Syosetsuka ni Narou Discussion Thread

[Amelgar]

Just finished reading さよならウィザード (n5562he). It was... pretty good. Really pulled on my heartstrings.

It's a bit darker than some of XPJbox's other works on nocturne. The first chapter especially so. But fear not, it has a happy ending!

[apr]

Originally Posted by Amelgar

It's a bit darker than some of XPJbox's other works on nocturne.

Have you read https://novel18.syosetu.com/n4859gs/ ?

[Amelgar]

oh... no I hadn't. I'd only read a few of the longer novels which are generally not very dark.
I tend to avoid shorter stories which I guess saved me from some heartburn in this case...

[sasuke706]

Been reading アースウィズダンジョン lately. It actually has decent characterization and seems to have a plot it cares about. That's a pretty big plus considering a lot of newer novels I've checked out have often lacked both. Has an interesting setting too, taking place in a somewhat post-apocalyptic Earth that was mostly rampaged by fantasy monsters. Has its flaws of course but it does good at keeping my interest.

Oddly enough I even found it on the rankings in the rare exception my tastes lined up with the average readerbase on Narou. The rankings have been mostly a giant joke for a couple years now.
Only reason it was on there is likely due to the author uploading several sizeable chapters a day, compared to the usual numerous extremely small 'chapters' a day other authors use as an excuse to try to get on the rankings alongside their instant-gratification story progression style.

Yes I'm really jaded today.

[Greenish Growth]

That reminds me. I should actually check out the General category ranking list again just to see how it is. So often I went through it and found nothing interesting at all.. I got tired of all the zamaa, expulsion, villainesses, broken engagement stories. The isekai stories were too similar to each other too.

Why are there so many mediocre novels on the top raking lists nowadays? Is there a reason? Are the stories getting picked up sooner? Are fewer novels even reaching the half way point?

At least bad/ruined romance relationships are still fun for me although there are a lot of mediocre stories in that category too. Stories where the childhood friend are bad from the start are not fun. Those stories are mostly zamaa and simple minded zamaa will always only be simple minded zamaa.

[XFire]

Originally Posted by Greenish Growth

That reminds me. I should actually check out the General category ranking list again just to see how it is. So often I went through it and found nothing interesting at all.. I got tired of all the zamaa, expulsion, villainesses, broken engagement stories. The isekai stories were too similar to each other too.

Why are there so many mediocre novels on the top raking lists nowadays? Is there a reason? Are the stories getting picked up sooner? Are fewer novels even reaching the half way point?

At least bad/ruined romance relationships are still fun for me although there are a lot of mediocre stories in that category too. Stories where the childhood friend are bad from the start are not fun. Those stories are mostly zamaa and simple minded zamaa will always only be simple minded zamaa.

It's mostly just that since they're all takes on the same few stories, they've picked up a large number of people who are coming specifically for those kinds of stories. Self-perpetuating loop

[wuhugm]

Eyyy never came here again

A question resurfaced in my mind

Isekai, unlike the technological progress of our world seems stagnated
There were stories about Maou thousand years ago, defeated by a party of heroes, comprised of wizard, swordsman, etc
But then, thousand years later, people are still fighting the same way, same fighter classification too
You'd think after millenniums, people who'd devise better fighting style and tool
Storing Mana in cannisters or something
Y no progress, my dude?

[Kyureki]

There are some settings where there are proper reasons for it, usually being some kind of higher force/power that forces civilization to stay below a certain level or face a reset/destruction, but otherwise... That's just proof of how thoughtless the majority of the writers are.

[sasuke706]

I always liked the idea of the introduction of mana and magic as a base element to a universe brings drastic changes as well. In most stories mana and magic is 100% helpful to humans save for enemy creatures also being able to use it. Realistically, the introduction of such a potent widespread and easily malleable energy, without tools no less, would have exponential reactions with other base elements.

Sometimes it's just basic things, like the introduction of mithril, adamantite and whatnot. A useful yet very common example of its presence affecting the development of metals. On the other hand, sometimes we see convenient magic-oriented diseases, or curses. But then natural disasters that function using existing energies, such as earthquakes essentially being the result of thermal energy and lightning being the result of kinetic energy fun, we rarely ever see mana cause anything or even modify existing ones.

However, among the changes in the nonstop free-for-all battle of elementary particles, there could be changes to things that make them much different. Perhaps it's harder or even impossible to produce a fire through the means of a 'normal' chemical reaction. Maybe electricity is hard to produce, maybe it's hard to store, or maybe it can't be readily transported over long distances. Mana might be a natural jammer for radio waves. Could be that the introduction and mutations caused by mana dulls the human innate desire to build and create to an extent.

tl;dr bro I wanna see a massive mana-powered tornado doing some real weird shit.

[wuhugm]

^Isn't Mana usually intangible until it's processed into Maryoku and casted as magic/aura?

^^Holy mother of plot convenience

Also, despite the stagnation of the world for thousands of years
Somehow during the life of MC, the world is changing greatly whether MC contributed something or not
Royalties overthrown, new weapons introduced, appearance of new beings and upscaling of power levels etc
All of those in the span of few years, or even months after MC became adventurer

Despite insisting that MC is not-choosen-one, he is the choosen one rumao

[Rasty]

Originally Posted by sasuke706

Been reading アースウィズダンジョン lately. It actually has decent characterization and seems to have a plot it cares about. That's a pretty big plus considering a lot of newer novels I've checked out have often lacked both. Has an interesting setting too, taking place in a somewhat post-apocalyptic Earth that was mostly rampaged by fantasy monsters. Has its flaws of course but it does good at keeping my interest.

