[Yaluen]

Originally Posted by Matt122005

I agree with what has been said above.

If teachers and librarians were explained about what Light Novels were, then they would LOVE them and actually PROMOTE them. Think about it. Most teachers and Librarians are NOT HAPPY ABOUT MANGA. They want their kids READING REAL NOVELS. If companies were to make educational materials and send them to Teachers and Librarians explaining how they could get their teens or kids to read books that had a manga theme, but were actually novels. They'd be all over it!

...what general school level of teachers and librarians are we talking about? Not to burst your bubble, but I find it very difficult to compare the reading levels of light novels with the actual English novels teachers and librarians are referring to. Might work fine as a foreign language study supplement if in Japanese (or in rarer and far-in-between cases, Chinese), but beyond elementary school, this doesn't seem like a very liable argument.

And as for average readers that are adults, how do you market light novels to them? By marketing it as an easy to read alternative for the busy worker of today. Tell them that they should read a Light Novel because you can read it in a day (which means if they read a chapter per day, they could read it with almost no sweating in a week). And ofcourse advertise it as cutting edge fiction with storylines that have not been seen in the WEST before and are imaginative and will capture the readers imagination.

I think you're really underestimating English literature, not to mention making a little bit of an empty point, since there's probably just as much "cutting edge fiction with storylines that have not been seen in the EAST before". While I'm not here to start a culture war (at least, not a full-blown culture war), I'd like to know what you define as "average readers", because if they really are "average readers", I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be concerned about distinguishing between novels they can finish in a day (that might actually put them off for short content) and novels they can finish intermittently in a week.

And on another note, they also need to go onto TV. Sure they can't afford a commercial yet, but they could certainly schedule an appearance on Opera or another talk show where they could discuss their Light Novels and make millions of people suddenly aware (they'd better get a guy who is a good talker to do it though).

Not so fast. The manga and anime culture is still in the phase of settling down in the states, and while the general public is starting to recognize it (there was even a recommendation for the manga series "Monster" in the TIMES magazine, no less!), it's probably not a good idea to drop a new Japanese culture bomb in the general public beyond the close-knit anime/manga/japanese community.


Basically, while I like reading light novels too, it seems like you want nothing less than a complete cultural immersion, and that's a little bit much for me to stomach.