Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! (This Light Novel is Amazing!)

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by JoksPacifist

Silly question: Does having a high number of sales is any indication of a series getting a top spot here in KonoRano ?

Indirectly it means alot more people have read it.

But they have a system in place to mitigate any risk of this being just a popularity contest.

[Zefyris]

you need to differentiate the titles which managed to get a good spot because of the readers and the titles which managed the same due to being mostly voted by the people from the industry.
Rokka is from the second type. While ranking third last year seems to have helped its sales this year (volume 4 ranked in the weekly oricon ranking pretty easily in late july), it's nowhere near popular enough to manage that kind of ranking again without the help of the voters from the LN industry. Meaning that since those voters will probably want to continue supporting massively different titles every year, Rokka no yuusha will go down in the ranking and may even not rank at all.
Sakurada Reset for example was mostly in the ranking due to the same reason so goodbye to that title as well.

Titles that rank well several years in a row in the ranking are those who ranks due to sheer popularity and therefore sells a lot by volume. Hence SAO, mahouka, index, oreimo, accel world etc. will get good ranking in mostly every category like last year. Some titles that have been around in the top 20 for years will probably manages to remind there as well, like kino no tabi.
Mixed with them in the top 15 may be a few new title which become more popular lately (due to anime or something else), and a few "obscure" titles that will have received lots of votes from the LN industry.
The most interesting part of the ranking for me will be those unexpected obscure titles, as they'll probably be worth checking out.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Pretty much yeah, I'm more interested in seeing what hidden gems I might have missed...

...Although the character polls is also fun for some bragging rights =3

[watisit]

Too bad neither madan not ochitekita is on this list.

[Zefyris]

..Although the character polls is also fun for some bragging rights =3

Well, no. The character poll is only composed of characters from the series selling the most. Most of them don't even deserve to be in a top 1000 of the best character in light novels ImO. When you see a character like Touma who has almost no character development besides being the main character in most of the 30+ volumes of index being ranked in the top 3 for years, I pretty much consider the character ranking to be complete crap. Now if good characters from less known series were appearing in it, that would be another story, but not with the way that poll currently work. Contrary to the LN poll, the characters poll is merely based on fans voting, so the titles selling the most are the only one competing. Although that ranking can be used in between the characters of the same series to compare who are the most liked from a given series, I suppose.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Of course the character poll is a popularity contest, that's the point.

[Miraluka]

Originally Posted by Teh_Ping

Allow me to say this, don't voters feel tired of voting for the same person over and over again for 5 years or something...?

And isn't even fun they do the same crap again and again .

I want to see new faces, damn.

Touma over Kirito? I don't think so. Considering how SAO has (approximately) double the sales of Index per volume this, year, I think

I think Mahouka can break into top 5 at least (even SAO was ranked 1st for the 2012 poll before its anime was announced), and . And given how heavily marketed Mahouka was in the past year (to wit, they had a company-wide promotion of Mahouka at Kinokuniya in August this year), I think it should be high on the collabarators' list at least (and I would be somewhat surprised if Tatsuya doesn't hax his way over Accelerator this year at least)

With the anime to be released next year I see that coming.

>Index will slip this year (yes, I said it). Partly the reason is because the action sequences has been getting overly complex as compared to previous volumes (look at NT 7 for example)

I wouldn't say complex but lacking intensity, and just when you're getting into it. The action goes off screen.

Yeah, I have been losing the interest on the novels bit by bit lately and tsunade666 droped the series ;__; .

[Chaos2Frozen]

Teh_Ping... That post of mine was made nearly a full year ago

[Kenju of the Right]

Seeing these titles you guys are talking about, getting me interested in reading thing

Originally Posted by Teh_Ping

Touma over Kirito? I don't think so. Considering how SAO has (approximately) double the sales of Index per volume this, year, I think
.

Don't try to crush my dreams!

When you see a character like Touma who has almost no character development besides being the main character in most of the 30+ volumes of index being ranked in the top 3 for years, I pretty much consider the character ranking to be complete crap. Now if good characters from less known series were appearing in it, that would be another story, but not with the way that poll currently work.

-bites own tongue extremely hard-

[Miraluka]

Originally Posted by Kenju of the Right

Don't try to crush my dreams!

Let's just deal with it.

-bites own tongue extremely hard-

I fixed it for you.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Can we not turn this into a spitting contest?

...The rankings aren't even out yet.

