krpalmer | Entries tagged with btc tomozaki

When I ordered the third volume of Minami Nanami wants to Shine (after commenting on three of the translated light novels it’s an “alternative universe spinoff” of had got in between it and its previous instalment), I hadn’t known it would be the final part of its series. That hard fact was revealed from the comments of others. Receiving the manga as I was finishing up the anime adaptation of some more of the original novels, and going on a vacation afterwards, did sort of get in the way of reading it too.

( Catching up anyway )

At the start of this year I’d picked up on a few upcoming anime series that seemed interesting to me from their first descriptions and the comments of a few other people. More than that, I could find the time to properly begin watching all of them. Having only managed both those things during one quarter of last year, I did feel as if things were coming back together at last. Even so, I suppose a few familiar risks were returning too. The benefit of “watching anime as it streams” would seem to be augmenting the experience by joining discussions about it and picking up on the interest of others. That can skew into “my good taste is demonstrated by picking shows everyone else likes,” though, and then the problem becomes that if-and-when smirking shrugs about “Sturgeon’s Law” apply, watching everyone else sour on things, or even bumping into casual brushoff postmortems, can get pretty dispiriting. Even so, the wrinkle of not being as exposed to the comments of others as I once was aside, I did seek a certain solace in still getting around to a good number of “older” titles from previous seasons or decades.

( Once upon a time: Galactic Whirlwind Sasuraiger and Getter Robo )

( Manga preparation: Heavenly Delusion, Aria the Natural, and Frieren )

( Movies part one: Weathering With You and For Whom the Alchemist Exists )

( Streaming part one: Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki and Metallic Rouge )

( Streaming part two: Sengoku Youko and Bang Brave Bravern )

( Wrapping up and moving along: Soaring Sky Pretty Cure and Pretty Cure All Stars F )

( Movies part two: The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes and Blue Thermal )

It took me a while to sort out just where to order a copy of the tenth (regular) volume of Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki. When I received that copy, I just happened to have started reading a different translated “light novel,” and that one pretty much in courteous nibbles. Those nibbles chewed through it in the end, though, and I went on to the latest instalment of a series the pieces of which fit together in a different way than with the other light novels I follow, but well enough in their own way for me to look forward to it.

( It's a trip )

Another collection of short stories holding off the resolution to another cliffhanger didn’t diminish my interest in getting around to the ninth regular volume of the Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki novels. As for one of the reasons I’m interested in this particular series, starting into it I did glance at its credit page, only to notice the translation credit had changed to Jennifer Ward. That left me wondering for a few pages before I’d decided the prose still read about as well as the previous volumes had. Later on, remembering a comment or two about how an editor can be as important as a translator in turning “translated text” into “readable prose,” I found the editor’s name of Anna Powers and checked back to see she’d worked on the previous instalment. (When I went all the way back to the first volume, though, there was no editor credit.)

( Twists and turns )

Since commenting on having read the second volume of the Eighty-Six novels in translation I’ve kept working through my accumulated pile of that series, getting well past where the anime adaptation left off. The setting has expanded along with the cast and the threats they’re facing, but I suppose I bumped into some mixture of how draining setting down my thoughts can get and the slight uneasiness that “it’s not healthy to try and show off an opinion about everything.”

Alternating between volumes of Eighty-Six and instalments of other translated novels did come to an end for the moment when I had a new book of a series I’ve managed to keep saying something about. The latest volume of Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki did happen to be another short story collection and another pushing off of the resolution for a normal-life cliffhanger, but I at least hoped I’d find some things about it interesting.

( Small moments )

Reading the second volume of a manga spinoff of the Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki novels, I did wonder about saying something more about it, only to grapple with how to lead off and whether one volume of manga offers less to talk about than one volume of even a “light novel.” Then, the chance to say something about something else didn’t show up on schedule, and I picked up the second volume of Minami Namami wants to Shine again.

After being offered a chance she hadn’t had in the novels to try modeling, Minami gets to interact with an established model but also winds up grappling with a tossed-off comment the chance came from her own mother. She grapples so much with worries of “nepotism” that I did start wondering if this “story about an attention-catching secondary character” was skipping past a part of her that had caught my own attention to begin with. When Minami gets back to school, though, she does start putting on her “life of the classroom” show again. Along the way, she interacts a bit more with the main character of his own story and starts calling Tomozaki “Brain” like she does there. I did get to wondering about Minami’s friend Tama not showing up to offer presumably unvarnished comments on what’s happening, even if Tama shows up among several pages of “Cast Review” four-panel strips at the very end of the volume.

