This is a translation of Creator Science conversation between Jyumonji Ao (Grimgar) and Yanagino Kanata (Faraway Paladin) where they discuss their thoughts on each other’s works, their influences, current trends of the fantasy genre, etc.

Table of Contents:

General Thoughts on Grimgar and Faraway Paladin

Influences from Tabletop Role-Playing Games

Fantasy genre and the impact of “Narou” (Isekai)

Authentic Japanese Fantasy?

Jyumonji Ao‘s answers are in green, Yanagino Kanata‘s responses are in red.

Grimgar vs Faraway Paladin

Yanagino-san’s thoughts on “Grimgar”

Y: “Paladin” progresses in a very idealistic fashion, so “Grimgar” felt more grounded and much closer to the classic fantasy adventure that I’m more familiar with. It was very captivating.

J: It’s actually the only style I seem to be capable writing. In contrast, it’s almost impossible for me to write protagonists like Will from “Paladin” even if I try. They always turn out feeling too familiar. I do think it’s a problem that I can’t write actual heroic heroes even when I want to.

Y: In my case, I want to write a bit more grounded characters, but they keep becoming too idealistic.

J: The type of characters that gets written in a story tends to depend a lot on the story’s setting and theme too. “Paladin” is an epic tale of a hero that gained superhuman powers, so there’s not a whole lot of room for more relatable characters.

I thought Menel won’t be that strong at first, but he turned out to be incredibly powerful. There’s no place for an average joe in a battle like that.

Y: But I do want to try writing something like that too someday. Also Jyumonji-san, you are really good at writing different character interactions. If you peek around the web, you see a ton posts regarding Ranta that are like: “he’s someone that’ll be really annoying as a classmate, but at the same, he’s not bad enough to want to cut off all ties with him.”

I want to learn how to write borderline hateful characters like that too.

J: I actually really hate Ranta too. I hate him, but at the same time, it’s not like I don’t want to see him ever again. I prefer telling people I don’t like that I don’t like them face-to-face.

I know it sounds weird, but in some sense the more you hate someone, the more you like him or her. So even if I do hate Ranta, but might I actually like him just as much.

Y: I’m not very good at making “bad guys”, so my antagonists tend to end up having some admirable quality in one way or another.

Jyumonji-san’s thoughts on “Faraway Paladin”

J: The first thing that came to my mind were TRPGs. (Tabletop Role Playing Games)

Y: You’re totally right. It’s a huge source of inspiration.

J: Back in the day, a gaming magazine I used to read would have some play records of “Record of Lodoss War” TRPG or “Sword World RPG”, so I felt it was very close to those. Other than that, I felt it was following the more older fantasy works like “The Lord of the Rings” or “Earthsea” that were established before Light Novels were born.

The young readers might actually find it new and refreshing, but for someone like me that’s from a more older time, it felt very nostalgic.

Y: You are spot on. I used to play a ton of “Sword World RPG”. So I write a bit like I’m acting as the game master by introducing the NPC here and the boss here and so on.

J: It’s like you are progressing through a TRPG campaign where the protagonist has to keep clearing a series of quests to move the story forward. But I felt like the series shifted quite a bit going from volume 1 to volume 2.

Y: Volume 1 is how much I had originally planned out when I first started, and volume 2 is what I was thinking of adding if I were to get a chance to extend it further. I guess it does feel a bit abrupt…..

J: Personally, I thought everything up to volume 1 didn’t feel very Narou-like. But from volume 2, especially the beginning, feels very Narou.

Y: In my mind, I always have been following the “Narou” template from start to end.

J: You haven’t been following it at all (LOL)

Y: I was following it in spirit at least (LOL). But it is true that I got a lot of feedback for both “refreshing” and “nostalgic”.

TL NOTE: Narou = refers to the common definition of “Isekai” trope. It’s referring to “Shosetsuka ni Narou” website which is the birthplace of modern Isekai trend. (see more discussion on it later on)

Tabletop Role Playing Games

“Paladin” takes a lot of influences from TRPG. Do you play a lot of TRPG?

Y: I play a lot both as a player and a game master.

J: That’s what I thought. There’s actually a lot of TRPG players among light novel writers. I wanted to try it too, but it never worked out for me because there weren’t anyone that were interested in playing with me back then. I bought a rulebook, made a scenario and gathered up people to play, but they all got bored real quick, so it never worked out.

When did you start playing Yanagino-san?

Y: From when I was in college. I got interested from reading those play records, so I went ahead and jumped into a session online. So I mostly play it online. It’s a bit difficult to set things up when it’s offline, but online, you can use the dice in the chat and the rulebook is readily available so it’s really convenient.

