Dungeon Nursery

[Solipsist]

@Sleepii
Long story short: you found it enjoyable. I can't say the mango isn't fun to read, but what you call a "central theme" is what I called "a very short sighted joke."
I can't explain why *you liked it*, but I can explain why I thought the story was obviously running out of ideas. Fast.

I knew the author had a prob with the setting, the moment the most immediate feature of the setting or characters became an immediate focus.
#The MC wants to purify himself for heaven? -> The MC benefits from being evil.
# The MC's a "summoner"? -> The MC continuously gets the most useless creatures he could possibly get, which, in turn, allowed the MC to be "comically" overpowered personally. A summoner that doesn't even need his summons? Much laughs were had.

Most of the jokes were 'reactionary' like that. Purely discovery-writing. Which are not necessarily "bad" or "unfunny". Just, really short sighted and poor in construct if you want to have an actual series, and not a one-shot. I felt it from the very first chapters that this'd be a short-lived story.

 

[xXPenisXx]

I'm sad because I enjoyed it, but I'm not actually surprised it got canned. You gotta admit it was running on fumes and the author clearly had no idea where he wanted to take his story. A single joke can only be told so many ways before people want to hear another one. Not only that, but there was more or less zero character development of note. The tadpole reversion was the ultimate expression of wheel-spinning, and the single biggest sign that the author was stuck. He's definitely got potential, so I do look forward to his next work.

 

[Sleepii]

@Solipsist

I think you are underselling the importance of a good running joke.
As far as I see it, there are two ways that this manga could have gone, based on how it started.

One is that it could have been a nice, light comedy, based on the summoner and his group. How he slowly undermines the idea of the dungeon while getting further. Not learning but progressing nonetheless, because of the kind of guy he is. The girls would remain there as a foil to his seemingly evil self and he would take advantage of the people around him to get what he wants. Basically what was happening so far. Having a simple premise like that is perfectly fine. Not everything has to have a deep involved plot. People enjoy simple slice-of-lifes for a reason. The ending could have a serious ending or not. I learned from people who write, that having a clear beginning and end in mind, is what matters. Everything in between comes later.

The other way it could have progressed, is that we use this simplistic starting point as a solid jumping off point for a deeper, well developed plot, where the girls slowly learn their strengths and weaknesses. Not dropping the comedy, but having them learn to work together, as MC stops being useful, because the monsters of the dungeon are just that. Monsters. Things a normal human can't keep up with. Not even this guy. There were hints of that, in the Harpiko chapter where he was teaching her how to make use of her flying ability to get rid of the traps. He was actually nurturing her and teaching her how to be a better summon. This could have been expanded on.
Do you know Helck? That was a manga which had a very simple start, but it was able to develop in to a better story.

How something starts is important, but does not determine how something will progress. The author has ways he can manipulate and improve the story, as it develops, it is a living thing that can change according to what the author experiences and what he thinks of while working on it. Unless it was planned to be short, then I think giving it a chance to go on and improve would be the best thing. You never know how good or bad something can be until you give it a chance to improve.

 

[Solipsist]

@Sleepii
I have no idea why you give this series so much benefit-of-the-doubt. In contrast to Helck, which started off so randomally, that it made me feel like "this has to have a point to it", Dungeon Nursery had a proper prologue, proper introductions. It told you: "This is the setting, this is the character. Let's see where we go." There is extremely very little to doubt here.
Instead, what it does, is just one deadhorse joke after another. This is the issue here, that the author is just clearly thinking about the next chapter as he writes the current one.

> MC is a summoner?
>> Let's see what happens if his mobs are consistently crappy. Let's repeat this for about 7-10 chapters.
> Mobs are useless?
>> MC is now OP. Because "I learnt a bit of martial arts". That joke tried to carry itself for so long, that going from "knowing how to kick a few skeletons", the MC became One Punch Man.
The only fresh joke that appeared in the story afterwards, was the family of frogs. But what happens next? Since the Tadpole appears to be useless, author thinks to himself, let's turn Tadpole into an OP mob. Now that the Tadpole is OP, let's have him leave the party. Oh, wait, now that he's part of the party, let's revert Tadpole back into being useless. And thus, we made a full circle back into no progress.