One other thing I had chewed on while reading this volume was whether Bana Yoshida’s artwork had seemed to match the original illustrations quite as well as the first volume had left me thinking; that was somehow unusual but in an unfortunate way. Picking it up again to refresh a few thoughts did improve my disposition there, though.

When I picked up the eighth regular volume of Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki from where I’d had it waiting, it was with a bit of a “now to get to something I ought to like” feeling. Having just finished the thirteenth regular (and, as I understand, the penultimate) volume of My Youth Romantic Comedy is Wrong, As I Expected reading one nibble at a time might have complicated things. Just what accounts for my different levels of engagement with these two translated-from-Japanese “light novel” series does leave me grappling with uneasy uncertainties; the best I could hope for, I suppose, was that this new book would wash them away for the moment.

( Some things are now given away )

In this story-glutted age, being drawn on to a mere “spinoff” might say something about how its original work has impressed me. One more title seemed to qualify for that when I started taking some interest in licensing announcements for a manga featuring one of the high school girls in Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki. Minami “Mimimi” Nanami was introduced on the characters page of those novels as a “class clown”; she’s friendly and ebullient and laughs a lot, and she also got a bit “handsy” with some of her fellow girls early on. (I guess there’s a tension between how much interest I’ve taken in these translated “light novels” where I feel myself plodding through the novels of a different title that does seem at once similar yet more respectable. There’s also a tension to “staying interested in this stuff” to the point of forever not quite getting around to many other things in many ways more reputable. Of course, I have noticed certain cautions about trying to claim something as trivial as your choices in entertainment define you as respectable.)

( At this point in the novels, though... )

After continuing on from a cliffhanger appropriate for the kind of story it is was delayed by a volume of short stories (and wanting to finish the Crest of the Stars omnibus first, too), I felt ready to pick up the seventh “regular” volume of Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki to start reading it. As I did that, though, a special sort of uncertainty was emerging again within me. The story did seem to be getting closer to a moment anticipated from its opening, when “self-improvement through game-like challenges” would narrow down to “get a girlfriend,” and for once I wasn’t quite sure I’d just be taking things as they came.

( A few personal admissions )

When I got to the cliffhanger ending of the sixth volume of the Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki “light novels,” I already understood the volume to follow would be “short side stories.” That status just happened to be signalled by a decimal point in the volume number; I’m familiar enough with that from the My Youth Romantic Comedy is Wrong, As I Expected light novels, even if thinking of them gets me bumping into how their own setup seems it would be a bit more “realistic” than Tomozaki’s and yet their translation makes them a slog for me to read through, which then leads straight to “so why are you reading all these lightweight novels with numbers on their spines: is continuing on from their anime adaptations that important?”

( As I’ve said before, though... )

After reading two translated volumes from the “light novel” series Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki in close succession, I went pretty much straight on to its anime adaptation. While watching it, perhaps willing to think “it’s good enough,” another novel in the series arrived. I set that book aside if not out of sight “to avoid direct comparisons,” although on finishing the anime I found myself plugging through a number of other translated novels as if “saving the best for later.” When they were out of the way at last and I picked up that sixth novel, I did indeed read it much faster than I’d managed with those other series. Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki’s tale of “high school self-improvement through ‘game-like’ challenges, with plenty of cute anime girls around,” might well be as distant from any of my own life experiences as the “generic fantasies” it had first stood in distinction from, but its translation (credited in tiny type on the copyright page to Winifred Bird) seems to make a real difference for me. Even with that considerable advantage, though, the sixth volume does push back towards a tricker part of its main character’s “self-improvement.”

( The hardest game of all? )

After three months of backing my anime viewing down to “sometimes just one episode a day,” (which could still be a lot depending on who’s looking at it), I was looking forward to picking up my pace again. Series other people had watched streaming during those months had managed to get their episodes more or less together and I was still interested in seeing them myself. So far as looking beyond the nearly-new went I had a number of other titles lined up, including an elaborate trip through samples of animation from Japan spanning a century of time, ranging from short silent works to some significant movies (not all of which I’ve seen before).

