What does Yea Forums think of light novels?
They dominate the literary marketplace in Japan and seem to be the main source of television and kino adaptations.
I know they are aimed at a younger audience, but what is your take on this form of condensed literature?
Tearmoon Empire Story is the best light novel.
Last thread was deleted, good luck.
What is it about and would you recommend it to Yea Forums?
No good.
The stories are almost always being guided by some company or rules.
Because of this, after reading a few of them, you can guess their endings, and often much more way too early on.
Plus, it seems many light novels these days are being written in such a way that they are not writing to write a good story, but are writing to hope it eventually becomes a good story that they can sell.
All the "good" light novels I've found have failed to deliver a good ending because the writer never intended to give it an ending from the get go. Was just writing to see if it might sell.
It's soulless.
>They dominate the literary marketplace in Japan
Citation fucking needed
Not literature
Go back
Kys
What about 3 days of happiness? Your thoughts on the ending?
Most LNs are garbage. This is down to the basic prose, and plot points repeated ad nauseam in different series in the market. The translator also plays an obvious key role in LN quality, and a lot of translators just don't put the effort in.
How do you define literature? Genuinely asking.
words in a book that tell story
my take is that you should go back to
user most likely is referring to "literature" in a literal sense.
Or to say, very close to common definitions of it:
>writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.
Light novels feel like someone is just mashing up tropes with no real "permanent" interest in the story/point-of-story.
Haven't read it, but at quick glance of roughly 300 words per page, at roughly 200 pages, If this thread is still up perhaps I'll reply to you properly.
Although I already got a feeling where this story is going after the first page...
Some of the better ones seem more like something fitting that description. Of course most are crap but that goes for any genre.
some light novels would be much better without the anime illustrations
A lot of them are bad b/c they have no direction. u have to read a lot of them to find the good ones. I mean it's similar to reading wattpad stories, u can't compare them to real writers.
I recommend u to just read literary classics but imagine each character as an anime boy/girl. like read brothers karamazov and imagine that it's centered in dystopian sci-fi anime fantasy world
>I recommend u to just read literary classics but imagine each character as an anime boy/girl. like read brothers karamazov and imagine that it's centered in dystopian sci-fi anime fantasy world
Horrbile advice. Grow up, you disgusting manchild.
No, the other way around. When you read light novels, you should imagine characters as normal people, just like you would imagine characters of literary classics
I read shorter 2ch version and ending.
Maybe I am too cynical but no such girl exists, which made the entire ending off-putting to me.
Maybe because simps/white-knights are also off putting I simply couldn't enjoy it.
Maybe 20 years ago I could have.
Anyways,
I don't mind fiction, but if it's too unrealistic I can't enjoy it.
However, since it seems like the writer was an "user", there was indeed an ending that puts most other main stream light novels to shame.
>They dominate the literary marketplace in Japan
I'm Japanese and I can confirm this is a lie.
Back to a what?
I can't get through their prose without killing brain cells
They're great. Reading through Konosuba atm
>Re:Zero
Real shame that the LN is nowhere near the WN
It's a meme
Let's compare
>Toaru Majutsu no Indekkusu
>Suzumiya Haruhi - 20m
>Slayers - 20m
>Sorcerer Orphen - 14m
>Norwegian Wood - 10m
>Kokoro (Soseki Natsume) - 7m
>No Longer Human - 6m
I would say it's not too much of a stretch to say Light Novels are very strong in Japan
>Toaru Majutsu no Indekkusu - 31m
It' is interesting to see how much they rely on trains of thought and dialogue as opposed to description. In that sense they are kind of a unique read. Nowadays they are basically written by people who only watch anime, but back on the day they used to be written by otaku who told stories that pertained to their own subculture, which was quite interesting to see. Haruhi, Boogiepoop, and Monogatari come to mind. Those I enjoy, but most of them tend to be trash, to be honest. Nevertheless, I think dismissing the format in its entirety would be a mistake.
>Suzumiya Haruhi - 20m
>Norwegian Wood - 10m
Why was Haruhi so successful? Are the novels actually good?
I liked Boogiepop but it's kind of cheating because Boogiepop came from an era before people started to self-consciously write light novels.