[Miraluka]

I just saw some boards from Japan claiming the results of their prediction being 89% accurate.

[Zefyris]

Originally Posted by Miraluka

Let's just deal with it.




I fixed it for you.

Oh, but I also agree with that version. In the index novels, Misaka is a bad side character. But at least, Kazuma has the excuse that this character is not being even one tenth as present as touma is. Misaka's character's development is mostly in the railgun manga btw (the two railgun LN are fairly good compared to the average quality of index LN imo, but there's isn't especially any character development for misaka in it). So as a light novel character, Misaka is bad and as such from my point of view shouldn't even be voted for in the kono light novel wa sugoi's character poll.
And I'm saying that even though Misaka is one of my favorite characters, BTW.



BTW: how do some users manage to have several lines of text on the side of a single image in their sign? I don't get how you do that ^^"

[Chaos2Frozen]

Character development is overrated from my point of view.

Some characters need it because that's the point of their story, but labelling characters as good or bad solely on that is rather narrow.

[Acer]

If that's what Touma had in the NT was not character development, so I do not know what that is.

Anyway, I hope the Hachiman be in a good position this year.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by Acer

Anyway, I hope the Hachiman be in a good position this year.

Hachiman, Maou and Izayoi for the win please.

[n0m@n]

Originally Posted by Teh_Ping

Allow me to say this, don't voters feel tired of voting for the same person over and over again for 5 years or something...?



I think Henneko will advance to top 15 this year given the presence of the anime (and why not? Given the general trend we have here, I suppose there would be quite a lot of lolicons voting either way)

Yes! I certainly am tired of seeing her name for 5 years straight as the no.1 female character.
Actually, thats the main reason I started about her Asuna beating her in character poll. Im not a big fan of Asuna either. But seeing Misaka getting taking no.1 position when her character is quite ordinary is quite uninteresting. I just didnt want to sound too negative or look like anti-Misaka. Its just that I wanted to see some change for once.


Oh, true. Henneko slipped out of my mind. I also realsied No Game No Life ranked high last year. I wonder if their rank would go up? Its getting an anime adapation, but it hasnt aired yet. So I wonder if their rank will still get higher.

[Kenju of the Right]

I have to admit, I wouldn't mind seeing Asuna at the top either

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Character development is overrated from my point of view.

Some characters need it because that's the point of their story, but labelling characters as good or bad solely on that is rather narrow.

This, seriously
wish the rep system was still up I'd give a +

[Zefyris]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Character development is overrated from my point of view.

Some characters need it because that's the point of their story, but labelling characters as good or bad solely on that is rather narrow.

You have several way to do a good character, and character development is only one of them indeed. It's not overrated however, as it's a really important factor when creating a character if the character settings at the start are simple.

Simply put, if your character isn't going to grow up during the story, it either means that right from the start the setting are complex and the character is deep (or original, for example ) enough to not need it, or that... you basically failed at creating your main character.
When you have a character like kujou minato from reinousha minato for example, you don't need to have character development for him. Because he's good from the start( More like, in his case, he's beyond awesome from the start). However, this isn't the case for Touma. He has no depth; his personality isn't anything rare in LN either, and on top of this has lost his memory so no past for more than 30 volumes. With such start, such simple an cliché setting ; creating a good main character is akin to say giving that character a lot of good character development because he will need to move out of that cliché setting during the story and become a character worth following. If he's just your average main cliché character for 30 volumes, then any reader who have read enough novel will probably hold no interest at all in him. So if the author fail even at this, then I don't see how the character can be seen as anything else than a complete failure as a main character worth following.
Hence, the fact that Touma got almost no character development (and no, it's not the little bit that he got since the start of the shin'yaku series that will change the fact that he didn't got any at all for like more than 15 volumes in a row in the first season) is a lethal failure as a main character.

Well, that's my opinion anyway.

[Kenju of the Right]

Except there are plenty of people that take an interest in him this far through the story.
You say that a lot of things are cliche but that's just you and it's pretty vague description. It's your opinion that's fine

Though, I'd disagree about the 'no character development', Touma has always had development. Not in his overall character but instead it's been his views that have been developed and created which are formed through his past experiences. These speeches that he makes don't just come out of nowhere.
near the beginning(no memories) he started at about 0, no beliefs at all however at the end of the Old Testament he has the insane view that saving the world is unnecessary when you can save a single person's 'world'. Though despite his views, he will not let them hold him back

but this thread isnt about him so lets not drag it on