Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon - Light Novel Discussion

[Suiri Megami Alice]

Originally Posted by Allen

Have a nice read

Thanks!

But I can't. I have a week of waiting for my copy to arrive so I can start tackling Book 2.

[Myname]

How does Slicing Dragonfly work?

When Muneshige stuck it inside his chest to stop the reflection, why didn't it just reflect his innards and cut him apart from the inside?

[Marcus H.]

The slicing effect is active. The spear must be moving, the effect must be invoked by saying "Bind, Tonbokiri" and the target must be within 30 m from the spear.

[Myname]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

The slicing effect is active. The spear must be moving, the effect must be invoked by saying "Bind, Tonbokiri" and the target must be within 30 m from the spear.

Ok, but that doesn't explain why it didn't slice up Muneshige from the inside.

[Marcus H.]

I think I know of a speculation as to why:

Tonbokiri's ability is highly dependent on light. You fight against Tadakatsu on a pitch-dark cave and your opponent and you don't have to worry about being split in half all of a sudden... although you might get stabbed instead. In Muneshige's case, since his insides are not exposed to light, Tadakatsu can't target them.

[Yamamoto-sensei]

Originally Posted by Allen

Spoiler for answers:

If you're reading the second volume now, you'll get to know more about Suzu's abilities (something like a "sensor" by using her super-audition). And it looks she still have feelings for him (4B shows that? Haven't read this volume yet ), even if she already accepted that Toori has only eyes to Horizon.

Masazumi is the true main character is in charge of negotiations/the political aspects in Musashi. It's more possible that she gets an Asama ending than a Toori ending.

Neito's ability focused most on her super-power until the second volume, but in the third volume she got some power-up events that made she uses her power better. Because of that, she turned very fast (you can see in the first episode that she is running together with "normal" people, now that won't happen anymore). About her fight with Neito Maman, well, I don't remember much about that. If I'm not mistaken she had one minute to hurt her mom. She only gets to do that because she was finally at the same? speed as her mom and used the Ex. Collbrande (same level of weapon as her mom used?).

Oh yeah, Neito got the OK from her mother to go and get Toori for her. It's obvious that she really likes him (we have some events between in V2B, V3C?, V4A) and with that who knows what will happen from now. But it's not like Toori'll change his mind about Horizon so early... If that ever happens, it's only in the ending...

You sir are so awesome, words can't describe my thank
Damn, i wish Toori could be more like a strategist. Although his role is pretty amazing but it would be better if he can think and create plans

[Morisato]

Originally Posted by Suzuku

Because if it weren't the books would be the size of shelves.


Can't answer the above questions, but I wanted to correct what's in the bold. In terms of length and page count, it's more like 20-something novels now.

Just wondering why it's Volume 1 Part 1, Volume 1 Part 2, Volume 2 Part 1, etc. instead of just Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3, etc.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by Morisato

Just wondering why it's Volume 1 Part 1, Volume 1 Part 2, Volume 2 Part 1, etc. instead of just Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3, etc.

Mostly because the story in those volume isn't complete, but they can't allow it to get any bigger so they separate it.

[Suiri Megami Alice]

Originally Posted by Morisato

Just wondering why it's Volume 1 Part 1, Volume 1 Part 2, Volume 2 Part 1, etc. instead of just Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3, etc.

Each volume encompasses a whole arc. They didn't label volume 1B as "volume 2" or 4B as "volume 9", else you can't tell which volume is under what arc. The numbering system has been like that ever since Owari no Chronicle.

Without that numbering system, when sometimes people just buy arbitrary volume number, after a few pages they realize the book they picked up is in middle of the arc (it'll be quite crazy to read a book starting from the middle, no?).

[larethian]

Originally Posted by Morisato

Just wondering why it's Volume 1 Part 1, Volume 1 Part 2, Volume 2 Part 1, etc. instead of just Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3, etc.

and they are physically separate books covering the same arc. though in the original japanese titles it's 上/下 and 上/中/下.

there are actually other numbering systems, such as:
volume 1: chapter 1,2,3
volume 2: chapter 4,5,6
volume 3: chapter 1,2,3
volume 4: chapter 4,5,6,7,8
volume 5, chapter 9,10,11

in this system, you know volume 1 and volume 2 covers the same arc and volumes 3,4, and 5 covers another arc.

[cynicalicious]

Thanks Allen and everyone else for all of the info about the LNs.

At first I wasn't sure about this series, but wow. I picked up 1上　and 1下 2 weeks ago... been thumbing through them when I have a chance. Wow. There's great stuff in here, but also lots of new vocab to pick up, so I just started keeping a notebook to keep track of it all. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it.

I don't have any trouble reading Haganai, but this is definitely a step up in difficulty for me. I'll probably just go to Tora no Ana in Nagoya this weekend and pick the rest up while I can, though. (Might as well.)

So here's my actual Question:

Spoiler for back of the book design:

On the back of the book, there's "The 1st.GENESIS" underneath the circular design, with FORTH, AHEAD, EDGE, GENESIS (GENESIS is highlighted, the rest are faded), followed by OBSTACLE, and CITY, all in descending order.

