Japanese Light Novel Book Club discussion

Hey Guys!

I'm sure many of you have noticed, but the listings for Japanese books (especially light novels) is a mess here on Goodreads. Editions aren't combined, descriptions are still in Japanese for the English versions, and sometimes there's no series page!

This makes it really difficult to find the book you want, so I'm making it a mission to get these fixed up. For this, I need your help and the help of any other librarians in this group.

If you spot something that needs fixing, let us know in this thread.

Let's get those Goodreads entries cleaned up!

The Hidan no Aria books are listed under the Japanese author, 赤松 中学. The first two volumes (Japanese editions) are also listed under the author's romanji name. It would be nice if all volumes were part of a series (Hidan no Aria) and under only one author.

(Vol 1. 緋弾のアリア Vol 2. 緋弾のアリアⅡ　燃える銀氷（ダイヤモンドダスト）)

Parker wrote: "The Hidan no Aria books are listed under the Japanese author, 赤松 中学. The first two volumes (Japanese editions) are also listed under the author's romanji name. It would be nice if all volumes were ..."

Is there a manga for this series? I don't want to accidentally add manga to the LN list

EDIT: I think I got it right. Had to combine a bunch of editions and such, but I think I did it.

I could not find volume 16, however, to add to the series. So if you could find that and post it here, I'll add it. :)

Turns out no one ever added volume 16 (I searched by ISBN and nothing turned up), so I added volume 16 and added it to the series page.

Everything should be good to go now.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

page is all messed up it's missing books you have duplicates with

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

I'm a librarian but I don't see an easy way to fuse the author pages together, even though they are the same person. I'll try to figure it out tonight or tomorrow.

Yuu Kamiya's page is a little more difficult because there's both a "No Game No Life" manga and a "No Game No Life" light novel series. I've been trying to fix it even before you mentioned it, Aaron, since it is a real mess, but there's not a whole lot of information around right now on what's what, especially with the Japanese editions. The covers between the LNs and manga are very similar, if not the same (not sure if actually published that way or well-meaning individuals uploaded the wrong images).

Things might get a little easier once more of the English volumes are released and more people take an interest. I'll keep an eye on this and update when I get solid info.

Selena wrote: "The covers between the LNs and manga are very similar, if not the same (not sure if actually published that way or well-meaning individuals uploaded the wrong images)."

The covers between the LN Vol. 1 and manga are very similar but they are different. Please see the official site below (Japanese site).
http://ngnl.jp/goods/novel.html
In the site, the cover of manga appears at the bottom of the list. A girl holds a boy. The cover of LN Vol.1 appears at the third from the bottom of the list. The girl doesn't hold the boy.
I may be telling you strange things. :)

Aaron wrote: "https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

page is all messed up it's missing books you have duplicates with

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

I'm a librarian but I d..."

I think all the book in the later link is Japanese edition. In the link, all No Game No Life is LN whereas all Greed Packet Unlimited (グリードパケット∞) is comic (Greed packet published only as a comic).

From what I can tell, there is only 1 volume out of the manga in both English and Japanese. (And thanks Fanta for pointing out the difference!)
The next volume of the manga is set to be released on August 1, 2016 in the US apparently. I can't find any Japanese release date for the second volume. After a lot of searching, volume 2 of the manga cover hasn't even been shown yet (both on Japanese and English sites), therefore https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... should actually be coverless (it looks like someone went and just uploaded the 2 cover from the LN)

Also found a third author page for Kamiya Yuu, https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... this one fortunately does not have much volumes listed.

...

I'm thinking that this one is so screwed up, I'll have to take it to the librarian group to get it fixed... I'm afraid to touch this one, honestly....

Ok, so I asked about it, and this is how I understand it:

Once there's an English edition, I can add the "Romanized" version of the author's name as the primary author and combine the English edition and the Japanese. I leave the Japanese name alone as a "secondary" name, so that people will still be able to find the name in Kanji.

I asked about the two versions of the kanji name (one with a space and one without), so I'll have to wait and see which one is "correct" for the Goodreads database. Once I know for sure, I'll start fixing the entries again and hopefully get rid of the duplicate kanji author entries.

Selena wrote: "Ok, so I asked about it, and this is how I understand it:..."

Ah I see. So I wonder if that also applies in reverse, as if there is only a Japanese edition, the author should not have a "Romanized" page. For example, the 魔法科高校の劣等生/Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei series has the primary author as "Tsutomu Satou" rather than his Kanji,佐島勤, yet as far as I know there is no English edition of any of his series out. And if that is the case, there is a LOT of Manga/LNs that need to be fixed.

Looking forward to hearing about which version of the Kanji name is "correct" on Goodreads though. That will be really useful to know.

