General Light Novel Thread

[Laserman]

[R.Lock]

Trading an angel for a devil, and Snow White for Cinderella? Goddammit Shiratori, I'll take this.

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Ryuuou 14: why must you do this to me shiratori, cant you let me enjoy deredere Ginko without some bullshit behind the corner. And seems Machi is gonna make her move in next vol, thats one naaaaasty smile you got there.

I reaaaaaalllly want to see what Machi would do with kiddy gloves off.

[Rue]

Finally had time again and Just finished & enjoyed Mushoku Tensei Volume 12. (new anime season can't come soon enough)

Will finally get around reading Goblin Slayer v11 later.

[Rafflesiac]

Finished Danmachi 16.

What an absolute gutsplitter of a volume, holy shit. Bell finally lives his dreams of picking up girls in a dungeon and it is glorious.

Spoiler:

[On the other note, RIP Syr Flover. You were as cute as you were doomed. Only Freya remains now, and I can't wait to see how Hestia Familia makes it out of this one. Loki Familia entering the fray? F for Horn; she was half-baked and incredibly selfish, but functional enough. The full page of YURUSENAI was quite something. Finally, Hedin the goat. Hopefully his VA nails him when the anime eventually hits this volume.]

[Rafflesiac]

Finished Tomozaki 6.5.

It's nice to get a look into the minds of the other characters, especially Hinami and Mimimi.

Spoiler:

[Hinami's really something, even a couple of years younger. The single-minded drive to use and manipulate people is disturbing, but it's fascinating to see her interpret and process her emotions through her single-minded mindset. Also it seems like she has parent problems, so maybe that's part of why she's so determined to be #1. LMAO at needing a boyfriend to beat her at something, though. This is bait, Author-kun.

Winter shopping was more nice interactions, nothing much to say here. Tomozaki got the drip. As for the girl's talk: This is bait, Author-kun.

Fuka is precious. I'm glad she made a friend. I'm impressed that I'm sold on the book that she read; that's good writing. Yuzu is also too cute. It's interesting fitting in all of these short stories with the mainline volumes; I'm tempted to reread a few to see the original sides of the conversations and situations.

Mimimi is #relatable. And cute. I'm glad she got to win against Aoi, and more importantly against herself. But can she win Tomozaki's heart? She does have blue hair... On a less memetic note, it was nice to see in these segments and the Girl's Talk Hinami's statements on stock rising with one girl spiking it with the others coming true.

Finally, Mizusawa is a pimpmaster. His lecture to Tomozaki flashed through my mind as he expertly seduced Gumi's friends.]

Volume 7 should be arriving soon, and that'll certainly be a ride.

[R.Lock]

Caught up to Elaina v5. v4 was great cuz it was pretty much 100% yuri, so it's a bit tough to swallow when v5 toned it down. A bit. Characters nagging Elaina if she's a lesbian is an excellent touch, though.

[weeblord]

86 vol 8: naval warfare volume. absolutely kickass setting for the big battle of this vol. Also interesting conflict between the 86 that are making big steps in moving forward with their everyday lives and the ones that feel like theyve been left behind.

Spoiler:

Goddamnit what are you doing kurena. And salutations to Theo who came in clutch, your fight ends here ;_;

[Rafflesiac]

Finished Volume 7 of Tomozaki.

Spoiler:

[Fucking hell this was a rollercoaster. Yaku had me going for a bit, like "hold up, Kikuchi's fine on her own, is Tachibana really gonna end up mattering!?!?" but in the end, Mimimi was the blue-haired #2. She's strong, so she'll be fine, but I feel bad for her nonetheless. Fuka shooting Tomozaki down was a real shock, but I'm glad he managed to convince her not to repress herself. In the end, she had the same issue that he did, and it was really sweet to see that he's grown enough to help her through that.

There was lots of good material, especially on the comedy front; the Pokemon reference was one thing, but I definitely didn't expect TM Revolution. I laughed out loud a lot while reading. Also surprising no one, Mizusawa the GOAT. Tomozaki over-baiting Nakamura was pretty funny too. There was a particular line like 60% in where Tomozaki's narration reflected a moment from one of the Andi books, which was a really neat touch.

