Can someone explain to me why every single light novel thats

>>156598645
I forgot
>always starts off annoying the main girl and has to fight her/get tested by her

>>156598645
In a typical story, you have to either introduce characters to the story as time goes on or throw them all together near the beginning and introduce side characters/villains as time goes on. In most light novels, authors will tend towards the latter option to some extent, but will instead only introduce the MC, the main heroine, and other side characters which will recur in future chapters. Note that many other characters may get introduced which end up being slightly more than side characters down the road, but the cast has to start somewhere (see: harem series).

As for why the main heroine is usually fire-themed and strongest in the school, the most obvious reason would be that the MC needs someone to compare power to, and instead of opting for a power scaling arc where the MC has to train to get stronger than unseen foes further in the school's hierarchy, the author can jump straight to "the MC is stronger than the strongest girl in the school, and thus she becomes a part of the 'group' the MC establishes" part of the story, allowing for future expansion of the story with little regard to true world building. As for the fire aspect, it's easy to imagine raw power as a torrent of fire or energy, and so making the 'strongest' character use fire, the reader gets a conventional point of reference for other powers in the story, and can understand the nature of her power from the beginning. If, for instance, the author would give the main heroine a power which may need some explanation, a reader may get the wrong idea about the power and assume the power does something it really doesn't. However, these types of powers are usually introduced for the MC or the villains to make the reader say "oh yeah, this villain is a clear threat due to his power" or "the MC has a good power in comparison".

TL;DR it's lazy writing that could be avoided with exposition or good narrative world building, but authors instead choose to quickstart their stories with this shit.

>>156598645
Fire is usually associated with being a hothead and strong.

>>156598959
>As for this point, it goes back to the whole "we need the MC to be stronger than the'strongest' girl in the academy" trope. By setting the MC up to battle this heroine, the author can establish a clear hierarchy of power between the MC and the rest of the school: if the MC beats the girl, he's technically the strongest in the school (but no one would accept it leading to a generic plot), or the MC loses and has to work his way back up the ladder (or "he was holding back the whole time!" or "he couldn't display his real power here!" tropes). Either way, it works as a lazy setup for the MC's power in relation to the rest of the established hierarchy.

>>156598969
naruhodo

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>>156599071
>>156598969
But its just so damn boring

When you start off with "the strongest person in school" then no one in this school besides teachers are any sort of a threat other then that one person who comes along thats always about trickery and being underhanded.

Someone post that image about those two shitty battle harems having the same exact dialogues and scenes.

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What im saying is most LNs suck
>>156599235
I assume you mean Asterisk War and Chivalry of a Failed Knight

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>>156599247
http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/eiyuu-kyoushitsu-r20951
It's generic as fuck but sue me I like generic shit

Doesn't mean I won't complain about it being generic

>>156599277
I think one was Rakudai something.

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>>156598645
There are series set in magic highschools where that doesn't happen. Remix Heart for example starts with the MC meeting a group of girls and befriending them instead of fighting any of them.

>>156599310
Chivalry of a Failed Knight

>>156599315
Remix Heart isn't an LN and it starts in an already existing universe.

Also Mai is 10/10 would bang

>>156599182
Yeah, that's kind of the point. The MC in most light novels is supposed to be a self insert for people who read them rather than a fully fleshed out character. Just as the rest of the characters in these stories tend to be fully focused on entertaining the reader as they self insert into the MC. Rather than creating a pool of characters and a world in which they can interact, it's much easier to create a blank avatar with awesome power and a group of 1-dimensional characters who service that avatar's fantasies, no? After all, the main point of an LN is to sell, not to tell an engaging story.

Realize that when I say this, I'm not saying that all LN's do this (for instance, Overlord or Log Horizon tend to spend time fleshing out their characters and worlds rather than focusing on the daily lives of MC-kun and his harem), but a good portion of them do. And stories which can captivate the major audience tend to do with fantasy and high-school: why? Well, in both situations, the reader knows everything they need to. For fantasy, us in a "modern" society surely know everything there is about an old ancient society, and so the avatar of the MC can come up with ideas which seem novel to the other characters but natural to the reader (helping to further immerse the reader into the MC avatar). And as for high school, most people reading the LN have already or are currently going through high school, no? So why not give a setting which most readers don't need to invest themselves in?

TL;DR: LN's are the shovelware of the literature industry, and should be treated as such until one can prove itself to properly tell a story and not be a quest for immersion.

>>156598969
>the MC is stronger than the strongest girl in the school
I miss when stories focused on the underdog

>>156599397
Underdogs are predictable. Chances are they're actually way stronger than the opponent, they just have to be pushed the wrong way.

>>156599461
upwards downwards or sideways?

>>156599397

Nowadays, it's all about being a fake underdog.

Everybody underestimates you, but you really do have a special power already rather than having to try to improve yourself.

>>156599392
>Yeah, that's kind of the point.
But it instantly invalidates the setting and makes the school itself uninteresting. There is nothing left to do at this school.
>self insert for people who read them rather than a fully fleshed out character
Maybe im the broken one here because I just don't get it. I've never self inserted into any sort of fictional story and never will. I'd rather the MC be interesting on his own merits and not be bland just for the sake of self-insert

>>156599495
>>156599461
I miss ACTUAL underdogs. Fuck all these newer anime where the MC is actually hiding some SUPER SECRET TECHNIQUE. For all the shit it gets even Naruto pulls off better underdog stories then all this fake underdog crap.

