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I'm reading Madan no Ou to Vanadis. Ignoring the at times bad translations and minor  -isms, it reads like Fire Emblem but more anime. Ignoring all the art makes it much better than with it, unless you read such things for the chainmail bikinis.
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Jan 26, 2015 08:42
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Zhan Long was a guilty pleasure for me, especially since I binged it when I should have been doing other stuff. At over 1k chapters, I'm not sure if it still qualifies as a "light" novel. It's also a wish fulfillment story, where a badass martial arts master plays an VRMMORPG and becomes even more badass because of it, gets all the girls, and is a tactical genius that takes down chimeric drug dealing monsters as a SWAT team leader. Granted, not everything is handed to him on a platter, and he gets his rear end handed to him multiple times, but it treads really close to the Mary Sue/Gary Stu line, especially later on when he gets some ridiculously bullshit drops. I think it's translated as Tyrant's Armor Set or something like that, but basically before it was nerfed, the armor set allowed for 30% increase of all stats every death that's unlimited, resetting only upon death. Also, his mainhand sword is also ridiculously powerful, adding 1% to base damage for every PK. It starts out as unlimited, nerfed to 100%, then later on upgraded back up to +2% base damage per PK up to 400%. Also, while some people might gripe about him not being unique with his class change to Swordsman archetype, but his instructor teaches him some really ridiculous abilities, making him an incomparable death machine like Lubu. In WvW battles, as soon as he shows up everyone goes "Oh poo poo" and tries to focus fire him down.
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Mar 13, 2015 16:25
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I read it in Chinese. I'd give it a try at translating it, but Gravitytranslations puts it out much faster than I'd be willing to translate.
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Mar 13, 2015 20:03
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Just finished Coiling Dragon, and I have to say it's a pretty good Hero Saga. Its only fault is the time and power level inflation. I give it 8 out of 10 for recommendation. Zhang Long gets 6/10 by comparison.
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Mar 21, 2015 14:44
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Forgot to mention that Coiling Dragon has an alternate realm story by the same author. If you enjoyed Coiling Dragon and can read Chinese, you probably would enjoy it. Coiling Dragon's protagonist also makes an appearance due to cross-dimensional magic, according to the afterword. You can try searching for a translation, but I don't think anyone is working on it. The title is 星辰变 in Chinese, and Constellation Change when directly translated. Maybe Constellation Transformation or Metamorphosis would sound better?
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Mar 22, 2015 12:20
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Arkeus posted:Stellar Transformation: Some things just don't translate well. Best example from this story is probably the protagonist's first sword, which translates to Fish Guts Sword at best. Sometimes it's best just left to original phonetics.
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Mar 23, 2015 15:39
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Stellar Transformation trip report: less Deus ex Machina rear end-pulls than Coiling Dragon, it gets an 8/10 for recommendations. And if you think the antagonists in Coiling Dragon got hosed bad, the ones in Stellar Transformation gets an even harsher comeuppance. Seriously, slavery/indentured servitude/reincarnation as a lower lifeform just for loving with the wrong guy?
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Mar 29, 2015 07:13
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I Eat Tomatoes tends to over inflate everything. After reading his fourth work, I figured there wouldn't be much deviations in the remaining stories. I say read Stellar Transformation and Coiling Dragon and you've pretty much read all his good stuff.
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Apr 4, 2015 06:38
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Arkeus posted:I'm actually pretty drat impressed in how he manages to take the same basic plot elements and make a completely different narrative structure as well as atmosphere. A lot of the enjoyment I derive from his work comes from the worldbuilding (Chinese-style diplomacy in ST, Western-style world in CD, a lot of tribal stuff in Desolate Era, more Sci-fi in Swallowed Stars), and you can see constant improvements in the way he actually handles his characters and plots. The main issue I have with I Eat Tomatoes is his works are basically DBZ with extended lifespans instead of hyperbolic time chamber (with the exception of ST, which has both). In fact, I would actually rate Zhang Long to have better growth rate in comparison. Reading about a guy meditating on the ways to break the cosmos via Fist spell is interesting the first few times, but it quickly loses its novelty.
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Apr 8, 2015 07:12
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I find that any time a story goes into extended lifespan and divinity, it quickly turns to poo poo. This is because these writers are terrible with numbers (like throwing out a couple trillion people population is feasible) as well as over inflating the main character. I actually find MMO style stories to be slightly more reasonable, since most of the time the main character doesn't become the supreme overlord deity of the cosmos.