You say that "it's a good running joke"...I see a desperate writer, trying to push content out until he was burned out. Discovery writing rarely works out....Honestly, the first success-story that comes to mind is "Kumo no Desu Nani Ka", and it's one of those stories that miraculously worked out.
I'm not even saying that most of what Dungeon Nursery showed us is bad or unfunny, most of it is pretty funny. But when I see fire, I expect it to spread. I can have fun reading something, and still think to myself: "...These jokes will stop being funny in a few chapters, I hope this'll change sometime soon."

 

[Sleepii]

@Solipsist
I give it the benefit of a doubt, because the great thing about any literary work, is the fact that they are alive in a sense. They change and grow as the author changes and grows. You may have an idea at one point, but as time goes it changes and becomes something else. As long as you have the core vision in place, you can change it and mold it into anything you want.

Just because the jokes do not appeal to you, does not mean they don't appeal to others.
The jokes may have been similar, but what mattered was how they were built up to and the fact that the characters are enjoyable in their own right.
The MC who does anything and everything as long as it benefits him. His scheming mind that thinks many steps ahead to achieve his goals, other people be damned.
Gobumi who tries her hardest to do something. She gets a ton of shit from MC but she never gives up and is so earnest it hurts.
Harpiko who was initially trusting, came to see the MC for what he really was. She acts as a foil to his evil self to no avail.
Kurea, who is basically his Protegé. Cute and evil.
Frog mother who is unflinchingly loyal and does whatever he wants, with a masochistic streak.
Tadpole who is the most noble, but just royally got fucked over.
The entire main cast is just likeable and I wanted to spend more time with them and get to know them better. That is all.

You see a desperate writer, I see a guy who was cut off too soon, before he had a chance to really show what he was capable of. You are free to get tired of the jokes, but the fact that there was progress while still being amusing is what I enjoyed. Meeting new characters, getting to knew levels, scamming more people, corrupting others and all the while trying to train his useless Kindergarten.

Also, what do you mean by Discovery writing? "Kumo no Desu Nani Ka" was a light novel before becoming a manga. If you mean the whole discovering new things about the world you are in, there are a number of them. From the Slime one, to the one where the MC is a sentient sword that gets picked up by a catgirl and they work together. There is also Re:Monster. God, a ton of the Isekais are like that as well.

My point is, as long as the main cast of a show are enjoyable, grow, change, do new things in fun ways, them not straying too far from a core formula is fine. That is basically what a Slice of Life is. Just because this one was focused more on the comedy, does not mean there wasn't any growth.

 

[Solipsist]

@Sleepii
I just wanna say I skimmed through your text, mostly because you wrote a whole lot while missing my point.
I made it excessively apparent that I do not dislike the jokes, or the manga. I enjoyed what I got, but as I said -- I can still enjoy something, and still be able to tell that there's a problem here. But you try so hard to get your point across that you don't get mine, so never mind all of this. There's a limit as to how much I can talk about a random dumb isekai story.
Let's just put it like this.
You thought it was amazing and wanted to see more of it, while I thought it had promise, the author obviously had absolutely no idea what to do with it.

And, btw -- "Discovery Writing" is literally the process in which the writer discovers his/hers own story, as it is written. You said you know writers, so I was working with you. I know writers as well, and I can tell you that "Discovery Writing", as a writing-technique, rarely works out, because it's a process in which the author usually starts out with nothing but a story-prompt ("evil corporate MC wants to purify himself, but he gets sent to a gamified purgatory in which his class is useless, lolderp"), and then tries to create a story out of that.
That's why I said Kumo Desu magically worked out, due to its shoddy web-novel origins. It was a fucking mess, but I liked the MC enough to keep reading, and the author actually blew it up into something enormous.

 

[Scynix]

Poor Harpiko. Poor poor harpiko.

@Solipsist
"You say that "it's a good running joke"...I see a desperate writer, trying to push content out until he was burned out. "
Just so you know... I've never seen most of these jokes... and this comic has been really funny to me.
Statements like "a desperate writer" is entirely opinion based. Nearly all your comments are opinions, but you seem to present them as fact.

Just so you know... you seem to actually be missing the plot so far.

"#The MC wants to purify himself for heaven? -> The MC benefits from being evil."
IS he, though? The other characters are perceiving him as taking evil actions, but at the end of the day he's still protecting and helping the others. He's still "educating" others. Evil is almost entirely a matter of perception. From my perspective, he's inadvertently doing exactly what "heaven" wanted him to do.
"# The MC's a "summoner"? -> The MC continuously gets the most useless creatures he could possibly get, which, in turn, allowed the MC to be "comically" overpowered personally. A summoner that doesn't even need his summons? Much laughs were had."
I'm not even sure you've read the comic so far after seeing this.