Lastly, there's the teases with Hinami. I thought she had parent problems from Volume 6.5, but she definitely has them now. Maybe her parents just wanted a nice and unassuming girl, so she decided to become #1 to stick it to them? Given how Tomozaki wants to take her somewhere, I suspect Hinami'll be the thrust of the next few volumes.]

The likely OVA coming up is one thing, but if we get a second season, I hope it ends up being 16 episodes somehow. I'd hate for any of this material to get the shaft. This was a really satisfying volume, and I'm excited to see where the series goes next.

[Rafflesiac]

I finally got around to finishing up Heavy Object. Fun series, very engaging pulpy scifi.

I'm glad that Quenser and Milinda got their happy ending.

[R.Lock]

Welp, that was quite the experience. Grateful for the depth of v15, crushed by the content. Shiratori, come oooooon.

[Rue]

Just finished Mushoku Tensei volume 15...a good read as always.

I finally got around to finishing up Heavy Object. Fun series, very engaging pulpy scifi.

I'm glad that Quenser and Milinda got their happy ending.

Wait, its finished finished? Guess its time to get back to it


Oh nice, latest 86 [Eighty Six] volume just came out too~

[Rafflesiac]

Finished Magistellus Bad Trip Volume 1.

It took a bit to get into, but the pulpy action satisfied quickly enough. I noticed some annoying repetition of points regarding Pavilion; Kamachi probably did it for dramatic emphasis, but it read as amateurish. Seeing all of the references to other Kamachi series was a neat little touch. Overall a fun read. I'm looking forward to Volume 2 in September. Also Midori is very cute.

[Desann]

Finished Magistellus Bad Trip Volume 1.

It took a bit to get into, but the pulpy action satisfied quickly enough. I noticed some annoying repetition of points regarding Pavilion; Kamachi probably did it for dramatic emphasis, but it read as amateurish. Seeing all of the references to other Kamachi series was a neat little touch. Overall a fun read. I'm looking forward to Volume 2 in September. Also Midori is very cute.

Wasn't it already fully translated? I remember reading last volume year or so ago?

[Rafflesiac]

I was lazy and didn't read it before it got taken down.

[Desann]

I was lazy and didn't read it before it got taken down.

Huh, I didn't know it was licensed. If you ok with fan-translation and don't want to wait it's pretty easy to find epub/pdf versions if you search by fan-translated name Magisterus Bad Trip.

That's pretty random license - iirc from Kamachi's LNs only Index is licensed, so I would expect something like Heavy Object that already have anime than pretty obscure newer LN.

[Cruor]

Reread Crest of the Stars and Banner 1-3. Man Banner 2 was such a nice foretelling of stuff that would happen in the modern world.

As a small synopsis, the two protags of the series are put in charge of the administration of a prison planet of hundreds of thousands of people after they occupied the planet in war. Their space empire doesn't hold prisons/corrections facilities in such mass amounts generally leaving that to be the discretion of the planetary administrations. Not only that almost half the planet wants to leave and be evacuated because 9/10 of the planet is more along the lines of gangs from the likes of Necromunda from 40k. The planet required immediate rations when again, their space empire doesn't normally have the trade networks to support land worlds that can't operate self sufficiently, so the supplies they can bring while a war is going on is limited while also organizing an evacuation and of course navigating a bureaucratic and byzantine mess makes for a fun story. But it also unintentionally draws parallels with the future on the US evacuation/withdrawal from Afghanistan, despite being written like 15 years prior. Its really fun scifi as I don't know many scifi stories that overly focus on the tedious administration systems of the future.

Other series I have been reading is:
Nanatsu no Maken Shiai Suru, a story I am honestly convinced is written by 449 (Muramasa/Hanachirasu) of ex-N+ fame under a new pseudonym. The way the author infodumps during the swordfights about both techniques and just the wizardry is so reminiscent of stuff like the maken in hana and stuff like kabutowari and shishikus techiniques in Muramasa (really, go read tell me the splurges on the Fourth and Second Maken in vol 1 and 4 and try to tell me it is not exactly like how in Hanachirasu the text stops the final fight for the narration to explain physics in a very dramatic way just to explain how Akane/Igarasu's maken works before finally cutting back to the fight). Very good and fun series despite being called sword hogwarts.

Demonlord 2099: seems like it would be a fun anime, not that good but it is silly.