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Apr 18, 2015 08:24
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I just realized why SR is so hilarious. You need to read it with bad 70s kungfu flick dubing for the voices. I'm not sure if Japtem is doing it on purpose or if their Chinese translator is really that bad. Personally I'd go with the latter, since their other Chinese translations are also pretty poo poo. As for Zhan Long xenophobia, I'd blame it on the rather widespread mentality that everyone is out to oppress China. Given the (relatively) recent history of being carved up by European powers and Japanese occupation, as well as the isolation of the Cold War, it shouldn't be surprising to find such sentiments in works. Zhan Long is certainly nowhere near delusional as, say, Mahouka. The worst thing that is said about nations other than Japan is that they're jealous of China's recent rise in military power. Anything bad said about Japan is par for course.
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Apr 20, 2015 02:14
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You can't have Sino-wank without ancient kungfu magic, Chinese medicine voodoo, ancestor worship, Daoism/Buddhist mysticism, and xenophobia (particularly against Japan) in some combination. That being said, the author of Zhan Long is actually not that bad in terms of creativity when compared to some of the other Chinese authors. The plot of his stories definitely could be better, but at least it isn't DBZ reskinned on an infinite escalator (yet). As a side note, any story that goes over 500k Chinese characters should be viewed with caution, chances are it ends with the main character as Supreme Overlord of all creation or something.
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Apr 28, 2015 08:57
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If there was a Chinese Tom Clancy (there probably is), instead of commies, terrorists, and non-NATO aligned rising powers, you'd have Japan, US, and capitalist pigs as bad guys. Japan will always be the worst, either being the most incompetent (to satisfy the 5000 year history supremacy) or the most evil (to support the campaign to expose Japan as the assholes they are).
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May 1, 2015 14:07
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My Beautiful CEO Wife (我的美女总裁老婆) is a somewhat interesting city life story being translated by Bad Translation. It is complete in Chinese, and up to chapter 5 in translations. Typical of city life stories, it's rife with mobsters, oppressed commoners, and rear end in a top hat bourgeoise. And since it's Chinese city life story, naturally it must have wire-fu. Better than the top rated city life (urban-punk?) story as rated by Baidu still, that one's at over 4000 chapters and has long since shifted genre to fantasy.
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May 9, 2015 16:21
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Morality in web/light novels is really ambiguous. Take my latest recommendation for example: on one hand you have the rich assholes who makes life miserable for the common folks and are basically morally bankrupt; on the other hand you have the punisher doling out cruel and unusual punishment, such as breaking all the digits of a person for three months, slowly while having the digits heal over time. I guess the Chinese have a hard-on for excessive punishment, especially when you consider that the Chinese mythology doesn't have a heaven, just a really terrible hell. Or at least you can't get into heaven via death, only through becoming an immortal and be ridiculously powerful as well.
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May 18, 2015 11:52
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OSO 5 has finished being translated. We have IMBA PVP, lovely raid drops, and terribly planned events. Fire the devs and rework the whole thing from the ground up!
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Jun 5, 2015 09:41
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Serious Frolicking posted:So I was clicking on random poo poo from aho updates, and I found this: https://lygartranslations.wordpress.com/novels/himekishi-ga-classmate/ Goddammit Japan. Why don't you focus those deviant thoughts into something more productive, like producing the next generation. Instead we get crazy poo poo like this and tentacle porn. Goddammit. As terrible as Mahouka might have been, it was mostly on execution of plot rather than premise. This fails to even cross the "maybe I'll read more than the summary" hurdle. It probably would get a glance just to see what kind of depravity it sinks to, but that can be done by reading a synopsis by someone more depraved or curious.
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Jun 14, 2015 06:22
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Sinking Ship posted:Recently blitzed through Destruction Flag Otome and found it highly amusing so I thought I'd plug it here. Another 'reincarnated into a game, as the villan' setting but it's set apart by a number of things; for one it's complete (well it's getting a light novelization so maybe more some day) but it has a complete and fully translated story as is. Also it's pretty drat funny, at least in my opinion, though the comedy pretty much all revolves around the main character being an idiot (toy snake subplot...) for a tiny synopsis basically the main character reincarnates as a villain in an otome game (one girl picks from a bunch of guys type game) and the story is about her struggle to avoid the titular destruction flags she vaguely remembers from the game. It can be a bit weird I guess with all the talk of engagements and whatnot between like, 10 year olds, but really the whole romance aspect pretty much completely sidelined for comedy. I'll second this recommendation, it's a super chill read that doesn't have any of the ridiculous drama of harems (though there is one) or super powered threats to the world. Just a girl trying to avoid a death flag from the game... and going about the most obtuse ways possible of achieving it.
