So they do their job well in the vein of giving proper insight and characterization to characters and plot points we didn't get in the games? Definitely sounds worth buying, then. Although I still have a lot of distrust in Kanemaki's writing skills. I'll have to give it a try myself.
Also, by "books" do you mean there's more than one book per game? Are the NA releases omnibuses?
That's pretty high up the ladder, actually. It's interesting to think that the novels are that important/canon.
Definitely. The novels manage to let you care about most of the characters much more and the actual
plot is written much more in-depth and in detail. In fact, one may even go so far and say that the way the
games present the plot and characterization is
shitty compared to how the novels do it.
They also give insight on stuff the games never elaborate upon, like i.e. in the KH 2 novels it is
shown what Naminé, Axel, Riku and DiZ do over the timespan KH 2's story runs, including a confrontation between Riku and Xemnas at the old mansion in Twilight Town, while the game only ever follows Sora, Donald and Goofy with their stupid filler antics in Disney worlds.
The original japanese had several volumes per game, yes.
Tomoco Kanemaki, the author of the novels, is part of Nomura's team/staff of the KH series and the novels get some input from Nomura himself on the sidelines, that's why they rank higher in canon than many other side/supplementary materials.
The games themselves, Nomura's interviews and the Ultimania books overule them though.
The reverse is true to Nomura will often take ideas from the novels and then rework them to use for the game. I think the most well known one is the white envelope in Days. In the KH2 novel (at least I believe it was the KH2 novel) Axel carried around a white envelope which had a goodbye letter from Roxas in it. In Days the game Nomura brought this idea in but instead of a letter Roxas left Axel an ice cream stick in the white envelope. I think maybe also Axel never actually opened the envelope in the novels but he did so in the Days game.
Not completely though as that happens on a case-to-case basis.
I'm no expert on the novels, but I do know that there are several parts in the KH 2 novels that have been made outright
non-canon by later games in the series as well as there are some parts in the novels that were taken up by the games-canon and thus validated further.
The novel author Tomoco Kanemaki is part of Nomura's staff and sometimes gets some background info from Nomura for use in the novels, that's why the novels rank higher in canon than the manga does, yet still the information given by them has to be incorporated with caution either way.
I get the feeling that the author might be better at extrapolating in pre-existing events and fleshing out established characters than coming up with an original story herself. Which I can kind of understand... there's less that can go wrong when you have some established qualities and characteristics to work off of.
A fanfic writer around here once told me that he had a certain dislike for OC's in KH fanfics because they tend to "hijack" the story, shoving the pre-existing characters out of the spotlight or moving them to roles like "minor love interest." I guess Kanemaki's work with Days is an example of this. :/
Er... actually, I don't know. Guess I kinda made a thoughtless assumption there, huh?
I'm slightly saddened that Amono's manga series isn't as high up... it's delegated to "AU canon," but tbh the canon story needs some of the stuff that the manga changed. TuT
Yep, that's how I would interpret Kanemaki's work as well.
The fact that she really cannot write engaging battle descriptions may also have a certain narm-charm if you look at it differently, even more when you consider that the novels
are primarily about the characters, characterization and the actual plot, not unneccessary drawn out flashy battles.
I have a feeling I might know that fanfic writer...*derp*
The CoM novels were originally two volumes in the japanese original I think.
But for the original japanese novels
Goldpanner might be the right address though as she has most of the originals.
The manga has far too many comedic scenes and it leaves out quite some stuff as well which is why it doesn't go together with the "main" canon. However Amano has of course a much better grasp on how to pace the story and make you care more for the characters
and the plot (something that
both the novels and the manga do lightyears better than the games ever managed so far).