So does this mean that this all fits in to Kawakami's OnC series, and/or is this, and I balk even at the thought of this, just the prelude of the prelude of something so big you could stack it up and it would wind up taller than several houses?

To me, the design seems to imply that the whole *series* is just one grain of sand on a beach. (Or whatever cliche works for you.)

If so, I've got more readin' to do.

[Suiri Megami Alice]

Originally Posted by cynicalicious

I don't have any trouble reading Haganai, but this is definitely a step up in difficulty for me. I'll probably just go to Tora no Ana in Nagoya this weekend and pick the rest up while I can, though. (Might as well.)

If I rate it, it would be like this

Haganai - Lv 5
Horizon - Lv 99

Indeed it was a huge step up in difficulty. I have quite a lot of confidence in my Japanese but I always lose them when reading this book. I usually finish a book in 2 to 3 hours, but Horizon 1B took me 12 (or more I think).

Originally Posted by cynicalicious

So here's my actual Question:

Spoiler for back of the book design:

On the back of the book, there's "The 1st.GENESIS" underneath the circular design, with FORTH, AHEAD, EDGE, GENESIS (GENESIS is highlighted, the rest are faded), followed by OBSTACLE, and CITY, all in descending order.

So does this mean that this all fits in to Kawakami's OnC series, and/or is this, and I balk even at the thought of this, just the prelude of the prelude of something so big you could stack it up and it would wind up taller than several houses?

To me, the design seems to imply that the whole *series* is just one grain of sand on a beach. (Or whatever cliche works for you.)

If so, I've got more readin' to do.

Kawakami created his own universe and divided it into stages. These stages share some settings but is independent from each other.

stuopidget made a post regarding stages difference here.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by cynicalicious

I don't have any trouble reading Haganai, but this is definitely a step up in difficulty for me. I'll probably just go to Tora no Ana in Nagoya this weekend and pick the rest up while I can, though. (Might as well.)

Originally Posted by animeruri

If I rate it, it would be like this

Haganai - Lv 5
Horizon - Lv 99

Indeed it was a huge step up in difficulty. I have quite a lot of confidence in my Japanese but I always lose them when reading this book. I usually finish a book in 2 to 3 hours, but Horizon 1B took me 12 (or more I think).

HUGE difference between a RomCom and a Fantasy/Sci-Fi series

You might want to try something less content heavy first like Shana, Index, Rental Magica...

[larethian]

that's why you guys need to help Allen! He will get demoralized if he was the only doing it! At least do a short chapter if possible. I'm sure technical term vocab will go up

[Myname]

Originally Posted by animeruri

Without that numbering system, when sometimes people just buy arbitrary volume number, after a few pages they realize the book they picked up is in middle of the arc (it'll be quite crazy to read a book starting from the middle, no?).

But doesn't that kind of apply to every other series? I mean if someone never read Shana and arbitrarily picked up v11, they'd have no idea what's going on.

And in the first place, why would anyone buy v02 before they've read v01 of anything if they haven't read/watched the series before? They'd have no background info or context.

I don't really care about the numbering system but just saying that doesn't seem like a valid reason.

[Suiri Megami Alice]

Originally Posted by Myname

But doesn't that kind of apply to every other series? I mean if someone never read Shana and arbitrarily picked up v11, they'd have no idea what's going on.

And in the first place, why would anyone buy v02 before they've read v01 of anything if they haven't read/watched the series before? They'd have no background info or context.

I don't really care about the numbering system but just saying that doesn't seem like a valid reason.

You could still make sense of the plot (at least the plot in that arc) if the book you picked up is a whole arc. But I don't think that's gonna apply here. Kawakami never mentions a reference or brief synopsis from previous part. For example, in Owari no Chronicle 3B, you'll be faced with a continuation of the fight that picked up from previous part. If you started reading from this part, you have no idea why are they fighting and what was the situation. He assumes you are reading the book in order.

I bought Kaguya Maoushiki v2 by the way. I couldn't get v1 in yesasia. I read it from v2, but it still made sense. Why did I buy it? I liked the illustration lol. One reason why people buy books in impulse. But yeah, people usually buy from the first volume, but there are still exceptions.

Originally Posted by larethian

that's why you guys need to help Allen! He will get demoralized if he was the only doing it! At least do a short chapter if possible. I'm sure technical term vocab will go up

I already did Chapter 2. Imoutolover did Chapter 1 and Yoake no Hikari is working on the prologue.

We need more translators or this will take forever. If only TP and js would consider this...

[Icy.Tear]

Is the difference in level really so huge?

[Suiri Megami Alice]

Originally Posted by Icy.Tear

Is the difference in level really so huge?

No, I was just exaggerating in there.

But it's true that Kawakami's books are quite harder to read than others because of his writing style, the sheer amount of terminologies, slews of characters, and perspective played around frequently.

[Icy.Tear]

Writing style's the only obstacle, terminologies will always stick in one's mind as they go through the series. There's no real technical terms, as everything is just regular vocabulary applied in different manners; perspective change can be hard to catch though.

I really love his descriptions.

[Makall]

Is Owari no Chronicle like a prequel to Horizon? Does this thread encompass the OnC novels as well?