Japan's Weekly Manga and Light Novel Rankings for Aug 12 - 18

*8, **8,339 *15,817 Maou na Ano Ko to Murabito A Vol.6 ~Kanojo no Futsuu to Ano Musume no Tokubetsu~

10, **7,644 *50,985 Seiken Tsukai no World Break Vol.4

GuiltyKing said:
^selling 200,000+ each is more than just "decently", friend.

Superfaraway said:


at least they are better compare to other titles.

Snowical said:

Manga
*4. 170,999 *,170,999 Fairy Tail Vol.39
*6. *93,963 *,*93,963 Nanatsu no Taizai Vol.4

Snowical said:

*1, 122,628 220,059 Sword Art Online Vol.13 Alicization Dividing
*2, *53,556 103,537 Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei Vol.11 Raihousha-hen Ge

GuiltyKing said:
^selling 200,000+ each is more than just "decently", friend.

Nidhoeggr said:

And this is why LN have a bad reputation in the West, although it is hardly anything new.

Nidhoeggr said:

And this is why LN have a bad reputation in the West, although it is hardly anything new.

Nidhoeggr said:



And this is why LN have a bad reputation in the West, although it is hardly anything new.

NeoAnkara said:

This nearly fool me twice reading it as Blade Dance.

Snowical said:

Light Novels and Anime/Manga related books
*1, 122,628 220,059 Sword Art Online Vol.13 Alicization Dividing
*2, *53,556 103,537 Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei Vol.11 Raihousha-hen Ge
*5, *25,818 *55,003 Hataraku Maou-sama! Vol.9

symbv said:
As if the west has really great taste LOL

Antanaru said:
What are you talking about?

Nidhoeggr said:
Sturgeon's Law. Too bad the good 10% are hardly ever in the Western focus in case of LN. Also, your ironic approach does not render you immune to criticism. In fact, it makes you look like child. Sorry to be so direct, but I don't think this is how a mod should behave.

Nidhoeggr said:


Sturgeon's Law. Too bad the good 10% are hardly ever in the Western focus in case of LN. Also, your ironic approach does not render you immune to criticism. In fact, it makes you look like child. Sorry to be so direct, but I don't think this is how a mod should behave.



About the status of LN as pulp fiction. Or rather: It's perceived status in the West.

symbv said:
Well, it is because your approach is so childish that you got a "child-like response". Basically the level you post will only get response that is on a comparable level LOL

As for how a mod should behave, I only consider myself a mod (and a news mod to be precise) when I start a news thread to report news. When I post in other situations, I consider myself just a regular member of the forum. Anyway, I don't have any authority or any special power like the forum mods so even if I want to act like a mods, all I can do is to engage people in the forum to get them to post responsibly and sensibly (which is not the case you are sounding with your post anyway) instead of resorting to any mods power (which I don't possess anyway).

Nidhoeggr said:

Sturgeon's Law. Too bad the good 10% are hardly ever in the Western focus in case of LN. Also, your ironic approach does not render you immune to criticism. In fact, it makes you look like child. Sorry to be so direct, but I don't think this is how a mod should behave.

biscuit-hammer said:


You didn't explain anything and immediately shifted to ad hominem. Sturgeon's Law applies to everything, thus using it in your argument that is uniquely directed to LNs is rather strange. If you truly think like that, you would have the exact same opinion towards the manga sales.

You complain that those 2 best sellers demonstrate why LNs are unpopular here. You use Sturgeon's Law and imply that 90% of everything is sh*t. Therefore there will be sh*t in the manga best sellers, what makes it popular here in the west? Sturgeon's Law alone could not possibly be the justification for what you initially stated, you just felt like backing up your argument with a popular theory.

Nidhoeggr said:
Of course, I can only read translation and don't know japanese so this is just an assumption, but i am willing to believe that the translators in charge try to preserve as much of the original writing style as possible.

Nidhoeggr said:
I also know that most LN are not written in Kanji and that authors get paid by page-count, which leads me to the assumption that a lot of the writers adopt certain specifics (needless infodumps, for example) to increase their wage.

symbv said:
I am not that sure about that. The feeling I got is that the available translations are mostly done by fans who are not professional translators and a lot of the translations are done quickly to get it out to the waiting fans, so I would say that the quality of the writing usually deteriorates in those translation - the only question is how much decline it got. Not saying the writing in LN is great but I think you should be aware that fan translation of novel, which involves a lot more text particularly those with context and subtlety compared to subtitles in anime will necessarily result in quality drop.

Not written in Kanji?!?!? This could not be further from the truth. In fact some LNs use kanji terms that are so difficult that readers need to resort to kanji dictionaries to find out the pronunciations (this is particularly true in case of fantasy LN that are meant for people with chuunibyou taste). I think you really need to take a look at the printed pages of LNs in original Japanese and it would then be clear to you straight away that all LNs have a lot of kanji in them.

