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[Frumple]

Generic harem antics seem better than the sisterfucking trend.

... that's the thing, though. They're very often combined, remember?

[Rez]

"My septuplet imoutos are my waifus and my okaasan is jealous"?

[Spehss _]

Read this amusing post about light novels:
https://jphinano.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/all-light-novels-are-the-same/

It's an outrage that no-one has adapted the light novel "Why my tsuntsun koakuma sister became dere before becoming my waifu" yet. I thought this couldn't possibly be the correct translation, so I found the novel on amazon.jp ... amazingly, this looks like an accurate translation of the title.

before reading the article, I thought you were referring to Oreimo. I was wrong. That's an actual title of a completely separate series. Whaaaaaaaaat.

[BlitzDungeoneer]

"My septuplet imoutos are my waifus and my okaasan is jealous"?

Anime of the Year.

[Reelya]

Well, from the the top of my head, here's a list as a reminder of some Light Novels with interesting plots & had nice/awesome adaptations that isn't all about harems/moe stuff (and overused things most LNs tend to go).

Spice & Wolf, Kara no Kyoukai, Fate/Zero, Baccano!, Kino no Tabi, Durarara! & The Twelve Kingdoms.

Can be subjective or debatable on how "good" they are but I also liked Hyouka & Suzumiya Haruhi (Not really sure where to put series' like Monogatari & Shana, while ToAruIndex has a lot of harem antics)

I know there have been some great light novel adaptations over the years. But my post was in response specifically to a question about whether bad light novel adaptations are a new trend. They are, with 15-20 subpar light novel franchises getting adapted to animes every year, they far outnumber the good ones that are getting adapted. Many commentators pinpoint Haruhi as sparking a light-novel adapting craze.

After the huge success of Haruhi, Shakugan no Shana, and Zero no Tsukaima, all adapted from light novels in 2005-2006, every studio wanted one, and they've long since exhausted the best light novels and are onto the horrible ones. It's at the point where if you see "adapted from a game" or "adapted from a manga" it's a better indicator of an interesting show than animes which were "adapted from a light novel".

[Reelya]

... some nice new, deserves it own post, so plz excuse the double-post:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-02-03/new-aria-anime-briefly-listed-for-september-screening/.84035

Junichi Sato has a new Aria anime in the works, which will have an event screening on september 26th. Probably a movie i think, but the timing just before October makes it possible that it's a tv series launch.

[Lord Shonus]

What exactly IS a light novel, anyway? I've never heard an explanation that I understood.

[majikero]

Imagine a normal novel and divide it into at least 3 or 4 books and trim all the purple prose. I think that's pretty much it.

[Frumple]

*shrugs* It's basically a young adult novel. Think something like the old goosebumps stuff, just a little more mature and anime.

[Reelya]

They're novellas, and serialized. A similar format has been popular in many countries at different times and for various audiences, with e.g. sci fi adventure, detective or spy novels, or Mills & Boons romance novels. People in the early to mid 20th century used to frequently buy cheap, shorter novels. In Germany for example, the iconic retro sci fi novella series is Perry Rhodan who's books are about 150 pages each, so a little shorter than a light novel, and released weekly since the early 1960s. It's up to 2600+ novellas, and has sold 1 billion copies, making it the most successful science fiction book series ever.

In the modern day the economics of selling books in the West have shifted to less frequent and more expensive purchases of massively long novels, and the market for those sorts of shorter novels has vanished basically.

[Lord Shonus]

Ah. Dime novels. Got it.

[Darvi]

The most important part of a light novel is that they use much easier to-read text in the original Japanese; fewer complicated Kanji are used, which I would guess accounts for most of the western translations. Easier to translate stuff when you don't have to fetch a dictionary every couple words.

[Hawkfrost]

That doesn't make them bad, though (subjectively they're bad to some people, to other, not.) Escapism isn't inherently terrible as long as it isn't dwelt upon to an unhealthy extent.

I would argue that it IS bad writing if it is entirely generic and derivative, which is what most harem stuff is. Take StandardHaremTemplate.doc, and tweak a few nouns.


Let me knock this out there; It's actually really easy to write up an interesting setting. The hard part is making use of that setting, and integrating it into the plot and characters instead of leaving it as window dressing (which is where 90% of writers fail).
People default onto cliches in two main cases.

A: They lack creativity and cannot think up anything new.

B: They are not good enough technical writers to pull off what they set up, so they step it down to something easier and more manageable.

Personally I hate "escapist" oriented media, because it's relying on the audience to do most of the work for you, and hinges on base, shallow themes and emotions.
You might as well just go full on and create porn at that point. Writing should be done because you have a story to tell, not just because you want to be a writer.

[Neonivek]

Even Derivative and generic work can be good as long as it is done well.

A: They lack creativity and cannot think up anything new.

B: They are not good enough technical writers to pull off what they set up, so they step it down to something easier and more manageable.

Having watched and read enough fiction I can say that the majority of the time it is neither of those reasons. MOST of the time it is because they don't want things like setting, emotional weight, or plot details to get in the way of what they are setting up. So they might have a world where it is set in the modern day except that it is a fantasy world where basically scientific principles are actually controlled by major elemental spirits and in order to cast spells you actually have to tap into the power grid... BUT what it is really about is whether or not our Mary Sue protagonist will be asked to the prom by her love interest, and they will have our female protagonist no-sell emotional torment to ensure that every one of their scenes is perfect dang it!

It is RARE, and I mean RARE, that fiction actually attempts to do something with its interesting set ups and fails at being interesting.

Personally I hate "escapist" oriented media, because it's relying on the audience to do most of the work for you, and hinges on base, shallow themes and emotions.

Uhh I am not sure you are using the correct version of "escapist" given that... for example... Digimon is escapist and Sailormoon is escapist. This feels a lot like when people say "Power fantasy" to mean "Tawdry personality deprived character that only children could like"

[Hawkfrost]

Uhh I am not sure you are using the correct version of "escapist" given that... for example... Digimon is escapist and Sailormoon is escapist. This feels a lot like when people say "Power fantasy" to mean "Tawdry personality deprived character that only children could like"

You're right, maybe I explained it poorly. I dislike stuff that is intended for the viewer/reader/player/whatever to insert themselves into the spot left open by the generic main character, and imagine themselves as the center of the story/affections of the other characters. I'm not looking to try and pretend to be someone else, I just want to have a story told, and preferably a good one.

Having watched and read enough fiction I can say that the majority of the time it is neither of those reasons. MOST of the time it is because they don't want things like setting, emotional weight, or plot details to get in the way of what they are setting up. So they might have a world where it is set in the modern day except that it is a fantasy world where basically scientific principles are actually controlled by major elemental spirits and in order to cast spells you actually have to tap into the power grid... BUT what it is really about is whether or not our Mary Sue protagonist will be asked to the prom by her love interest, and they will have our female protagonist no-sell emotional torment to ensure that every one of their scenes is perfect dang it!

In which case their entire setting and plot is completely superfluous and a waste of writing time and effort. Do they invent these worlds just as a way to pull in potential customers to experience their stale and overdone works at all? It's like a CSI show advertising "But OUR show has a CLOWN investigating the murders! Isn't that wacky?", but in the end it's still just a regular crime show where the main character happens to wear clown paint while doing his regular cop stuff.

And that, ultimately, is a lot of shounen anime; It's harems with different clown paint.