What Light Novel are you reading right now?

[Riku]

Don't know if you guys read Web Novels in japanese, but the latest chapters of Nagai Koto were so GOOD and FUN to read. Particulary the latest (Chapter 92).

While I'm here, Rokujouma is still awesome.

 

[xToki]

> starts reading re:zero

>realizes its Sunday, might as well as watch another ep so I'll have 60 pages less to read

[Kirashi]

Edit: Fail :/

[Kirashi]

I wanna read Good looser Kumagawa and zero kara hajimeru isekai seikatsu so badly

4 hours ago, xToki said:

> starts reading re:zero

>realizes its Sunday, might as well as watch another ep so I'll have 60 pages less to read

Where? How? Oo

[xToki]

24 minutes ago, Kirashi said:

I wanna read Good looser Kumagawa and zero kara hajimeru isekai seikatsu so badly

Where? How? Oo

If you mean in English, it's licensed.

If you can read Chinese/Japanese then it's a different story 

[Kirashi]

1 minute ago, xToki said:

If you mean in English, it's licensed.

If you can read Chinese/Japanese then it's a different story 

You mean Yen press right? I think the first release should be this month, but since I can read japanese, I guess we can get along?

[xToki]

5 hours ago, Kirashi said:

You mean Yen press right? I think the first release should be this month, but since I can read japanese, I guess we can get along?

Yup Yen Press, though with the speed they're releasing it at.. 

Spoiler

Ｒｅ：ゼロから始める異世界生活

 

[Darklord Rooke]

On 5/20/2016 at 6:42 PM, Tenkuru said:

I guess I shouldn't judge the entire translation just based on that alone, but YP messed up pretty bad there. If the rest of the novel isn't as butchered as that, I might pick it up and give it a shot when I drop by the bookstore to get the sweet Overlord hardcover release next week.

Going by that sample, apart from maybe that last line I will say this - the fan translation is utter trash. Consider buying the localisation.

Fuck me sideways, the shit people will promote as 'good'. 

EDIT: Rule of thumb - most light novel fan-translations are horrible.

[Tenkuru]

3 hours ago, Rooke said:

Going by that sample, apart from maybe that last line I will say this - the fan translation is utter trash. Consider buying the localisation.

Fuck me sideways, the shit people will promote as 'good'.

Damn, my English must be worse than I thought since I actually preferred the fan translation to the localisation (based on the screenshot alone). 

4 hours ago, Rooke said:

EDIT: Rule of thumb - most light novel fan-translations are horrible.

I have to agree with this though. It has gotten to the point where I'd rather read something at a slow pace in Japanese than read an exsiting fan translation 

[Kirashi]

15 hours ago, xToki said:

Yup Yen Press, though with the speed they're releasing it at.. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Ｒｅ：ゼロから始める異世界生活

 

Nice, thank you! Do you know where I can get the pictures?

[xToki]

2 hours ago, Kirashi said:

Nice, thank you! Do you know where I can get the pictures?

Spoiler

.

 

 

[Kirashi]

1 hour ago, xToki said:

  Hide contents

.

 

 

Nice, great, love you~

[xToki]

6 minutes ago, Kirashi said:

Nice, great, love you~

<3

[EastCoastDrifter]

Here's my current collection of light novels.

Spoiler

Not pictured: Re:Zero. I got that one much later.

Currently reading Black Bullet.

[Polycentric]

I just finished reading Miaki Sugaru's "Where You Called From" and "Where I called From" ("Were You Called From" is volume 1). I actually had a ton of stuff I was supposed to do, but I ended up reading both novels in one day. I would have to say it's a good read and you should check it out if you have the time. The two novels aren't terribly long (about average length I suppose) and only took me a few hours to read. 

