Ao Oni volume 2 - 13/04/18, 7/10, ~56k words, finished in ~2 hours Good : Close to 50 illustrations, an interesting take on the original indie game, interesting time-travel scenario, well thought out characters
Bad : Not really scary or thrilling, predictable, repetitive due to the nature of the story
Kamisu Reina series - Kamisu Reina koko ni chiru - 14/04/28, 9/10, ~42k words, ~4 hours Good : Very abstract and surreal yet feels very much real, philosophical - combines ideas from theory of forms and tinkerbell effect, narrative tricks, highly thought provoking
Bad : No illustrations, the nature of the book leads to the repetition of several dialogues, very hard to get through
Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu - volume 1 - 14/04/28, 6/10, ~52k words, ~2 hours Good : Fun characters, gave me a few chuckles
Bad : Ametaur writing, too few descriptions, very fast pacing, hard to say who's talking
Saihate no Paladin - Tomoshibi no Minato no Gunzou (The Torch Port Ensemble) - 20/04/18, 8/10, ~55k words, ~4 hours Good : Well written short stories penned by the Paladin himself, more great world-building, very unique and emotional scenes, amazing illustrations as always
Bad : Feels a bit like the author isn't sure where to take the story
Seishun Buta Yarou series - Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai - 26/04/18, 8/10 Good : Lots of icha-icha interactions which the author is undeniably good at, interesting mystery, not a whole lot of ecchi
Bad : harem developments at sight, the quantum physics parts can feel a bit far-fetched
86 - volume 1 (TLC-ing) - 27/04/18, 8.5/10, ~70k words Good : Good twists albeit predictable and not very unique, good descriptions, interesting setting that is obviously inspired by some real life history, well written emotional scenes.
Bad : Too much terminology and way too many character names, pacing is very inconsistent
There used to be more like ours so everyone was taking ideas from everyone anyway. Peoples kind of stopped doing it when the LN related became less and less active. I'd say it'll be nice to see a new one after all that time ;).
I can't agree more~ I don't think many people recognise that's her in my profile pic XD
Nice review BTW. I like how you pointed out they adapted it in a different order than the LN. That is also my biggest complaint towards the adaptation. Yes, most of the contents are the same but all the foreshadowing and build up was totally destroyed. "Memory in children" is definitely the climax of the first half in my opinion and they aired it in the first episode. I thought it was a very bad decision.
Yep, that's something I like with Yen Press, they stick to what they license without dropping it midway. Without them the whole Ln english translation would be in quite the disastrous state.
Favourite Japanese author for mystery stories is Matsuoka Keisuke. I've read more than 30 volumes from him. I like them all, but I particularly like Tantei no Tantei. His general style is quite surprising for detective, it's detective stories with no murders at all. Scams, counterfeit, and so on rather than murder, and always so well thought out and so well documented. But in Tantei no Tantei, he actually goes the dark thriller way. Would think something he's not used to would feel out ofd place? But not at all, he just adds to that genre his usual talent and huge knowledge. And he totally nailed it.
Sorry for answering so late.
Well, that's only the first 6 though, so not even 1/3rd of the whole series afaik :/.
Mental strength is still strength, yes, but too often in fantasy stories with male protag (especially harem) you see the main female characters with more "combat strength" than "mental strength", and I personally enjoy more the mental strength than combat strength.
Looks like you're quite into detective stories. Too bad all of those I've read and enjoyed are untranslated I guess >_<.
That's a rarity then ;O. Which shouldn't be rare considering how many freaking MC are indecisive to death tbh, but a rarity nonetheless.
I usually enjoy mental strength more than physical strength for female character (well, for male characters as well I guess). Collecting them as pokemon, that's pretty much what some male leads like Touma from Index do yes xD.
That's too bad, some of the best novels from Japan I've read recently have female protagonists (but then again I feel like a lot of them will never get a proper translation, like the amazing Tantei no Tantei).
Not just a bit; that kind of things in VNs is 100% self insert lol^^".
When there's a proper reason it's fine.Or I guess, when the protag ends up punished for not choosing (girls ends up going for someone else because they're tired of his indecisiveness), it's fine too, but I don't think I ever saw that one happening.
Magic school stories (regardless of the original format) are quite infamous for often being like that, just like isekai harem+ power fantasy types I guess.
I suppose one reason I enjoy female protagonist in stories is that you usually avoid that kind of thing completely ( not taking in account reverse harem stories~). Whenever the female protagonist is OP, it doesn't lead to forming a harem, so you can just enjoy that female character being epic without being annoyed. <3
Uh, the "protagonist is so dense that gravity itself is affected and all female characters start to rotate around him" kind of set up is more annoying than indecisive female character imo. And the "I can't choose just one" is fine in a hentai, not that much in anything else tbh. I can see someone indecisive IRL to some degree, but the "I can't choose" and the super dense ecchi protagonist are overboard.
And that's someone who is super dense himself who is saying this, just saying.
Well I'm fine with 2 love interests, but generally I found that anything above that is not worth it, authors don't know how to handle it and just repeat the same narrative tricks ad nauseam.