( The unexpected catch-up: Demon Slayer )

( Futures from the past: Future Boy Conan and Urusei Yatsura )

( Fansub follies continued: Major and Shinkalion )

( The adaptation game: Cells at Work Code Black, Otherside Picnic, and Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki )

( Good in parts: Wonder Egg Priority )

( Wrapping things up: Healin’ Good Pretty Cure and Pui Pui Molcar )

Losing track for a while of new releases of translated-from-Japanese “light novels” to the point of receiving two volumes of Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki at once produced a few mixed feelings. Discovering the fourth volume in that series had ended on a cliffhanger I wouldn’t have to wait to resolve was a bit of a pick-me-up, though. Even so, instead of continuing straight on I did wind up first plugging through some volumes of other series just to get them out of the way. (I suppose the opening instalment of High School DxD wasn’t quite as heavy going as a few other series I’ve picked up with thoughts of seeing how their stories continue beyond their anime adaptations, but then that story isn’t particularly respectable...) As I returned to the continuing tale of a video gamer trying to improve his interpersonal skills bit by bit, I was conscious while reading its fifth volume that I wasn’t managing to get through it in quite the same solid bursts as with previous books. The story still wasn’t lacking, though, and it wasn’t suffering from the slower pace.

( Fifth volume, fifth character )

With one thing and another, I lost track of just-released translated light novels for a while. When I caught up with a bulk order, I wound up with two new volumes of Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki. Some ineffable mixture of good-enough translation, a fun-enough premise, and nice-enough characters had made that series one I’d read with interest. It might have been because of that, though, that I first plodded through two volumes of My Youth Romantic Comedy is Wrong, As I Expected. I don’t know if its translation is any worse, but something about it hasn’t grabbed me the same way; I got to considering “the sunk cost fallacy,” the collection of issues that get in the way of me reading novels originally written in English and presumably more engaging, and how I’ve gone from “reading that series because one day it’ll get past where the anime gave out” to “following where the adaptation went all the way to the end and still wondering if something about it goes over my head.”

( But with that out of the way... )

Plodding through the twenty-second “A Certain Magical Index” light novel with all the ambiguities accumulated over twenty-one previous volumes not given up on without ever quite articulating a good reason why, I might have at least been able to look ahead to an impending instalment of a different translated series I’d found easier to read with real interest. When I managed to order that new book, though, I bought the ninth (regular) volume of “My Youth Romantic Comedy is Wrong, As I Expected” too, and thought I ought to get that additional purchase out of the way first. The reason why there, though, could well have been anticipating it feeling sort of slow going as well. While from the time I first started watching its anime adaptation “Oregairu” might have felt as close to “a set-in-the-real-world, originally-in-English” story as anime and its associated source material and spinoffs have ever got for me (even with a few of the secondary characters seeming a bit more “anime-familiar”), that might only have added something to an unfortunate sense of its full subtlety going a bit over my head. Still, once I’d got through it I could turn to the third volume of “Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki.”

( Questioning the rules )

The first translated volume of “Bottom-Tier Tomozaki” wound up appealing to me not just through “the novelty of a light novel that isn’t set in a fantasy world,” so when its second volume became available I went looking for it. Remembering I’d managed to read the first volume in bigger bites than I usually manage of other translated-from-Japanese novels, I tried to keep pushing through the second, and that effort seemed to help again.

( Levelling up )

I read the first “Bottom-Tier Tomozaki” translated light novel without the push of “this will eventually explain what happened in the story after its anime adaptation left off,” but did wonder in an idle way about what an adaptation might be like. Seeing the announcement of just such an anime was a surprise; I hadn’t quite realised how many Japanese volumes had accumulated already. As I’d said before, beyond the general question of whether it’s too easy to suppose anime made from prose can turn out just plain “talky” there’s also the elaborateness of the colour illustrations I’ve seen; in this particular season I’ve started watching the anime “Ascendence of a Bookworm” only to think the cover illustrations of its original novels threaten to overshadow the animated artwork. Still, even if the surprise hit now there’s something to having a series “a ways off” yet.

“A light novel not set in a fantasy world” got Sean Gaffney’s attention, and noticing his first-volume review on Manga Bookshelf piqued my own interest. An added bit of unusualness on this side of the Pacific was that the novel didn’t already have an anime adaptation to draw people into seeing how the story’s continued. Even so, I did go looking for “Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki” in the bookstore; it took me a little while to get around to reading it, having been focused on an “originally in English” echo of light novels. In the meantime, though, I did run across another positive comment or two on the translated work.

( An unbalanced game? )