>>156599397
Underdog stories are great, but they need to be done properly. If done incorrectly, it turns into another self-insert story where the reader imagines themselves growing stronger without having to do anything: the perfect power fantasy. When a character in an underdog story is fully fleshed out and has a strong group of supporting characters/strong villains, the stories can become some of the best around. They allow readers to empathize with the MC by saying "I couldn't be as strong as any of the villains here, but through hard work, the MC can get to their level! I just have to believe in him!". Underdog stories can also include redemption arcs, quests for greater power, internal struggles with other driving forces, and other good narrative tropes which aren't too often seen. But most LN's don't want to tell a good story, they just want to sell well, which is why they mostly appeal to the broader audience.

As >>156599516 said, the MC should be interesting and should carry his own weight in the story rather than being a bland slate. But realize that the people who feel this way are in the minority of customers for the LN base, attesting to the current number of "good" LN stories vs "fucking shit" ones (if you even want to refer to LN's as good in the first place). My advice would be to either hightail it to normal literature to try to find something more engaging, or to stick with LN's but only go for the ones which can tell a story outside the norm. That being said, most LN's tend to tell the same story with one added "quirk" to it, so finding a truly unique one is challenging in its own right.

>>156599593
>I miss ACTUAL underdogs. Fuck all these newer anime where the MC is actually hiding some SUPER SECRET TECHNIQUE. For all the shit it gets even Naruto pulls off better underdog stories then all this fake underdog crap.
Up until after the Sasuke rescue arc it was really quite good for a battle shonen. Creative fights with a good focus on side characters like the Shikamaru fight. Good progression that makes sense (IE Naruto has a lot of stamina, but has to learn to control himself and use it properly). It also had an interesting world and didn't have anyone feel unbeatable. But then power creep and eugenics happened and none of that mattered.

>>156599626
>My advice would be to either hightail it to normal literature to try to find something more engaging
I don't read LNs, the problem is that every manga or anime nowaday is based on an LN so I can't avoid this shit.

It doesn't help that you literally can't talk about any series based on an LN on /a/ because LNfags are the fucking worst most obnoxious pieces of shit on this board who openly spoil everything and act in contempt of people who didn't read the LN.

>>156599757
>But then power creep and eugenics happened and none of that mattered.
It was such a waste man, it still hurts.

>>156598645
Wow, reading that gave me a headache. Please learn to use proper grammar and spelling when making threads, it's easier for everyone in general.

Thank you

>>156599807
No

>>156599788
Not only did it have a good premise most of the consequences of the fights felt real. Like after Neji's fight in the rescue arc when he was close to dead and had to be healed or when Hinata opposed neji in the tournament and she "won" not by beating Neji, but by refusing to simply be resigned to her fate. It also made medic characters feel important.

>>156598645
Don't forget that each of these stories always have the same character set. The OP main character, tsundere strongest girl heroine, deadpan girl, obsessive little sister, occasionally throw in the "bro" character that only shows up a couple times because he doesn't have boobs.

>>156599766
That sort of happens when the manga/anime becomes an advertisement for LN's rather than its own storytelling medium, honestly. Original anime can come out, and original manga can be written, but most of it ends up becoming shovelware for LN garbage. The original stuff is mostly on webcomics rather than manga, but the quality of most webcomics are shit too, so there's not really a good solution there.

>>156598645
>fantasy school setting
>fantasy
Newfag, this is one of the oldest tropes for any setting.

>>156598645
Somewat simmilar but I loved that erina in shokugeki no souma didn't job to the mc on their first meet nor she needed to be saved by him.

It kinds of shitty having the main girl to be the strongest then proceed to job against everyone so the mc can save the day everytime.

>>156598645
LN of a specific genre are all written by the same algorithm.

how about isekai

>>156601438
Modern isekai:
> Strange gimmick
> cute girls
> Game world/cardboard fantasy world
Though, there are few exceptions, this usually occurs as of late.
Shoujo isekai:
I forget.

>>156598645
This. How come there are no electromancer heroines?

>>156601643
Index has Biribiri.

>>156599182
That's when you move away from the school setting, to interacting with other schools, and then the wider world.

Pic related is a good example of that.

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>>156599626
>>156599516
>>156599392
But what about shoujo LNs that even get their own adaptations? And alot of them involve otome game isekai.

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>>156598645

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>>156599392
Anon, there are quite a few gems, it's just really hard to find or you can't read nip to find one.

>>156601945
yo no nintendo

>>156601847
otome and shoujo like to tackle interpersonal relations and politics rather than being "the strongest". From the stuff I've seen it feels somewhat better than the shounen fantasies because they try to make the characters more fleshed out. But they pretty much run into their own cliches. For every RPG demon king adventure you have just as many reincarnations as the fantasy otome rival. You can also see a lot of turning into a lower class person, yet still getting whisked away or being a part of the high class societies.

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>>156602505
But what about the ones that are not otome games?

>>156598645
Industry is full of untalented, uncreative hacks with no proper education, whose experience with literature is limited to works of other untalented, uncreative hacks. Obviously, they are unable to write proper characters, settings, plot, exposition, interactions, developments, so they resort to cliches, copy-pasting and simplified stock elements to omit troublesome parts.
And the only reason this is allowed, is because target audience doesn't give a fuck, since all they want are cute girls and bland MC to self-insert into, encouraging this state of affairs.

>>156604006
Sad.