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Aug 14, 2015 13:56
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Spider LN is great because the MC is proactively going insane with the multiple personalities and eroding morality. You just can't help but cheer the deathball-murder arachnid on as she curses, poisons, webs up, and eats her way back to the surface. The side-stories are also great, since we see that you don't need to be stuck in the MC's environment to go absolutely nuts, and the stuff they hint at there makes you anticipate the next installation that much more.
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Aug 23, 2015 08:34
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If you read the titles of the upcoming chapters, apparently the spider gets laser beam eyes. The translations just can't come fast enough.
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Aug 24, 2015 06:27
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Numerically quantified data? Instead of just "I reached Super Saiyan 900" it's "I reached Super Saiyan 900 with XYZ stats to show how powerful I really am". That and the silliness of quantifying life.
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Aug 26, 2015 05:59
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Whoaaaaa. Things just got super serious for Kumo: Apparently reaching Taboo 10 grants you access to the source code of the world or something? Anyways it made Kumoko super mad now that she found out about how this new world works and now she wants to destroy the world. And she's already a horrific being that sends everything skittering away from her as quick as possible on the first 2 levels of the Elro Dungeon If they ever make an anime of this, it'd be super trippy with how insane the MC gets. She'd probably fit right in with the rest of Arkham Asylum inmates at this point, though perhaps she'll become so insane that she loops back around to sanity.
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Aug 29, 2015 18:00
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Algid posted:Chp 200: Kumoko eats an energy field and becomes a god. Kumoko-chan's gonna do what Kumoko-chan does. Eat anything and everything. I wouldn't be surprised if she winds up eating all the admins.
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Sep 6, 2015 14:13
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Excellent brats automatically taste excellent, otherwise they wouldn't be excellent. That being said, it's important to do quality control to ensure that there aren't any non-excellent brats slipping into the herd.
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Oct 19, 2015 20:34
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I took a brief look at the Chinese web novel aimed at the female audience on Baidu. It's just as bad as the male side, only with reincarnation instead of game systems/cultivation bullshit. I really would like to see something interesting, but I guess hoping for quality free literature on the web (the Chinese part at least) is hoping you get the 10% good stuff with Sturgeon's Law when it's the other 90% that's wildly popular due to it being read by people who lacks perspective on what's decent writing. Seriously, I would like to see a work where a person wins through sheer innovation and cunning instead of just powering through problems because they're either over-leveled or imbalanced. Something like Worm's Taylor Hebert, where they have to munchkin the hell out of what they have to win against people who won the powers lottery.
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Oct 25, 2015 04:44
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I guess the male web novel writers have power fantasies because that's what they lack, so they write stories with easy to understand power gain mechanics; the female writers on the other hand seems to regret past choices, so they write a lot of reincarnation ones. Who knows, either way having actual meaningful conflict is not something that these writers wish to have in their stories. E: there/their/they're. Goddammit, I hate missing my own grammar errors. jwang fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 25, 2015 13:06
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Novel Updates are great. I can go down the list of recent translation updates and check out titles that seems interesting, then go check to see if it's worthwhile. One such story I found really enjoyable was My Father-in-law is Lu Bu. So far I'm 42 chapters in and it's reasonably enjoyable, though I kind of doubt that aluminum armor can actually fend off iron weaponry.
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Oct 26, 2015 01:56
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Yeah, Father-in-Law Lu Bu is actually surprisingly decent despite its quite terrible summary. The protagonist is a weakling when he arrives in the Three Kingdoms era, and it's only because of sheer luck, prior knowledge of history, and superior modern technology that he survives a lot of the time. There's actually some decent enough conflict, instead of just someone power leveling another faction to steamroll over the opposition. Prime example of this is that even with superior cavalry (in terms of both horses and equipment), superior tactics, terrain, and sheer numbers can cause massive problems for the protagonist's side. By the way, do horses need special training to be used in cavalry? Because I find it hard to believe that modern horses, especially those bred for racing and such, have the temperament or capability to be ridden into combat. Don't they spook easily if they aren't trained?