Ryuu to Sairei: vol 1 was nice. Would recommend, don't know what to say specifically about it. its a pretty good mystery where no one needs to explain everything to another. Haven't started vol 2 though.

[Cruor]

King of the Labyrinth

What a fun ride and I appreciate everything in the series. The first novel is pretty much that mafia mobile game meme where a level 10 gangster becomes the level 99 boss. It is the story about the cow lord, the minotaur king who likes brutally killing human adventurers out for a fight, the series however is far wider in scope then that.

Book 2 and book 3s world building is so good, book 3 literally has like a 40 page chapter on the history and line of the family that serves as the 'villain' of the series and why and how their territory even got as strong as it did, and how the philosophies of both the region and how the house developed over time caused them to be/appear to be adversarial to the 'main character''s house and alliance.

The opening segment of book 2, which comes after an entire book where we had a mostly static sentient cow barbarian (who is also 100% who everyone secretly cheers for) going from being an early game boss to being the master of the Labyrinth, while fun did not tell you much about the world. But you did have glimpses of it. The first like 20 pages of the second book glosses over the entire other story unfolding outside of the Labyrinth, and then starts you from there while you are still overwhelmed by the huge info dump at the start. Makes for some glorious fun and really sets the stage for what the series is actually going to be about, but don't worry we still get chapters on the great Cow.

But even all of this does not even properly go over all of the underlying tales within some of the more 'episodic' chapters which all further develop the setting but also progresses the other themes the series wants to inform you about. As while rather episodic (some of those chapters are straight up called interludes), they all develop one long side story going on like one really long rpg quest.

All in all I suggest it for anyone that likes fantasy series or history. I have to say though, while a lot of series have come out in the last 5-10 years that like challenging the classic jp fantasy tropes and commonly used story elements, they often end up using a lot of similar themes with both each other but also the elements they are trying to poke holes in. King of the Labyrinth is pretty forward with a lot of its rpg elements, so you would think that this would hurt it and leave the delivery on its other views feeling flat, I found this not to be the case. As between limitations in design, and the tone and pace leaves a lot of headroom for it.

All of this in three novella sized novels.

[Deathhappens]

I finally got around to finishing up Heavy Object. Fun series, very engaging pulpy scifi.

I'm glad that Quenser and Milinda got their happy ending.

What, no Azureyfear side gig? How sad.

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Huh, I didn't know it was licensed. If you ok with fan-translation and don't want to wait it's pretty easy to find epub/pdf versions if you search by fan-translated name Magisterus Bad Trip.

That's pretty random license - iirc from Kamachi's LNs only Index is licensed, so I would expect something like Heavy Object that already have anime than pretty obscure newer LN.

Last I checked most of Kamachi's stuff was taken down, even stuff nobody but Kamachi nerds read like the A Simple series.

[Desann]

Last I checked most of Kamachi's stuff was taken down, even stuff nobody but Kamachi nerds read like the A Simple series.

Only licensed titles (first Index and Magisterus) are taken down from baka-tsuki, everything else is still there.

[Rafflesiac]

Finished Danmachi Volume 17.

Spoiler:

[Jesus Christ that was some gaslighting. Freya is horrifying. Whether it's the instant takedown of Hestia Familia at the start, her tending to her sandbox, or her slow torture and manipulation of Bell to wear him down and break his mind, she made me shudder countless times. Even if she's still seething from getting rejected or just looking for friends or equals, there's no way she gets out of Volume 18 intact. I assume she'll live as Syr forever. And man, poor Hestia. And everyone who got charmed into forgetting Bell, but especially Hestia having to abandon him briefly. I was really happy when she got her hug. I'm somewhat surprised that Aiz remembered her times with Bell though and was first on the scene once the charm broke. I mean, it's obvious since she's the main heroine and all, but it's hard seeing her own attachment from Bell's POV. I should really get around to reading the Sword Oratoria LNs at some point. Bell really does have an indomitable spirit. It's thanks to that that there even was an opening for Hestia to take advantage of. The Familia War next volume should be awesome. I assume Aiz will beat Ottar, but how much help will she get with that? And then there's the question of who Bell handles. Hedin?

Speaking of which, Hedin goated fr. Best sensei. Also you can tell that Bell really got his shit kicked in because his VIT hit SSS before his AGI lol.]