Not too long ago, while being on Twitter, I saw a post about English light novels from a person I've been following for a while now. My initial reaction was, "wait what?" Mostly because it's not like LN's have taken storm in the US, and yet, is it at that point where it's really starting to grow in readership? I know a few LN's were coming out, but the sample size is small anyways. After checking out the site and then speaking with Cho, the founder of English Light Novels, it's a lot more than just talking about current LN, it's about past LN, an introduction to LN's, and more.
How did you discover what a Light Novel was, and what was the first one you ended up reading?The first light novel I read, I'm pretty sure was Death Note: Another Note (written by Nisio Isin). Death Note was one of the first manga I ever enjoyed and read all the way through. One day at the bookstore, I was browsing the manga section and noticed a tall hardcover book amidst the Death Note manga volumes-seeing that it was an original prequel novel featuring characters from the manga, I had to buy it and read through it right away.
In time I found a number of anime I really liked, one of which was Kino's Journey. Some research online revealed that the series was based on a serial-or rather, a series of "light novels" by Keiichi Sigsawa. There was unfortunately only one volume translated and published in English, but I was glad to pick it up and read what spawned what remains one of my top favorite anime to this day.
The novel that actually got me invested in light novels in general though was, without a doubt, Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime (by Mizuki Nomura). I found this at the bookstore by chance-I was intrigued by the curious title, then completely hooked by the time I finished reading the back cover blurb. Unusual stories often click with me I suppose, but this series is everything I love about novels. So while enjoying the Book Girl series, I began to specifically seek out these mysterious, elusive works of pop fiction known as light novels...
It turned out more challenging than I expected!
This has really just been an exercise in trying to create the site I wish I could have found years ago. There have been a number of small (and now mostly-defunct) blogs that have written reviews and such for various light novels, not to mention the several larger sites dedicated to fan-translations-but I was never able to find a site with a clear and simple database showing all the light novels that are officially translated and published in English.
In the process of making this site, I've actually learned about several light novel series I had never even heard about, but sound exactly like the sort of stories I'd enjoy reading. My hope is that fans of anime and manga, as well as readers interested in foreign pop fiction in general, will find this site and quickly be able to locate a few light novels that appeal to their particular tastes.
What should people expect to learn from stopping by the site?I also thought it would be nice to have a site actively promoting light novels as they release in English. This is an exciting time for the medium-it continues to grow in Japan, and now that more popular anime are being adapted from various series, awareness is starting to grow overseas.
My hope is to have all the basic info one would ever wish to find for any specific light novel series available in English: the author, illustrator, synopsis, when it was released, how many volumes are in the series, how many of those volumes are in English, links to relevant websites, images of all the English edition covers, any important notes about the series (e.g. are there Kindle and Nook versions, how the books tie in to other media in their respective franchises, etc), and then links for buying each volume on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
I mainly just want to make it easy for people to learn more about whatever light novel they might have heard about-but I also hope that while browsing the site, people will be able to find other books that catch their interest. By having all the different series together on one site, it should be more manageable for people to discover more books they would enjoy reading.
It was actually already more of a challenge than I expected just to find all the data I needed to make the entries for the database. A lot of these light novels have no official presence on the internet at all anymore. TOKYOPOP has no web pages for any of its old light novels at all, and a lot of series no longer in print from other publishers likewise have nothing to show for their past efforts. It took a looooong time just to find half-decent covers for a lot of series, surprisingly-many sellers just used the Japanese covers for all their volumes!
As you already know, LN's in the US haven't done so well for a lot of reasons. What do you think are the biggest reasons why?It's been interesting though, having to scavenge through seven-year-old forum posts, obscure Angelfire and Geocities sites, random blogs that lasted four posts, and cobwebbed Japanese websites full of broken jpgs and messy html columns. Almost felt like an archaeological dig at times! Isn't ten years ago on the internet practically the Stone Age?
I did wonder at first if I would be able to update the site with much content once I finished the main entries of the database-there's really not too much English light novel news to work with, after all. But I think editorials and reviews and such will help keep things active. There's also more content I may add to the light novel entries themselves in time.
Who do you market light novels to? In the past, people generally went to a bookstore to buy books. There's obviously no light novel section in Western bookstores, so decisions had to be made about whether to stick the books on the YA shelves or have them all shoehorned in some small corner of the manga section. The quandary is reflected in the covers for many light novel series. Do you go with a manga-style cover, confusing people who open the book up only to find a bunch of woooooooooords? Or do you go with a YA-style cover to make it look like a "regular" novel? In this instance, you'll get everyday folk who find manga-style work inside the book and go "What the heck, is this trying to be like Pokémon or something?" And meanwhile the core fanbase among the anime/manga crowd will likely be disappointed by the (sometimes questionable) localization efforts.
Things have changed though. Instead of going to a Barnes and Noble, people are going to the Barnes and Noble website. They're buying books for cheap off Amazon, and even getting eBooks summoned instantly into their Kindles and Nooks. The digital revolution has hit the print publishing world just as it has the music, comic, and gaming worlds, and the world wide web has proven capable of sustaining every niche subgenre of fiction imaginable. I believe the digital shift can be seen quite clearly in the Spice and Wolf volume 1 cover fiasco.