Not really. But they're competent YA fiction, placing them miles above the competition.
>self-consciously
*consciously
They're good in how juvenile they are. If you have the right mindset they're a pretty good time. They do capture that sense of insignificance and grandiosity that everything seems to have when you are a teenager.
LNs "dominate" the market in Japan to the same extent that genre fiction dominates the Western market.
If that means
>Sell better
and
>more popular
Than yes.
>placing them miles above the competition
But a Certain Magical Index is higher in sales and it is equal with Slayers.
LN are shit. Like said, they always fail at delivering a satisfying ending, if the story ever ends at all. Just like Mangas, in fact. On the top of my head, I only appreciated Mushoku Tensei. Re:Zero is somewhat entertaining but nowhere near the end.
It seems to be a Japanese curse to never deliver a single story from beginning to end. And if they ever finish one, it's like they're all Stephen Kings but without the cocaïne : the ending is always rushed, unsatisfying and you can basically sever it from the rest of the story because it doesn't fit with what has been previously established. Even fan theories are better than everything they can come up with.
>Re:Zero is somewhat entertaining but nowhere near the end
>halfway through Arc 7 out of 11
>nowhere near the end
LNs were what first got me into reading, but they lost taste for me when I moved on to western literature. Now I can't stand the clumsy prose, senseless plotlines, and robotic characters and every title seems the same. The half-assed translations don't help either.
Konosuba is only decent because author has stated he already had planned entire story out, and is mostly being delivered as a light novel due to the current popular culture of LN.
Speaking as someone who really enjoys light novels but used to hate them, I think that the medium is really misunderstood outside of Japan.
I don't think there's any "right" way to read light novels but there are definitely some wrong ways to read them.
The first mistake most people make is reading them translated. Now, I understand that not everyone is interested in Japanese culture or in learning another language, but especially with the terrible state of Japanese-English translation you'll lose almost all of the quality of the writing if you read them in anything but the original Japanese.
This problem isn't unique to our side of the equation either, by the way. I've read some Japanese translations of western classics for studying practice and they are abysmal. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if a Japanese person said to me that they didn't see why Dickens or Shakespeare were thought of as being good authors. It would be an understandable but incredibly foolish thing to say. The same is of course true in reverse when western readers say LNs are poorly written without having read any of the original text.
As mentioned earlier in the thread, most light novels are bad, as is the case with any other medium. What's nice about light novels is that the ones that are bad are usually very bad and LN series are often very long. This leads to a nice pattern where you can skim a couple dozen free previews (which all modern light novels have), only end up liking two of them, but then read those two series for weeks and weeks because both of them are a dozen books each. It's actually quite time efficient.
The illustrations are also a large part of what makes light novels enjoyable, which accelerates the process even further, as you'll usually only want to research LNs with illustrations you like. Of course if you have no interest in illustrations the medium isn't for you from the start, but personally I love them. You can buy a used LN and have it shipped to you from Japan for about $5 if you buy in bulk, and get not only a potentially really good novel but also a very pretty art book. It's an amazing deal.
In general, I'd recommend staying away from popular and well-known series when starting out and give chances to weird obscure stories you find interesting, making heavy use of free previews. You'd be surprised how compelling, well-written, and touching a story about anime girls with large breasts can be with a good author and the right mindset.
Any recs?
"Surrounded by the hate-filled gazes of her people, the selfish princess of the fallen Tearmoon Empire, Mia, takes one last look at the bleeding sun before the guillotine blade falls... Only to wake back up as a twelve-year-old! With time rewound and a second chance at life dropped into her lap, she sets out to right the countless wrongs that plague the ailing Empire. Corrupt governance? Check. Border troubles? Check. Natural calamities and economic strife? Check. My, seems like a lot of work. Hard work and Mia don’t mix, so she seeks out the aid of others, starting with her loyal maid, Anne, and the brilliant minister, Ludwig. Together, they strive day and night to restore the Empire. Little by little, their tireless efforts begin to change the course of history, pushing the whole of the continent toward a new future. And why did the selfish princess have a change of heart, you ask? Simple—she didn’t. She’s just terrified of the guillotine. They hurt like hell, and Mia hates pain more than work."
meh
meh. you can get more and better from time-travel fix-it naruto fanfic.
