Light Novel trends in recent years

[Makall]

So I don't really read LNs much or keep up with them beyond what's being adapted into animes.

But it seems to me that a lot of recent anime adaptations of (popular) LNs are about anime/manga/eroge culture OR about little sisters OR (pseudo)-incest or all of the above.

Plus a lot of them have sentences for titles. Examples:

Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai
Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai!
Boku no Imouto wa Kanji ga Yomeru
Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!
Omae o Otaku ni Shiteyaru kara, Ore o Riajuu ni Shitekure!
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei
Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?
Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai
Oniichan dakedo Ai Sae Areba Kankeinai yo ne
Saikin, Imouto no Yousu ga Chotto Okashii n da ga
Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru
Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui!
Sekai Ichi no Imouto-sama

Are long titles and (pseudo)-incest the new trend?

EDIT: There seems to be more incest stories with long titles.

[HasuMasu]

Come to think of it, many of the ones I know do have long titles and some sort of incest.

Mother of God, you may be on to something.

[Cosmic Eagle]

How the hell is Mahouka grouped under incest? It's not exactly the driving force of the whole story...


Such kinds of stories as you claim have been around for a damn long time just that they grow more prominent recently. It takes much digging around in the bookstores to find something that catches your attention...

[HasuMasu]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

How the hell is Mahouka grouped under incest? It's not exactly the driving force of the whole story...

I don't think he said anything about weather incest is the driving force, just that it contains it in some form.

[Vexx]

I can neither confirm nor dispute the OP's premise other than we'd have to have a full list of light novel series and their summaries. There does seem to be some imouto and incest trends... but like many other trends - they're fads. A year or two from now, I suspect we'll wondering where that trend went.

We've also had Toradora! (LN), Spice&Wolf (LN), the Haruhi series (LN), and others that did not have those themes and got adapted. Ore Imouto *teases* the idea, but its more of a misleading bait-n-switch (at least so far).

[kona~chan]

Kore wa Zombie Desu ka incest? who?
i didn't even remember there's any characters who had sibling in this series.

[Magin]

LN's have been getting more popular, that's for certain. Now, I don't know about incest (though I will admit I've got my own guesses), but the titles... yeah, those are definitely more like sentences than a title.

Also, I suspect there's been a rise in LN popularity because studios are looking more towards LNs as source material... that, and other than for the cover art, practically anyone can write a LN (not that it would be good enough to get published, mind... though it does seem like some do fall into that kind of category)

[Morisato]

Originally Posted by kona~chan

Kore wa Zombie Desu ka incest? who?
i didn't even remember there's any characters who had sibling in this series.

I think he's talking about the "using sentences as titles" part.

Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai - I don't have many friends
Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai - My little sister can't be this cute
Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai! - Listen to me girls, I am your father!
Boku no Imouto wa Kanji ga Yomeru - My little sister can read Kanji
Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru! - My little sister is among them!
Omae o Otaku ni Shiteyaru kara, Ore o Riajuu ni Shitekure! - I'll Make You into an Otaku, so Make Me into a Riajuu!
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei - The irregular at magic high school
Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? - Is this a Zombie?

[larethian]

Originally Posted by Detective-san

Come to think of it, many of the ones I know do have long titles and some sort of incest.

Mother of God, you may be on to something.

I'm sorry to tell you, there is actually no actual incest romance plot lines yet until this point in any light novels AFAIK. Only bro-cons and sis-cons. Even OniAi turned out to be clean. And I doubt there will be any true incest stories in mainstream LNs because they are aimed at young adults (below 18), and not seinen.

However, there is an increasing Imouto trend after Oreimo indeed.

Nothing beats love comedies. New love comedy series come out almost every month (if not every month).

@OP, you are right about the sentence thing; this is also commented on 2ch. But Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei is a proper traditional title and not exactly a sentence. Oh yeah, you forgot "Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba sugiru", which is a complete sentence by itself. However, because of the tons of LNs available (with new series every month), it just happens that these LNs has received more attention, and has yet to form the majority yet.

Finally, why is this thread here?

[HasuMasu]

Originally Posted by larethian

I'm sorry to tell you, there is actually no actual incest romance plot lines yet until this point in any light novels AFAIK. Only bro-cons and sis-cons. Even OniAi turned out to be clean. And I doubt there will be any true incest stories in mainstream LNs because they are aimed at young adults (below 18), and not seinen.

However, there is an increasing Imouto trend after Oreimo indeed.

Ah I'm sorry, I should've been more specific.

Rather than blatant incest, more like 'noticeable romantic and/or sexual tension between siblings which may or may not be essential to the main plotline and are commonly played for gags with little to no resolution'.

