Faraway Paladin: A Case Study in Adaptation
What is a Faraway Paladin? The Faraway Paladin, or 最果てのパラディン (Saihate no Paladin), is a fantasy isekai story written by Kanata Yanagino. It was originally published on 小説家になろう (Shosetsuka ni Naro) which translates roughly to 'Become A Novelist'. Shosetsuka ni Naro is a website where users can self-publish their writing for free. While several other Shosetsuka ni Naro authors have gone on to have their work published traditionally, this was not Yanagino's intention with The Faraway Paladin. Yanagino stated in an interview that The Faraway Paladin was written as practice. The goal was simply to write 100,000 Japanese characters without throwing the whole thing away. The success took Yanagino by surprise. The response to The Faraway Paladin from users of Shosetsuka ni Naro was very positive. This lead to the series being picked up by its Japanese publisher Overlap under their "Overlap Bunko" imprint. Overlap Bunko has since published 4-volumes (which is a bit confu...