If you ever decide to peruse my blog archives, you’ll notice a recurring fandom of anime.
Some people don’t realize many of the current anime are adapted from novels.
These works, Light Novels, are usually in the realm of 50,000 words (about 200-215 pages) and aimed at a 15-25 year old audience. Another aspect of Light Novels is they are almost always a series (sometimes having ten or more volumes).
For a long time, the only way for English speaking audiences to enjoy Light Novels was to read fan driven translation projects. While some of these were decent, there were far more which suffered from horrid grammar and editing. A few I tried were unreadable.
But thanks to a growing fanbase for anime and manga, a few English publishers are getting on board and bringing some more popular Light Novels to market.
My current hero publisher is Yen On, a sub-press of Yen Press, who have been releasing manga for a number of years. A few other publishers are releasing the odd title, but Yen On puts out four or more Light Novels per month. Some examples are Sword Art Online, Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon, The Devil is a Part-Timer, Durarara!! and many more.
I love to read, but find myself increasingly pressed for time to do so. With Light Novels being relatively short and a not-too-taxing read, I’m able to breeze through a volume or two per week.
I’ve had a YouTube channel for a number of years, but have never found a real niche for it. The past two months I’ve been posting my reviews of Light Novels each week and it’s helped provide me with some focus.
I originally kept my Light Novel reviews separate from this site, but I’ve now decided to start posting them here. At least it will give a little life to the place 🙂
So what do you think? Are you reading any Light Novels? Or would you rather watch the anime? Let me know in the comments.