How would a person get into a LN?A brief rundown: Yen Press revealed their cover to be an artsy live photo of a naked woman with a vaguely Photoshopped wolf tail of sorts... and the core fanbase flipped out. As it turned out, most everyone planning to support the 17-volume series loves manga-style artwork, so Yen Press released a dust cover of the original artwork to serve as a band-aid. Later reprints of the book did away with the old design entirely, and all subsequent volumes have stuck with Juu Hasekura's original artwork. So at this point, I think this means the light novel market is stable enough to support a few long-running series such as this one by relying primarily on the anime/manga crowds. Through social media and the like, publishers will need to continually find ways to make their target audiences more fully-aware of the products available to them.
And at the same time, I feel the industry will be able to grow even more if it takes advantage of the aforementioned digital revolution. Yen Press released their translation of Another as eBooks, and in time those apparently sold well enough for them to warrant releasing a hardcover omnibus this fall. Working with digital releases may become the cost-efficient method that enables many more light novels and other Japanese works to receive official English releases.
Have you ever tried getting friends of yours into anime, but they respond that anime is boring-that all anime are the same thing, always relying on the same old tropes? , they respond. Obviously, these all share the same subgenre of shounen fighter, which explains all the similarities they've noticed. What those friends of yours need to do is see an anime with a story from a genre they would actually enjoy. The horror/mystery lover needs to see Oh, what anime have you seen, you ask. Naruto, Bleach, and PokemonShiki, the romance/drama fan would probably enjoy Say 'I Love You' or Kimi ni Todoke, and the connoisseur of fantasy/sci-fi would feel right at home with From the New World.
Yen Press is releasing a couple of LN's this year (from their Yen On Imprint). What are your expectations for them?This is the sort of thing that needs to happen for everyone curious about light novels as well. Much of the anime/manga community online has gotten it into their heads that light novels are not a medium, but a genre specifically about high school boys who mysteriously amass a harem of girls and/or fall in love with their little sisters. There are certainly quite a few light novels adapted into anime in recent years that have that sort of premise, but it's just one subgenre among many. It's good to keep in mind the hundreds of light novels that fill the shelves of Japanese bookstores but are never adapted into anime, and to not forget the more unique or quality series that adapted (e.g. are Humanity Has Declined, Sunday Without God, Fate/Zero).
Among light novels available in English, you'll find fantasy world adventures like and , works with drama and supernatural elements like Book Girl and Ballad of a Shinigami, mystery stories like and , darker tales like Vampire Hunter D and , and tie-ins with popular franchises like .hack and Fullmetal Alchemist.
I feel Yen Press has grown quite a bit over the past few years, and has managed to succeed with light novels in a manner that hasn't been easily accomplished before. The translation quality of their books is good, and they've been steadily releasing volumes of several long series-some of which they've recently finished all the way through ( Book Girl and Kieli). Acquiring popular franchises like Spice and Wolf has proven beneficial-and I imagine titles like Sword Art Online will be even more profitable for the company, especially when there's another season of the anime airing this summer.
Licensing Accel World makes sense in this light; most fans of SAO will enjoy reading that series as well. A Certain Magical Index is a more surprising acquisition, since that is such a massive series. It's a franchise anime/manga fans have wanted for some time, but I'll be curious to see how the translation is handled for those books. Feels like a big gamble to me, but hopefully it will pay off for them. As for DanMachi ( Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?), I'll be interested in discovering what sort of story it turns out to be when it releases. Judging by the title, it sounds like something more lighthearted, which is always good for spicing things up in the English light novel landscape.
Perhaps the most interesting bit of news from all this though was the fact Yen Press created an imprint specifically for light novels, and that they appear willing to work with Japanese pop fiction in general (or at least stories that would appeal to the anime/manga crowd). This makes me wonder if this means works like Shiki, From the New World, or Red Data Girl have a better chance of seeing an English release one day.
Ah, I'd like to just list all the light novels I personally want (and what a list that would be...), but I'll try to think of which ones I imagine would do well.
One series that readily comes to mind is Durarara. Yen Press has been releasing the manga adaptation of that series, and there will be a new anime season for it this fall. The time seems right to start bringing over the light novels, don't you think? I would love to read them.
Given how Yen Press has been willing to work on both Sword Art Online and Accel World, perhaps there will be a decent chance for Log Horizon to make it over as well? It would be interesting to see another company step in and give it a shot-maybe Dark Horse (with its slightly more mature offerings) would be a good fit?
If Yen Press or another company decides to go with a romcom franchise, Toradora seems like an obvious choice to me. It's still a rather popular series in the anime/manga community.
If Viz Media were to ever attempt a light novel series again (and I feel they ought to at this point), I think Tokyo Ravens would be a rather nice fit for them. But on the comedy side of things, maybe The Devil is a Part-Timer would also work quite well too.
Of course, there are also many light novel franchises that aren't backed by anime adaptations, but would still do well as good stories that appeal to the bookworms of the anime/manga community in general. I would love to see Tsukumodo Antique Shop in English, for example. This would be an excellent follow-up for Yen Press in the vein of Book Girl and Kieli, in my opinion.
I also think it would be wise for a publisher to attempt breaking into the children's section of the light novel world. Here Comes the Black Witch ( Kuromajo-san ga Tooru) would be an absolute hit with kids, I believe. Very cute and funny series. Thriller Restaurant ( Kaidan Restaurant) is another series I imagine would do well. Wonder what it would take for a big-name publisher to make the effort?
Lots of great light novels available in general, and at this point I think even titles that aren't "big-name" franchises have a better chance of being deemed successful for the publishers bringing them over. It will be interesting to see what makes the cut in years to come.
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