The storyline (I'll try to stay away from spoilers) is somewhat based off of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" and the Japanese tail of "Yao Bikuni" both of which the novel makes numerous mentions towards. The story is set in a seaside town and revolves around a person who has a very terrible looking birthmark on their face as described by the novel. (minor spoilers)

Spoiler

Starting in elementary school he is bullied a lot, but is treated nicely by a girl who he ends up liking. She moves away after elementary school. Later he makes a bet with some mystical figure and has his birthmark removed, but has to win the love of the aforementioned girl.

I would classify the novels mainly under the genres of romance and drama with some supernatural/mystery. There's not too much slice of life or just school life scenes as the plot moves somewhat fast.

The plot is pretty good and was exciting all the way to the end. This is helped by the fact that most of the characters are well written and mostly act like humans rather than plot robots. There were a few contrived moments, but the plot overall is kind of supernatural so I guess most can be looked over if I don't think about it too much. I don't think that the plot was terribly predictable, although at times I could tell what would happen next. There also is a healthy amount of foreshadowing, but I don't think that it makes the plot overly predictable. I never felt like the story was ever moving too slowly which was nice since a few other longer series have issues with pacing, but I guess with just two short novels there's not really much room for a real story and filler at the same time. A lot of very interesting themes are explored within the novel and make it a very deep novel depending on the circumstances of the reader.

The ending is interesting I suppose. There were a lot of ways for this to end in my opinion and the way it ended is fine. Although there is room for criticism for the ending (and this type of ending that the novel has in general), I think that it was actually interesting and fit the mood of the novel. I can't really be too much more specific than that without spoiling too much. If you're worried about there being no concrete ending, don't worry anymore. The conclusion is rather clear. I guess there is room for a sequel although I highly doubt that there will be. I only say that to mean that the author leaves a few minor plot lines open, but the main plot line definitely does conclude.

Overall it is definitely a worthwhile read and has some interesting concepts in it. Recently I've been reading too much random slice of life, comedy, harem, ecchi stuff (High School DxD, Masou Gakuen HxH, C^3, etc) and this was a very nice breather from that. 

Edited November 28, 2016 by Polycentric
Felt like I had a bit more to write.

[Kazami Yuiji]

Start reading last vol Mahouka and first vol of No Game No Life

Spoiler

What a great time to be alive for incest plot's lovers...

 

[Jibril]

Finish watching MGRP and decided to read the rest until Jokers (volume 8). Gotta say, that's probably one of the best death game series, probably even more than Danganronpa.

Even though volume 4 and onwards isn't about death games but about politics, assassinations and conspiracies.... It's probably one of the best dark Mahou Shoujo series I've followed. Maybe even more than Madoka...

[Sparteh]

On 2016/12/30 at 6:56 PM, Kazami Yuiji said:

Start reading last vol Mahouka and first vol of No Game No Life

  Hide contents

What a great time to be alive for incest plot's lovers...

 

You are joking, right? Mahouka is known as shippers tragedy for a reason. All ships failed there. As for NGNL I guarantee that vol 6 was the best. Trust me, one of the best volumes not only in series but overall that I have read and I have completed hundreds of them.

Finished reading Rakuin no Munshou first 3 volumes. It was quite good, but I need to get 6 untranslated volumes so I could do reading marathon.

[Kazami Yuiji]

On 06/01/2017 at 9:01 PM, Sparteh said:

You are joking, right? Mahouka is known as shippers tragedy for a reason. All ships failed there.

I dunno what are yah talking about.... >_>

On 06/01/2017 at 9:01 PM, Sparteh said:

 As for NGNL I guarantee that vol 6 was the best. Trust me, one of the best volumes

Yeah, I've heard of it so many time.

Up: NGNL ==> Vol.2

[Segai]

Volume six of No Game No Life was indeed amazing, absolutely love that entire series but that certainly was a new height. Currently reading volume 7 as I left off at 6 like a year ago.

