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The Spring 2025 Light Novel Guide




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FilthyCasual



Joined: 01 Jun 2015
Posts: 2722
PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2025 11:20 am Reply with quote
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Each of these vignettes (none more than three pages) give us the perspective of someone affected by Freya's brainwashing, and it's interesting to see how they perceive the Bell-shaped holes in their lives without fully understanding them.
That's exactly what I've wanted to see. Time to buy; thanks for the notice.
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kaiju3



Joined: 02 Apr 2025
Posts: 79
PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2025 1:22 pm Reply with quote
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But while I was reading They Don't Know I'm Too Young for the Adventurers' Guild, the question that lingered in my head was, “Who is this fantasy even for?” The story of a 9-year-old who spends the entirety of the book collecting herbs for the adventurer's guild, this book felt too unambitious and low-stakes to even be called cozy fantasy.


Yeah ... "Let's Make A Mug Too" got 2 cours and a movie. Not an anomaly. There was also "Do It Yourself" (woodworking). Yuru Camp (camping, also 2 seasons and a movie). "After School Dice Club." Also, Tamayura (photo club), K-On (which was 90% goofing around and 10% actual music in the 1st season), Long Riders (biking), Slow Loop (fishing) ... and those are just the ones that got anime adaptations. So this work just exchanged middle and high school girls who look and act like they are 9 years old and share a single brain (or brain cell) with a single 9 year old boy. And a contemporary setting for a medieval fantasy one. Not that big a difference at all.
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 6222
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2025 2:39 pm Reply with quote
Thanks for the light novel reviews. Found it informative and let me know about some light novels that I didn't know existed.
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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
Posts: 3847
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Fri May 02, 2025 3:26 pm Reply with quote
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I'm no longer surprised when the entirety of a light novel consists of someone's most indulgent self-insert fantasy. But while I was reading They Don't Know I'm Too Young for the Adventurers' Guild, the question that lingered in my head was, “Who is this fantasy even for?” The story of a 9-year-old who spends the entirety of the book collecting herbs for the adventurer's guild, this book felt too unambitious and low-stakes to even be called cozy fantasy. There surely must be those among us who, after a long day of being a modern human, think, “Now it's time to unwind with my book about being a child collecting herbs,” but I expect those people are few and far between...

..I was surprised to learn that They Don't Know I'm Too Young for the Adventurers' Guild became a published novel after this serialized web story won an award, because it seems far too inconsequential to attract a broad audience.
Uh, about that...
...
Fluffy-Eared Realm Restoration: Taking It Slow with My Cool Big Brother;
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(the good guy is named Baldr and the bad guy is named Hodr and I'm not joking)
Hodr was the god in Norse mythology who killed his brother Baldr.
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The story begins with Lune's first death. After marrying the prince, she is executed by guillotine. In the afterlife, the foxes who govern all of time and space (what, you didn't know?) decided that Lune suffered so much she deserves another chance
Foxes are as believable or unbelievable as any other form of deity. If I said a screwworm was a god it would be as valid a statement as any other diehard believer's version of their god regardless of religion...
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 12751
PostPosted: Sat May 03, 2025 4:42 pm Reply with quote
Blanchimont wrote:
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(the good guy is named Baldr and the bad guy is named Hodr and I'm not joking)
Hodr was the god in Norse mythology who killed his brother Baldr.

What you quoted was meant as an example of the main clause you omitted, "With an extremely conspicuous naming system (...)". I may have misinterpreted your post as thinking she was ridiculing the names, but I believe she was referring to that very story of Hodr killing Baldr, which makes naming the bad and good guys after a killer and his victim too on the nose. That said, (and I'm sure you know the story better than I do) since blind Hodr had no intention of killing Baldr during the gods' games of "throw lethal stuff at Baldr and watch them bounce off" and did not know Loki had given him a mistletoe weapon (arrow or spear, it varies), Baldr's only vulnerability, it seems to me like naming a villain after him is defamation rather than symbolic or indicative. Now if the bad guy had been named Loki, or if the villain in this is not really so villainous after all, then yeah, too obvious naming. Smile
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Cryten



Joined: 19 Jan 2019
Posts: 1399
PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2025 7:36 am Reply with quote
If you guys get the time, the currently pre-pub releasing Notorious No More: The Villainess Enjoys Feigning Incompetence has been proving an entertaining read. Though it does suffer from overly dickish characters, which seems to a syndrome of light novels of late.

Blanchimont wrote:
Uh, about that...

To be fair weakest tamer does have a fairly evocative story for the first novel and a half. And after that it doesnt stop running into conflict, it just doesnt have difficulties dealing with it.
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