[Myname]

Of course there's no actual incest going on. Very few stories cross that line. Only ones I can remember are Koi Kaze and that shoujo manga "I'm in love with my little sister" or hentai. And of course those are serious dramas. I think Yosuga no Sora too (never watched it).

Nonetheless that doesn't stop people from labeling them as incest stories. Accidentally walking in on your sister changing etc. seems like a pretty old and cliche gag. But these newer series go beyond the "accidentally walking in" part and borders incest. Most authors used to avert this by throwing in random "one of them is adopted" plot points (like Akane Iro or KissxSis).

Nowadays so much sexual tension between siblings in anime.
To-Love Ru with all that imouto ass grapping for example.
OreImo is self-explanatory (Hotel episode lol).
Nisemonogatari toothbrush scene and strip/grope?
PapaKiki is some fake-incest stuff.
The summaries for Boku no Imouto wa Kanji ga Yomeru and Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru! already indicate incest.
Mahouka is bro-con.
Saikin, Imouto no Yousu ga Chotto Okashii n da ga is more fake-incest.
Oniichan dakedo Ai Sae Areba Kankeinai yo ne is also incest.

Yea... I think visual novels are still mostly 5 random girls.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who has very little love for light novels but I don't think there's any specific trend in light novels other than there being targetted at otaku. This means that whatever is the current flavour of the month is likely to be the subject material of more than a few light novels. Incest is a big one, but I swear that suggestive stories about a 20 something guy adopting little girls and what can only be described as yuri idol romance are taking off so don't be surprised if you start seeing more of those.

As for the long title thing, just in general I think a lot of LN writers like to indulge when it comes to sentence lengths. For example in just about every LN or anime based on one that I have seen there's almost always instances of awkward or unnatural sounding dialogue that probably sounds cool to writers as they are jotting it down but comes across as nonsensical to anyone with more than a passing knowledge of literature. It's one of the reasons I'm not a huge fan of LNs cause when I have to ask myself "who talks like that" quite frequently with them its more than a bit of a turn off.

[Zakoo]

You discovered that japenese LN writers tend to have long titles unlike westerners?
Awesome.

Anyway I believe that brother-sister relationship is related to religion and shintoism, so maybe for them it's not as immoral as for us? Or it's maybe a new form of MOEEEEEE, that we westerners can't simply understand (or I at least, yeah I totally hate those incest things).

Anyway, it will be replaced by something else in time, just have to hold for 5 years.

[Ithekro]

Westerners have the old Greek tragedies and other tales that involve incest. Usually unknowing incest, but sometimes no so unknowing.

Even Tolkien has an unknowing brother-sister marriage in the tale of Turin and Nienor. (The Tale of the Children of Húrin)

[Morisato]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Westerners have the old Greek tragedies and other tales that involve incest. Usually unknowing incest, but sometimes no so unknowing.

Even Tolkien has an unknowing brother-sister marriage in the tale of Turin and Nienor. (The Tale of the Children of Húrin)

Yea but those are old myths and almost all gods in every culture had incest. Birth defects don't affect them since they're gods.

[Triple_R]

Serious question for serious light novel fans/followers: Is it your sense that Light Novels are increasingly geared towards otakus (i.e. people that are likely to also be into anime and Visual Novels), or were they always geared primarily towards otakus?

Basically, I was curious as to how "mainstream" Light Novels are and/or once were within Japan itself. And this seemed as good a thread as any to ask that.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Morisato

Yea but those are old myths and almost all gods in every culture had incest. Birth defects don't affect them since they're gods.

And strangely, the characters in LNs are fictional as well....

[Morisato]

Originally Posted by Vexx

And strangely, the characters in LNs are fictional as well....

I'm not sure what you're trying to say...

I'm just saying those old greek stories with incest are hundreds of years old and most of them are between the gods. Most of the incest related LNs are less than a decade old.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Morisato

I'm not sure what you're trying to say...

I think Vexx is saying that fictional characters aren't always held to the standards of the real world. In some cases, this is due to obvious reasons (entirely alien settings with alien cultures, for example).

I think there's a limit to how far this argument can/should go, but there's some validity to it at least.

[Forsaken_Infinity]

Originally Posted by Morisato

I'm not sure what you're trying to say...

I'm just saying those old greek stories with incest are hundreds of years old and most of them are between the gods. Most of the incest related LNs are less than a decade old.

He is clearly implying that fictional characters are akin to gods in that they aren't affected by the real life consequences of incest. As such, its all too easy to fantasize about fictional incest.

edit: Derp. Ninja'd by Fucking Tohsaka Tokiomi of all things. And yeah its five mins late 'cuz i'm slowpoke D: