May 2025 Catchups
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As the days grow warmer, what better time to bring your smartphone out outside to read in the grass?!
The war hero Dias moves to his new domain, only to find it populated by nothing but a sea of grass. How will he manage his territory when not a single person lives there?! Find out in The Frontier Lord Begins with Zero Subjects!
With its anime airing this season, check out the manga adaptation of The Brilliant Healer's New Life in the Shadows! Zenos the healer gets kicked from his adventuring party and decides to open an illegal clinic to treat people. Unfortunately, his skills quickly put him in the spotlight...
Sickly Sarasa finds out her lifelong suffering is due to the lack of magic on Earth. A goddess whisks her off to another, magical world, and now Sarasa is thrilled to feel healthy all the time! But a new world comes with new worries... Read about her story in Taking My Reincarnation One Step at a Time: No One Told Me There Would Be Monsters!
King Kai Lekius has thrown away his humanity for his kingdom and finally manages to achieve peace and stability. He falls into a deep sleep and can't wait to see what advances there are in magic. However... See what he wakes up to in The Greatest Magician's Ultimate Quest: I Woke from a 300 Year Slumber to a World of Disappointment!
Chloe has been condemned as cursed since birth and is abused by her own family. When she finally decides to run away, she finds the royal capital no better. Just as she's about to succumb to despair, the noble knight Lloyd saves the day! Is this finally Chloe's chance to find happiness? With a title like Safe & Sound in the Arms of an Elite Knight, I think the chances are good!
Finally, in the classic space opera tale Crest of the Stars, Jint's home planet is conquered by the Abh Empire, and he is nominally elevated to the imperial aristocracy. However, his origins as a surface-dweller make this more burdensome than advantageous. But a chance encounter with a starpilot named Lafier kick off a series of events that will change the fate of the universe forever.
A volume a day keeps the boredom at bay, and JNC members have a volume on catchup to read for each day of May! Happy reading!
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Pinned by
myskaros
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The Greatest Magician - Fair warning, Kai Lekius is a loli-sucking edgelord in love with his own name, which he must include in every other sentence. Matt Damon! ( https://youtu.be/iKD1uyZVMFw?si=W4hz6Hx9BoKXJNbf )
Taking My Reincarnation One Step at a Time - fun, but needs more wolves.
I haven't read the manga, but the LN of Brilliant Healer is entertaining.
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Frontier Lord has an interesting setup, but I found myself losing interest. It's essentially a territory development story, but improvements come by coincidence or people approaching Dias of their own volition, rather than by his own intentional actions or planning.
Brilliant Healer is good old fantasy pseudo-harem trash, with no isekai. Within that genre, I found it to be pretty good. The MC has a good balance between being humble and actually understanding how overpowered he really is, and while he's oblivious about many things, he's not a pushover. The guiding principle of the story is that anyone can heal injuries, but a first-rate healer makes the world a better place.
Reincarnation one step at a time is a fairly lighthearted story about an overpowered girl that just wants to live her life without conflict, and as such she rarely uses her magic offensively (you're not going to see the MC effortlessly exploding monsters, although she theoretically could). However, reincarnated people are a known phenomenon, so she eventually has to deal with people treating her as much more important than she'd like. I've been liking this so far.
Greatest Magician's Ultimate Quest: I read the first volume, but wasn't too impressed by its direction. It's a bit too edgy, and I don't like how the magic system appears to be rigid, but plot developments come about by the author introducing rules to the system. If a rule exists but we don't hear about it until it comes into play, then it's no different from the author making shit up on the spot. Bookworm by contrast has a fairly rigid magic system, and we get all the basic rules early on with very few exceptions down the line; new developments fit within the already defined structure (though comparing anything to bookworm is unfair).
Safe and Sound is a nice romance novel. It's not groundbreaking or anything, with a girl running away from a terrible household and finding shelter with an elite knight in the capitol. They both have their past demons that they can work through with each other. It's only 3 volumes long, and appears to be complete (but the homepage says 3+ so maybe there's an epilogue?)
Crest of the Stars I've never seen or heard of before.
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Crest of The Stars shows 9+ volumes, but it should only be 6. At least that is all that are available on the site and in print.
For print fans, the 1st 3 books are available in a 3 vol hardcover under Crest of the Stars, and 4-6 are in hardcover as Benner of the Stars. The look very, very nice.
Everything is impossible until someone does it.
Batman -
Crest of Stars is pretty great, though I found it a dense read when I started it before and didn't make it all the way through. I've watched the anime, which is good.
I like how thoughtful the author is about culture clash, what it means to be conquered, and the detail they put into their made-up language.
It's space opera with lots of political twists and turns.
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@Betenoire Nine volumes is correct for Crest/Banner of the stars. Crest 1-3 plus Banner 1-6. The numbering restarts at Banner.
It’s got some great characters and an interesting world, so for others reading this I’d recommend checking it out whether or not you normally read sci-fi. It’s pretty different from most of J-Novel Club’s stuff, so could be a good change of pace if you’re looking for something different. Show an older series some love.
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@yumenokage oh right, I'm an idiot. It's one hard cover for Crest and 2 for Banner. That's what I get for hiding books behind figures.
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@LeavesCat said in May 2025 Catchups:
Safe and Sound is a nice romance novel. It's not groundbreaking or anything, with a girl running away from a terrible household and finding shelter with an elite knight in the capitol. They both have their past demons that they can work through with each other. It's only 3 volumes long, and appears to be complete (but the homepage says 3+ so maybe there's an epilogue?)
I think they just put the + for all of them this time regardless of the series being ongoing or not. As far as I know from looking at the publishers' pages, Safe and Sound is complete (no new volumes since 2023, https://drecom-media.jp/drenovels/product/49), but the manga is ongoing. I have not looked into Crest of the Stars, but I assume it is also done considering JNC released the last volume in 2021.
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I liked Crest of the Stars but I got bogged down with the conlang in Banner and DNF vol. 5.
I started Safe and Sound today but then the Japanese elements turned me off and I'm reconsidering continuing this series.
Back when Frontier Lord was first streaming, I read one part and couldn't continue. So I'll be skipping it this month as well.
Greatest Magician sounds too edgy and it's too short for what looks to be a kingdom-building military campaign so I wouldn't bother with this one either.
Recently, I've been avoiding stories that feature OP children protagonists but since I'm considering dropping Safe and Sound and I really want to read JNC this month, I may consider One Step at a Time.
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@saidahgilbert said in May 2025 Catchups:
Recently, I've been avoiding stories that feature OP children protagonists but since I'm considering dropping Safe and Sound and I really want to read JNC this month, I may consider One Step at a Time.
I'll say that the OP protagonist is handled differently than usual, because the person the powers are attached to isn't interested in fighting. While her powers are ever-present, they're mainly used as a way to pursue her actual interests without danger.
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@Spacebssn said in May 2025 Catchups:
I have not looked into Crest of the Stars, but I assume it is also done considering JNC released the last volume in 2021
Crest is complete at 3 volumes, but the sequel Banner of the Stars is considered ongoing and included on the same series page. JNC is up to date, but the series publishes very erratically in Japan, basically whenever the author feels like it. More than 20 years passed between v1 and v6 being released in Japan.