Exception would be KyouHora with 3 because it's a real harem this time, and not just a MC that doesn't know who to choose or is too dense to get a clue.
I don't care that much about who is winning as long as the decision makes sense by the end of the story. If by the end of the story I'm like "wtf why?" then I don't think that's any good.
That's always a problem with the ending of romance stories, shippers that didn't got their ship to sail throw a tantrum and make sit difficult to properly judge the quality of said story with ratings alone~
I liked the anime adaptation of Sakurasou (never read the novel), but I've read bad things about its ending, so I don't know.
Yeah sometimes it's easier to get it in English, like Kirie.
I'm not sure about seishun buta yarou, but Boogiepop I like the news. That's a novel series that I tried to get several times, but it's hard to find it on stock properly since it's quite old.
Earth star has twice the capital stock of TO books though, so that's that (30 million vs 15 million yen). It belongs toa group that has more than Earth star and already ordered other anime to be made, so I don't think that's a problem, but hey, I don't know how that works exactly.
Ahah, I was talking about that with someone else, was saying that someone in Yen Press makes nice choices for licensing new series x). The only series I thought would be licensed after the anime and wasn't is Alderamin.
10$ per package is harsh. Although, if it's anything else than the swedish postal service it won't apply logically .
We have something similar in france (in fact, one of them even adds 20€ per package huh...) so have to be careful for which service is delivering the package.
Well things like Spice & wolf are worth their number of volume though ~:)
If only x). May be like a second arc manga and something else of minro importance (for us, that is), who knows. Still believe in the anime anyway~
I see, that doesn't look like an enjoyable experience if it takes that long. Gotta work on your japanese a little there :p.
Yeah, shipping fees can be astronomical, especially on stuff like amazon. Honto is pretty cheap for shipping fees though.
Depending of the size of the series, that can already be quite the collection :D.
All Comments (26) Comments
Nice review BTW. I like how you pointed out they adapted it in a different order than the LN. That is also my biggest complaint towards the adaptation. Yes, most of the contents are the same but all the foreshadowing and build up was totally destroyed. "Memory in children" is definitely the climax of the first half in my opinion and they aired it in the first episode. I thought it was a very bad decision.
Favourite Japanese author for mystery stories is Matsuoka Keisuke. I've read more than 30 volumes from him. I like them all, but I particularly like Tantei no Tantei. His general style is quite surprising for detective, it's detective stories with no murders at all. Scams, counterfeit, and so on rather than murder, and always so well thought out and so well documented. But in Tantei no Tantei, he actually goes the dark thriller way. Would think something he's not used to would feel out ofd place? But not at all, he just adds to that genre his usual talent and huge knowledge. And he totally nailed it.
Well, that's only the first 6 though, so not even 1/3rd of the whole series afaik :/.
Mental strength is still strength, yes, but too often in fantasy stories with male protag (especially harem) you see the main female characters with more "combat strength" than "mental strength", and I personally enjoy more the mental strength than combat strength.
Looks like you're quite into detective stories. Too bad all of those I've read and enjoyed are untranslated I guess >_<.
That's a rarity then ;O. Which shouldn't be rare considering how many freaking MC are indecisive to death tbh, but a rarity nonetheless.
That's too bad, some of the best novels from Japan I've read recently have female protagonists (but then again I feel like a lot of them will never get a proper translation, like the amazing Tantei no Tantei).
Not just a bit; that kind of things in VNs is 100% self insert lol^^".
When there's a proper reason it's fine.Or I guess, when the protag ends up punished for not choosing (girls ends up going for someone else because they're tired of his indecisiveness), it's fine too, but I don't think I ever saw that one happening.
I suppose one reason I enjoy female protagonist in stories is that you usually avoid that kind of thing completely ( not taking in account reverse harem stories~). Whenever the female protagonist is OP, it doesn't lead to forming a harem, so you can just enjoy that female character being epic without being annoyed. <3
Uh, the "protagonist is so dense that gravity itself is affected and all female characters start to rotate around him" kind of set up is more annoying than indecisive female character imo. And the "I can't choose just one" is fine in a hentai, not that much in anything else tbh. I can see someone indecisive IRL to some degree, but the "I can't choose" and the super dense ecchi protagonist are overboard.
And that's someone who is super dense himself who is saying this, just saying.
Exception would be KyouHora with 3 because it's a real harem this time, and not just a MC that doesn't know who to choose or is too dense to get a clue.
Yeah sometimes it's easier to get it in English, like Kirie.
https://twitter.com/TOBOOKS/status/970967541920153601
https://twitter.com/miyakazuki01/status/970976283822714881
10$ per package is harsh. Although, if it's anything else than the swedish postal service it won't apply logically .
We have something similar in france (in fact, one of them even adds 20€ per package huh...) so have to be careful for which service is delivering the package.
Well things like Spice & wolf are worth their number of volume though ~:)
I see, that doesn't look like an enjoyable experience if it takes that long. Gotta work on your japanese a little there :p.
Yeah, shipping fees can be astronomical, especially on stuff like amazon. Honto is pretty cheap for shipping fees though.
Depending of the size of the series, that can already be quite the collection :D.