J: When I was little, we didn’t have the internet, so it was hard to find people with similar hobbies. If I had more people like that around, I probably would’ve been able to be a proper otaku too.

Y: Speaking of hobbies, I heard you were liked playing music or something?

J: Music is something you can do alone… same for writing novels too….

Any other ways TRPG influenced your creative process?

Y: When I’m coming up with characters, I tend to model them off of people I play with. For example, Laystof-san from volume 2 is slightly modeled after a character my friend role-plays in.

J: He role-plays someone that rugged?! (LOL)

Y: He’s a kind of person that really likes acting out hard-broiled characters. So when I’m coming up with how that character acts, I think back at how my friend will act it out in that situation.

J: Everyone that have TRPG experience, including Yanagino-san, seems to be really good at separating out distinct personalities. I guess it’s because you end up observing how other people act out their characters and not just yourself.

Y: Even when I’m playing, there are times when people ask “can you be the priest today?”. There are some things you can’t write without experiencing it first, so it does help me diversity a bit.

Other than that, recent TRPGs determine your background history based off your dice role. Like this person is born from a rich family, or this one got betrayed by someone in the past.

J: So do you have to role-play based on that too?

Y: That’s right. It’s like a help mechanism for people that have trouble coming up with things.

J: It almost sounds like everyone is an actor. Do you end up staying in character a lot while you play?

Y: Some people do, while others don’t Depends on the person.

J: How about you?

Y: I like to act out my characters all the way (LOL). That’s more fun, and since we’re all playing online we just have to type it out so it’s a lot easier. You can even be a cute little girl!

Fantasy genre and “Narou” (Isekai)

The fantasy genre has gotten very popular recently, but that wasn’t the case a few years ago. What sparked such a boost in popularity?

J: This is my own personal theory, but I think people started reading fantasy again thanks to Isekai Reincarnation.

Y: Because it’s a fantasy theme that’s written in a modern perspective?

J: That too, but I think the biggest reason is that it helped established an easy entrance to the fantasy world that goes: “If you pass through this entrance, you can go to a different world”.

When I had my debut at Sneaker Bunko, there were a wide variety of fantasy novels. Like “Ragnarok (Sword of the Dark Ones)”, “Trinity Blood”, or “Dance with the Dragons”. None of them were Isekai Reincarnation. It feels quite different from the current “Narou”. But that how the fantasy genre was back then.

However, that type of fantasy didn’t end up working out as a mainstream light novel genre. The huge success of “Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi” started a golden age of rom-coms.

Why was fantasy not popular compared to rom-coms?

J: Fantasy can have a high barrier to entry when people first try to get into it, since you are jumping into a completely unfamiliar world. If you played games like “Dragon Quest” or “Final Fantasy” and have prior knowledge of those kind of mechanics and settings, it’s easy for you to slip right in.

But if you don’t have that background knowledge, it can be pretty difficult. So it’s hard to make it accessible.

Then how did “Shosetsuka ni Narou” make Fantasy popular?

J: The Isekai format offers an easy path towards the fantasy world. You died, you got reincarnated, and now you are in a different world. It goes back to my previous point, but it basically constructed an easy pathway saying “If you pass through this entrance, you can go to a different world”.

Rather than being suddenly told that the protagonist lives in a totally different world than ours, it’s more accessible to start from a pathway like that.

Y: Also, other than reincarnation stories, there are also summoning stories which actually has a pretty long history. Like “Chronicle of Narnia” where you just pass through a wardrobe.

J: Even “Harry Potter” too. The series mostly takes place inside a magic school, but you get there by slamming yourself into a pillar from the real world. I think it would’ve been much harder to get into if you didn’t have an introduction like that and instead got suddenly told that “he is a boy from a world of wizards.”

I think one of the big reasons the fantasy genre caught on recently is because “Narou” helped standardize that point of entry.

How do you make use of that fantasy template established by “Shosetsuka ni Narou” in your own stories?

Y: I thought “Grimgar” was being very conscious of that. You suddenly wake up without any memories, while you have no idea what’s going on you step outside the tunnel, and so on.

J: It’s because I was a bit unhappy with my writing.

You see, my stories oftentimes start with characters that comes with too much baggage. Like he had this and this happen to him in the past, this world is constructed in this way, and so that’s why this character is like that, and so forth. I tend to start off the series with too many pre-established settings.

But since the readers have to start from nothing, I thought it’d be better if we start from everything at zero. I figured I might as well put the protagonists in the same boat too.

