I’m really surprised that this column is the most popular one I write. In fact when I was first considering what to write for Thursdays, I thought it would be one of the least popular columns. Boy was I wrong, and I’m super happy that I am wrong. However there is a problem that I need to address for the future, if I plan on writing this column in the future. I do plan on continuing this column!
The Problem: There are very, very few series that are translated into a format that is readable for me. I know the Japanese language fairly well, but I can’t translate written words very well, so I don’t read the original versions in Japanese. This means I either have to read the official translations, which I rarely have the money for, or fan translations of series that haven’t been licensed in the States. Sometimes these translations are very poor, and it takes even myself a much longer time to read. I try to stay away from those series, but occasionally I don’t have a choice if I want to cover a new series each week.
My Solution: I’m going to start covering individual volumes of series, much like I do for my Wednesday column, Book Series Wednesday. I won’t have them always back to back necessarily, and if I’ve covered that volume’s material in another format, like an Anime adaptation, I won’t cover those volumes. I will continue to read new series and try to cover those more often than I cover older series that have released new volumes since I previously covered them. However I will only be doing one volume at a time. Hopefully this solution will allow me to continue writing what you all want to read and keep you reading my work!
Spoilers: If there are spoilers for later volumes that I make posts for I will make it as obvious as I can that there will be spoilers in the post. The general rule of thumb will be that anything past the first volume may have spoilers. Proceed into those posts with caution if you haven’t read up to that volume.
Web Novels: I really do enjoy reading these and will continue to cover them in this column. I will still cover individual volumes, but since they aren’t always separated into volumes, I will split them up via story arcs.
Artwork: I try to have a picture of the cover for each series I do, however for Web Novels and series not from Japan they rarely, if ever, have cover art. I may have to find generic artwork to represent the series. I will try to keep it in line with the theme of the series though.
That’s it for this Light Novel Thursday! Please keep reading in the future!