As for the others:

• Overlord v1 - 10, amazing, have v1 and 2 in hardcover, rest e-book for now.
• Spice and Wolf v1 - 2, have ordered physical copies of all of these, just too good.
• Log Horizon v1 - 7, also really good but not very different from the anime, still worth a read though.
• Altina the Sword Princess v1 - 4, I love the art and the story is decent as well.
• Mahouka v1 - 8, tbh I got a bit bored of it after reading eight volumes straight, might get back to it, might not.
• Re;Zero v1 - 2, will continue this after I catch up on all the rest.

 

Got v3 and 4 of Spice and Wolf on it's way, really looking forward to continuing that.

Serious question to anyone who has read Sword Art Online, is it worth the read if you've seen the anime? And yes, I quite liked it.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Segai

[Riku]

If you liked SAO, yeah, it's worth the read as a bunch of things (mainly in ALO's arc) were skipped. Also, having Kirito's POV is a plus, as it gives him the feelings people say that he doesn't have in the anime.

Friendly reminder that Rokujouma's still awesome.

[Dreamysyu]

Finished the translated part of Only Sense Online. And, while I can't say this story is particularly well written or has any outstanding qualities, I ended up enjoying it much more than I expected from its description and comments on the listing sites (that's why you should never trust them, lol).

In the end, it's basically a slice-of-life story based in a VRMMO. There is no real direction in the story and practically no character development. The MC is a noob who ends up playing as a girl due to a technical mistake (though technically it is not allowed) and picking garbage skills, but actually managing to use them to his advantage and becoming somewhat successful. Basically, it was him who kept the story interesting for me. He is not some generic OP self-insert so common in LNs, but a rather soft and caring person with a somewhat low self-esteem, who at the same time doesn't like to go with a flow and does everything in his own way. Gender-bender is a bit weird and was probably only added for lols. I think the story would work fine if the MC was female from the start, but it adds a certain charm to the character, so I actually liked it.

So, in the end, Only Sense Online is nothing amazing, but a decent light read in case you want to turn off your inner elitist.

The translation is readable for a non-native speaker like me, but it clearly has some problems and needs a good native-speaker editor. It's still better than most light novel fan-tls.

[Beichuuka]

3 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

Finished the translated part of Only Sense Online. And, while I can't say this story is particularly well written or has any outstanding qualities, I ended up enjoying it much more than I expected from its description and comments on the listing sites (that's why you should never trust them, lol).

In the end, it's basically a slice-of-life story based in a VRMMO. There is no real direction in the story and practically no character development. The MC is a noob who ends up playing as a girl due to a technical mistake (though technically it is not allowed) and picking garbage skills, but actually managing to use them to his advantage and becoming somewhat successful. Basically, it was him who kept the story interesting for me. He is not some generic OP self-insert so common in LNs, but a rather soft and caring person with a somewhat low self-esteem, who at the same time doesn't like to go with a flow and does everything in his own way. Gender-bender is a bit weird and was probably only added for lols. I think the story would work fine if the MC was female from the start, but it adds a certain charm to the character, so I actually liked it.

So, in the end, Only Sense Online is nothing amazing, but a decent light read in case you want to turn off your inner elitist.

The translation is readable for a non-native speaker like me, but it clearly has some problems and needs a good native-speaker editor. It's still better than most light novel fan-tls.

I might suggest trying VRMMO wo Kane no Chikara de Musou suru (Paying to Win at VRMMO) for something with a.... similar? premise.
I haven't read the published version (which I know changed the composition of events), but the free web version on Narou is really good.

Edited November 6, 2017 by Beichuuka

[Dreamysyu]

3 hours ago, Beichuuka said:

I might suggest trying VRMMO wo Kane no Chikara de Musou suru (Paying to Win at VRMMO) for something with a.... similar? premise.
I haven't read the published version (which I know changed the composition of events), but the free web version on Narou is really good.

Thanks for recommendation!

The web-version isn't translated right? Well, I can't read Japanese, so I'll try to read a free sample of the published version to see whether I like it.

[Akshay]

Just finished vol 10 of overlord.

My first LN.

I just had to read it after the anime.

Is there anything like it, with a semi evil protagonist trying to take over the world, maybe with a small evil harem.