Y: So you’re basically leveling the perspectives of the readers and the characters to be the same and have everyone start from the same position. I liked how it you went from there and turned it into a classic fantasy adventure. It’s like playing “Wizardry” from lvl.1 without reading any guides beforehand.

J: I play a lot of RPG games, and I love just developing your characters from the ground up. But I don’t have much interest beyond that so I end up losing interest once it gets strong.

Y: It’s the same for simulation games too. You have the most fun when you are about halfway through. Even as a story, the best part is when you are struggling from Lv1 to Lv10.

J: On the other hand, Will is so strong (LOL) He’s pretty much maxed out by the end of volume 1.

Y: That’s basically the “Narou” template. I enjoy “Narou”, so I wanted to try writing something like that.

J: I guess you raided the readers with the power of “Narou”. I thought it maintained a really good balance of being easily accessible for “Narou” readers, while being nostalgic for the older readers, while also being refreshing for young readers.

Y: In that respect, it’s no match for “Grimgar”.

So now that fantasy is trending once again, what new kinds of fantasy novels do you think will emerge in the future?

Y: I think we’ll start seeing even bigger variety. Since we already have the Isekai Reincarnation template of “Narou”, we might see more classic fantasy, or more comedy, or maybe more video game themed.

Since we now have a lot of big titles that acts as sort of a trunk that brings in new readers, I think we should see more works that branches out from that and eventually make it difficult to lump everything into one.

Works that fail to capture an audience will fall, while the ones that do manage will see the light of day, since the consumption rate of “Narou” is extremely fast.

J: I think the same too. But one think I’m worried about is that it’s getting more and more difficult for stories that require a lot of patient to succeed, since stories that leaves a quick, strong impression are prioritized more. It was the same case for light novels too, but the turnover rate is even quicker for “Narou”.

Because it’s difficult to get people to read something on “Narou” that doesn’t have a strong hook, it ends up creating a big bias on the kind of stories that flourish.

Personally, I like reading stories that start out slow but slowly builds up more and more as things progress on, so it’ll be nice if there’s a way to get more people to read stories like that. I hope we get to see more stories that steadily draws you in little by little.

Authentic Japanese Fantasy

Jyumonji-san, what are your thoughts on the fantasy genre?

J: In Japan, while there are exceptions, “fantasy” almost always end up referring to western fantasy. Sometimes I do wonder how that came to be.

Obviously, Japan is not in Europe, nor is it related to US. I guess it just happened as we absorbed western culture and it became a familiar theme in fiction too. But I think there’s some room for a more Japanese-style fantasy to be born.

Y: Like the “Moribito series”?

J: Something along those lines. It doesn’t necessarily have to be traditional Japanese. I always been wondering if it’s possible for a more modern fantasy that makes you go: “you’ll only see this coming out of Japan”. I think it’ll be interesting if there is a fantasy novel like that. Of course, I want to write it myself too, but I hope someone does it.

Y: I’d like to read it too. In the case of TRPG, the rulebooks offer a wide variety of different worlds, but the most popular ones are still western fantasy, modern urban fantasy, or Cthulhu-based horror.

Since we play as a group, it needs to be something that everyone is familiar with. If the rulebook has something that’s too foreign, it’s very difficult for people to roleplay properly. That’s why it’s easier to play TRPG based on a theme that everyone is familiar with.

J: Something similar happened with novels too. When I first got started, Sneaker Bunko’s fantasy series were mostly based on JRPG. Wish we get more of that these days.

In the case of US, I guess something like the “Fallout” series that’s based on a post-apocalyptic world. FPS games like that are a type of fantasy genre, and I think it’s a form of “new fantasy”.

If we find examples of “new fantasy” from Japan, something like the world of “Megami Tensei” series or the “Fate” series. It’s a bit different from your typical fantasy, but they’re jumbling up both western or eastern cultures into one. You mix in all sorts of different things into one while telling a one big story. Isn’t that pretty Japanese?

Y: It sort of sprawled out from a segment of romance genre.

J: Something like “Fate” series that jumble up a bunch of different cultural and historical backgrounds can be pretty risky.

Y: In that sense, the total disregard of religion is quite authentic to Japan.

J: You do get the feeling that Japan is the only place where people go ahead and do stuff like that without any worries, so I think it’ll be interesting if more and more series like that gets produced.

If more and more people start writing something like that on “Narou”, we’ll eventually land on a masterpiece. “Narou” is a kind of place where once something catches on, everyone jumps in to compete with each other and it becomes a one big party. And eventually, I’m sure something great will come out of it.

That series goes onto establish itself as its own genre, and grows big into a strong foundation. I hope something like that happens someday.