Nisioisin is the greatest living writer and it isn’t even close.
Is the quality of some LNs so great, in their original Japanese, that it was worth it to learn Japanese?
Any in particular you're thinking of?
Seems like you'll have one that actually has something interesting to say and then it gets a million superficial imitators that don't get what makes it good.
Would you recommend Mushoku Tensei, then?
Not just for LNs, but there's enough good stuff in Japanese in general to make it worth it.
Mushoku Tensei was nearly a master piece until the author ended up getting forced to drag it out a bit till he kind of ruined it and gave it a relatively poor ending due to Japanese athiest (hopeless) views.
To me, it's like, don't say you believe in YOLO and then don't live as if YOLO.
Although it's still a decent read as the original writing of it was by seemingly by a "wizard" of sorts and comes off as very self-insert-MC-ish.
It's weird, because it's like reading a dying/dead man's thoughts in almost a literal modern sense.
To summarize, he was a shut-in NEET "lolicon", but didn't come off as the common assumption of real "lolicons" of him being a full fledged molester/murderer.
Supposedly it was written before most other "isekais" and only got "famous" because a bitcoin billionaire funded the animation of it.
It was probably one of the first isekai's that had an adult minded MC that was narrated in such a way that made you truly believe he wanted to redo his life in a more positive way (as opposed to recent isekais where MC is dense and has no deep thoughts).
His first (and main) love interest was what allowed him to not have a "repeat" of his previous life, which I thought was a significant point as I think many men in our modern times would be doing significantly better if they had encountered a single woman that was kind to them (that wasn't just a temporary or kindness shown during a greeting).
I really liked how even though he is young physically to others he realizes what his parents or adults around him are going thru, and how he tries to understand/empathize with them and is somewhat of a sage because of the experiences of his previous failed life.
I would recommend if you are a man past their 30s and have a fair amount of life experience.
I would not recommend if you are a female.
For LNs or in general?
Why would you not recommend it if I'm a woman?
One I’m reading-The Saga of Tanya the Evil-is pretty damn good
>I don't think there's any "right" way to read light novels but there are definitely some wrong ways to read them.
>The first mistake most people make is reading them translated.
you took the words out of my mouth
t. read ~150 lns in japanese
Everyone knows the Japs cannot do endings
J-E translation is soul-crushingly difficult and 99% of people who know Japanese suck at it.
If you're going to read a light novel do it in nip, or don't even bother.
I've found stories written by men usually do better with men, and stories written by women usually do better with women.
Mushoku Tensei being of a much deeper and serious tone than other isekai's would most likely be off putting for women.
As they will see the self insert MC as a pedofile that shows little interest in older women. Everything he does will most likely insult stereotypical women to the point that the story and it's plot are ruined.
Would a woman care about what a man thinks of another man when he has an epiphany of empathy for him?
I don't think there was any part in the story where a woman gets a deep narrative like the men get in the story.
Personally I think women aren't very deep at all, hence I liked the story, but I know from life experiencing most women would be offended by the way their simplicity is exposed.
Grant it, normally in other media, like anime, women are already made to be relatively stupid, but they are coupled with an equally stupid and dense MC.
The problem women might find with this story, is that the male MC is not dense and seemingly always deep in thought, while the women are made out to be simple (and ideal).
Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I can't relate to men. We're both humans.
Not the guy you're responding to. I love women. Just wanted to tell you that.
Do you love us as human beings, or do you love us the way you love a toy or a tasty morsel of food?
As human beings. I don't think lust is beautiful unless it's for your wife, so I avoid lusting.
I'm sure she read your message bro.
> We're both humans.
If you can empathize with men on a man's thoughts, then you are most likely not a woman.
If you still claim that you can understand it (men's thoughts) to the point of agreeance, then obviously don't let me stop you or dissuade you from reading Mushoku Tensei.
As I wrote before, the author appears to have rushed a "middle" and "ending" so be warned.
Also, somewhat on topic if you are familiar with it, are you familiar with the "Law of One"?