Nidhoeggr said:

About the status of LN as pulp fiction. Or rather: It's perceived status in the West.

kurosaki_kabuto said:
Shingeki's past volumes got a boost again for some reason.

I'm glad to see Shokugeki no Soma and OnePunchMan selling decently well. Nanatsu no Taizai seems to be quite popular which is nice too. Over in the LNs it's great to see Maou selling pretty well.

Amiluhur said:
Regarding the current trend of LN, i am frankly getting relatively annoyed by many titles because it just feels like these titles are just copying styles. The lack of originality, I feel, is just repulsive to me. Yes, I am getting annoyed by how mediocrity oriented this industry is at this point.

Amiluhur said:
However, the thing I find about these long titles for one is that, they attract attention.

Antanaru said:
I was asking why say it while pointing at sales of SAO and Mahouka. While SAO got a bit stale with recent arcs it's still above average compared to other popular novels. Also Mahouka is actually much better than your average LN you often see on the top sales lists with it's more mature and serious approach. If you want to talk about series giving a bad reputation to LN better look at SnS/ZnT/Index and other carbon copies of the exact same story and character types.

Antanaru said:
I was asking why say it while pointing at sales of SAO and Mahouka. While SAO got a bit stale with recent arcs it's still above average compared to other popular novels. Also Mahouka is actually much better than your average LN you often see on the top sales lists with it's more mature and serious approach. If you want to talk about series giving a bad reputation to LN better look at SnS/ZnT/Index and other carbon copies of the exact same story and character types.

Nidhoeggr said:
A friend of mine studies Japanese as well and he told me that a lot of LN rely heavily on the use of Furigana and that the (lack of) Kanji is mostly because they are written for a younger audience who don't know lots of Kanji yet. This is also what is written in the LN Wikipedia entry in my country and in a few magazines articles I bought. I am confused now...

Snowical said:

Light Novels and Anime/Manga related books
*1, 122,628 220,059 Sword Art Online Vol.13 Alicization Dividing
*2, *53,556 103,537 Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei Vol.11 Raihousha-hen Ge
*5, *25,818 *55,003 Hataraku Maou-sama! Vol.9

Nidhoeggr said:
It becomes more obvious with every week that letting SnK go was one of the biggest mistakes the editorial staff behind WSJ made in recent years.



I hope the order of these two titles will be switched soon, NnT will surely take off once it finally gets an anime.




And this is why LN have a bad reputation in the West, although it is hardly anything new.

Nidhoeggr said:

Because they just happened to be at the top right now, that's all.
Obviously Zero, Shana, Index and all the other very similar novels are what I was aiming at as well, but I recently read those titles and find both of them to be underwhelming. I certainly can't explain the high amount of praise the SAO LN gets because it is written like.. well, fanfiction about another average fantasy world that just happens to be virtual. Maybe it is because Western authors tackled this particular setting in an imho much better way (Tad Williams' Otherland is one of many examples) that I find it so disappointing. Same goes for Mahouka, where I find the character of both Miyuki and Tatsuya to be overly focused on pleasing a niche audience, disregarding realistic developments for them in the process.
And pardon me, but if "above average" for a certain medium or genre is at this level it speaks volumes about the average writing. Shouldn't that be a reason to be concerned with the overall quality?

Edit:
Also, the LN audience in the West is - sadly - always measured by some of their fans as well. So think about your posts a bit, Superfaraway. Your childish acts certainly don't contribute anything.

Antanaru said:
I think you're expecting a bit too much from this medium. They are light novels after all. Series like Kino no Tabi are exceptions, simple action/sci-fi/fantasy etc. are the norm. As for how they are written, unless you can read Japanese you can't tell that for sure. There's always something lost in translation. This is the same for all kinds of novels. If you want to enjoy the story itself you can read translations, but if you want to enjoy the novel as a whole you have to read only your native authors or foreign if you mastered the language.

Antanaru said:
And yes, average light novel, the same as average manga, is pretty bad. But from time to time you can stumble upon something good. Isn't that the same for the whole pop culture?

Amiluhur said:
Well, the bottom line is that unless this cash cow medium is going to stop selling, there is no way for publishers to stop producing such series because this will just keep selling, especially with the LN anime adaptations becoming more often since the days of Seikai no Senki and Slayers. And if there is anything positive I can take, it is that such things are fads and will wear out over time.

Nidhoeggr said:
Edit:
Also, the LN audience in the West is - sadly - always measured by some of their fans as well. So think about your posts a bit, Superfaraway. Your childish acts certainly don't contribute anything.

ainky said:
wow glad to see Mix 3rd

Nidhoeggr said:
To be fair, most professional translations are of a different quality. And I already read mostly English and German authors as well as translation of Russian, Polisha nd Czech authors if I know they are good enough.

Antanaru said:
Usually yes, but there's a fair share of really bad professional translations. I don't speak only about LN/manga now. And even with a good translator end result still will be far from the original. It's just impossible to translate some things especially between different cultures.