/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Recently I've unconsciously neglected visual novels and have often opted to read Light Novels over Visual Novels when I have free time. Wondering why this change had occurred in my reading pattern I decided to analyze what was happening. I found Light Novels to be more enjoyable for a variety of reasons. That I will list in no particular order.

Pace
Tension
Investment
Ease of access/broader appeal

Visual Novels always sell length as some sort of appeal, you will often hear "x novel is 50+ hours long" as some sort of plus. Usually this is done by padding scenes at the sacrifice of pace. Some writers, like Sca-ji, can use padding to really build an atmosphere using beautiful prose. Other writers like, like Ryukishi07, just repeat themselves over and over again, the Asahi Haruka ark in Rewrite comes to mind. In addition, recently visual novels don't finish introducing all the characters and until 5-6 hours into the novel, enough time to watch a whole season of an anime or read a light novel. Unacceptable pacing, this is not even speaking of waiting for the plot to thicken. You will often hear about needing to read for 10-15 hours for a visual novel to "get good" (needing to read Muv Luv in order to better appreciate Alternative comes to mind), that is something that simply does not exist in the Light Novel realm. Linked closely to pace is tension, a light novel has the ability to build and release tension every novel, visual novels that are not episodic struggle to do that because they typically only have one or two major points of conflict. Well written works know they need to fit in some smaller stuff, Aiyoku no Eustia is a perfect example of that, but Visual Novels as good as AnE are few and far between.

Investment, buying light novels is much easier than buying a visual novel, you go on amazon and click buy now and get a physical prodect. Buy one visual novel and enjoy it? Chances are you are going to buy them all. There is a sense of collectibility light novels. Not only monitary investment but emotional investment keeps you buying the next volume. While you can get invested in a 50+ hour long visual novel, I find my investment light novels feels more powerful, I think has to do with the anticipation of every volume and the hype that builds around it. Once a VN is out, it's out.

This links with an ease of access that allows you to invest yourself into Light Novels, resulting in Light Novels being translated and getting offical localization at a rate which Visual Novel companies can't even dream of, leading to bigger and bigger communities. Even so far as to cross over into the Anime/Manga community. Visual Novels are for the most part a solo affair, Light Novels are best experienced as a community. Many people spanning the Anime/Manga/LN community all talking about the same series lead to cross community discussions and more discourse, in anticipation of the next release leads to more enjoyment.

That's not to say Visual Novels are less than Light Novels, I do think that Visual Novels have their place, the finality of visual novels is very powerful for example. The lack of authors willing to commit to end a Light Novel series is a big blow to the media. Look at how many light novel series get stuck in limbo. Over all I am always more satified at the end of a Visual Novel because they are primarily designed with a clear beginning, middle and end. Most Light Novel don't die well.

Anyways I was just wanted to talk about light novels vs visual novels a bit, I don't really have a point.