Easy-to-understand popular light novel inJapanese

[risingstar3110]

I'm looking for some light novel in Japanese (language), that are:

• fairly interesting
• popular so can be easily obtained (through illegal sources, or at least can be reviewed the first few pages before i decide to buy or not)
• fairly easy to read and understand
• high-school~ish or uni background will be prefer

Tried Bakemonogatari, but it took so long with a dictionary on my hand just to read through half a page (take like few hours). Especially with all those abstract descriptions. Temp to try Haruhi next but not sure if that Kyon guy gonna be too sophistical....

[xxanimefan4_ever]

you should ask on another forum or browse this one
http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.ph...969&action=new
your requirements are a little too much with the illegal sources because then you're limiting yourself to only really popular crap. i mean amazon has that feature of reading the first few pages for some of them so maybe look into that for "previews"

like this one
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%AB%E3...1208204&sr=8-4

the first author mentioned on that thread.
there's also other threads on that forum like where to buy japanese books online (the cheapest etc etc).

for haruhi there's japanese subtitles out for the first season on kitsunekko so you can just use that to help you figure out if the show's at your level or not (with the animation and the voice acting + subtitles)... b/c novel is just dialogue you heard on the show + descriptions (sometimes there's words/grammar/phrases that you don't really hear in daily conversation but you'll see lots if you read books) with or without furigana ( I wouldn't know.. I don't know own that novel series)

[larethian]

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

I'm looking for some light novel in Japanese (language), that are:

• fairly interesting
• popular so can be easily obtained (through illegal sources, or at least can be reviewed the first few pages before i decide to buy or not)
• fairly easy to read and understand
• high-school~ish or uni background will be prefer

Tried Bakemonogatari, but it took so long with a dictionary on my hand just to read through half a page (take like few hours). Especially with all those abstract descriptions. Temp to try Haruhi next but not sure if that Kyon guy gonna be too sophistical....

1. Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi (High School Fantasy)
2. Baka to Tesuto to Shoukanjuu (High School Comedy)
3. Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru (High School Love Comedy)



And @xxanimefan4_ever

Originally Posted by xxanimefan4_ever

b/c novel is just dialogue you heard on the show + descriptions (sometimes there's words/grammar/phrases that you don't really hear in daily conversation but you'll see lots if you read books) with or without furigana ( I wouldn't know.. I don't know own that novel series)

You can't be more wrong than this. Novels contain monologue usually absent from the anime which can make a lot of difference to the quality of the story.

[xxanimefan4_ever]

I was just talking about gauging the level. Monologue could fit under description anyways. Jeez.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Still not accurate if the descriptions make up much larger percentage than dialogue

[larethian]

Originally Posted by xxanimefan4_ever

I was just talking about gauging the level. Monologue could fit under description anyways. Jeez.

Oh, you are talking about gauging level? Sorry about that.

However, that makes anime even more irrelevant. Narration sentences are normally >>> Dialogue, in terms of 'level', for most of the series. That's why manga and anime are easier to translate than novels. Of course for anime, you also need a good ear. Bottomline is, you can't use anime to judge 'level' of a novel series. What if the series tells a story about a group of dumb people who can only use simple vocab in their dialogue 80% of the time? Bookwise, the narration will not be restricted to simple vocab, But where anime is concerned, where you only get dialogue, it can be.