I don't think it matters as much if it was originally added in Romaji, since GR's a US based website. I think there's a bit of grey area there. Or I'll let the Japanese librarians fix those, since I don't know what's listed on the Japanese covers. :)

No spaces for names written with Kanji. That's how they combined the two Japanese Kamiya Yuu profiles.

Adding in the enterbrain version of Maoyuu(the best version) which somehow never got posted on his profile 橙乃 ままれ or on Mamare Touno also pretty much everything is missing ISBN and general name nonsense. Gonna try to clean up some of the other books while I'm there and link them to each other in the series properly.

Question for people who know the series better:

Is this book the manga or the LN? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

Judging from ISBN and the cover, it's the LN.
The manga's cover is this (Japanese site).
http://dengekibunko.dengeki.com/newre...

So then https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... is the same as https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...?

I hesitate to combine them because of the huge difference in page counts...

Yes that would be correct,
Yen On = Light Novel
Yen Press = Manga

I knew that Yen On is the LN stuff, but GR's policy is that the "innards" be the same (i.e. Another the omnibus shouldn't be combined with Another volume 1). I'm not sure if the "innards" in this case are the same since the page counts are so different.

The former is a Japanese edition, the latter is an English edition, I think.

Yeah but I believe the worry was seeing a page count change from 300+ to <200 normally they are about the same between the versions.

The ISBN for that LN is the standard pocket 15x10.6cm size. While Yen On uses 8.2x5.5inches which comes out to around 21x14cm. Which comes out to ~80% additional page real estate.

My friend got me a sword art online pocket sized one and it's like 350 pages. So I say they are the same.

Aaron wrote: "Yeah but I believe the worry was seeing a page count change from 300+ to <200 normally they are about the same between the versions.

The ISBN for that LN is the standard pocket 15x10.6cm size. Wh..."

That would explain the difference in page numbers then. I will combine those two now.

Quick question for Fanta, since he speaks far more Japanese than I do (^^;;;)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... and https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... are editions of the same book, right?

Right. Both Japanese descriptions are completely same. The former is a Kindle edition (e-book), the latter is an actual book. For some reason, the Kindle edition page says "edition language" is English, but I don't think Outbreak Company has been translated. Actually, the ASIN is that of a Japanese Kindle edition.

Fanta wrote: "For some reason, the Kindle edition page says "edition language" is English, but I don't think Outbreak Company has been translated. Actually, the ASIN is that of a Japanese Kindle edition."

Someone probably entered it wrong. You'd be surprised how often that happens with non-English editions of books... I'll go fix that now.

For these books, do Japanese or those who can speak Japanese register? If not so, it's awesome to do with their unknown language. I feel their passion. :) (And your passion too, that you fix it.)

You can usually tell who added an edition of a book by the language the title and description is in. There are a lot of manga that are the Japanese edition, for example, that have descriptions in English. This edition of Outbreak Company was probably added by a Japanese user who didn't put in the right language (I think the page creation defaults to English as the language).

As for me fixing things... It just drives me nuts when there are things that are totally inaccurate. Like people saying books in Japanese are in English. It causes a lot of confusion.

Trying to clean up the books listed under Reki Kawahara. There are a few that I am confused about. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
This is the manga cover, but the publisher is "Yen On" which I think is a LN publisher? So I'm unsure whether to combine it with the Novel or the Manga version of SAO Progressive.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
I am horrible at Korean. But does any one know if this is the LN or the Manga?

The ISBN matches the one for the novel on YenPress's website, so that first SAO Progressive is the novel. Someone uploaded the incorrect image for the cover (which is sadly very common).

As for the Korean book, I have no idea. I can't find anything about it through Google.

Thanks Selena!
Alright I guess I will delete the cover and upload the right one. Ah, I always have trouble with these English entries ^^;

I'll leave the Korean book alone for now then.

Found another one I need help
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
It's volume 6 but the description is for Vol. 4. Was wondering if someone else could update the description?

Oh lord, volume mix ups...

I'm going to make sure that's actually volume 6. I've had a manga that had volume 4 listed as volume 5 with the volume 5 cover and as an edition of volume 5, but the description and the ISBN were for volume 4.

EDIT: I'm wondering where they're getting this info from. Yen Press's site does not list volume 6 yet...

EDIT 2: Apparently Amazon knows more than Yen Press says on their site... Ok, things check out. I'll be updating the description for you.

Okay thanks again Selena! These English entries are really confusing.

Mayumi wrote: "Okay thanks again Selena! These English entries are really confusing."

They most certainly are. XD That's why I tend to go to the horse's mouth when I run into problems, and if that doesn't work, Amazon.

Selena wrote: "They most certainly are. XD That's why I tend to go to the horse's mouth when I run into problems, and if that..."