Started reading this one too. Pretty decent, though the writing style has some rough edges. I feared that he does it for no personal gain (which he doesn't) or him being the typical "hero" type, which he also isn't. Now if only there was any romance (my expectations are low from the few first chapters) it would be absolutely great.

[sasuke706]

^Yeah I wouldn't expect any real romance. There is a heroine so to speak who plans on marrying the protagonist, but there's been no romantic moments at all between them so far, there being parent- and doting-child moments at best.

The protagonist wants to save the world but has no intention of trying to save absolutely everyone. Guess I could mention my primary negatives for the series too.

Spoiler for :

It's mentioned early on that people can't steal skills, or rather they can and then die, because having someone else's inherent skill adapting to you body results in mutating into a rampaging monster. However, the protagonist is eventually able to do this through his own inherent skill as he buys skills that the his partner mentioned that belonged to dead people, mind you the store seems to pick out skills that won't harm him. Which also gives him very little options when he does get to choose a skill.

Similarly, a couple of these inherent skills turn into a growth cheats, which we also learned early on that there were people with these kinds of skills that they absorb too much and again result in death of the owner. These skills also make his skill levels get up to his personal level very easily, even if it's a brand new skill he's had for 2 seconds.

So he basically gets a pseudo skill steal cheat and experience growth cheat that doubles as a massive damage and defense boost. The author tries to make it look like many skills have fatal weak points, but the protagonist gets blatant get out of jail free cards all the time for them. Like one guy's skill was like double damages dealt but also taken which is a MASSIVE weak point. But the protagonist's only weak point was that his own skill isn't directly helpful in combat and is useless before leveling up. The only real saving grace is a lot of the inherent skills he buys seem useless on their own unless paired with another inherent skill

Generic skills, such as fire magic, seem far more capable than most inherent skills (see: double damage guy) but get written off as being worse than them despite having no cons.

Otherwise, human enemies seem lacking in general. They managed to survive the end of the world and have countermeasures to deal with a lot of things, but end up doing stupid shit like just sending mercenaries out to kill the protagonist for literally no gain. Or rather, since ammo and fuel is becoming scarce, they literally lose out. The MC is also hailed as being a magic genius for likely just constantly practicing and using his only attack method of magic at level low for the almost 20 years it took him to get to level 2. No one else seems to really practice with their stuff due to the knowledge of being able to use the skill coming as a set with the skill. So they use assume there's no method of improvement and don't try despite the MC being a prime example of otherwise.

Likewise no one seems to be able to do mana efficiency or battle art efficiency, which seems capable to an extent even without a skill for it. One of the MC's allies is currently training his lackeys to be able to use them 'appropriately for their level.' So it's just a basic skill everyone can do, even without a skill powering it and making it easy.

That said I have lot more fun with this novel than not. Just minor stuff I'm whining about. A novel getting this long of a rant out of me is generally a good thing.

Originally Posted by wuhugm

^Isn't Mana usually intangible until it's processed into Maryoku and casted as magic/aura?

That doesn't mean it doesn't exist and can't affect other things. Like we can't detect or perceive dark matter, but know it exists and some roles it plays based on logic. That's one of the unrealistic excuses for the nonexistent adverse effects of mana existing that I was talking about.

Like if mana only existed in creatures it'd be a different story, but that's still extremely rare.

[apr]

I think I saw some complaints in a Japanese thread about how アースウィズダンジョン hops between different characters instead of sticking to just one protagonist. Is that the case, or did I imagine it all?

[sasuke706]

Nah it mostly sticks to one character's POV. In the more recent chapters there's been a couple POV changes, but it's not that bad at all.
Infinite Dendrogram, for example, does it much, much more. Then again on top of having multiple POVs, the author writes entire side story volumes of different POVs, multiple side volumes a row and in the middle of other arcs.
So he's kind of an extreme example.

[Rasty]

Is Infinite Dendrogram worse than Re-Tale? I remember dropping that one (and later the branch story), because of how watered-down it got by more and more side-POVs.

[apr]

Originally Posted by sasuke706

Nah it mostly sticks to one character's POV. In the more recent chapters there's been a couple POV changes, but it's not that bad at all.
Infinite Dendrogram, for example, does it much, much more. Then again on top of having multiple POVs, the author writes entire side story volumes of different POVs, multiple side volumes a row and in the middle of other arcs.
So he's kind of an extreme example.

Ah, thanks, might give it a look-see. I actually dropped Dendro after the first arc, because that himo side story bored the shit out of me.

In other news, Marquis is back after a longish hiatus due to writer's block, so yay.

[sasuke706]

Originally Posted by Rasty

Is Infinite Dendrogram worse than Re-Tale? I remember dropping that one (and later the branch story), because of how watered-down it got by more and more side-POVs.

I haven't read re-tale. Infinite Dendrogram actually has good writing and nice, exciting shounen-esque plot developments. In the main story, the POV changes are mostly plot relevant or at least combat relevant, to show how battles the MC isn't involved in turn out. Which is nice and takes talent to make even side characters interesting.

However, he'll use a stopping point in the middle of an arc to write a side story volume, maybe even two. There's nothing less of a joykill when you want to see how a development turns out and then a completely unrelated side story starts. I've tried reading them but always just really quickly stop caring and just wait for the main story to continue. So I take long hiatuses from it fairly often.

[wuhugm]

In a world where item box / inventory exist, why is theft not a thing?

[XFire]

Originally Posted by wuhugm

In a world where item box / inventory exist, why is theft not a thing?

Because taking things from a pocket dimension is slightly harder than from an actual pocket?

Or do you mean using it for theft? In that case I think it's generally either the author only thinking of it as a convenience thing or "you can't store something not yours or unclaimed"

[wuhugm]

^Theft

Most wns don't have restriction like that

Baggages got inspected during town entry but no item box check despite it's being a thing