What is a light novel?

[npcomplete]

So is Kara no Kyoukai considered a light novel? I have not seen/read it but a lot of people classify it as such (including the fan translators) and wikipedia using both "light novel" and "novel" in its KnK entry. It was initially released piecemeal, rather than in whole books at once as it currently is:

Kara no Kyoukai ("空の境界") is a series of stories written by Kinoko Nasu (奈須きのこ) with illustrations by Takeshi Takeuchi (武内崇).

The first five chapters were posted online on Nasu and Takeuchi's dojin website "Takebouki (竹箒)" starting Oct 1998, and the last two chapters being released at Comiket 56 in 1999. In 2001, part of the story was included in "Tsukihime PLUS-DISK (月姫PLUS-DISC)," created by TYPE-MOON, the doujin circle Nasu and Takeuchi joined. The story gained huge popularity, and the doujinshi edition of the stories saw release on December 30, 2001 at Comiket 61.

Afterwards, the series gained wide attention through merchandises like the drama CD, and on June 8, 2004 the story was republished as the commerical edition by Koudansha

but again, just going by other reports, it seems to be a "heavy" novel in thick, harry potter-sized books. There was a now-deleted thread on animeondvd with a comment from the Del Rey translator about the more complex kanji usage and language.

[TJR]

Originally Posted by Matt122005

Light Novels are deffinitely not lacking in variety. And a large ammount of anime and manga companies are now beginning to shift from manga to light novels for adaptation source material.

That's only temporary. Anime producers are always looking for new sources to adapt from (eroge, light novels, etc.), and the light novel publishers wanted anime to expand the popularity of their medium.

However, the effort has been regarded a failure because

a) they exhausted the supply of hot properties over just 3-4 years by firing all their big guns at once.

b) ultimately, these "hot" adaptations failed to set the LN market alight. Despite pushing everything to anime, the market didn't really grow, which (from the perspective of the large publishers that spearhead these shows) defeats the purpose of financing these projects.

Another big series might turn up down the road, but there's not a lot of confidence right now.

[Cipher]

there's also visual novels...unlike light novels, I don't they're suppose to be labeled as "novels".

[tomtkp]

Originally Posted by TJR

That's only temporary. Anime producers are always looking for new sources to adapt from (eroge, light novels, etc.), and the light novel publishers wanted anime to expand the popularity of their medium.

However, the effort has been regarded a failure because

a) they exhausted the supply of hot properties over just 3-4 years by firing all their big guns at once.

b) ultimately, these "hot" adaptations failed to set the LN market alight. Despite pushing everything to anime, the market didn't really grow, which (from the perspective of the large publishers that spearhead these shows) defeats the purpose of financing these projects.

Another big series might turn up down the road, but there's not a lot of confidence right now.

Two years on, the trend of adapting light novels to anime is still on. In fact, all of top 10 light novels of "Kono light Novel ga Sugoi!(This Light Novel is Amazing!) " list were either had been animated or had been confirmed to be animated in the future. Even if the older series adaptations failed to meet their expectations, newer ones rise. So, there would be quite some time before the trend actually ends.

[bhl88]

Light Novels would be:
- have some images (manga-style I guess)
- fewer kanji (to make it easier to read)
- aimed at teens
- quite small (just like a pocketbook), the Haruhi novels released in US are bigger than the Japanese releases.

[larethian]

why is this being necro-ed? and so many myths in the thread LOL
today, light novels are so varied, that I can find a title that is an exception to every classification in the thread, except for these 2:
1. more anime-ish illustrations
2. internal illustrations compared to novels published under a normal novel label.

[asaqe]

Originally Posted by larethian

why is this being necro-ed? and so many myths in the thread LOL
today, light novels are so varied, that I can find a title that is an exception to every classification in the thread, except for these 2:
1. more anime-ish illustrations
2. internal illustrations compared to novels published under a normal novel label.

And drawn by mostly former eroge artists, which makes it possible to have harem inspired plots.

[Morisato]

Light Novels is just a marketing term. It's a gimmick.

Just like "Graphic Novels" is just a cooler way of saying comic books and manga.

Look at Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon. Apparently each "volume" is the size of 2 dictionaries. lol and they still call it a light novel.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by Morisato

Light Novels is just a marketing term. It's a gimmick.

Just like "Graphic Novels" is just a cooler way of saying comic books and manga.

Look at Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon. Apparently each "volume" is the size of 2 dictionaries. lol and they still call it a light novel.

Horizon and the other works by it's author is the exception, not the norm.

[NoemiChan]

Question, I never actually seen nor touch a "light novel" before if I did seen one it's on the web. Can anyone tell me the size? I mean is it a size of a manga? And how many pages? Can't figure it out if you tell the number of words because of the different font sizes.

Sorry for being innocent.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by genjichan

Question, I never actually seen nor touch a "light novel" before if I did seen one it's on the web. Can anyone tell me the size? I mean is it a size of a manga? And how many pages? Can't figure it out if you tell the number of words because of the different font sizes.

Sorry for being innocent.

It's smaller than a manga that's for sure, about 12 x 7 cm roughly? I'm basing this from poor memories.

I believe about 200-300 pages? maybe 1.5cm to 2cm thick?

[NoemiChan]

It's seems like a pocket book.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by genjichan

It's seems like a pocket book.

Pretty much yeah.

Funny thing is, when translated into Chinese, it magically becomes a full sized book equal to that of a manga but thicker.

[hyl]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

It's smaller than a manga that's for sure, about 12 x 7 cm roughly? I'm basing this from poor memories.

I believe about 200-300 pages? maybe 1.5cm to 2cm thick?

All of the LN that i own are slightly bigger than that. About 15x 10 cm

[larethian]

Originally Posted by genjichan

Question, I never actually seen nor touch a "light novel" before if I did seen one it's on the web. Can anyone tell me the size? I mean is it a size of a manga? And how many pages? Can't figure it out if you tell the number of words because of the different font sizes.

Sorry for being innocent.

what hyl said (~ 15x10 cm). usually it falls within the range of 250 to 350 pages, so I'll put the average to about 300 pages. the actual page length actually depends on the title and sometimes the volume as well. I think all publishers follow the same lengthxbreadth dimensions and the font size should be the same for all as far as I can remember.

I definitely can't fit it in my pocket, unless it's a jacket with large pockets.

[tomtkp]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Pretty much yeah.

Funny thing is, when translated into Chinese, it magically becomes a full sized book equal to that of a manga but thicker.

Yeah, I agree with that.

Initially, I thought the original (Japanese) version of light novels have the same size as the Taiwanese (Chinese) version, but I walked into the Japanese book department at Kinokuniya one day and my perception about Japanese light novels changed ever since. Japanese light novels are really small. In fact, not just that light novels are small, all other books (not including magazines) are similarly pocket-sized. I think it is due to Japanese reading culture. Japanese people love reading to the point that whenever there's free time, they will start to read books anywhere, anytime. Because of that, Japanese publishers would print their books in pocket size for the reader's convenience. It is to increase the book's mobility that people can carry their book anywhere in their pocket.

I tried putting a pocket-sized light novel into my pocket at that time and as expected it fitted my pocket. Sometimes I wonder why we can't have pocket-sized books just like the Japanese has but sometimes I feel awkward looking at these small sized books. Maybe I am too familarised with "normal" sized books.