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Oct 26, 2015 03:54
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Pretty sure the terrible rape portions aren't made up though. Seriously, when rape is justified as OK, something needs to be done about the whole thing. Like killing it with fire. Same thing goes for the "aww yeah loli is sexy" poo poo that seems to be in quite a few LN/WN as well. Underage sex is still statutory rape; even if you argue that the prepubescent girl is an ancient horror in disguise, that's still implying that sex with under-developed children is okay. jwang fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Oct 29, 2015 |
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Oct 29, 2015 02:38
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Double post, but I think I found something interesting on Novel Updates. A Realist's Kingdom Reform Chronicles is interesting in that it's a hero summoning story, but the hero doesn't get a combat boost. Instead, he becomes the ultimate administrator, and as a result creates a great empire. Definitely something different, and is very enjoyable so far.
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Oct 29, 2015 23:22
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You're giving her too much credit. She forgot all about her excellent kids and where she left them, and by terrible luck Kuro stumbled upon them. The whole time-lapse in the dimension was because she also stored perishable goods in there, so letting time pass slower in the pocket dimension allowed it to stay fresh longer.
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Oct 31, 2015 03:33
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Oh god, it has a movie trailer. This is going to be HILARIOUS.
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Nov 3, 2015 23:30
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Cripes some of these translations can be terrible. I'm reading Child of Light, and while it's readable, some parts it's really obvious that things are lost in translation. For example, the MC did something outrageously, causing everyone to stare at him dumbfounded. This phrase was translated as "looked at [him] foolishly". I don't even have the original text and I can figure this crap out. Either the translator is Chinese and have terrible English (which doesn't seem likely since he doesn't understand some of the idioms) or is just plain bad at English.
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Nov 4, 2015 18:51
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History's Number 1 Founder is a series that lampshades the whole Xianxia series. From having game elements to the various trials that a main character goes through, it has it all. It's like reading the Spaceballs version of your typical xianxia web novel. I need to read the Chinese version of it to see how far it goes downhill, but then again it might be decent in a non-ironic fashion.
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Nov 7, 2015 01:47
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The only thing to do is to encourage Blastron to step up his translation game. He's on 40 or so I think?
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Nov 9, 2015 21:10
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Urrrrgh, the new translators for Knights & Magic are terrible. It seems like they're dumping it into Google Translate and posting whatever comes out.
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Nov 14, 2015 20:53
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My Disciple Died Yet Again is an amusing comedy take on the Xianxia genre from the female perspective. The main selling point in this series is that the MC doesn't quite fully understand the world she's been reincarnated into, and everyone around her has no idea what she's talking about, especially when she start spouting modern slang.
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Nov 17, 2015 19:23
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Father-in-law Lu Bu is such a slow-paced series. 109 chapters in and he's still setting up his base of operations. Harem is getting built though, so you know where the priorities lay.
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Nov 19, 2015 02:48
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Holy poo poo, My Disciple has Died Yet Again calls out so much of Xianxia's BS. Negligent childcare, power hungry hypocrites, absolutely illogical charisma stats, Deus Ex Machina that's an integral working part of the world, the list just goes on. This is way better than History's #1 Founder or whatever the other one I recommended was. If you can read Chinese, reading ahead is definitely worth the headache of trying to figure out modern Chinese internet slang. If you can't read Chinese, I guess you can just follow along with the translation. Best line from a later chapter: "Are we training to become gods, or demons?" Seriously, with the proportionate amount of assholery increasing with the power levels, it's really hard to distinguish at times. jwang fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Nov 21, 2015 |
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Nov 21, 2015 01:32
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It gets really, really good. Like at the end of her third reincarnation, you'll be amazed that this is actually Xianxia with actually decent plot and an actually decent person as the main character. She doesn't go off the rails and decide that hey, since she's doing this for justice, murder/rape/larceny is A-okay! At one point her master actually states that she's too kind, and that she could have solved the problem already by preemptively killing off the problem person. It's incredibly refreshing, and I'm going to be really disappointed if this isn't complete. I tried looking it up on various Chinese sources, but none of them lists it as complete. The latest chapter can be translated as "The Final Finale", so here's hoping.
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Nov 21, 2015 22:55
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