Ah, glad to know I'm not the only one who finds them confusing. I'm so used to fixing the Japanese entries, that when I get to the English ones, I'm just lost XD
I shall keep in mind to go look at the publishers when doing them.

Ugh and another problem has been found. This and this are both English editions.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Are they the same or separate? Not sure if I should merge the two entries...

Reki Kawahara's profile is really a mess. If anyone else wants to give it a shot and organize it, feel free too~

They're the same I think, since the Japanese book is the novel and we already confirmed that the English ones are the same. I just combined them for you.

Yeah, profiles tend to become really messy when there are mangas and light novels and they're all getting translated at the same time.

Hey guys, could someone do me a favor?

The No Game, No Life stuff got all screwed up again after I went to all the trouble to fix them the first time. XP They combined the manga and light novel editions.

I don't have time to fix them right now, nor do I want to after they (whoever they are) screwed them up. Could someone please go fix them?

You'll have to separate out the manga from the LNs, combine the manga editions once again, remove the light novels from the manga series list, and then re-add the manga to the manga series list. It's stupid, I know.

If someone could do this for me, I'd be eternally grateful. If not, I'll fix it when I get around to it.

Just reminding you all that this resource is here. :) If you spot Japanese novels or light novels that have incorrect information, post here and one of our group's librarians will fix it.

The author Asa Nonami has an English page and a Japanese page separately, which I suppose happens a lot with Asian authors. But I was wondering, is it possible to have this novel of hers titled "しゃぼん玉" simultaneously on the English page? It has gotten little attention beyond a partial, halted translation several years ago, and I'm hoping it can become more noticeable to non-Japanese readers.

Hi guys. I need some help once again with the No Game, No Life series. It seems that people just CAN'T leave this series alone and keep combining the manga and light novels. -_-

I need help figuring out what editions are manga and which are the light novel for Volume 2. The English versions are easy, since I just look at Yen On vs Seven Seas as publisher, but the Japanese is a bit trickier.

Is this the light novel or the manga? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

Thanks for your help, guys!

EDIT: So there are a bunch of loose editions as well...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Selena wrote: "Hi guys. I need some help once again with the No Game, No Life series. It seems that people just CAN'T leave this series alone and keep combining the manga and light novels. -_-

I need help figuri..."

It's the light novel. Really hard to tell as the cover text and description don't give any indications. But if you go to the mediafactory site and press the 立ち読み button (preview) you can look at the first chapter and it's pretty clearly not a manga.

Awesome. Do you know about the other two?

Selena wrote: "Awesome. Do you know about the other two?"

They are all the same japanese language light novel. The first of the loose links is for the kindle edition of the japanese language light novel. The second loose link is an english language listing for the same japanese language light novel. The goodreads page incorrectly lists the edition language as english. The description has been copied from the yen press edition but the cover art and the amazon sales link are for the japanese language edition.

James wrote: "Selena wrote: "Awesome. Do you know about the other two?"

They are all the same japanese language light novel. The first of the loose links is for the kindle edition of the japanese language light..."

Dang you're good. Ever think of applying to become a librarian here on Goodreads? I could use the help keeping these Japanese things straight :)

Selena wrote: "James wrote: "Selena wrote: "Awesome. Do you know about the other two?"

They are all the same japanese language light novel. The first of the loose links is for the kindle edition of the japanese ..."

I don't think I'm cut out to be a librarian - just making my own book listings drives me crazy. I'm not confident about changing other people's listings. But I'm happy to answer these sorts of questions if my japanese ability is useful to you.

About No game, No life, I think James is right.
Just curious, when you fix, what do you (librarians) see as a base?
Title? Cover image? Text? ISBN/ASIN?

(I suppose the Amazon link on each page depends on ISBN/ASIN.)

What do you mean by base?

We have a combination tool that lists all the books by the author that we can use to combine our separate. Otherwise, it's pretty much what you guys see I think.

I may be misunderstanding.
I thought that what you are doing is correcting wrong information. For example if the cover image was wrong, you librarians would change the right one.

Fanta wrote: "I may be misunderstanding.
I thought that what you are doing is correcting wrong information. For example if the cover image was wrong, you librarians would change the right one."

Yeah, we can do that. :) We essentially see the same page as you unless we click "edit." Then we get a really long form we can fill in/change things in, like the title or author or cover image.

Combining gives us a list of different books by the same author and checkboxes to select which ones need to be combined.

So, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2..., I'm taking this for example. This is,

Cover Image: Japanese version
Description: English version
ISBN: Japanese version
"Edition Language": English.

Then, how would you correct the page? Would you change it to the Japanese version's page or the English version's? (In other words, would you change the description and the "Edition Language", or the cover image and the ISBN?)
Wouldn't you correct the page?