early writing was a lot rougher than it is today.
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@paul-nebeling said in Question: How JNC license novels?:
fill in more of those two weeks on the 22nd floor
I think... my implications were not conveyed appropriately, lol. I mean that the 3rd side story is a call out to fans, in the way Ordinal Scale's final battle is, not a service scene :P
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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@myskaros Hmmm. Now I am debating if I should read AW.
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I watched Ordinal scale recently and it struck me as a possible midway point showing how the tech could develop. The moment they suggested
I was like ayup. There we have it, the start of AW required hardware for full burst.
The software would just “unlock” the full dive function. Your VR character loosing its points would equate to expiring the connection that’s inherent to the system.
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I think AW is a better story than SAO for serialization. Just a few things about AW that'll help decide whether you can enjoy it:
-- Assume that the game they're playing works on magic and not technology.
-- Power of friendship. You gotta have your nakamatachis
-- The reason main girl likes main guy is dumb. -
@Paul-Nebeling @eins I agree with Eins, but your reasons sound kind of facetious so I'm not sure if you actually want him to want to read it lol.
AW's main advantage over SAO is innate character pathos. SAO's characters are kind of bland/generically "cool," which is the main detractor from the GGO arc, artificially giving Kirito "depth" by giving him all of a sudden this retroactive fear of... I don't even know, losing his humanity or something? Thereafter there's this whole "the best gamer in the world could be even better except he can't take games seriously anymore so cry for him" thing that makes me roll my eyes.
Anyway, AW's characters are completely based around personal flaws, which makes them inherently more interesting since as the audience you're naturally driven to want to know more about how their duel avatars formed, you want to look for clues about the characters written between the lines. I also love that the mythology feels so vast due to the nature of Brain Burst, there's so much history to dig into, and it has this modern legend feel; like even though everything is entirely in the future, you still feel like you're in a classic medieval Joseph Campbell hero's journey.
Accel World is my favorite ongoing (English published) light novel, I pretty much can't wait to read it whenever a new (English) book is released.
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@myskaros said in Question: How JNC license novels?:
SAO's characters are kind of bland/generically "cool," which is the main detractor from the GGO arc, artificially giving Kirito "depth" by giving him all of a sudden this retroactive fear of... I don't even know, losing his humanity or something? Thereafter there's this whole "the best gamer in the world could be even better except he can't take games seriously anymore so cry for him" thing that makes me roll my eyes.
I would not say it was artificial as the Laughing Coffin subjugation was in the very first volume of the novels, and they go more in-depth regarding Kirito so I could better understand where he was coming from, unlike in the anime (SAOII was a horrid adaptation IMO).
Also, wouldn't that technically make him take the games more seriously, not less? Don't know what you mean with the whole "cry for him" part either... Only character I can attribute that to is Yuuki. -
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@doublemangekyo said in Question: How JNC license novels?:
I would not say it was artificial as the Laughing Coffin subjugation was in the very first volume of the novels
It's basically a retcon. Instead of it being a part of his character from the start, with hints dropped along the way so that the audience has some indication that it's going to be a problem later, the author picked an event that he didn't spend a lot of time describing and inserted something to retroactively give the character an attribute he didn't have before.
The part in quotes is basically me being facetious + melodrama. I mean, seriously, he's already a Gary Stu, but now we also have to grapple with "if only he would take things more seriously, then he'd be even more powerful!!!1." And I don't know how to respond to the other part, given that they clearly say that he'll "never" take VRMMOs seriously again, so he'll never be "as strong" as he could be.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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@myskaros I was aiming for something like a list of potential turn offs to reading it. If you can handle those then you can enjoy it. I actually like the series.
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@eins said in Question: How JNC license novels?:
@myskaros I was aiming for something like a list of potential turn offs to reading it. If you can handle those then you can enjoy it. I actually like the series.
I see. That's... an interesting way to recommend a series, haha, can't say I've seen that approach before O.o
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@myskaros @DoubleMangekyo SAO has problems with several of its arcs, but the most glaring ones are with the Aincrad arc. So many retcons and backfills. The original story that is given in Volume 1 starts on the 74th floor and ends a scant three weeks later, two of which are largely skipped over. Everything else that is considered canon about Aincrad was written later and shoehorned into the original story with varying success. Don't get me wrong. I like SAO, but it was the first light novel I ever read. Now that I have read many more, I can honestly say this.
Reki Kawahara is a good light novel author, and his writing skills have improved tremendously over the years, but he's not the best light novel author out there. I like his work, but there are other authors I like just as much or more.
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@paul-nebeling Yep, I know. That's the problem with taking a complete "short story" and trying to serialize it without starting from scratch. In retrospect, SAO:Progressive is what Kawahara should have done in the first place instead of trying to continue the story using the original Aincrad book as a base.
Honestly, I really do like Kawahara's stuff, not as much for the characters or the story, but for the sci-fi. The real gold from all the SAO arcs is his imagination on ways VR/AR technology can affect people's lives. AW book 5 is probably my favorite because, in the middle of reading it, I took a 2 hour break to research orbital elevators, and it was fantastic.
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@myskaros I'm glad I'm not the only one that looked up orbital elevators while reading vol. 5. That's my favorite Volume in the series.