The entire dungeon seems to be some kind of "trial". If that's the case, much of what happens is likely intentional.
If he was legitimately evil, he would have dumped all of these "useless creatures" and gone on by himself.

Perhaps... you just like to argue about plots you don't understand and/or like?

 

[mored]

is this manga get axed ?

 

[Sleepii]

@Solipsist Your Point is that this Manga did not have a chance of going far because YOU saw it as shallow and running on a joke that would get old fast. YOU think that he had no idea what he was going to do with the manga as it went on and YOU didn’t think it was going long.

You do not know the author. You do not know what he did or how much he thought the story out before getting an artist to work with. You are portraying YOUR thoughts like they are fact. Like you personally knew them and the process in getting this manga made. I talk about what I think the manga could be because I don’t know these things and I was hoping that it could go on. I was talking about things that supposedly could happen and I was “missing your point” because I wasn’t presuming to know the thoughts and intentions of the author.

Thank you for the explanation of discovery writing. While things rarely work out it is best to see what happens before cutting them off. Things like the spider web novel are an example of a great result. I know it’s the exception and not the rule, but giving something a chance is best.

 

[daywithoutgames]

Noooo , why is this great manga only has 24 chapters ? Now I only have "Goblin Is Very Strong" left , but I wish the lazy scalators would translate "G I V S" faster . Meanwhile , trash like re:monster ( aka retard : monster ) is still ongoing .

Maybe Dungeon Nursery was stopped not because of the low popularity , but because of other factors :
- Since the start , the authors only wanted to make a short series .
- The writer is working on 3 different manga-s at the same time .
- Something happened to the artist 's health .

I wish the artist will work on another series soon , his art style is good and cute .

 

[Solipsist]

@Sleepii
I'll write one last comment off, because I feel like we're actually getting somewhere.
Regardless of the whole "you think, your opinion" mantra, I'll focus on a few tidbits here --

One thing -- for sure, the manga could've gone somewhere.
Second thing -- if you loved the jokes that the author centered the entire manga on, and simply wanted to see more of what you saw -- there's definitely nothing wrong with continuing the story.
From my perspective, the jokes were short lived, and it couldn't possibly "go somewhere" because the author was, obviously, for 20 consecutive chapters, was doing nothing but focus on the major jokes of "the MC is a summoner with crappy summons" and "The MC is so diabolical". There we no plot-hooks to speak of, so I had no reason to believe that "it'd go somewhere". Saying "maybe" doesn't really provide people with a reason to believe otherwise, and it is the role of the author to insert foreshadowing and plot devices, if he had the intention to do so.

So to TLDR: If all you wanted is to keep seeing the same thing you were already shown...Sure, I have no argument here. You eat what you want to eat. But I don't think anyone can genuinely argue that "it would've gone somewhere"...And saying "maybe" is not a very strong argument, when the author didn't lay on any plot-devices at all. Kumo's author did lay on these hooks, like the Taboo skill, for an instance.

 

[Sleepii]

@Solipsist I just don’t understand why you are incapable of understanding that just because you can’t see the manga going somewhere, it is impossible for others to do so.

I have already said the two ways I could see this going. The chill slice-of-life way where nothing much happens or the route where he slowly builds up the monsters to not be completely worthless.

Either would be enjoyable for me, primarily because I enjoy the humor and characters.
I will agree there were no plot hooks, but it is a primarily character based thing, so the progress could have been in that sense.

Either way it has been cut short and it is a shame.

 

[Solipsist]

@Sleepii
Come on, Sleepii, lol. Saying "maayybeeeee" is not a very strong argument, here.

 

[Sleepii]

@Solipsist
You don't have much either beyond your ideas about how it could work.
I am of the opinion the author was cut off too soon and couldn't show what he really had in mind, you are of the opinion that all he had was a one-trick pony that was going nowhere.
We are at an impasse.

 

[Ruruskadoo]

It's a shame it got axed, I was enjoying it. I think it could have gone somewhere in time if the author had been given a chance.

 

[grom]

Well, not too bad for a axed ending

 

[Weismann]

Wait so did he have sex with the frog lady?

 

[FlashGordan]

Who would take an axe to something so cute? =(

 

[m4iku]

my feels QwQ

 

[boag]

omg that ending was perfect, this is how you do an isekai